Social Security Benefits

Lee Dillon Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

I would like to acknowledge the very sobering and comprehensive speech given by the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams). This is disturbing, and one would hope that our DWP, and our Government as a whole, would take a trauma-informed approach to dealing with our communities, as I believe that would stand us in good stead.

I broadly welcome the upratings in the proposals before us for both benefits and pensions, but I will focus first on pensions. Sadly, the Labour Government inherited a system under which, for the last 10 years, we have seen an increase in pensioner poverty. Two million pensioners remain in poverty, and 1 million are on the edge of poverty, and one would have hoped that a Labour Government wanting to cut the number in half and promoting social justice would have driven such an agenda harder in their first seven months in power. The cut to the winter fuel allowance has exacerbated this situation. The hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger) highlighted the backlogs and rightly said that they are totally unacceptable. The reality is that we are seeing pensioner poverty.

Again, we know that women are more likely to be victims of poverty, yet the WASPI women have in effect been victims of a decision of this Government. It was really pleasing that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions welcomed the report, acknowledged it and apologised, but, sadly, she did not actually action the report. That gives me great displeasure, as well as many other people across the United Kingdom.

In evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee, the ombudsman suggested that there is usually a bit of a conversation between the ombudsman and the Government about what an acceptable system or approach to compensation would be. Sadly, however, that never happened as far as the WASPI women are concerned, which is disturbing, and I want to understand why. Why was there the breakdown in communication between the ombudsman and the previous Conservative Government? I am looking to explore that with the ombudsman in another way.

On pensions, I would also like to highlight the housing issues. I served my community for 30 years as a councillor, and I am therefore very alive to some of the challenges people face. Housing is a massive issue, and it is disturbing that, when reflecting on pensions, the cost of housing is rarely taken into account. In 1979, 35% of our housing stock was social rented housing. That figure is now down to 17% across the United Kingdom, and in my constituency of Torbay it is as low as 7%. This means that people, whether pensioners or those on other benefits, in constituencies such as mine where there is a lack of social rented housing are particularly hard-hit by that lack of support; they will have to take money away from putting food on the table in order to pay the rent. It is therefore disappointing that the local housing allowance has not been enhanced in this round. Almost 1 million children across the United Kingdom will be living in households that have this gap between their benefits and the cost of their accommodation and they will be driven even further into poverty.

On universal credit, colleagues have already mentioned the recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report which highlighted that couples face a £55 a week gap between covering the basics and what they actually receive. That is a little over £2,800 a year, so people are being driven even deeper into poverty just around the basics on their universal credit offer.

Finally, on the carer’s allowance scandal, while we Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s engagement and the review that is taking place, unanswered questions remain. We need to make sure this is addressed at pace to support people, because 136,000 people—the equivalent of the population of West Bromwich—are affected, owing £250 million. They fell foul of a system where people only need to earn £1 more a week and they do not then owe £52, they owe £4,200—tapers need to be implemented.

One of the real challenges we face is that the DWP service is, sadly, broken. It is not fit for purpose and needs redesigning. I have nothing but utter respect for the Secretary of State on this issue, and instead of driving new agendas we need to lift the bonnet and redesign the system, get it for purpose and, most importantly, co-design it with people who are disabled or benefit users, so that it can actually support them.

[Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech about those most in need of benefits and the difference they can make. He spoke about the WASPI women and about children in poverty, but does he agree that veterans could also be helped out more by the DWP, such as by the Government backing the Royal British Legion “Credit their Service” campaign to change legislation so that military compensation is not classed as income when calculating means-tested benefits? Does my hon. Gentleman agree that that group would benefit from such a change?

[Steve Darling]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight that. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) and I are awaiting a meeting with the Minister to explore that very issue and the RBL’s campaign.

To conclude, I lived through a world of broken children’s services in Torbay, but we rolled our sleeves up, sorted it out and moved from failing to good within two years by getting the right people in place, making sure systems were sorted out and driving culture change. We need that co-design with people who use the system so we can get the DWP sorted as well.

[Dan Tomlinson (Chipping Barnet) (Lab)]

First, I echo the comments of others in praising the Minister for his work on this issue over decades in this place. I saw it before becoming a Member of Parliament during my time working in the charity sector at the Resolution Foundation and most recently at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. I was working on these issues, and I always knew then that we had a friend in Parliament who cared deeply about the welfare system and about the needs of people receiving benefits and support from the state, and who also, like me, wants to see more people being supported to move into employment. Even though I am not going to focus on that topic today as I want to talk about pensions, I do want to put on record my thanks for his service, and I am glad to see him as a Minister.

I want to start by talking about an institution that is not often discussed in this place but that is crucial to all of our lives and shapes a lot of politics even though we do not remark on it too much: the family. That is the institution that almost all of us are closest to and that shapes so much of the way we see the world. It is important that we as policymakers—as people sitting here in the House of Commons—do not just think of individuals as people on their own who are separate from one another and that we instead remember that we all exist in families. If we look at someone’s biography online, it might say they are a father and a husband, because our families are a big part of our identities. We would do well to remember that.

Sometimes our politics and our media might want to push us into discussing pensions in a way that promotes the salience of a war between the generations, but nothing could be further from the truth.

[Mr Dillon]

The hon. Gentleman talks about the importance of family and I could not agree more, but does he also agree that a family is a unit designed by that family and an arbitrary limit of a two-child benefit cap does nothing to protect that family unit if they have more than two children?

[Dan Tomlinson]

I grew up in poverty. We had no money and lived in social housing. I had free school meals throughout my childhood, and the three of us were in emergency and temporary accommodation as well. And I know the benefit system was there for my mum and for us, and I have confidence that this Government will make the decisions that we need to make to ensure that our welfare system is there for families like the one I grew up in. I know a review is looking at universal credit and the welfare system, and I look forward to it reporting in the months ahead. This is a really important issue, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising it.

On families and the state pension, often people want to pit the young and the old against one another, but the evidence shows that young people are one of the most supportive groups for the increase in state pension. That is in part because we—I still call myself young now, in my early 30s—know and have seen throughout our lives how much people who are retired, such as our grandparents or older people we know in the community, have contributed to our lives and our families and also the lives of our communities. Also, to put on my economist’s hat, increases in the state pension and support for the triple lock, which we on this side of the House steadfastly support, will benefit young people the most because an extra few pence on the state pension today means an extra few pounds—or tens of pounds or, depending on which generation we are talking about, hundreds of pounds—in the future because of the way these things compound over time. It is really important we continue to support the state pension and the triple lock.