Rail Infrastructure (Train Operating Companies)

Debate between Karen Buck and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 6th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

One thing I asked Chris Gibb to do around the Southern route was to start to create the kind of partnership that I have described today. My early experience on this route—and the early experience of the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard)—was that Network Rail and the train operator were not working closely together and not addressing problems together. Sadly, the real challenge in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Nusrat Ghani) is the ongoing industrial action, which is utterly pointless. No one is losing their job, and no one is losing any money; this is all about adopting new technologies and ways of working that are already custom and practice on the same routes. The action is a tragedy, and it is unacceptable. I again call on the unions to go back to work.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

When Transport for London took over London Overground, it went from being the worst performing rail line in the country to the best performing rail line. That was why the Government signed an agreement with TfL and the London government in March for TfL to take over Southeastern when the franchise expires in 2018. What exactly has happened to make the Government break their promise to Londoners?

[Chris Grayling]

I looked very carefully at this matter. The hon. Lady needs to understand the difference between London Overground and the rest of the suburban routes. London Overground has provided a good service, which is run by Arriva—part of the German railways—and was co-run initially by MTR, the Hong Kong metro system. It is a franchise operator, like the rest. Having read the Mayor’s business case carefully, and having considered the level of change required to split the franchise in half—it would be the biggest operating change on this railway since the 1920s—and the potential disruption to passengers over a period of time, I thought, rightly or wrongly, that we could deliver the service improvement that TfL was talking about by forging a partnership. Crucially, we would involve Kent, because this is not a London issue; as this railway runs from London to the south coast, we cannot think of the railway system just in terms of London. Very many passengers and representatives in this House from further afield would take a very different view from her on what will work for the railway line.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Karen Buck and Chris Grayling

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

There might be an element of that—it is difficult to escape that conclusion. The Opposition proposal would have more credence had it not been made at the 59th minute of the 11th hour. We should not take them seriously when they make such ill-thought out, last-minute proposals.

The Government are clear that average earnings are the right way to determine the level of the cap. We do not need the Opposition’s proposed independent body—another quango, I hasten to say—to tell us otherwise. The cap needs to be a single, national one for the policy to make sense. The Government will lay before the House a report on the policy’s impact evaluation after a year of operation.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

rose—

[Chris Grayling]

I will give way one more time as the hon. Lady was on the Committee.

[Ms Buck]

The Minister knows that the Committee extensively discussed the impact of housing costs and their interaction with the cap. If a household loses income through the benefits system through no fault of its own, can it claim legitimately to a local authority to be statutorily homeless, in line with existing homelessness legislation?

[Chris Grayling]

I am sorry, but I simply do not buy the homelessness argument that Labour Members keep making. We are talking about a cap equivalent to a salary of £35,000 a year. Labour Members were vociferous 12 months ago when the housing benefit cap was introduced, but we have not seen the consequences of which they warned in the terms they used. I simply do not accept that somebody receiving the equivalent of £35,000 a year should be categorised as homeless and unable to find anywhere to live.

Much was said in the other place on the importance of child benefit. Let me make it clear that the introduction of a benefit cap will not result in a single household losing its entitlement to child benefit, which will continue—rightly—to be paid to the current recipient. That important principle will not change.

We are, however, changing another important principle: households on out-of-work benefits should not in future expect to receive unlimited financial support from the state. Like other welfare benefits, child benefit is funded by taxpayers. We therefore believe that it is right for its value to be taken into account along with other state benefits when applying the cap.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Karen Buck and Chris Grayling

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I have been very encouraged by the participation of employer groups and the TUC in the Löfstedt proposals. The fact that we had people from both sides of the employment and political spectrums supporting the report at this morning’s launch was a tribute to the work of everybody involved. It is a sign that we now have a cross-party blueprint for the future of health and safety in this country.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Since last May, an extra 155,000 working households have been forced on to local housing allowance—an increase of 42% on the previous year. Is that because rents have risen or because wages have fallen?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Karen Buck and Chris Grayling

Monday 18th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend and want to see fewer cases going to appeal. This is one reason why we have stepped up the reconsideration process in Jobcentre Plus, so after the initial decision is made we actively seek out further evidence, if such evidence exists, and use it to reconsider our decision. I hope and expect to see the number of successful appeals reduce significantly as a result.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Local Jobcentre Plus officials have advised me that there is already a significant delay in the work capability assessment test in my local area because the assessments are taking around twice as long as was originally predicted. Can the Minister reassure the House that this is not the situation across the whole country and that there is no backlog in the work capability assessments, with all that that would imply for claimants and for the service?

[Chris Grayling]

We have remained on schedule to start the process for individuals. It is not the case that assessments are taking twice as long. There is an early element of bedding in for the personalised statement, as was recommended by Professor Harrington, but we are not aware of any long-term factors that would change the timetable for the whole reconsideration process.

Tackling Poverty in the UK

Debate between Karen Buck and Chris Grayling

Thursday 10th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Lady has extremely extensive experience of these matters and she is absolutely right. We remain firmly of the view that early intervention is important. I mentioned parenting skills earlier; when talking about these matters, I always pay tribute to the charity Home-Start. Enabling people who have good parenting experience to mentor those who do not makes a valuable contribution to helping young people who grow up in more challenging environments to do better than they might otherwise have done. That is hugely important because we have massive divides within communities, between people living side by side.

Here in Westminster, for example, we have the largest difference in life expectancy of any London local authority. In areas such as Knightsbridge and Belgravia, people can expect to live into their mid-80s, but just up the road in Queens Park life expectancy is just over 70—a gap of nearly 15 years. For every two minutes on the tube between Knightsbridge and Queens Park, the life expectancy of the communities through which one travels drops by a year.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

As a resident of Queens Park, this is an opportune moment to seek to intervene.

On the issue of health inequalities, poverty has to be understood as a relative as well as an absolute issue. Before the right hon. Gentleman goes too far in dismissing everything that the Labour Government were doing, does he agree with the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which said:

“Tax and benefit measures implemented by Labour since 1997 have increased the incomes of poorer households and reduced those of richer ones, largely halting the rapid rise in income inequality that we saw under the Conservatives”?

What measures that the Conservatives took—or failed to take—in those years will he now say will not be reintroduced if we are to make further progress?

[Chris Grayling]

Of course, we have not been in office since 1997. One of the tragedies of the past 13 years is seeing the amount of money spent leading to so little in the way of results. The point made by the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside about poverty of aspiration is a crucial one. I shall come on to discuss worklessness, but a lack of experience of work or educational achievement in a household, and other factors, can make such a difference. The divides are enormous. If one goes to a city such as Liverpool, one only has to walk for 20 minutes from one of the smartest, newest shopping centres in the country to streets where almost no one is working. Worklessness is central to the challenges faced by many of our communities.

[Chris Grayling]

We have to look at this in a far more three-dimensional way. It is about changing educational achievement, which is why we have said that it is important to focus on a pupil premium for the most deprived areas. It is also why we have said that it is important to ensure, as the economy recovers and as the employment market picks up, that we do not make the mistakes of the past 10 years. Too many of the jobs that were created went to people coming into the country from overseas, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead has identified on more than one occasion. We have to make sure that we break down the culture of worklessness and educational failure, which is as essential to dealing with poverty as any other factor.

[Ms Buck]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way again. To approach the question that I asked earlier from a different angle, the IFS confirmed that Labour’s measures had largely halted the rise in income inequality, which increased dramatically under the Conservative Government. Does he accept that the measures that he has to put in place must not repeat the errors and mistakes, with deep roots in unemployment and social breakdown, that characterised the Conservative years and led to rising income inequality and poverty?

[Chris Grayling]

We should always seek to learn from the past. We will seek not to make the mistakes of the past 10 years, when billions of pounds were spend on employment programmes that failed to break down the culture of worklessness in many of our communities.