Recognition of Fibromyalgia as a Disability

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Toby Perkins]

I entirely agree. The impact on the rest of the family includes caring responsibilities that fall on them, restricting their ability to develop their earning potential. The consequence is that the entire family of a fibromyalgia sufferer will suffer too. It is a powerful point.

Estimates suggest that as many as one in 20 people suffer from fibromyalgia. Since I secured the debate I have been contacted by many MPs—there have been many interventions in the debate—and by constituents and other members of the public. People say that at last someone is talking about the condition, which they or their partner have suffered with for so long, feeling that no one understood. The feeling of being misunderstood is familiar to many fibromyalgia sufferers. Often employers are baffled as to why on some days an apparently healthy member of staff is the life and soul of the party, but on others cannot turn up for work because they are crippled by their condition. By the same token, those employees often feel tremendous guilt that a condition that decimates their ability to contribute keeps striking them down. That often leads them to conclude that they must go into work even though they are in extreme pain, frequently making themselves even more ill in the process. It truly is a vicious circle.

Fibromyalgia sufferers are also misunderstood, as we have already heard, by those who assess them for benefits such as PIP and employment and support allowance, as their conditions are variable and can often be managed in the very short term. Many fibromyalgia sufferers have taken pills to help to manage the pain and support them through an ESA assessment, only to discover that the assessment outcome bears little relationship to their daily experience of living with fibromyalgia.

I have had constituents speak to me about the fact that the tablets they took to enable them to get in a taxi to travel to their assessment and get through that assessment for an hour meant that, when they got home, they were in bed for days afterwards. I think they thought to themselves, “If only the assessor could see me now, half an hour or an hour after the assessment, they would see why I’m unable to work. I’ve been able to get myself through that assessment, trying to comply with the system, but to my own disadvantage.”

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an extremely powerful speech. As I will say in my contribution, my wife is a fibromyalgia sufferer. Is it not the case that stressful experiences actually exacerbate the condition, leading to hugely damaging flare-ups?

[Toby Perkins]

That point is spot on, and made from the powerful perspective of someone who knows what it is like to live with someone experiencing fibromyalgia. I will come on in a moment to some of the other things that are believed to be triggers for fibromyalgia, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We all know—it is one of our worries about the assessment regime within benefits—the stress of that process: the stress of going through the assessment, of believing that benefits will be taken away or of wondering how they will feel the next day. It is an incredibly unhelpful situation where people’s income is tied to their being ill, so they wake up almost hoping to be ill to justify the income, while simultaneously wishing they were better because they want to be able to contribute. That is something that is known much more widely in our benefits system, but fibromyalgia sufferers are very familiar with it.

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[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Diolch yn fawr, Mr Bailey. My wife is also a sufferer of fibromyalgia. I asked her if she wanted me to make a speech publicly declaring her condition and she was eager for me to do so, because one of the biggest feelings felt by fibromyalgia sufferers is helplessness.

My wife was recently diagnosed, but she has been suffering from the symptoms for five years. The trigger event was the birth of our second child—giving birth is of course a very physical, traumatic experience—and she has suffered since that day. It is a terrible, life-long condition, once it catches hold of an individual. Chronic pain is the main characteristic of the condition, as we heard from an actual sufferer, the hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns). The pain is constant, but the condition flares. The flares can last for weeks. The symptoms then are extremely severe—there is no reprieve.

Chronic pain is always associated with chronic fatigue, because sufferers cannot sleep and find themselves in a vicious cycle. The other main condition is hypervigilance, and sensitivity to noise and sound. My wife has gone from living a very active lifestyle to now living minute by minute, which has a huge impact on her social life and our ability to enjoy a family life. It is life-changing.

The medical pathway is extremely convoluted. There is a lack of awareness at not only primary care, but secondary care. My wife has been fortunate to be referred to the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases in Bath, but she is at the start of a very long waiting list, five years after being diagnosed. There is a huge amount of work to do in Wales, where health is devolved, for us to improve pathways for people who suffer from this condition.

Before special care is provided, treatment is based on the painkiller continuum—different painkillers of different strengths—and then also different antidepressants, which have their own very serious side effects. The major symptoms are fatigue, widespread pain, joint aches, migraines, carpal tunnel, drug resistance, sweating hands and feet, slurred speech, light sensitivity, noise sensitivity, memory loss, food intolerances, irritable bowel syndrome, lower tolerance of physical activity, non-restorative sleep, confusion, anxiety, depression, hearing problems, menstrual issues and chemical sensitivity.

I wanted to say far more about the process of us helping these people, but there is insufficient time. These are very sick people. The health systems and the social security system that we have within the British state at the moment offer little support.

Universal Credit

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

As the hon. Lady will know, we already have a set of exemptions in the policy. We recently announced two further exemptions, but the overall policy was tested in the courts last year and was found to be sound.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

When will the British Government extend the much-needed transitional protection to people who are migrating naturally through a change of circumstance?

[Alok Sharma]

The best way the hon. Gentleman can make sure we provide support through transitional protection for those who migrate is by supporting the regulations when we vote on them under the affirmative procedure.

State Pension Age

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the point I made in my statement. The simple fact is that the 1995 Act brought the state pension age to 65, the Labour Government then increased it, and the coalition Government accelerated the process. The reason why it was referred to as an 18-month acceleration in 2011 is that that was relative to the 1995 Act timetable.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I recently attended the launch of the WASPI campaign group in the Amman valley in my constituency, and they raised with me the seemingly arbitrary deadline of 31 March this year for those wanting to make a complaint to the DWP about the lack of notice of the proposed changes. Will the Minister confirm whether that is the deadline? If it is, what is the reason for it?

[Guy Opperman]

I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a precise answer, but I will write to him. However, it is the case that maladministration claims are being brought through the independent case examiner or the ombudsman, and I will write to him with the details.

Private Sector Pensions

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

As part of the Tata Steel-Thyssenkrupp merger, workers faced the slashing of their pension funds if they joined the PPF or if they joined a new scheme with reduced benefits. Others opted for personal plans, leading to a feeding frenzy of mis-selling. Does the Secretary of State think the steelworkers of Wales were treated fairly, considering that the new company’s annual sales are estimated at £15 billion?

[Ms McVey]

We have to make sure that we look after people with pensions. We also have to ensure that we keep companies going as a viable concern. At the time, this was deemed to be the best option for the future. We always have to make sure it is the best solution at the time, and we have to secure future legislation to ensure that we have better regulation and better law in place.

Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [Lords]

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 22nd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

I will make a little progress before taking any more interventions, because otherwise I will never get through this, and I need to.

The second part of the Bill makes provision to strengthen the regulation of claims management companies. As many hon. Members will be aware, there is evidence of malpractice in the claims management sector in the form of disproportionate fees, nuisance calls, poor service, and the encouragement of fraudulent claims.

Following an independent review of claims management regulation led by Carol Brady, the Government announced in the 2016 Budget their commitment to clamping down on malpractice in the sector. Part 2 delivers this commitment in two key ways. First, it transfers regulatory responsibility for claims management regulation from the Claims Management Regulator, a unit based in the Ministry of Justice, to the Financial Conduct Authority. Secondly, it introduces new measures to ensure that consumers are protected from being charged excessive fees. Those measures include a duty on the Financial Conduct Authority to make rules restricting fees charged for services provided in relation to financial services and products such as payment protection insurance claims, and a power for the FCA to introduce caps in other claims sectors should the need arise.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

It is great to see you back in your rightful place, Mr Deputy Speaker.

May I take the Secretary of State back to the first part of the Bill and the devolved functions in terms of debt advice? How will they be funded? Will it be based on a percentage share—a population share—of expenditure in England? Will it be based on Welsh need, or, as I read the Bill, will the Welsh Government send the Treasury a bill for its functions and then that will be levied by the FCA?

[Ms McVey]

I reiterate what the hon. Gentleman said by welcoming you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to the Chair.

The money will be collected. At the moment, what is spent and how it is spent is down to the new body being formulated. However, it will be done by Government grants and then money will be taken back—financial bodies will be paying in. Obviously, going forward, where there is most need is where most money will be going. That is how it will be viewed.

Compulsory Jobs Guarantee

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

Jobs are being created. The question is: who is going to get them? At the moment, the evidence clearly shows that young people disproportionately are not. We know that the future jobs fund worked—I will discuss that in a moment—and we are going to be repeating that approach with this jobs guarantee.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making some important points about youth unemployment, which is a big issue in Wales. Given that, does he think his Labour colleagues in Wales have been wrong to cut the Jobs Growth Wales fund for 18 to 24-year-olds?

[Stephen Timms]

I shall be discussing Jobs Growth Wales. I believe the hon. Gentleman is commending it, and I agree with him; it has been a great success and there are certainly lessons to be learned by the rest of the UK from the great success of that programme.

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[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I do not think we should pretend today that tackling long-term unemployment is anything other than immensely challenging. Fluctuations in levels of employment and unemployment are largely driven by the state of the economy, but somewhere in today’s debate we have lost sight of the fact that, even allowing for economic cycles, most people claim jobseeker’s allowance for a very short time. Most people come off JSA in a matter of weeks or months. Only a small minority of claimants will experience long-term unemployment, and most of them are concentrated in geographic areas where work is hard to find. Inevitably, in a competitive labour market those with least experience and low skill levels find it hardest to find work, and many of those who struggle to sustain employment, and those most at risk of long-term unemployment, face additional hurdles.

In the short time I have today I want to talk about young jobseekers. Youth unemployment is unacceptably high and much more could be done to address it. Young people’s job prospects have been very adversely affected by the financial collapse and recession, but it is really important to emphasise that as the economy recovers youth unemployment has been falling—certainly in Scotland—and is now at its lowest level for five years. I welcome that, but there are still enormous challenges ahead.

The question today is whether the proposed compulsory jobs guarantee would tackle long-term unemployment effectively. I am not convinced by what I have heard from either Front Bench. I do not think the policy addresses the underlying causes of long-term unemployment. It is a blunt instrument that will not help those facing the biggest disadvantages, and it offers too little, too late. It is desperately important that we do not wait until somebody has been unemployed for a whole year before we intervene, because all the evidence suggests that earlier interventions with young people are much more effective. I also regret the lack of ambition from the Government to make the kind of early interventions that might tackle disadvantage.

In response to soaring youth unemployment in the wake of the financial crash, the Scottish Government introduced the Opportunities for All scheme, which offers every 16 to 19-year-old in Scotland a place in work, education or training. Take-up has been overwhelming: record levels of school leavers—more than 92%—now have a positive destination on leaving school, and more importantly, those positive destinations are being sustained for 90% of school leavers. The number of young people not in education, training or employment is now at its lowest level since before the financial crash and has decreased across every local authority area.

There is no room for complacency, however, and we need to talk about the minority still being left behind. In certain parts of the country, job opportunities are still very limited. The final report of the commission for developing Scotland’s young work force, chaired by Sir Ian Wood, was published in June last year. It set out recommendations to reduce youth unemployment by 40% by 2020 and proposed an ambitious transformation of the way in which employers, schools and colleges, and local authorities work with young people to fulfil their potential. However, it also highlighted the extent to which inequalities were compounding disadvantage in the labour market. For example, although disabled young people often have positive destinations when they leave school, a few years on they are four times more likely to be unemployed than their non-disabled peers.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The motion states that those who do not take up the compulsory jobs guarantee would face losing their benefits. Is there not a danger that such a draconian measure would lead to many people being lost in the system with little hope for the future?

[Dr Whiteford]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Obviously, young people who lack skills and qualifications are more likely to struggle in the labour market, but our black and minority ethnic young people are also experiencing disproportionately high rates of unemployment. Our looked-after young people have the poorest job prospects of all. Just one in three care leavers is likely to be employed nine months after leaving school.

The point is that many of the young people furthest from the labour market, and certainly those at greatest risk of long-term unemployment, face complex barriers. It is not just a case of, “Here’s a job, get on with it.” The compulsory jobs guarantee does not address these complexities at all. Indeed, it would make unemployed young people wait a year before they get an offer of a work opportunity, and that offer would be made with the threat of benefit sanctions held over their heads like the sword of Damocles. I do not think anyone objects to sanctions that are proportionate and fair—everyone who is fit for work should be willing to take a job if it is offered—but that is not going to overcome the challenges facing many of the people at the greatest risk of long-term unemployment.

We have seen the impact of poorly applied sanctions in the food banks in all our communities. The young people I have met in my constituency—kids with learning disabilities, literacy problems, impaired speech or movement or chronic health issues, or kids who have just had wretched early lives—all want to work, but it is not always straightforward to help them to find work, to make themselves attractive to employers or even to understand that they have something valuable to offer. In that regard, I pay tribute to the teachers in our schools and to voluntary organisations such as the Prince’s Trust and Theatre Modo, which are working in my constituency to help vulnerable young people.

We were talking earlier about the failure of the Work programme in Scotland and the need for that responsibility to be devolved as soon as possible. The same applies to other aspects of employment support, as was recommended by the Smith commission.

Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Reform (Disabled People)

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green]

I will put on the record that it was not anybody making those remarks but the Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Reform. He is responsible for making decisions that affect millions of disabled people’s lives, and they took deep offence and were hurt by what they heard him say. Those remarks exemplify Government policies that are failing the objective that the hon. Gentleman describes. That is why we think it important to connect Lord Freud’s remarks with wider Government policy.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kate Green]

I will make some progress as I know that many other colleagues want to join the debate.

It seems that the Government are happy to accept a waste of potential, and the additional cost of leaving disabled people on benefits year after year is resulting in their spending £8 billion more than Ministers planned. I think we are all agreed: if we—including Lord Freud—want more disabled people in work, as Labour does, there are plenty of policy areas to consider and policies that could be improved before we start to talk of cutting pay.

We have already come forward with our ideas: to refocus the work capability assessment on its original purpose of helping to identify the package of support that a disabled person who could work would need in order to do so; to introduce penalties for wrong or poor-quality assessments by work capability providers; and to ask disabled people to be part of a process of reviewing and improving the WCA, as they have direct experience of it. We know that the Work programme is not working for disabled people. We have said we will replace it with a specialist programme of locally contracted support that will mean that local providers, who have best knowledge of local opportunities, services and other providers, will be able to design holistic support for disabled people, to enable them to prepare for work. Perhaps Ministers will heed our practical suggestions, and most importantly, perhaps they will heed our promise that under a Labour Government the tone of the debate will be different.

We should all be ashamed that disability hate crime continues to increase, and that disabled people report experiencing a stream of negativity and hostility towards them. Research by Scope last year, one year after this country proudly hosted the 2012 Paralympic games and celebrated our medal winners, found that 81% of disabled people said that attitudes towards them had not improved in the previous 12 months, with 22% saying that things had got worse. Some 84% of those who said that that had happened thought that media coverage of benefit claims and the welfare system had had a negative effect on public attitudes.

I am deeply ashamed that disabled people feel hounded and bullied in our country, and I am angry that DWP Ministers, if not actually using hostile and negative language towards disabled people, are certainly not doing anything to halt it. Indeed, the DWP is promoting it. In one egregious example recently, the DWP press office retweeted a derogatory story about disabled people on benefits that had appeared in the national media. Last month’s remarks by Lord Freud have done yet more damage.

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[Mr Harper]

I agree with the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friend. The Conservative party has a proud record. When my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House of Commons held the office that I hold today, he took through the House the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the first Act of its kind. That is a record of which our party can be proud and we do not need to take any lessons from the Labour party. Frankly, the words of the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston were offensive. I will deal with the points in the motion, with my noble Friend and with the positive policy proposals and record of the Government, and then I will invite the House to reject the motion.

The hon. Lady’s words would be a little more credible if there was some evidence that she believed them. Let me set out for Opposition Members, in particular for those who were not in the previous Parliament, some of the history of my noble Friend’s record on welfare reform.

[Jonathan Edwards]

rose—

[Mr Harper]

I will set out some of the history before I take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention.

It is worth remembering that Lord Freud was hired by John Hutton, now Lord Hutton, the Labour Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in late 2006 to write a report on radical welfare reform. At that point, Labour thought Lord Freud was an excellent person to involve in the welfare reform agenda. He delivered that reform in March 2007. The right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) then became Secretary of State for Work and Pensions—there was not a lot of appetite for welfare reform under him—followed by James Purnell, who was appointed in January 2008. On the second day of his term of office, he appointed Lord Freud to implement the proposals in his report. In the Command Paper, “No one written off: reforming welfare to reward responsibility”, the then Secretary of State, James Purnell, set out the proposals of the Labour Government and made it clear that they were

“inspired by the reforms proposed by David Freud in his report on the welfare state.”

The Command Paper made it clear—boasted, in fact—that the Labour Government would implement all of Lord Freud’s reforms and even boasted that they would take the reforms further.

That is the man whom the Labour party is castigating. Labour brought him into Government to work with them on welfare reform. The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) is chuntering from a sedentary position. It is worth the House remembering that he was appointed Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform in January 2008. Between then and October 2008 he served with Lord Freud implementing welfare reform under the Labour party. The right hon. Gentleman knows Lord Freud and that although Lord Freud expressed himself clumsily—he did so, and apologised—the characterisation of those words is simply inaccurate. The Labour party should be ashamed of itself.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, but I fear that he has answered my question before I ask it. It is the same Lord Freud that the Labour party took into the heart of Government. Before his appointment Lord Freud had said that he understood nothing about welfare, so will the Minister explain why the noble Lord played such an important role in implementing and coming up with welfare policy for both the previous Labour Government and the current Conservative Government?

[Mr Harper]

I will set out some of the things that Lord Freud has done in government, but let me finish on the record of the Labour party, which is worth listening to. Some Labour Members may have to do some rapid rewriting of their speeches.

James Purnell, when Secretary of State, appointed Lord Freud to work on his proposals. Lord Freud served with the Labour party until January 2009. He then concluded that there was no appetite for radical welfare reform under the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). Lord Freud then joined the Conservative party and our Front-Bench team, of which I was a member at the time, to develop our proposals for welfare reform. James Purnell of course had similar thoughts about the appetite of the Labour party for welfare reform and he resigned from the Government five months later. He called on the Labour party to dump its leader, and thankfully for us the public did so a year later.

Lord Freud joined us, I have worked closely with him and he is passionate about getting disabled people into work. I know that the travesty of his character that the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston set out is unfair and unwarranted.

Housing Benefit (Wales)

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

I intend to make a fairly short contribution. I want to speak not only from the perspective of the Committee’s report and work, but about the impact of the housing benefit changes on my constituency and how things have worked out in practice. I congratulate the Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies). The Committee was dealing with an issue of some controversy and disagreement between the various political parties, and consummate skill was required on his part to prevent us from coming to blows and to produce an agreed report.

I think it is generally accepted that the cost of housing benefit had reached an unsustainable level, and the worrying trajectory of increase in that cost meant that we simply had to do something about it. Those who challenge what the coalition Government have done to try to restrain that increase should come up with alternative ways of limiting housing benefit increases and keeping the cost within affordable limits. If our debates are to be credible, we must consider such challenges.

Inevitably, when we face a change such as the under-occupancy policy, we will all have worries. I have worries about my constituency and the impact on my constituents. I had views on the matter as soon as I heard about the proposal. I thought that it should apply only to new tenants going into properties, and I thought it should apply to people of all ages rather than stopping at 65. I must admit—I am sure that the Minister will be quite amused by this—that my concerns were such that I felt I needed to attend at least two or three Westminster Hall debates in which he was responding, in order fully to understand the arguments. The Minister is a persuasive individual, as is the Chairman of the Select Committee, because I ended up convinced that the policy was right, and I have since been supportive of it.

It struck me that the voice that is not heard on this issue is that of those people who do not have a home at all and are on waiting lists. We talk about the impact on people currently in social housing, but a huge number of people do not have a property at all and are living in very cramped conditions. That is the other side of the debate.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Is that not the crux of the matter? There is a huge contradiction: on the one hand, the policy is designed to free up supply, but on the other it is designed to reduce the housing benefit bill. It cannot achieve both, because the only way that the policy makes money and therefore savings is if people stay and pay.

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[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger, as it is to speak in this debate. Indeed, it is a pleasure that the No. 1 conclusion in the report makes the case for rent controls in the private rented sector. That was an amendment that I suggested when we were deliberating over the report, and it received the support of the majority of the Select Committee, for which I am extremely grateful.

The under-occupation penalty for recipients of housing benefit in the social rented sector is the signature regressive social security policy of the current UK Government. Labelled the bedroom tax, in Welsh it is called the treth llofftydd—when there is a hashtag in Welsh on Twitter, we know we are in trouble.

The bedroom tax, as the Select Committee Chair, the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), said, is part of the UK Government’s efforts to reduce the housing benefit bill. I, too, pay tribute to his chairmanship. It is a pleasure to be a member of the Committee and to work with him. He is extremely fair to me as the single Plaid Cymru member of the Committee. Despite his persona in the Chamber as a ferocious, right-wing beast, he is a very kind Chairman.

The UK Government, of course, have a three-prong strategy for reducing the housing benefit bill. First, there is a cap on benefits, which the official Opposition now support, with additional regional elements, should they form the next Government. Secondly, the annual uprating of welfare payments is pegged at 1%, which means that there are real-terms cuts to social security support every year. Thirdly, there is the bedroom tax, or under-occupancy penalty.

Despite all that, in its response to the 2014 Budget the OBR projected that housing benefit expenditure will increase by £1 billion by 2018-19. If they have time, I ask Members to read that report on their way back on the train this evening. Page 146 states:

“The largest driver of the rise in spending on housing benefit has been caseload growth in the private rented sector.”

The report goes on to say that the trend towards renting is driven primarily by the huge increase in house prices, which means that young people are unable to afford to purchase their own home. Only those who are supported by their parents are able to afford a deposit. The last bit of page 146 states:

“The rising proportion of the renting population claiming housing benefit may be related to the weakness of average wage growth relative to rent inflation. This explanation is supported by DWP data, which suggest that almost all the recent rise in the private-rented sector housing benefit caseload has been accounted for by people in employment.”

That makes my case for me. The key reason for the increase in the housing benefit bill, which we will see despite the regressive policies introduced by the UK Government, is spiralling rents in the private rented sector.

The Financial Times reported in 2012 that rents had increased by 37% since 2007, and it projected a 35% increase in rents over the following five years. That was before the housing bubble that we are now experiencing, with the OBR projecting that house prices will increase by 9.2% in the third quarter of 2014 alone. The OBR envisages a 30% increase in house prices over the next five years. When we couple those statistics with stagnant wages, it is unsurprising that more and more people in employment are falling into the trap of requiring housing benefit. Often when we discuss this issue, people miss that housing benefit is an in-work benefit; it is not for people who are unable to work but for people who are working now.

House prices are projected to reach 2008 pre-crash levels by 2019, which means we are in a greater boom and bust cycle than we were in 2008. As wages are stagnant, the bubble is being fuelled by increased debt. We are living in worrying times.

[Geraint Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that bank lending to businesses is 30% down since 2008 but that bank lending for mortgages is beyond 2008 levels? House prices are going up, rent is going up but real wages are going down. When interest rates go up, we will have a sub-prime debt disaster on our hands.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The hon. Gentleman and I are singing from the same hymn sheet. We were promised a rebalancing of the economy and a move towards business investment and exports, but we are seeing the same old boom and bust policies that have been the hallmark of the UK economy for many decades. The danger is that the boom and bust on this occasion might be even more serious than that built up in 2008.

[Glyn Davies]

I hesitate to intervene, and I ask this question with some degree of uncertainty, but I am pretty sure that yesterday I read a report saying that house prices have actually fallen in Wales in the last 12 months. They have gone up substantially across Britain, particularly in London, but across Wales I do not think they have risen in the last 12 months.

[Jonathan Edwards]

I did not read that report, but it makes a point about the unbalanced nature of economic growth across Britain. I am referring to the rising housing benefit bill in the UK context. The statistics I have cited do not refer to Welsh house prices in particular.

The Committee’s report found that Wales is being hit hardest by the lack of single social properties in the social rented sector. Wales is therefore being hit by a policy designed to address the public expenditure implications of the dysfunctional London economy. As I have consistently argued, we need a range of reforms. Before becoming an MP, I was heavily influenced by the reforms in the Republic of Ireland. I used to be a policy officer for the citizens advice movement in Wales, and some of these issues were prevalent then. The 2004 reforms in the Republic of Ireland were welcome. The Residential Tenancies Act 2004 achieved a number of objectives. First, it set up a private residential tenancies board. Secondly, it regulated the private rented sector, with an extension of tenancies to a more European model of longer-term tenancies. Defined rights and obligations were provided for both tenants and landlords, and access was provided to an inexpensive dispute resolution system. The bonds that individuals who rent often have to pay were safeguarded—unfortunately, on too many occasions people lose those bonds—and rents were capped, which is a policy that exists across the world. There are rent caps in New York, the home of global capitalism, so it is difficult to define them as some sort of socialist trap.

[Guto Bebb]

I do think that rent caps are a socialist trap. The fact that they are supported by the Committee’s Labour members, Liberal member and Plaid member is unfortunate because, in Wales, many people who have invested in buy-to-let properties have done so because of the previous Labour Government’s anti-pension policies. For many of those people, their private rented property is their pension provision. I find the attack on those individuals, who are trying to take care of their own situation in retirement, unfortunate to say the least.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The point I am trying to make is that if the Government are serious about bringing down the housing benefit bill, the only way to do it is to cap the cost of rents in the private rented sector. That is what all the OBR projections indicate. It is interesting that the Select Committee Chair referred to the evidence of the TaxPayers Alliance. When I gave the alliance a choice of either reducing the housing benefit bill or preserving free markets, it said that it preferred preserving free markets, which is more important to the TaxPayers Alliance than the Government’s tax liabilities. Perhaps it should change its name to the Free Market Alliance.

[Guto Bebb]

I think it has already been accepted in this debate that there is a link between private sector provision of housing and social sector provision of housing. Would rent controls result in any increase in private sector provision of social housing? If not, how will it help anyone looking for rented housing in Wales?

[Jonathan Edwards]

My point is that the OBR’s figures indicate that the Government will not achieve their objectives with the bedroom tax. If the objective is to bring down the housing benefit bill, the only way to do that is via rent control in the private rented sector. I welcome the fact that the leader of the Labour party made a case overnight for some of the reforms for which I have been making a case for a number of years. Rent caps would drive down artificially high rental costs, and they would also curb boom and bust property speculation, which is a cycle we have seen far too often in the UK economy in recent decades. Rent caps would also help working people to remain in the cities, rather than being forced out, as they are in inner London. They would also stop the current policy’s social cleansing, through which people are forced to move from where they have lived for many years.

[Mr Clive Betts in the Chair]

We also need to consider supply issues, which many Members have highlighted. The recovery of the 1930s following the great depression was largely driven by a massive public housing building programme. Rents paid for public housing provide a steady stream of revenue, so it is an ideal vehicle for drawing down private sector funds to deliver economic growth and address some of the social problems that we face.

I will now quickly return to the local indicators in Carmarthenshire, and I will finish on this point. Applications for discretionary housing payments have rocketed in south-west Wales. Between 2012-13 and 2013-14, the budget increased by 64% in Carmarthenshire, by 106% in Pembrokeshire and by 118% in Swansea. There were only 327 discretionary housing application payments in Carmarthenshire in 2012-13, but between April and May 2013 there were 534 applications. That is a 63% increase in the first two months of that year, compared with the whole of the previous year.

Nearly 2,000 people have had changes to their housing benefit entitlements in Carmarthenshire since this policy was introduced. As I mentioned, this policy only makes savings if people stay and pay.

I finish on a point made by my colleague, the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams). He mentioned the work of Paul James, a Plaid Cymru councillor for Llanbadarn Fawr, a veteran of the UK Army and also a servant of the French Foreign Legion, so he is not a man to be messed about with—[Interruption.] He has the Minister’s number! He is upset about the impact of the bedroom tax on veterans and their families, who were under the impression that veterans would be exempt full stop from it. Yet it appears that only people on active service are exempt. If that is the case, obviously, military personnel from Wales in barracks or in training would be outside Wales and not exempt, because our regiments are not held domestically. Our servicemen are not home-based; they go to barracks in England. Yet their families are being hit by the bedroom tax. The Minister must look at that. I should be grateful to hear his remarks at the end of the debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

North Yorkshire has one of the most advanced broadband programmes so far, with more than 75,000 premises already passed. The councils in north Yorkshire are to be commended for that. As my hon. Friend knows, we have awarded an additional £250 million in order to push out our programme for rural broadband to help rural premises and businesses.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Recently the Prime Minister was mocked by Chancellor Merkel for the slow progress in rolling out broadband across the UK and the number of not spot areas, many of which reside in my constituency. Although I accept that this is largely a devolved issue, what extra help can the Minister give the Welsh Government to ensure that when the Prime Minister next meets the German Chancellor he is not embarrassed?

[Mr Vaizey]

More than 100,000 premises in Wales have already been passed and the target is to reach almost 700,000 by early 2016. If the Prime Minister sees Chancellor Merkel again and wishes to discuss broadband, he can present her with the Ofcom scorecard, which shows that Britain’s broadband is better than Germany’s. I would not say that this was a case of schadenfreude—except that schadenfreude is the only German word I know.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

I agree to a large extent with my hon. Friend. Our hope is that football authorities will make the changes that need to be made, but if they do not, there is always the option of legislation.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Will the Minister join me in endorsing the Swansea City football club model in which the supporters trust owns 20% of the club and sits on the board of directors? Last year the club reported a profit of £15.3 million, following a £14.6 million profit the previous year. Surely that is the way forward for football governance.

[Mrs Grant]

That sounds a very interesting model and, of course, it is for football authorities to agree what works best. I think there is a place for all types of ownership, and supporters will always have the best interests of their clubs at heart. I am delighted that AFC Wimbledon, Brentford and Exeter City are now owned fully or partly by supporters. I have had recent meetings with Supporters Direct and the Football Supporters Federation, and I look forward to working with them closely on a number of projects.