Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill

Kevin Foster Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 2nd December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the National Audit Office report will be subject to debate and scrutiny in the Public Accounts Committee, which will also produce a report and recommendations, and that that may be a more effective way of achieving the desired aim than doing it through a Bill?

[Conor Burns]

I agree, and I have known the Minister for over 20 years and I know him to be one of the most moderate, reflective and compassionate people in our party. I know he will be open to ideas on how we can further improve the system to deliver the best support to those who legitimately need it most.

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[Lucy Frazer]

May I finish the point? Guidance is already set out in the DWP documentation. Obviously not every scenario is set out, but it is the job of those working at jobcentres to help those who come before them.

[Kevin Foster]

My hon. and learned Friend may remember that certain cases from unemployment benefits case law used to be in the jobseeker’s allowance regulations. One reason why they were removed in 2012 was to prevent them from being interpreted as a definitive list of cases. There are numerous scenarios and individual circumstances that just cannot be put into a list.

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. It is always hard—this is a challenge in all legislation—to set out the rules to be followed when not every scenario is identified in the legislation itself.

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[Helen Whately]

Let me make a little progress, because I am coming on to the steps that have already been taken to make sure that the system works better. The hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) knows, and we all know, that the Government have been working very hard and are listening. They responded, for example, to the Oakley review and acted on its recommendations to make the whole system work better.

[Kevin Foster]

My hon. Friend is generous in giving way. Does she agree that we have already seen the number of JSA sanctions halved since March last year and that the Government are dealing with ongoing reviews? Most of the arguments advanced so far in favour of the Bill have been about issues of human judgment, which will be exactly the same with the codes of practice and just cause listed in the Bill?

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point.

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[Helen Whately]

I am going to deal with that point later in my remarks. As I was saying a moment ago to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, legislation is not always the right way to achieve improvement. Personally, I believe that, where possible, it is better to give those who work in the public sector greater autonomy to do a really good job. That gives people an enormous amount of motivation, because they usually go into those jobs because they want to make a difference.

[Kevin Foster]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the example cited by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South of a jobcentre in South Thanet that was doing really well shows that this is not an issue that requires legislation? This is about ensuring that there is consistent management throughout the system, which does not require a new Bill.

[Helen Whately]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. He mentioned the jobcentre in South Thanet, and I want to correct the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South on that point. I do not want to do South Thanet down, but I represent an area of Kent that is not far from there, and I know that South Thanet has enormous challenges as a result of deprivation. It is not only the most challenged area of Kent but the 35th most deprived area in England and Wales. There are lovely parts of South Thanet, but it is not normal to describe it as leafy and affluent, as she appeared to do.

I have seen how the very good jobcentres around my constituency provide personalised, tailored support. For example, they might help an individual to find the right childcare to enable them to get into work. They might also help people living in rural areas to overcome transport challenges. That personalised service is possible in the current system because of the level of autonomy and responsibility given to work coaches, and I would be wary of any legislation that might reduce their ability to tailor their support to individuals.

I have already acknowledged that the system is not perfect. No one would suggest that a system providing support to thousands of people could be perfect. One strength of the system is that it has been designed specifically to keep decision making local and to take account of an individual’s circumstances. It offers flexibility, and where there is flexibility there will be some variation. There is work to be done to ensure that the variations are not too great and to bring all jobcentres up to the level of the best, but that is not a reason to legislate nationally. As we know, when mistakes are made, there is a right of appeal.

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[Helen Whately]

I wonder whether the hon. Lady has been listening to what I have been saying. I think I have recognised that the system has problems. Mistakes will be made in any system of such a scale, but that does not mean that the answer is to impose some more top-down legislation. It is better to try to improve how the system works and to support jobcentres that might not be doing so well to come up to the level of those that are doing best.

[Kevin Foster]

rose—

[Mhairi Black]

rose—

[Helen Whately]

I will happily give way to my hon. Friend.

[Kevin Foster]

My hon. Friend is being generous with her time to both Government and Opposition Members. The key point is that the NAO report will be considered by the Public Accounts Committee, which will then produce recommendations. We keep returning to the fact that what is in the Bill would still be subject to discretion. We are talking about management issues and ensuring consistency and they do not require a new law.

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will now happily take a short intervention from the hon. Lady.

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[Mims Davies]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The entire legal system based on common law is about applying the law in a consistent way historically and geographically, so we must make sure that the application of sanctions is consistent.

[Kevin Foster]

I am listening with interest to my hon. Friend’s speech. Does she agree that consistency is key? The NAO talks in its report about bringing in consistency, and that is what a Public Accounts Committee inquiry will do. There will then be a report that can be taken forward.

[Mims Davies]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about consistency, which I absolutely believe the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South is looking for in this process, but we have heard about cases today, from hon. Members across this House, in which there were completely different views and completely different ways of going about things, and that reflects the way our constituents live and work. We can bring in a consistent system, but the reality is we are dealing with different people.

Autumn Statement Distributional Analysis, Universal Credit and ESA

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

I have listened carefully to the Prime Minister’s responses to a number of questions about cuts to mental health services at Prime Minister’s Question Time. I hope that her commitment to social justice will result in the reversing of some of those cuts, particularly to mental health walk-in services, which were raised at the Prime Minister’s questions session before last.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

The shadow Chancellor mentioned what happened three years ago. He will probably remember, as I do, that the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), who was the Labour party’s spokesman at the time, pledged that Labour would be “tougher than the Tories” on benefits.

Bringing things more up to date, many people in the ESA work-related activity group have told me that the current support package—a visit to the jobcentre once every six months—is completely inadequate. Does the shadow Chancellor agree that that shows a system that urgently needs reform?

[John McDonnell]

I fully agree with the hon. Gentleman. There needs to be more support, and that was promised but has not been delivered. At the same time, benefits have been taken away, so as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) said, there has been a double whammy in the impact on disabled people. That demoralises people who are under pressure, losing benefits and not getting support, which pushes them into an even worse position.

I have raised this issue before, but we now have better figures than we had two or three years ago. We now know that between 2011 and 2014, more than 2,000 people who were assessed in a work capability assessment as being capable of work died before they could even take up that work. Surely we have to learn the lessons from that evidence, and surely one lesson is that if we impose further cuts on people who are already struggling, not only will we increase the deprivation and suffering that they endure, but many of them will see no light at the end of the tunnel and will simply despair.

The WOW debate was intended simply to ensure that any impact of decisions on benefits was properly assessed. We called for a cumulative impact assessment to be published, and we asked for a detailed impact assessment of every policy to be published for the House before a final decision was made. In a supposed post-truth environment, I still believe that evidence-based policy making is worth aiming for. That is why it is critical that the Government also restore the distributional analysis of their proposals, and ensure that it is intelligible and usable.

Before scrapping that analysis entirely, the Chancellor’s predecessor took to publishing figures that disguised the real impact of his policies. That accusation is not mine but that of one of his old colleagues, the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the former Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey. If the Treasury is to restore public trust, it must not just let the House know when it will publish the distributional analysis, but ensure that the figures are published clearly and without any attempts to massage or spin them. Only in that way will we be able to test the fairness and equity of policy proposals.

In my view and that of many Members, when the cuts were first introduced they reflected a grotesque unfairness, because at the same time the Government were cutting taxes for some of the wealthiest in our country and for large corporations. [Interruption.] Capital gains tax, inheritance tax—how many more examples do we need? That was a strange priority to many Members on both sides of the House. As the Resolution Foundation has pointed out, reversing just some of those tax cuts could render the cuts to benefits unnecessary. The last Chancellor also had a penchant for absorbing budget gaps at various times.

There is a real opportunity next week for the Chancellor to live up to the Prime Minister’s spoken commitment to tackle social injustice. We believe that the Chancellor will reset the fiscal framework in next week’s autumn statement. He has already adjusted it. That will allow him the flexibility he needs to reverse the cuts. I appeal to hon. Members throughout the House to help us lift the threat of further cuts from families and disabled people. We have a week to achieve that, and we can start today by supporting the motion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

All health professionals must be registered practitioners and must have met the requirements for training competence. They must also use their expertise in disability to provide advice on people’s level of functional ability and the impact on their day-to-day lives. A team of experts provides additional support. We also work regularly with a wide range of stakeholders to help to advise on where further improvements can be made.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

The Minister will be aware of the recent Public Accounts Committee report on the process of contracting out disability assessments. Does he agree that the recommendation to publish regular contractor performance data is one way of ensuring that assessments are professional and effective?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I know that that Committee did some valuable work in that area, which was partly why we had the extensive independent review of the performance and management of PIP that was carried out by Dr Paul Gray.

Welfare

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman, the Chair of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, for his kind remarks and for the message he sent me at the weekend. I look forward to some constructive discussions with him in the weeks and months ahead. I made it clear in the statement that we are not pursuing further welfare savings and not looking to make alternative off-setting savings to replace the changes to PIP that we were going to bring forward. I hope that that makes it clear for the right hon. Gentleman.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

On Saturday morning, I had a remarkably well-timed visit to the Multiple Sclerosis Society’s south Devon branch to welcome it to Torquay and to speak to a number of its members, and I was given quite a lot of feedback. Will my right hon. Friend tell the House how he intends to take forward his dialogue with disabled people and disability groups over the next few weeks?

[Stephen Crabb]

We are already in the process of setting up meetings with such organisations. As I said earlier, I will be building on some fantastic work that has already been done by the Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People, but I want to lead the discussions myself and find out what they are thinking and how best we can work with them. There is a lot of goodwill in the sector for what we are trying to do, recognising the long-term challenges of reform and of getting the health system to work far better with social services and employers to achieve far better outcomes for disabled people. I hope that all of us on both sides of the Chamber can unite around that aspiration.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

Between 2009 and 2010, over 5 million notices were sent to people, according to the records held by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. I would point out to the hon. Lady that, in 2012, only 6% of women within 10 years of state pension age thought that their state pension age would be at age 60.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Given the rhetoric in the recent Opposition day debate about the state pension age changes, does the Minister share my surprise that the six options put forward by the shadow Secretary of State would not make much difference at all to many women born in the 1950s? Does he agree that it is time for the Opposition to be clear about the choices they would make and how they would pay for them, and also to be clear about the changes they would not make?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I know that the Minister will want to focus exclusively, and doubtless with loving care, on his own policy, and will not dilate on that of the Opposition, which would be disorderly. Knowing the hon. Gentleman, I do not think he does disorderly.

State Pension Age

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The hon. Lady should not grab on to and believe everything that is printed in the newspapers. They have their own legitimate reasons for publishing stuff. There is nothing in the review that talks about that. I have said categorically that John Cridland will review, within the terms of reference, where we should go with state pension ages and look at other aspects, such as affordability, within the context of what people have done and what their details are. If the hon. Lady has a particular issue she wants to raise, she should raise it with him.

What is untenable is that the hon. Lady’s party opposes an independent and regular review of state pensions. Why would anybody do that? [Interruption.] I hear the shadow Secretary of State shouting, “Rigged.” The only thing that was rigged was the way that he got on to the Front Bench to be the Opposition spokesman.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

As someone who accepted the rise in his own pension age to 68 in 2007 on the basis of the evidence presented by the Labour party, it has been disappointing to hear the tenor of the Opposition’s comments today. Will the Secretary of State reassure me that the review will be independent and that it will take into account factors across the country, not just in London and the south-east, that affect life expectancy? Will he assure me that we will seek to have constructive engagement with the Opposition? If we cannot get it with the shadow Secretary of State, perhaps we should try to get it with the shadow Pensions Minister instead.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The important thing is that there is an independent review and that we own up to the decisions that we have to take. I wish the Opposition would accept that they took decisions about the state pension age. They have collective amnesia about anything that happened not just pre-2010, but apparently pre-2015. I expect that they will shortly forget everything pre-2016 and that it will go on like that. They should wake up, smell the coffee and get on with being an Opposition in the hope of being in government, not perpetually in opposition.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

The Government have made a commitment to continue to publish the data annually. They have been very clear about that fact. When it comes to the relationship between those measurements and the eradication of child poverty, under the previous Labour Government the number of households where nobody worked doubled and in-work poverty increased: the Government missed their child poverty target by 600,000.

The Bill, as passed by this House, does not redefine poverty to exclude income, as some of its opponents often say. That argument assumes that measuring income is an effective, helpful or comprehensive way of measuring poverty in the first place. It is, in fact, none of those things. In that respect, the 2010 Act was flawed in its approach. The current income measures enshrined in the Act show that the number of children in relative poverty can actually go down in a recession and up in times of growth. That is simply perverse. Furthermore, the measures incentivise what is often known as a “poverty plus a pound” approach, where families can seemingly be moved out of poverty without any change whatever in the underlying factors that got them into the position of low income in the first place. The Act is simply not doing what it is intended to do.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

It is interesting to hear my hon. Friend’s points. Does he agree that under current measures the only way completely to eliminate relative poverty would be to collapse the economy completely and make absolutely everyone poor?

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

It sounds like my hon. Friend has been reading the Labour party’s manifesto. The 2010 Act is flawed, and in seeking, in effect, to reinstate its provisions, the Lords amendments are similarly found wanting.

Let us look at what the Bill, as passed by this House, actually does in its current format and why their lordships’ amendments are not in my estimation constructive in seeking to reverse these measures. The Bill enshrines in legislation the Government’s commitment to end child poverty and to improve children’s life chances. It focuses on the actions that we know will make the biggest difference to the life chances of children and young people—both now and in the future. We need measures that drive the right action to tackle the root causes of poverty rather than just tackling the symptoms. That is why the Bill introduces the new life chances measures of worklessness and educational attainment.

The Government’s policies in targeting life chances importantly look at outcomes, not inputs—it is a comprehensive approach—recognising that the real route out of poverty is through work, not welfare. Some 74% of previously less well-off, workless families who found work have escaped “the poverty trap”, if one can use that phrase.

The Bill seeks to replace the wholly arbitrary measure that a household is in poverty if its income is below 60% of the median wage. That is totally arbitrary. In a recession, with all households’ income tending to reduce, it gives the completely false impression that fewer households are in poverty because their relative income is seen to rise. It is totally perverse—a recession leading to less poverty. The figures simply do not add up. It is a discredited system, and it did nothing under the previous Government to tackle the underlying root cause of childhood poverty. I therefore submit that these amendments are wrong to try to reinstate that old discredited system. It beggars belief that some people believe that we can base our strategy for improving children’s life chances on income measures that would suggest that the last recession somehow caused a significant fall in child poverty. Of course we should not do so, but that would be the effect of the Lords amendments if this House accepts them.

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[Helen Goodman]

I begin by addressing amendment 1. The Labour Government had four poverty measures when we took through the Child Poverty Act 2010—absolute, relative and persistent poverty and material deprivation. We measured all of them. Between 1997 and 2010 we cut the number of children living in relative poverty by 1 million, and the number of children living in absolute poverty by 2 million. There is nothing arbitrary about this. It is important to have those measures because they are used across the OECD. That enables us to compare our performance with that of the other countries that UNICEF studies.

Ministers want to abandon those targets because they intend to freeze benefits and cut child tax credits if there are more than three, four or five children in a family. Those measures will increase the number of children living in poverty. Because they do not want that to be evident to the whole world, they do not want to use the targets. We should not let them off the hook.

We all think life chances matter. We are all interested in the correlations between the kind of childhood people have and what happens to them later in life. No one is saying that we do not want to measure those things, but I remind the House that not being able to go on a school trip, never having a holiday, not having a birthday party—these things matter in themselves because children are not human becomings, but human beings. Childhood is a part of life. The quality of life in the early years matters just as much as it matters what our lives are like or what the quality of our parents’ life is like.

On amendments 8 and 9, I want to bring into the House the voice of the people affected. Those in the ESA support group are not people who are not working out of perversity or because they have not done the arithmetic and do not know what the incentives are. They are not in work because the jobs do not exist, or because of the barriers to work. They may have problems with transport, they may be stressed, they may be exhausted or they may be struggling against extremely difficult odds. In my constituency there are 860 people in the ESA work-related activity group. I get letters from them and have meetings with them every single week.

This week I heard from a woman who wrote:

“My husband…has been in receipt of ESA-Support Group benefit…for some considerable time due to long standing health problems of both a physical and psychological nature. He has recently had to resubmit the…questionnaire and we have just had notification that he has been placed in the Support Group but this will only be until November…His last award was for three years.

Considering the…letter from the GP”—

and the psychologist—

“we can’t believe the DWP think it is in any way appropriate to put my husband through this process twice within the same year…He will now spend…months worrying and becoming increasingly anxious about having to face the process again”.

She adds that he is “extremely vulnerable”. Treating this group of people in that way is not helpful. Making them poorer, not helping them to heat their homes or to eat properly, and making them anxious about whether they can pay their rent is not helpful.

The week before I received that letter, I had a letter from another constituent, who said:

“I’m petrified. Atos did my ESA medical...yet they still lied. I’d told them my disabilities and…they didn’t mention any of them…I was called by a woman from the DWP who told me my ESA was cancelled. She seemed happy (really happy) to gloat about this…I had to live on my 9 year old daughter’s £20 child benefit and child tax credit for 4 weeks. It takes a split second to stop benefits but 4 weeks to reinstate.”

She has now been told she must provide her own medical records, which will cost £500 because doctors are charging to provide them. She continues:

“I can’t afford this on £102 a week…I’ve not slept in ages”.

She adds that she has “cried a lot” because she knows what will happen to her.

That is the situation people are already in, and we absolutely cannot see them pushed down even further. I appeal to the Minister’s better nature. I appeal to her to think again about amendments 8 and 9.

[Kevin Foster]

It has been an interesting debate so far. The Opposition contribution that was of most interest to me was probably that of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), and it is a pity that others did not take a lead from him.

Let me start with the measures of child poverty. Using measures of relative income as the main driver can have some bizarre impacts. For example, we focus on those just under the line, not those who are most in need or most desperate, and we try to get them over the line to make the numbers work. As I touched on in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones), that approach can inspire the view that making the whole of society poorer will end relative poverty, even though no one is better off. As we heard, the bizarre outcome is that a recession is, in theory, the best news when it comes to reducing child poverty, whereas, in a boom, things would be the other way round.

That is why it is right to focus on creating real life chances. I speak as someone whose mother grew up on a council estate and whose father worked for 37 years in Devonport dockyard—he had to work hard with his hands to get what he could for his family. That is important: this is about social mobility and achievements such as those.

A Scottish National party Member noted in an intervention that it makes sense to measure these things not just at 16, but all the way through education. There is perhaps more work to be done, therefore, and I look forward to what the taskforce says, but it is important to look at what our education system turns out at the end of the day. One example that has been given is that, a few years back, more children came out of Eton with three As at A-level, allowing them to get to top universities, than came out of the entire cohort of children on free school meals in England. That really is a thought-provoking point. We may disagree about how best to tackle it, but it is certainly no great compliment to our system.

Employers with jobs want people with skills. They want to employ people and to put them into high-paid job. However, they find that people just do not have the skills or the ability to take those jobs up. That is where educational outcomes have an impact on life outcomes and on whether people stay in poverty. If people do not have the skills to move into employment, that opportunity is not there. That is why looking at the life chances side is so important in tackling poverty and preventing people from being locked into a cycle, with parents being in a low-paid job, children going into a low-paid job and grand-children going into a low-paid job.

Under-occupancy Penalty

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

Everyone in the House recognises the valuable role that carers play in society. There is an opportunity to provide discretionary housing payments when that is appropriate, but where was the hon. Lady when such a system was introduced in the private sector? Why did we not hear the argument that there should be exemptions for carers in the private sector? It is one rule then and one rule now.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that a list of strict criteria would undermine the whole point of having discretionary housing payments in the system? Does he also agree that it is interesting to hear the false anger of Labour Members, given that their party introduced this system for tenants on housing benefit in the private sector?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend, who addresses the point that such payments allow for discretion and mean that there can be a multi-agency approach to help individuals according to their needs. People do not neatly fall into a convenient box whereby society provides support. Discretion and flexibility are needed to do the right thing.

Access to Jobs: Disabled People

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Drummond]

We have had examples of that in Portsmouth too. It is extremely important, as with any job fair, that people know exactly what opportunities are out there.

It is equally important that others in the workplace understand the needs of disabled workers and what disabled workers do not need. There is a difference between treating someone with respect and perhaps unintentionally adopting patronising attitudes. Organisations such as the Beneficial Foundation offer in-role support to both the disabled employee and their colleagues, ensuring that everyone makes the most of the opportunity.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas) on securing the debate. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to encourage people to look not at a person’s disability but their ability, to ensure they can bring that out?

[Mrs Drummond]

Yes, and if more organisations did that, many more people with disabilities would be employed. That is a message we must put out.

Local organisations are able to develop strong links with businesses and respond both quickly and flexibly. We know that there is still a big challenge to ensure that the disabled are able to take advantage of opportunities. The Access to Work programme helps a large number of people to overcome their physical disabilities in the workplace, but given our focus on achieving parity of esteem for those with non-physical conditions, I am pleased to see that Access to Work is also helping a growing number of people—the number has doubled since 2007—with dyslexia, learning difficulties or mental health conditions.

Everyone will welcome the Prime Minister’s speech yesterday on opening up opportunities across society. I am pleased that the state is standing up for its responsibilities as an enabler and not just a provider.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

In relation to this trial, has the Minister noticed today’s report in the Western Morning News, which says that food bank usage has dropped by 25% in Devon and Cornwall? Does he agree with the Trussell Trust that that is

“a sign that economic recovery is giving more people access to secure work”?

[Mr Vara]

It is always good to have external endorsement of what the Government are doing. That is just clear evidence that the Government’s long-term plan is working.