Valedictory Debate

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Friday 24th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Let me say again, as I have already this week, how much admiration I have for Madam Deputy Speaker, the right hon. Member for Epping Forest (Dame Eleanor Laing), and the other Madam Deputy Speaker, the right hon. Member for Doncaster Central (Dame Rosie Winterton). They are both marvellous, inspiring, incredibly stylish women. Parliament, and the parliamentary hairdressers, will be all the poorer for their departure. I wish them both well in the future, and I am sure that we will see them again.

It is my pleasure to wind up this valedictory debate, at 6.44 pm on a Friday; I do not intend to make a habit of speaking in Parliament so late on a Friday. We have had 31 speeches today, all of which have been incredibly moving, powerful and emotional. As the main Labour person in the Chamber for the past four and a half hours, I have felt slightly like a gate-crasher at a private party, but I am glad to have been here. Today has shown that all of us in politics know that this is a vocation, not a job. It is a life in service, always in the public eye, and very rarely with an off switch. We have been reminded today, as we often are, that the constituents are the boss, and our families are the bedrock.

A huge amount of parliamentary experience is leaving this place today. I could not even add up the collective number of years of service by everybody who has spoken today. It is a huge amount, and we should recognise that for what it is. While I personally am excited for the general election, I have felt a great deal of sadness today and this week for so many people departing. I have felt today how many of my friends on the Government Benches are leaving. It has been a very emotional day for all of us. These really are the very best days in Parliament. I am sure that we can all agree on that. It has felt a little bit like the last day at high school, which today is for lots of year 11s and year 13s across the country. Perhaps we can all swap shirts at the end of the debate and sign them for each other. [Interruption.] Okay, well, we could all sign each other’s shirts—you know what I mean!

One of the themes of contributions today is the importance of cross-party working, so I will try to respond in that spirit. How fitting it was that the two opening speeches were from such long-standing, powerful women Members of Parliament. This has been very different from many valedictory debates that we have had in years gone by. Those two women, who I will come on to say something about, inspired many of the other women who spoke today. That was a real theme of the debate.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) sends her apologies: she cannot be here for the wind-ups, and wants it noted that she had a bit of an accident with an out-of-control buggy when she was on granny duty. She is fit and strong, but she had to leave to get more painkillers for her shoulders. She really has been an exemplary Member of Parliament—the Mother of the House, and political mother to many of us. She really did create a path for many of us to follow.

It was also a real privilege to be here for the last speech by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), another fantastic sister to all of us who has been a voice for the voiceless. She leaves an amazing track record that she can be proud of. Her words about democracy and respect for democracy were ones that we will all cherish.

My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) is not in his place, though it does not really matter if people are not in their place any more, because there is no sanction. Right to the last, he was the enthusiastic, bobbing Back Bencher who was always there, although he is not there now. He was here every day, for most oral statements and questions, and we shall miss him.

A lot of people are not here, actually. We all recognise that the right hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace) was an exemplary Defence Secretary in very difficult times, and the whole country felt a great deal of confidence in him.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), who is in her place, has had a long career, but she has always been feared and revered, and respected, in equal measure. Tax avoiders and money launderers take note: she is not going very far. She is a real example of joint working on a cross-party consensus.

The right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) will always have a very long-lasting legacy with the public as the Health Secretary during covid, there on our televisions every evening providing that reassurance. I wish him well with his future career.

This is a very sad, emotional day for the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford). It is very sad day for all of us because, although it might be a low bar, as I am sure the whole House can agree, he is definitely the most popular Member of this House from the Scottish National party. [Laughter.] We all wish him really well in the future.

My dear friend the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) has been a great campaigner, a great parliamentarian and a good friend, and has a really strong track record on education. Together with the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), the three of us did our best to try to get this House to agree to Common Market 2.0 and take a slightly more sensible approach to Brexit. I regard them both as friends, and I know that this House will be all the poorer without them here.

The right hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) was brilliantly brief and very funny in his remarks.

What a wonderful speech the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) gave. It was very funny and moving, and I completely agree with her that family is everything.

The right hon. Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma) will forever be known as the President of COP26, when the whole world was watching. He did that job absolutely brilliantly and has a strong track record to take with him.

The hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Dame Tracey Crouch) and I are both in our 50th year—she is not here either, because she has family duties. I have immensely enjoyed working with her over the years, especially on football.

The right hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) is another strong woman who succeeded both in her career and in motherhood. She is a great inspiration.

In one short term, the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), another friend of mine, has achieved a great deal. I have enjoyed working closely with her on the House of Commons Commission, and I wish her well.

What a typically funny, inspiring, thoughtful and informative speech the hon. and learned Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) gave. He will long be known for all his work on justice, and I am sure he will be back in other guises.

To the right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones): what fantastic service you have provided to Wales. I wish you well; or rather, I wish him well—if the right hon. Member for Epping Forest (Dame Eleanor Laing) was here, she would tell me off.

The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) is another popular Member of this House—so many popular Members are going. He reminded us of the importance of the constituency work we do—although he might want to have a conversation with the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster behind him about other people doing that constituency work for him.

The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is another Member who I have worked with, on early years and the importance of the first 1,001 days. I have really enjoyed the naughty corner, which he talked about, over these last few years. It will be much depleted after today, although I am not sure that I will follow his advice and try to make myself look like Quentin Letts. That might be a step too far.

The hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) and I have been friends for a number of years. I know that it has been a difficult year for him, but I am sure we can all wish him well for the future.

I thank the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) for also being brief—I think we all enjoyed that—and for his passion for education and the work he has done as a Minister and as Chair of the Education Committee. I think we can all most definitely take his advice about screen time.

The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison), who is not in her place either, might be relatively young, but I think we can all agree that she has made a real impact during her time in the House of Commons.

What a proud record the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince) laid out for us today.

The hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (Sir James Duddridge) gave us some great words of advice, which I might print out for all incoming MPs after the election, and is obviously well loved by his neighbours.

The hon. Member for Basildon and Biccarilli—[Interruption.] Billericay—there are lots of Essex Members here today and they know better than me, thankfully. The hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) is a very independent-minded and strong parliamentarian, and he leaves a legacy that I am sure many others will want to follow.

The hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine), as a Health Minister, introduced those vaccines and a cancer plan—what a great record that is. I wish him well, too.

The hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) and I have worked together on a number of issues, and I know that broadcasters and those in the media will miss him greatly in this place. As my husband works in Warrington Hospital, the hon. Gentleman and I keep in close touch about how well the hospital is doing under his leadership and support there as the local MP.

The right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) has made a real impact in Parliament, both as a Minister and as a Select Committee Chair, and I know that many Opposition Members greatly respect his work.

The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon)—what long service. He did what no one else had done up to that point, which was to mention his pet dog. He was only matched by the Member who followed him, the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord), who spoke very well about the importance of the different communities we all have in our constituencies.

In summing up, I want to say a couple of other things. One Member is not here but, during our debate, he announced that he would be standing down: the hon. Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay). I am sure we will all cheer along with his recovery in the coming months. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]

We have also lost some good friends during this Parliament: Tony Lloyd; Jack Dromey, without whom my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham would not have been able to be a Member; Sir David Amess, who we all miss greatly; James Brokenshire; and Dame Cheryl Gillan.

This is a remarkable place to work and this has been a remarkable Parliament, in which we have had Brexit, covid and war. In today’s debate, a few lessons have united everyone who spoke: the importance of our constituencies; the importance of our staff; the importance of our family; and the importance of the staff who work here. I wish you all well.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call the Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I would ask the hon. Lady to think again about her approach to universal credit. It is doing a good job. I urge all Members who have not had the opportunity to visit their jobcentres and experience it for themselves—talk to the claimants and work coaches—and above all to compare it to the legacy benefits. If they do, they will see the confusion and complication that was there. Now, with our one simple system, it will be much more straightforward for individual claimants.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

2. What support is available for childcare costs through universal credit.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Justin Tomlinson)]

Universal credit supports working parents with childcare costs, regardless of the number of hours they work. This provides an important financial incentive to those taking their first steps into paid employment. People can recover up to 85% of their eligible childcare costs on universal credit, compared to 70% on the legacy system.

[Lucy Powell]

As the Minister will know, one of the big challenges with universal credit is that families have to pay their childcare costs upfront. Save the Children and the Centre for Social Justice have recently warned that this is leaving families in £1,000 of debt when they start work. Under the review that the Department now seems to be conducting, can it look again at this, and can it also look at their other recommendation of making it not 85% but 100% of childcare costs, because this would really benefit those on low pay?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I know that the hon. Lady has worked tirelessly on this issue. The Government recognise its importance, which is why we have increased our financial support by nearly 50% since 2010. We are making improvements specifically in relation to payment in arrears, improving communication and ensuring that the Flexible Support Fund is better known and better used to help those who would otherwise face a financial barrier.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

My hon. Friend raises an important question. As he will know, we had a consultation on this particular point. We have published our findings, and I would be very happy to share those with him. Perhaps it would be appropriate for me to write to all colleagues setting out the changes that we are proposing.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is it not obvious how few questions we have had from Conservative Members today on some of the biggest changes to welfare reform in a generation? I have raised with Ministers many times now the fact that those who are getting a change of circumstance as they move on to universal credit do not have the transitional protections at the moment. Ministers keep telling me that they do, but they do not. I have had universal credit in my constituency for a long time, and I could give them a catalogue of cases where people are worse off on universal credit as a result of this. With the new leadership at the Department, can the tin ear now be opened a little?

[Alok Sharma]

If the hon. Lady is keen on protecting people who move from legacy benefits on to universal credit under the managed migration process, I would invite her to vote for the regulations, with me and my colleagues, when they come through Parliament later this year.

Universal Credit

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

My hon. Friend is right: people have been underpaid benefits. On average, households will gain £285 a month. Under the previous system, 1.4 million people spent a decade trapped on benefits instead of being helped into work. That is changing under universal credit.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

During yesterday’s Work and Pensions questions, I raised with the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work cases of my constituents who were not in receipt of transitional protection during a change of circumstances. The Minister told me I was wrong. I double-checked those cases with the Library and with others—I have dozens of similar cases—and it was not me who was wrong but the Minister. I think that there is a desire that such people will get that protection, but they do not at the moment. If Ministers do not know their policy, how can the rest of us have confidence in universal credit?

[Alok Sharma]

To clarify, what will happen under universal credit, once we pass the regulations—[Interruption.] What will happen under managed migration, when we pass the regulations, is that anyone who is currently—[Interruption.] If I may explain, anyone on legacy benefits who is moved across to universal credit will have transitional protection.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his fantastic leadership in his constituency. I am delighted to say that hundreds of employers are signing up every week to the Disability Confident scheme, with more than 8,300 having signed up in total, including well over 800 in his own constituency. Many Members have taken up the community challenge, and it is not too late for those who have not participated. I encourage everyone to help people to sign up to be disability confident.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Lady has what might be called the Oral-B approach to getting called, which is to offer the House a beaming smile.

[Lucy Powell]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, but I am afraid that I am not smiling about the Minister’s replies, because they are so far detached from the reality that many of us are seeing on the frontline. She will know that those facing a change in circumstance are not protected by the transitional protections. This is affecting dozens of disabled constituents of mine, such as Dean, who has lost £300 a month, having lost his disabled premium going from tax credits to universal credit, and Erica, who has now built up £5,000 of overpayments due to the same thing. The principles of universal credit are now in tatters—it is not helping people to work. When will the Government review this?

[Sarah Newton]

I am afraid that the hon. Lady is completely wrong. We have put in place transitional protection for people on the severe disability premium; under our new regulations, that protection is now there.

Universal Credit

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree about that. [Interruption.] Conservative Members keep saying that we are scaremongering, but it is absolute fact that under the transitional arrangements that currently apply, as they do in my constituency, which was one of the first to roll out UC, free school meals do cover those applicants who receive universal credit. The regulations will remove that right for those individuals, which is scandalous.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent opening statement. Does she agree that the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) almost makes her point for her? He made it clear that this is about making sure that people who are currently in receipt of benefits and free school meals would not be worse off when they transition, in which case they are going to be worse off under these regulations—[Interruption.] He is making that case for her. For all the huff and puff from Conservative Members, one would have thought we would remember that this is about children and families who are living in poverty in work. We should be doing our utmost to help them, not having a semantic argument.

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.

As I was saying, people should not just take our word for it. They should look at what the Children’s Society has said about those 1 million children who will not receive free school meals if the regulations come into force.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have been raising these issues in the Chamber for a number of years. Why is that? First, those we are talking about today, whether they are above or below the arbitrary thresholds that the Government are setting, are by their nature very low-income families who are struggling every day to get by. Secondly, the whole point of universal credit was to remove cliff edges from the system, so that once people reached a certain point they would not suddenly lose a number of benefits that make quite a significant difference to a “just about managing” family. Those arbitrary thresholds are taking away the very principles of that position.

I recently spoke to a number of parents in Moss Side, in my constituency, about their predicament. Those who had lost free school meals described acutely what it meant to them. Some had two, three or four children, which meant that they were losing £10 or £11 a week per child. Moreover, they were losing bus passes, the entitlement to free school uniforms and the entitlement to free school trips. What were they doing? They were not going to pay that £10 or £11 to the school for free school meals, so most of them were sending their children to school with white-bread jam sandwiches to last them for the entire day. That is not something I want to see happening in my constituency.

The need of these families has not changed; they are still on the breadline—they might be just above it, but they are still absolutely operating on the breadline. The impact of losing the two-year-old offer for these families could mean that about £54 a week is suddenly gone because of this cliff-edge. For those with children aged two this is particularly pernicious, because we are probably talking about young mums who are re-entering the labour market for the first time, and we are disincentivising them from working. The real problem with the Government’s policy is that it breaks the principle of universal credit: it is putting into the system disincentives to work more or take on higher paid work for, by their definition, low income, just-about-managing families.

My wider point is about the impact of these policies on social mobility and supporting these families to get on in life. The mothers I spoke to in Moss Side also had the school headteacher there, and she told me about the impact of the loss of free school meals on her school budget. This is a single-form entry primary school in Moss Side where the needs of the community are the same today as they have ever been. About 25 out of 30 children in year 6 are on free school meals, and coming in from nursery are about four or five; that is because of changes already coming in. We must remember that this has a huge impact on school budgets as well, because of the loss of the pupil premium.

I want to talk particularly about the developmental gap at the age of five and the impact of this particularly stringent new threshold on receiving the two-year-old offer. I fully supported the Government in bringing in the two-year-old offer for disadvantaged families, and we know from the evaluation that where that is given in a quality setting it can transform the life chances of those children, so surely we should be debating how we can extend that provision for more disadvantaged families, not reducing it.

Analysis I produced last year showed that many of the tax-free childcare offers and the three and four-year-old offer coming in disproportionately benefit better-off families: 75% of that extra money going into tax-free offers, and the three and four-year-old offer will go to the top 50% of earners in this country. Lower-income families and those on universal credit will reap very little benefit from these other offers. We are therefore going to see lack of social mobility getting entrenched, not being addressed.

I will leave everybody with the words of the Prime Minister, who said that to

“build a great meritocracy in Britain, we need to broaden our perspective and do more for the hidden disadvantaged”.

These new measures will narrow the current provisions, not broaden them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

I have heard the concerns about the timing, and I can confirm that, following the hon. Lady’s representations, we will be able to keep the voucher scheme open to new entrants for a further six months.

Tax-free childcare will mean that more people become eligible, regardless of their employer and including the self-employed for the first time. The hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) raised concerns about families having to pay childcare costs up front, but I reassure her that the flexible support fund is available to help in such cases.

[Lucy Powell]

Will the Secretary of State give way on that point?

[Damian Hinds]

I am short of time, so if the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will come back to her if there is time.

Turning to free school meals, we have extended the availability of free meals since 2010, going much further than Labour. The Conservative-led coalition extended free meals to disadvantaged students in further education institutions and introduced universal infant free school meals. We are investing £26 million in a breakfast club programme over the next three years, using the soft drinks industry levy.

When universal credit was introduced, we made clear our intention to set new criteria for free school meals, as my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) rightly pointed out. We stated that intention in our response to the Social Security Advisory Committee report on passported benefits in March 2012. We repeated it in April 2013, when we introduced a temporary measure enabling all universal credit families to receive free school meals during the early phase of universal credit, and we have repeated it again several times since, as my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) mentioned. We are now, as we always planned, introducing new eligibility criteria to ensure that those entitlements continue to benefit those who need them the most.

Under our new regulations, we estimate that by 2022 around 50,000 more children will benefit from a free school meal compared with the previous system. The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who is shaking her head, asked about the methodology, as did the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) and, I believe, the hon. Member for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock). We responded to the Social Security Advisory Committee on that exact point, and it put the information into the public domain.

[Lucy Powell]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Damian Hinds]

I cannot. No child who is receiving free meals now or who gained them during the roll-out of universal credit will lose their entitlement during the roll-out, even if family earnings rise above the threshold, as my hon. Friends the Members for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) and for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) mentioned. Once roll-out is complete, those children will be protected until the end of their phase of education—primary or secondary—as my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar) reminded us.

The protection arrangements will enable hundreds of thousands of children to continue to receive a meal during the roll-out, even if family earnings exceed the threshold. The £7,400 threshold relates to earned income, and it does not include additional incomings through universal credit. Depending on their exact circumstances, a typical family earning around our threshold would have a total annual household income of between £18,000 and £24,000.

The hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) said that the threshold was arbitrary. It is not arbitrary; the thresholds for these passported benefits are set at such a level as to hold the eligibility cohort steady, except that in the case of free school meals we took the decision to make it somewhat more generous than the previous system. The threshold is comparable, by the way, to that in the approach in Scotland, where there is a net earnings threshold equivalent of £7,320.

It is simply not true to say that we are introducing a cliff edge; there has always been one. The simple fact is that a child either gets a lunch or does not. A plate of food does not lend itself well to being tapered, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) has said. Some have suggested that we could convert the benefit into cash—that is true, of course—so that we could have a taper, but the whole point of free school meals is to guarantee that an individual child will receive a nutritious and healthy lunch.

Extending eligibility to all children in households on universal credit would result in around half of pupils becoming eligible. We estimate that that would cost in excess of £3 billion a year more by 2022. The additional meal costs alone, excepting the deprivation funding, would be in excess of £450 million a year—quite close to the figure mentioned by the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West. I reiterate that eligibility is going up, not down, as my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) said.

I am running short of time, so I will turn to the regulations on universal credit. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions earlier outlined the changes in these regulations for UC. They include the removal of waiting days, which will put an average of £160 extra in people’s pockets and get them into the monthly routine sooner, and an additional two weeks of housing benefit to smooth the transition to universal credit. That one-off, additional, non-recoverable payment is worth an average of £233 to 2.3 million claimants over the roll-out period. Those measures form part of the £1.5 billion package of reforms that the Chancellor announced at the Budget. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) said that he was surprised to hear that Labour Members would be voting against those measures. I suggest that their constituents will be even more surprised.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The reason we are making this significant change from the legacy system is to ensure that every hour of work counts. We will not have a situation where people are stuck not working or paying punitive rates of income tax of 90% and above if they take work after 16 hours. This is cutting-edge technology. The UK is leading the way on flexible benefits that accompany flexible working, which nowhere else has.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I welcome the Secretary of State to her position? Perhaps she might think to show a little more humility when answering some of these difficult questions on universal credit. Has she considered some of the other benefits that are not included in universal credit, such as free school meals, free uniforms, free bus passes and so on? Many low-paid working families will lose out on those benefits under universal credit, which will make them worse off in work than if they were still on benefits.

[Ms McVey]

These are precisely the things that have been considered in bringing forward universal credit. What support are we giving? The extra childcare support. What is the extra support? Tailor-made career advice and support. We all need humility, but, equally, we all need to hand out and deliver the correct facts to people, not embellish them, resort to sound and fury or drama, or provide obviously incorrect information, as the UK Statistics Authority has levelled against the Labour party.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

This all has to be seen in the context of our reducing the benefit withdrawal rates and making it more attractive to go into work. Of course I understand the attraction of reducing the taper rate, which is why we have done it, but there is also always a trade-off with costs; reducing the rate from 65% to 63%, as we have done, carries a cost—an investment in the system of £1.8 billion.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Is not the whole point of a pilot to test a system and then change it before it is rolled out further? Many of my constituents are in the universal credit pilot scheme. Given my caseload from them, I was horrified today to receive letters about all the rest of the jobcentres in my constituency getting universal credit roll-out. This needs to be looked at, along with the taper and many other issues, before it is rolled out further.

[Damian Hinds]

In days of yore, such big changes used to be done via a big Gantt chart on the wall and then one day things going live. That is not how universal credit has been designed or rolled out; it is a very gradual process and has been being rolled out since 2013. The full service is now in more than 100 jobcentres, and we continue to update, evolve and improve it at every turn.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I completely agree with the right hon. Lady. She will have seen that the work and health Green Paper lays great stress on occupational health services. We have more than doubled the number of employment advisers in talking therapies to make sure that we can help people with the necessary support that will enable them to stay in work. We will need to do more of this important job in the future.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

7. What progress the Government have made on the roll-out of universal credit.

[The Minister for Employment (Damian Hinds)]

The roll-out of universal credit continues to roll out to plan—[Laughter.] About a million claims have now been taken, and the full universal credit service for all claimant types is available in 53 jobcentres.

[Lucy Powell]

I shall not mention hon. Members’ ridicule of the Minister’s answer, but I want to raise another point about universal credit: the interaction between passported benefits and universal credit, and the progress on this that the Government are making. My constituents tell me that as they get into work and move through universal credit, they lose free school meals, bus passes for their children and entitlement to a free uniform, so they are much worse off in work than they would be if they were not in work.

[Damian Hinds]

We continue to work closely with partners and stakeholders to ensure that this service is a success. There are some questions about passported benefits and we continue to work through them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Powell Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

16. What forecast he has made of the likely level of child poverty in (a) 2015 and (b) 2020.

[The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)]

Relative child poverty is now at its lowest level since the mid-1980s, and there are now 300,000 fewer children in relative poverty than in 2010. However, poverty projections are based on a number of factors that cannot be reliably predicted, including the median income.

[Steve Webb]

The fall in unemployment has happened across the country, and the risk that a child will be living in poverty is three times greater for those living in workless households than for those living in a house in work. We now have over 300,000 fewer children living in workless households, with more falls since those figures were put together. That is the best antidote to child poverty.

[Lucy Powell]

Those same figures show that Manchester Central has the fourth highest rate of child poverty in the country. That comes on top of the finding by the Government’s own Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission that there are now 600,000 more children in working households living in absolute poverty. When will Ministers stop denying that that is a problem and do something about it?

[Steve Webb]

I was very struck by the comments of the hon. Lady’s hon. Friend the shadow Education Secretary. According to a recent article:

“Criticising the policies of the last Labour government, Mr Hunt said that the party had previously been too preoccupied with tax credits and not given enough thought to tackling social problems in families.”

We are tackling those social problems through the troubled families initiative and a whole range of initiatives, such as the pupil premium, free school meals and more help with child care for young children. Disadvantaged children will benefit from our measures.