UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights

Debate between Liz McInnes and Justin Tomlinson

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

The hon. Lady has just used one of the statistics. There is cross-party work on looking at alternatives. We are very interested to see if there is a way we can find statistics that we can all agree on. I think that is one area on which we do all agree.

The richest fifth are £800 less well-off under this Government. We are rightly targeting support at those who are most in need. Household incomes have never been higher and income inequality has fallen, having risen under the last Labour Government.

Many Members referred to food banks. Food affordability, the ability to afford a meal, has almost halved in the last five years. It is down to 5.4%. That is 2.5% lower than the EU average. There is still more to do in that area, which is why I am committed to working a lot more closely with the food bank network in this country. For a variety of reasons, some people may be going to food banks who should be receiving formal support. I want to make it as easy as possible to identify, to refer them and to get them back in to the system, so they can receive the full support.

[Liz McInnes]

indicated dissent.

[Justin Tomlinson]

The hon. Lady is shaking her head. I do not understand why anybody would not want to do everything within their power to identify vulnerable people in society and give them the support we want to give to them. The very heart of the question raised by the hon. Member for South Shields is: is there a will from the Government? There absolutely is—from me and right through the Government.

We are going to keep on working with all stakeholders and partnership organisations to ensure that those in most need in society receive the support that they should. We are also looking at homelessness. Rightly, we have put in an additional £1.2 billion, building on the principles of the duty to refer. We have some exciting pilots: the Newcastle trailblazer; partnership working led by Crisis, which has had some really positive findings; and the Housing First initiatives in Manchester, Liverpool and the west midlands. Again, they are on the principles of identifying, referring and supporting. There are exciting developments from those pilots and they will go to the heart of future roll-out support.

The key for me, with my individual role in the Department, is sharpening up the tailored support, whether for care leavers, ex-offenders or the parental conflict programme, and ensuring that those who need the extra support that many of us in our lives have been able to take for granted are given it to unlock everybody’s potential. Some of the areas I felt were missing from the report related to education attainment to unlock people’s potential. I went to a school that was at the bottom of the league tables and two of my best friends went to prison. It is absolutely key that we ensure that, regardless of people’s background, they are given the maximum opportunity to succeed. I wholeheartedly support the significant improvements we are making in education.

ESA: People with Motor Neurone Disease

Debate between Liz McInnes and Justin Tomlinson

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Justin Tomlinson]

That is the absolute expectation. In next week’s meeting we will look at how this is working in practice, whether there are things we need to listen to and go further on, particularly in the training, with the health professionals and assessors in there, but as we have demonstrated since 2010, there have been significant changes. Since 2010, over 100 recommendations have been made, following the independent reviews published by Professor Malcolm Harrington and Dr Paul Litchfield. That is making the assessment process more robust, reliable and sympathetic—actually understanding the multiple challenges people face. One of the most important improvements has been the speed increase, to ensure that we can get people on to the maximum support at the earliest opportunity, rather than leaving people under the old legacy system, not on the highest level of support, which they should be entitled to, recognising that people have enough challenges at home, so we need a more responsive system.

It is important to reiterate that the current assessment process provides a fast-track service for new claims for anyone with a terminal illness who has less than six months to live. Anyone with motor neurone disease who meets that criterion would be guaranteed entitlement to benefit, with claims dealt with sensitively, without a face-to-face assessment and under a fast-track process.

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

I attended the all-party parliamentary group on motor neurone disease this week. There was a doctor there who treats MND patients. He said that it was impossible to put a time limit on how long a person with MND had to live, so the six-month limit makes no sense medically whatsoever.

[Justin Tomlinson]

This is guided by medical evidence. There is continuing work looking to review this. Health professionals and medical experts helped to shape the definition. I accept that it can be difficult. That is why we continue to work with the MNDA and all the organisations who represent their members, to look at what works. Six months is traditionally what is seen. At that point, when a GP says that they believe—it is not an exact science—that that is the point, the assessment will be fast-tracked within 48 hours.

We recognise that there is more to do. We are committed to assessing people with health conditions and disabilities fairly and accurately, while taking a personalised approach, because not everybody fits neatly into a box. We consulted on the work capability assessment reform in the Green Paper published in October 2016. Although there was widespread support for reform, there was not clear consensus from the stakeholders on how it should work. That comes to the point the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) just made.

To ensure we get the reform right, we are currently focusing on testing new approaches to build our evidence base. We are also working with external stakeholders to give them the opportunity to inform changes and provide their priorities for future reform. That is exactly why MNDA is encouraged—it is very good at this—to work constructively and proactively with the Government as a whole, and specifically with the Minister, who is passionate about this.

In conclusion, I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby for raising such an important topic. I thank the cross-party MPs for their support. They have taken the time to highlight their own experiences on behalf of their constituents. We recognise that this is incredibly important. It is shaping the work the Government do. As a newly-returned Minister to the DWP, I look forward to supporting future improvements.

Question put and agreed to.

Soft Drinks Industry Levy: Funding for Sport in Schools

Debate between Liz McInnes and Justin Tomlinson

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the allocation of funding from the soft drinks industry levy for sport in schools.

May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David? This is a subject that I am passionate about. Since becoming an MP, I have spoken in a number of debates on the power of sport to influence good behaviour, create opportunities and provide enjoyment. I must stress that the purpose of the debate is to focus not on whether we are right or wrong to have a sugar tax, but on how we should spend the levy, now that the decision has been taken. With a £500 million pot, that is a significant amount of money that can make a genuine difference.

I must thank all the organisations that have contacted me in recent days ahead of the debate, including: the Sports and Recreation Alliance, which is understandably keen to see sporting opportunities increase; Sustrans, which wants to see more funding for walking and cycling programmes to and from school; Youth Sport Trust, which has also focused on the sports element and the link between greater physical activity and greater academic performance, which I know the Minister for School Standards will welcome; and ukactive, which has done a huge amount of research, highlighting in particular the cliff edge fall in activity during school holidays, which I will come back to. I was also contacted by health organisations such as: Diabetes UK, which is obviously in favour of reducing the amount of sugar being used; Cancer Research UK, on the same principle; and the Royal College of Surgeons, on behalf of dental surgeons, obviously to reduce tooth decay.

This is an important subject, because one third of children are obese or overweight by the time they leave primary school. To me, that was a staggering statistic to read. When I was growing up, it seemed that all of us were active and charging around, so I was staggered by the figure of one third—one in three. That is not only an alarming figure; social norms start to be created. If an increasing number of children are overweight or obese, that becomes acceptable and therefore it starts to increase. On a topical level, through the NHS we currently spend £6 billion a year helping people with illnesses linked to being either overweight or obese. How we could better spend that money if there were fewer obese people. And an obese child is five times more likely to be an obese adult than an adult who was not obese as a child.

The Youth Sport Trust highlights that only 21% of boys and 16% of girls meet the recommended guidelines for physical activity. I recognise that we are competing with video games, shrinking gardens—back gardens are now one third smaller than they were in the 1960s—and cautious parents. When I was growing up, parents did not think anything of children disappearing on long bike rides, playing in distant parks and going to their friends’ houses far afield, whereas nowadays parents are understandably worried if their children are out of sight. Again, that limits the opportunity to be active.

The Government recognise that we have to do something. In August 2016 they published “Childhood obesity: a plan for action” with the aim of reducing significantly the rate of childhood obesity. The plan included the soft drinks levy, which is worth £520 million a year, and clearer food labelling—something I pushed for in the previous Parliament through my work with the British Heart Foundation—because we have a duty to allow consumers to make informed decisions. Another fact that surprised me—I say this as someone who does enjoy drinking sugar-laced fizzy drinks but who wishes to be informed—was that a five-year-old should take in no more than 19 grams of sugar a day, yet one can of Coke contains 35 grams. How many consumers actually know that? If they did, would they change their habits?

Crucially, the plan was announced as part of a nudge policy, where we gave the industry two years to make changes. I recognise that many of the leading manufacturers and retailers are already making changes—as I said, I am not focusing on whether the levy was right or wrong, but clearly part of the strategy is to influence behaviour—but, as we have recognised that physical activity is good for health and good for improving academic performance, I welcomed that the money would be ring-fenced to spend on activities connected to schools. If we are to have a tax and get extra money, let us ensure that that money is spent in the right way. The best way to do that for children is through schools.

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

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this important subject to the Chamber. Given his enthusiasm for sport in schools, which I share, would he like to comment on the coalition Government’s decision to scrap the school sport partnerships in 2010, which has had a really detrimental effect on sport in our schools? I do not see the sugar tax as going all the way to replacing the excellent school sport partnership scheme that we had.

[Justin Tomlinson]

Actually, that was the very first time I rebelled—I was rewarded by sitting on some obscure European committees thing for five years to think carefully about my actions. The funding was not scrapped. There was a change and initially a proposal to remove the ring-fencing, but the money was then once again ring-fenced, though schools were allowed to choose how to spend it on sports-related programmes. I supported that because we have got some fantastic school sport partnerships that are still thriving today—including my local one—but there were also some pretty poor ones, which have gone by the wayside, and those schools have now spent that money on individual sports coaches, sports clubs and things like that. We got there in the end, and funding has increased in this area since 2010.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Liz McInnes and Justin Tomlinson

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?

Under-occupancy Penalty

Debate between Liz McInnes and Justin Tomlinson

Thursday 28th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[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.