Oral Answers to Questions
Kevan Jones Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is important that we try to match individuals with the vacancies that are best suited to them. Under the Work programme, providers will not be paid if they do not give people the right opportunities and they do not get the jobs, because there is a payment by results system. That system is the best route to ensure that those who are on benefits for the longer term get the best possible support and access to vacancies.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
T2. There has been a move from up-front, face-to-face contact at the jobcentre to more telephone systems. What plans do the Government have to reintroduce more face-to-face contact in jobcentres throughout the UK?
Chris Grayling
We welcome the hon. Gentleman back to the House after a breathless new year. We intend to find the right mix between the different channels of access to Jobcentre Plus. Many younger claimants prefer to access services online, many claimants prefer to deal with such matters face to face, and others are happy to apply for benefits and deal with such matters over the phone. The trick is to get the right mix, and that is what we will seek to do.
Welfare Reform
Kevan Jones Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Duncan Smith
As my hon. Friend knows, there is a slightly complex group of benefits and supplements with respect to disability. DLA is non-work related, but there are disability supplements for jobseeker’s allowance. Many of the disability organisations that we consulted said that the one thing they hoped for from the reforms is that the Government value disabled people, which we believe we do, and give them a chance to go back to work. Apart from the fact that we are creating work choice, the key thing is that the taper rate comes with a disregard. If we give disabled people on the universal credit a larger disregard on their income, we give them more money, which allows them a beneficial position as they go back to work.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State knows that work is good for people’s mental health, but he will also recognise that many people who have severe, long-term mental health problems find it difficult to keep permanent employment. What reassurance can he give that such people will not be discriminated against by the benefits system or by employers?
Mr Duncan Smith
I completely agree that such discrimination is unforgivable, and we have to change such attitudes if they exist. The real beauty of our proposals is that we will be able to adjust rates according to people’s incapacities. So individuals with particular problems or disabilities will be much more valuable in the workplace than they are now. That is the one thing that the organisations said to us—that those people want to be in the mainstream and in work like everyone else. Our proposals will help that more than anything we are doing at the moment.
Capital Gains Tax (Rates)
Kevan Jones Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
I wish to approve the headline description of the emergency Budget and what it is intended to achieve, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) has said during the Budget debate, is that the richest pay the most and the vulnerable are protected. We must test that claim as we proceed. The coalition Government face many challenges in achieving that, in circumstances in which the public finances are in a very serious state, which I do not need to describe again this evening.
I wish to give the Budget a fair wind at this stage, and of course as a Liberal Democrat I gather a degree of satisfaction from a number of measures that I and my colleagues have campaigned for, namely the increase in the tax allowance with a target of an allowance of up to £10,000, taking many thousands of people on low income out of tax altogether; the restoration of a meaningful annual increase in the basic state pension, for which pensioners have been crying out for decades; increases in the child care element of the child tax credit for the poorest; the closing of the gaping tax avoidance loophole created by the previous Government through changes to capital gains tax; the introduction of a banking levy; and the protection of lower-paid public servants. There are a number of measures that I applaud and welcome very much.
This is a coalition Government and a new arrangement altogether, with two distinct parties. Seeking consensus between those parties inevitably creates significant debate.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is showing by his demeanour that he is not very enthusiastic for his coalition. He says that he has campaigned for many things in the Budget. Can he tell the House when he and the Liberal Democrats campaigned for an increase in VAT?
Andrew George
As far as I recall, none of the three main parties ruled out the prospect of VAT increasing. It is only when one is in government that one can see the nature and state of the finances, and therefore fully understand the impact that it is likely to have.
Having said that, as all Members will know, there is an amendment about VAT on the Order Paper in my name and those of some of my hon. Friends. It asks, I think reasonably, that an impact assessment be undertaken, taking into account a number of factors including the impact that the VAT increase would have on businesses, charities and families and households across the income range and age groups. It is vital that, in order to advance a number of the challenging measures in the Budget, the Government should reasonably be expected to bring forward more information than they are able to at this emergency stage of the Budget, so that we can debate the impact of those changes.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kevan Jones Excerpts(14 years ago)
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Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
Many elderly people rely on services from local councils. Can the hon. Gentleman tell the House how the cuts imposed on Durham county council last week will affect, and reduce poverty for, pensioners in the county of Durham?
Steve Webb
The hon. Gentleman is quite right to point out that when public finances are tight, all sectors of society risk having services threatened in the way that he describes. One of the incoming Government’s concerns was the huge hole in the public finances, which a Labour Government would also have had to fill. It would be interesting to know which cuts he thinks should be made, because there has been a silence from the Labour party on that very subject.