Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to pay tribute to Leonard Cheshire. It has launched a number of interesting and effective initiatives, which are very much part of our Work and Health programme.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

A constituent suffering from mental health problems who came to my surgery at the weekend has been denied employment and support allowance. Her sister came with her to tell me that my constituent had attempted suicide four days earlier. What is the Department going to do to identify and help vulnerable people like her?

[Penny Mordaunt]

In recent years the Department has introduced a number of measures to ensure that those who carry out assessments for either personal independence payments or ESA have had training so that they can recognise a mental health condition and flag up that condition or any concerns they may have. However, the work capability assessment itself is not working. It was introduced by the Labour party—[Interruption]—with the best intentions, but it has elements that do not work. Given the opportunities that will result from the work and health road map, I hope that Labour will work with us to reform those elements.

Personal Independence Payments

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

As I am sure the hon. Lady knows, we redo the assessment guide on a regular basis, and the next changes will be available in the next couple of months. It is freely available on the internet for hon. Members to view. It is not some secret guide that goes out to assessors from the Department; all the guidance is public.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Only last week, I was contacted by a constituent who has been refused PIP despite having previously been in receipt of DLA. She managed to get to her assessment only because her daughter took her and supported her through it. However, the physiotherapist who did the assessment said that her mental health issues were insignificant because she had managed to attend and to communicate with him. Does the Secretary of State agree that for the process to be fair, the person doing the assessment should, as a bare minimum, be qualified in the appropriate medical specialty?

[Damian Green]

It is obviously impossible to generalise from one case, but if the hon. Lady wants me to look at that case, I will be happy to do so. We are determined to maintain the highest levels of professionalism among the healthcare professionals who do the assessments.

Housing Benefits (18 to 21-year-olds)

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

The Government included this as a manifesto commitment, and we are determined to deliver it.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

The Minister talks about an even playing field. If she is so confident that the policy is fair, why will she not publish the impact assessment? What does she have to hide?

[Caroline Nokes]

There is absolutely nothing to hide. I have considered my public sector equality duty carefully. As I said, the assessment was shared with the Social Security Advisory Committee, which chose not to consult on this.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

The goal is clearly swift, accurate and admin-lite assessments. Good progress has already been made in many areas—for example, reducing the average time it takes for a claim from point of registration to decision by more than three quarters from over 40 weeks to 10 weeks as of October last year—but there is more to do. One reason we have set up the service user panels is that it is incredibly important to be aware that, while things may be generally going well, there are certain hotspot areas where they are not, and identifying those in real time is critical—but there are many other things in the PIP improvement plan as well.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Yet again, one of my constituents has been to see me about a PIP assessment that has led to her Motability vehicle being taken away from her. She is currently appealing, and I have written to the Minister about the case. What reassurance can she give me and my constituent that this vehicle, which she needs, will be returned to her?

[Penny Mordaunt]

There are 70,000 more people making use of the Motability scheme than there were in 2010. The hon. Lady will know that there are improvements that we want to make to the Motability scheme. We have been working very closely with that independent organisation; we are now attending its board meetings and are able to work much more strategically. I have spoken at length, so I will not repeat it, about the areas where we wish to see better customer service. We hope to be able to make some announcements shortly.

State Pension Age: Women

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, and I go back to my original point: after all this time, all this activity, all the warnings, and all the stories of hardship, we are still no further forward. When will this Government wake up to the fact that pensions are not a benefit? The hon. Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Tom Elliott) described them as a promise. They are not a promise; they are a social contract, which has been cruelly and thoughtlessly broken. It is time for the Government to step up and take responsibility for the way in which this matter has been mishandled over a number of years, and stop dragging this misery out for the women caught up in this injustice.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Patricia Gibson]

I will not—I am very conscious that other people want to speak, so I apologise to the hon. Lady.

Around 2.6 million women have been affected by these changes, and in Scotland, the number of women affected is 243,900. On behalf of the Scottish National party, Landman Economics analysed the costs and distributional impacts of potential changes to pension arrangements for women born in the 1950s who are losing out, in the context of the surplus in the national insurance fund, which is projected to stand at around £30 billion at the end of 2017-18 according to the Government’s own figures. With that surplus now forecast to be larger than it was before, the £7.9 billion that it will cost to give those women relief and a delay in the rise of their pension age is very much affordable.

The Landman report costed a return to the Pensions Act 1995 by immediately restoring the timetable in that Act, raising the pension age for women from 63 in March 2016 to 65 by April 2020, with no further increase to 66 until the mid-2020s. That is the second most expensive option, costing about £7.9 billion over five years. That cost is not trivial, but as we have heard today, it is not prohibitively expensive either in the context of other Government spending plans. It has the merit of completely eliminating the problem of an accelerated increase in pension ages for women born in the 1950s by returning to a timetable set out two decades ago, giving women much more time—necessary time—to adapt to the changes. It would then be possible to increase women’s pension age to 66 at some later point in the 2020s. That measure has the benefit of being progressive and reducing relative and absolute pensioner poverty.

The UK Government’s position, even after all the mistakes in the process have been laid bare for all to see, has been characterised by intransigence and wilful stubbornness. It is time to do what is right, fair and just. It is time for the Government to stop telling us that they have no choice. It is time to make the right choices, and it is time for justice for the WASPI women.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I thank the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) for securing it and for giving us all a chance to speak. It was a pleasure to join him and others in going to the Backbench Business Committee—this debate is the result of a combined request from many of us here in the Chamber. It is good to see a goodly number of Opposition Members, although there are perhaps not so many Government Members.

I welcome this debate, which was secured with a great work ethic. If people do not work, they do not eat. If people pay their dues, they reap what they sow. That is the premise on which an entire generation was raised, but I have been told that the dues have been uplifted and that, for some, the harvest is not due for another three and a half years, so they have to keep slogging on.

That might seem okay. What is three and a half years in the grand scheme of things? It is not that long. I want the House to consider a lady who left school at 14, as was then permissible, to work in a local sewing factory. She worked there for the next 35 years, until the factory was closed and relocated abroad. With no education and no skills, she took on a job cleaning the floors of schools and buildings, which she has done on her hands and knees for the past 11 years. For that lady to wait another three and a half years is not a small thing—it is more years of an aching back, fingers that remain bent and knees that are worn away.

[Liz McInnes]

I have a constituent who describes herself as “June ’54 and furious.” One source of her fury, apart from having to wait for her pension, is that she is having to wait for her entitlement to winter fuel allowance and a bus pass. We need to remember that it is not just about pensions; it is about things that will help these women in their declining years as their health declines. Small things are adding to my constituent’s fury.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Lady is very clear. Many of my constituents are equally furious. They might not have been born in June ’54, but they are equally furious. The lady she mentions and the lady I spoke about, who worked for 35 years in a sewing factory and 11 years in a school, are representative of ladies across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue. We are doing extensive work in this area, recognising the combined spending power of £212 billion for those with disabilities. We are doing particular work with my colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to make cultural and music venues accessible. Attitude is Everything is a fantastic charity. A task group is looking with leading operators at restaurants, and good progress has been made with sports facilities, particularly with the premier league.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

T6. The Minister dismisses the six suggestions of my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for transitional arrangements as somehow mathematically challenged—or perhaps it was challenging. This issue is about fairness, however, and about establishing a fair transitional arrangement for the WASPI women. Has the Minister actually costed any of the six suggestions, or has he just dismissed them all out of hand?

[Mr Vara]

Yes, we have costed them, and a response to a freedom of information request is coming out today. When the hon. Lady talks about fairness and says that there should be transitional arrangements, I simply ask her to look back at Hansard for the year 2011, where she will find that on Second Reading, the then Secretary of State who is the current Secretary of State said that he would go away and consider—and he did. Four months later, transitional arrangements were implemented. They cost £1.1 billion and a reduction was made to the period from two years to 18 months, so transitional arrangements have been put in place.

State Pension Age

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is exactly the flow of timings at the moment. Sir John Cridland has to consider that, and we want him to look at making sure that such a process happens. We want people to have plenty of notice, and I know recommendations have been made about that. As I said earlier, he will look at that under his terms of reference, as will the next review and so on. I would simply say to my hon. Friend that if he has an issue, he should put it to the review.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State claims to be an optimist, but I see precious little to be optimistic about. We have had the stock Government response that, in raising any concerns, we are scaremongering. Does the Secretary of State agree that many of my constituents will, because of regional variations in life expectancy, die before they receive their state pension and have an absolute right to be scared?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady takes that view. We have rising life expectancy. We have people earning more in jobs. We have more people in work. We have more people saving, and preparing for their retirement, than ever before. We have a pension coming in that means they will not get means-tested. I have to say that I am optimistic on those grounds. I do not, however, blame her for being pessimistic because if I was sitting on the Labour Benches today, I would be really pessimistic.

Under-occupancy Penalty

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. If it were, I would have ruled thus, and it was not, so I did not—we will leave it at that. I am always grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his advice, even if it is proffered from a sedentary position but, in this instance, it suffers from the material disadvantage of being wrong.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

I just want to put a simple question asked by Mr Paul Rutherford himself: why are the Government spending taxpayers’ money on an appeal?

[Justin Tomlinson]

Because we want to ensure that those who are vulnerable get the right support.

Child Poverty

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Peter Dowd]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. As I said earlier, even the Prime Minister accepts that there is relative poverty, and all the jiggery-pokery with definitions is not going to make that untrue.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the Child Poverty Action Group has stated that it costs £29 billion a year to respond to the issues caused by child poverty? CPAG says that it is a false economy to drive up child poverty and that this Government should be considering measures to drive it down.

[Peter Dowd]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She has stolen my thunder—I will refer to that figure later—but she makes an absolutely valid point.

The Government’s January 2014 evidence review of the drivers of poverty found that a lack of sufficient income from parental employment, not just worklessness, is the most important obstacle to getting children out of poverty. Of course, to pick up on what my hon. Friend said, the Government say that a high-skilled, high-wage economy will lift family incomes—ergo, poverty will fade away. In the world where many of my constituents live, it does not quite work like that. I am afraid that even combined with increased personal tax allowances, the increase in the minimum wage, or whatever the Government want to call it—another redefinition—does not go far enough to alleviate child poverty to any substantial degree.

There can be no doubt that child poverty is rising and that it has an effect on educational outcomes, health outcomes and job prospects in the longer term. Independent projections from the Institute for Fiscal Studies indicate that, as has been mentioned, child poverty is beginning to rise. Research by End Child Poverty identified that 4.1 million families and 7.7 million children have been affected by below-inflation rises in both child benefit and child tax credit over the past few years. Interestingly, poverty of aspiration by the Government in policy terms begets financial poverty, because it restricts the use of the very tools that could tackle the drivers of poverty.

In my constituency, child poverty in one ward has reached 40%. Across the constituency, it is around 30%. In other words, almost 7,000 children in my constituency live in poverty. That cannot be right. Remembering the point I made earlier about the number of children in working families who still live in poverty, youth unemployment hovers between 8% and 9% and adult unemployment at about 7%. The median wage is £470, below the national median level of £520 and the regional level of £480. What message is that sending to our children: “Start your life in poverty; get a job on low wages; and you’ll still be in poverty—and so, in turn, will your children.”? It is hardly the most encouraging of straplines for young people.

In 2015, £7 million in early intervention funding was allocated to Sefton Council, in whose area my constituency sits. That is a reduction of £10 million since 2010 in early intervention, the very thing we should be getting to grips with. How can that funding cut help alleviate child poverty? Problem debt in Bootle is £12.5 million. The Children’s Society suggests:

“Too often, when families are struggling with repayments, the response from creditors is unhelpful…a breathing space scheme”

would give

“struggling families an extended period of protection from default charges, mounting interest, collections and enforcement action”,

enabling them to seek advice and preventing them from falling deeper into the debt trap. That is a practical suggestion.

I believe that my constituency is not an outlier in statistical terms; it is typical of many areas, both rural and urban. It is lazy to suggest that people are shirkers. Levels of child poverty in this country are dreadful. They are a blot on the integrity of our society. The Government cannot solve all the problems, nor does anyone expect them to, but poverty costs money. As my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) said earlier, the cost to the UK of poverty is reckoned by one assessment at about £29 billion pounds: almost £6 billion in lost tax, £15 billion for extra spending on services to deal with the consequences of poverty and £8.5 billion in lost earnings to individuals. What a waste! Surely, even forgetting the human stories and experiences behind those figures, the statistics and costs are enough to make any Government reconsider their strategy for dealing with the child poverty that our country faces.

As Nelson Mandela said, standing just yards away from here while he addressed Parliament,

“poverty is not natural. It is man-made, and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.”

I have managed to agree with the Prime Minister and Nelson Mandela in one fell swoop, which does not happen very often.

--- Later in debate ---

[Priti Patel]

I completely reject that assertion for many reasons, and I do not have the time now to have the full debates that we had in Committee; please forgive me, Mr Howarth.

This process is not about moving goalposts or changing definitions; it is about making a fundamental review of the approach that we take. I will not be tempted by the hon. Member for Bootle, who basically said that I would inevitably regale Members with what happened under Labour. However, this process is a fundamental shift in the strategy and the approach that are being taken. The approach is a holistic one, looking at the root causes and recognising that we have to address, for example, the number of workless households and the causes of worklessness, and ask why households have been workless in the past, and recognising that having work in households changes the future outcome for children and of course redefines child poverty and what it means to households.

We should also recognise in this debate that work plays a very important role in addressing the issue of poverty, including child poverty, because we know that work is the best route out of poverty. Evidence has shown that nearly three quarters of poor workless families who have found employment have escaped poverty. So these are some of the crucial underlying factors that we have to address, and of course work—

[Liz McInnes]

Will the Minister give way?

[Priti Patel]

I will give way just one more time, because there are other points that I want to make.

[Liz McInnes]

I thank the Minister and I will ask a brief question. If work is the route out of poverty, can she explain why two thirds of those who are defined as being in child poverty are in working households?

Amendment of the Law

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Last week, we had the Budget announcement and the eclipse. One plunged the nation into darkness and the other one was a rare and important astronomical event. [Interruption.] I got one laugh, thank you.

The Chancellor claimed that Britain was walking tall again, giving the impression that our economy was booming, that well-paid jobs were being created, and that voters were better off now than they has in 2010. But are voters really better off, because that is not what they are telling me in Heywood and Middleton?

Many of my constituents work in the public sector where they have seen their pay frozen since 2010 or have been subjected to below-inflation pay rises. Some NHS workers have seen their pay fall by as much as 30% through the withdrawal of recruitment and retention premiums and reductions in out-of-hours pay on top of flatlining basic wages, not to mention additional pension contributions.

[Ms Gisela Stuart]

At the same time as people on regular employment contracts are undermined, our hospitals are spending extraordinary sums on agency payments, destabilising the labour market even more.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz McInnes]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about the amount of money NHS trusts are having to pay for agency workers. It is scandalous that NHS staff are being made redundant and the spaces created are having to be filled by agency workers. The problem is also caused by the stress that is now caused to NHS staff, as so many NHS staff are off sick with stress that yet again the gaps are having to be filled by agency workers.

To get back to Heywood and Middleton, none of my constituents is coming to see me to tell me how much better off they are now than they were in 2010—quite the opposite, in fact. As TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said,

“The Chancellor’s Britain, where happy people skip to their secure jobs to celebrate their rising living standards, is not one that many will recognise.”

Last week, the Prime Minister was falling over himself to tell me that the claimant count in Heywood and Middleton was down, in answer to a question I had not asked. The reality that he does not see is that constituents come to see me in dire financial straits because of benefits sanctions when their benefits are withdrawn for minor reasons, such as being a few minutes late for an interview. That leaves them penniless and forced to seek help from one of the biggest growth industries under this Government—food banks. Yes, the food banks do wonderful work and I for one am very grateful that so many people give freely of their time and energy to help those less fortunate than themselves, but I have yet to talk to a single volunteer at a food bank who does not express regret that such a thing should have to exist.

Cuts to taxes on savings do not mean much when there is no money to save. In my constituency, 40% of local workers are paid less than the living wage, with women workers particularly badly affected. Sadly, my constituency features in the top 10 worst areas of the UK for payment of the living wage. When I asked the Prime Minister about those figures he responded on the subject of the minimum wage, yet the minimum wage has risen by just 70p under this Government and is set to rise by 20p in October. Those meagre sums will go nowhere near far enough to meet the Government’s objective of ending in-work poverty.

Enforcement of the minimum wage is lacking in resources and the HMRC team responsible comprises fewer than 200 staff across the whole country. At least 100 more national minimum wage compliance officers are needed to ensure that workers get what they are due. Although workers have an alternative means of pursuing the minimum wage by applying to a tribunal, the imposition of fees for applications to employment tribunals mean that workers who might have taken that route will approach HMRC instead, generating yet more work for an already under-resourced work force.

Today, we have the evidence of five years of Tory-led austerity, with wages driven down, damaged public services and devastated lives. In the Budget, the Chancellor has reminded us that he is either incapable of or uninterested in building an economy that works for the good of all. Perhaps only the cuts to beer, cider and spirits will be of comfort to public sector workers, who might want to drown their sorrows at the prospect of even more cuts in their living standards to come.