Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I fully agree with my hon. Friend. In the last Parliament, the Department did a huge amount to get better advice and support for those who are thinking about breaking up. We invested over £30 million in relationship support over the last Parliament, which meant that about 160,000 people had access to preventive support. As the Prime Minister announced recently, we are doubling the funding available over the next five years to £70 million. The life chances strategy includes the important aim of strengthening and stabilising family life.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s approach on this issue. Given that he has taught the House the fundamental point that life chances for most children are determined before they are five, will he bring forward a debate in Government time on how the policy of life chances is developing so that the views of Members can be taken into account before the Government publish the White Paper in the spring or summer?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I will certainly look at that request. The door is open to the Chairman of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions. He has had a huge part to play. One of his recommendations, which is quite legitimate, is that we look at how we incorporate early years into the life chances measures. We are looking at that and would be happy to discuss it further with him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

May I report to the Minister the progress in Birkenhead? A benefits adviser has been working in the food bank there, and the number of people having to come back for a second bag of food has dropped by 65%. Whenever the Secretary of State refers to this experiment, he talks about “benefit advisers”, while other senior people in the Department talk about “work coaches”. Might the Minister persuade the Secretary of State to say that his phrase is not an offensive one? If someone who is hungry thinks that the person at the food bank is a work coach, it might put them off going to the food bank in the first place?

[Mr Vara]

Both terms are applicable. May I just say that we should not get bogged down in the terminology? The important thing is to make sure that people actually have support to get them back to work. As we just heard in the quote from my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), our long-term plan is working. We want to make sure that as many people as possible are in work so that they do not have to resort to food banks.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

May I also thank the Government for accepting the “Feeding Britain” report’s call for a yellow card system? Before they report to the House on a good warning system for people about the impact of sanctions coming down the road, they will need to begin the trials. Is there any chance of the Minister being able to tell us when the trials will begin and when they will be completed?

[Priti Patel]

I thank the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee for his question. We are working out the details and I would be very happy to discuss with him the details of when we will roll out the trials quite shortly.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, if I leave the Chamber shortly after my speech, I shall come back immediately afterwards to listen to the rest of the debate. I know that there is a huge amount of interest in the Bill.

We now have a more political Chancellor than any I can remember in the whole of my time in the House of Commons, and he has laid traps for us in the Bill. I make a plea to my very hon. Friends not to fall into them. The Government have, however, exposed their soft underbelly in one respect, and we should attack them in that spot. There is a huge difference between giving notice that the terms of a contract will be changed at some point in the future and changing the terms for people who have already bought into it. In the long build-up to the election, as well as during and after it, we heard that the one group of people about whom the Conservatives, as a party and as a Government, cared most were the strivers, yet it is the strivers who will feel the worst effects of the Bill.

In tonight’s debate, I want us to unite and launch an offensive against part of the Bill that the Government will not be able to carry in the country. By doing so, we can change the debate on welfare, on work, on productivity and on all the other parts of the Government’s programme. There are more than 3 million people in this country who are in work but whose income is being supplemented by tax credits. They are among the strivers in our society who are going to be walloped by the Bill. Many of them will be a minimum of £1,000 a year worse off. Some will be much worse off than that. We should not be at sixes and sevens in voting for the various amendments tonight. The one message we need to hammer home is that the Government use one language outside the House and a different one to enact legislation inside it. They talk about strivers outside, but the Bill will affect 3 million in-work strivers and make them worse off.

Worse still, it is going to be difficult for us to vote against that particular measure in the Bill, because the Government could well try to enact it by means of a statutory instrument upstairs. If they dare to take the cuts against 3 million strivers outside this main Chamber, I hope we will all learn from the new contingent from Scotland, who do not accept the conventions of this House, and that we will crowd into that Committee Room and make it very difficult for them to get the measure through. We must send a message to the rest of the country that we are united in our opposition to this unbelievably vicious move against people who have responded to the Government’s plea to become strivers, who are in work and who will find themselves much worse off as a result of the Budget.

My plea to my very hon. Friends is this: please do not have what Aneurin Bevan might have called an “emotional spasm” and try to feel better by simply voting against this, that or the other. The one message tonight is that we must get behind the reasoned amendment tabled by the Leader of the Opposition. Later, we can discuss all the other disadvantages that the Government have put into the Bill, and we can vote against them if we wish to do so. The one message that must go out from the Chamber tonight is that the Government talk loudly about supporting strivers but, when it comes to it, they are proposing to make that group worse off without a second thought. It will be difficult for us to oppose what I see as by far the worst measure in the Bill, but I hope that we can send a united message and not be at sixes and sevens voting to our hearts’ content on all different aspects of the Bill. That is my plea. I shall return to the Chamber as soon as I can to listen to how others develop their own themes on the way in which the Government are making strivers worse off.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Leslie]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Many parts of the Budget were suggested by Labour in recent months. Abolishing permanent non-dom status—that sounds very familiar to my hon. Friends. Increasing the minimum wage—again, we have repeatedly called for that. We welcome any action on low pay—by the way, the Conservatives opposed the creation of the national minimum wage in the first place—but this so-called national living wage is unravelling as it becomes clear that it is nothing of the sort. It is the rebranding of an increase in the national minimum wage—as I say, Labour created that in the first place—which, with the tax credit changes, will still leave working families worse off.

We will support steps to tackle tax avoidance—again, we have consistently pressed the Government on that—but this Chancellor has a poor record on hitting tax avoidance targets, with the amount of uncollected tax increasing to £34 billion last year and his so-called tax deals continually failing to bring in the revenues he predicted. In yesterday’s Budget, the Conservatives broke their manifesto promise to deliver £5 billion of savings by 2017-18. The Chancellor made that promise at the last general election, and he is now saying that we might perhaps get it by the end of this Parliament. We will file the supposed £5 billion of tax avoidance measures in the “believe it when we see it” category.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

May I say how much I welcome my hon. Friend’s statement that Labour welcomes the Government’s announcement yesterday to move towards a living wage? Will he confirm in the Chamber what he has said elsewhere—that we will engage very constructively, looking imaginatively at the Red Book, to try to make this more comprehensive and to extend it to the public sector? Does he accept that the more success we have in developing this idea with the Government, the fewer people will be eligible for means tests, and that our aim is not to change means-tested benefits in line with such increases, but to make sure that people can earn enough not to be eligible for means-testing?

[Chris Leslie]

My right hon. Friend is right that we should be thoughtful about the Government’s proposals. It is sometimes difficult to see through the political fog of the games that the Chancellor is trying to play and the tactics he is trying to use. Oh, the look of innocence on his face! My right hon. Friend is right that it is important to take on questions of welfare reform and work through them methodically. We will not oppose everything just for the sake of it. My right hon. and learned Friend the acting Leader of the Opposition was right to say yesterday that while that might be the temptation, we will look at the proposals and be reasonable about those we can support.

We welcome the steps taken in the Budget to reduce pension tax relief for the highest earners, and of course the rise in the personal allowance threshold, as we support steps to cut taxes and try to get a better settlement for those in work.

Child Poverty

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am glad that my hon. Friend believes that, because so do I. The purpose of what I have set out today, after a great deal of consideration over the past few years and a full consultation on the matter, is to arrive at a situation in which we are able to help those children and families in the greatest difficulty and try to move them out of poverty so that they sustain their lives out and beyond poverty.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. I re-emphasise his point that whatever definition we have will drive policy and resources, but might I make two pleas? First, when he fixes the life chances definition, he should not be too modest about his own contribution. Under the Labour Government, he and my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) published a report showing that the life chances for most children, particularly poor children, can be over by the age of five. We need to concentrate on that and not to be concerned immediately with technical education, however important that may be. Secondly, this Government and the previous Labour Government have been largely successful, through their welfare-to-work scheme, in moving people from benefits to work. The welfare-to-work mark 2 agenda should be about how we move many of those who are trapped on low pay up the pay scale so that they earn decent wages, with the dignity that comes from that, while also drawing less in tax credits.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s comments. He knows very well that, as I have already said to him, I am very happy to engage with him and his Committee on these matters. As he says, at the beginning of the previous Parliament, we called on him and the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) to do some work for us, and I have remained absolutely wedded to the proposals that they brought forward. In fact, the Social Justice Cabinet Committee that I now chair is tasked with ensuring that those early intervention measures are driven through all Departments. My right hon. Friend the Education Secretary is already acting on much of that with the early educational markers and by driving attainment much earlier on in areas such as maths and literacy, which will be part of our measure. The right hon. Gentleman will, I hope, note that I talked about publishing, alongside that, life-chances measures for areas such as debt, drug and alcohol abuse, and family breakdown. Those measures will help to guide us on when we intervene to make the changes necessary.

Child Poverty

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. We are determined to bring about life change to improve people’s lives in the poorest communities. I made the point that more households in social housing are in work than ever before, and that is life change. They are taking control of their lives.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

May I congratulate the Secretary of State on the public relations success of winding up the media with the idea that these would be the worst figures ever published? Might that ingenuity now be applied to developing indices on life chances? What taxpayers are interested in is whether we can prevent poor children from becoming poor adults. Might he ask the Select Committee on Work and Pensions to undertake that inquiry and report to the House and then to his Social Justice Committee, so that the Government might act on it before the year is out?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

May I just correct the right hon. Gentleman on one small fact? I have not spent my time winding up the media. With respect, I think he needs to look at those on his Front Bench, and some of their friends, who have spent the whole time winding up the media.

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his new post. He knows very well that the door is open, and I am happy to sit down and discuss that proposition, and, more importantly, what I believe should be in the measures.