Welfare Spending
Debate between Luke Evans and Stephen Timms(1 week, 6 days ago)
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Sir Stephen Timms
The hon. Gentleman makes another interesting reflection on the state of the system left behind by 14 years of Tory government. We are going to be making progress, as I said.
Our plan will help deliver our ambition not just for jobs but for national renewal by building new homes, making the NHS fit for the future and powering the shift to green energy. Among people of working age, those with low or no qualifications are some 2.5 times more likely to be out of work than those who are better qualified. Just closing that gap would mean a million extra people in work.
But skills are not the only barrier; for many, it is ill health, and we are determined to get people back to work and back to good health. We will open up more opportunities for people who have been out of work because of ill health in the past with WorkWell employment advisers embedded directly in healthcare teams, from GP surgeries to mental health services.
Sir Stephen Timms
I will make a bit more headway first.
Connect to Work will go to the end of the decade to support 300,000 disabled people and people with health and other complex barriers to employment to get into and get on in work. Our Pathways to Work guarantee, backed by an additional £1 billion a year by the end of the decade, will bring all that together with personalised work, health and skills support for anybody on out-of-work benefits with a health condition or disability who wants that support.
We already have 1,000 new Pathways to Work advisers in place, working in jobcentres across the country to help disabled people. A few weeks ago I met a couple of them in Edinburgh, and they told me of the positive reactions from the people they ring up. The system gave up on those people years ago, but we have not given up on them.
Dr Evans
The Minister mentioned WorkWell, which is a fantastic scheme introduced in 2023 that dealt with 59,000 people through £64 million of Conservative Government investment. I am glad that the Government are taking that forward and looking to expand it. My concern as a GP is about trying to get more people on the premises. Where will the work coaches go when premises do not have the space? That delivery is really important. Will he explain what has happened from the pilots to where we are now and how this will be taken forward?
Sir Stephen Timms
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is a welcome and much-needed step.
The early years are crucial to somebody’s life chances. Ensuring that children grow up happy, healthy and able to fulfil their potential is certainly, to borrow a phrase from the motion, “a moral mission”. However, it is also about reducing demand on social security, instead of sitting on our hands like the last Government and leaving the system to pick up higher costs further down the line.
The child poverty strategy will build on our cross-Government approach to lifting people out of poverty through rolling out free breakfast clubs, raising the national minimum wage and, as my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) points out, expanding free childcare and free school meals to all families on universal credit. It will be an ambitious strategy and in developing it we will consider all the levers available to give every child the best start in life.
To make work pay: that was what universal credit was intended to do. Yet it was left with perverse disincentives to work in the system, forcing people, as many did, to aspire to be classified as sick in order to qualify for a higher payment. We have addressed that by rebalancing the payments in universal credit, alongside other reforms. The system should not force people to aspire to be classified as sick; it should promote and encourage work and provide support to make work feasible.
As the shadow Secretary of State kindly mentioned, we are progressing the review, which I am responsible for.
Sir Stephen Timms
I will make a little more headway. The review will be co-produced with disabled people, to ensure that the system supports disabled people to achieve better health, higher living standards and greater independence, including through work. We will also carry out more face-to-face assessments over the next year, boosting the number of health professionals working in assessment centres. Face-to-face assessments were stopped for understandable reasons during the pandemic, but they were never really brought back. The places where they were carried out were sold off and we are having to reinstate and rebuild that service.
PIP Changes: Impact on Carer’s Allowance
Debate between Luke Evans and Stephen Timms(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Sir Stephen Timms
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but we will not withdraw the policy. We will certainly reflect on it, and we will consult properly on the content of the Green Paper. The figures published by the Office for Budget Responsibility yesterday showed that the benefit changes, on their own, will take 250,000 people, including 200,000 adults, below the poverty line, but that is before any consideration of the impact of the big commitment that we are making to employment support —up to £1 billion a year by the end of the Parliament. That will clearly have a very positive effect in reducing poverty. The Office for Budget Responsibility will look at all of this over the summer and then update its figures in the autumn. We will see what it concludes, but I think the balance of this package will be very positive for reducing poverty in the UK.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
To help families, the last Government put in place the household support fund, which this Government have continued. However, it is due to run out in 2026, when the Minister’s changes are coming in. What hope is there for households who need emergency support if the household support fund will be dropped when his changes come in?
Sir Stephen Timms
We have retained the household support fund, as the hon. Member rightly points out, and the future arrangements will be set out in due course. However, I can reassure him of the absolute commitment of this Government to supporting families who need our support. The child poverty taskforce is working on this issue at the moment, and will bring forward a strategy to address the problem of child poverty. The figures published this morning on households below average income show just what a huge challenge there is, given the very high level of child poverty left by the previous Government. We will be addressing that.
Social Security Benefits
Debate between Luke Evans and Stephen Timms(9 months, 1 week ago)
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Sir Stephen Timms
In my view, the instruments are compatible with the European convention on human rights.
The draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2025 will increase relevant state pension rates by 4.1%, in line with the growth in average earnings in the year to May to July 2024. It will increase most other benefit rates by 1.7%, in line with the rise in the consumer prices index in the year to September 2024. The Government’s commitment to the triple lock means that the basic and full rate of the new state pension will be uprated by whichever is highest out of the growth in earnings, the growth in prices, or 2.5%. That will mean 4.1% for 2025-26. From April this year, the basic state pension will increase from £169.50 per week to £176.45, and the full rate of the new state pension will increase from £221.20 to £230.25.
We are fully committed to maintaining the pension triple lock. There is some confusion about the position of the Conservative party, and I hope that the shadow Minister will clarify the position when he speaks.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
On clarification, can the Minister clarify for how much longer the state pension will be taxed? The Conservative Government stood for election on a commitment to the triple lock plus. We lost the election, but we were going to take out that fiscal drag. Can the Minister explain how long that tax will stay in place?
Sir Stephen Timms
My understanding, from what the Leader of the Opposition has said, is that the Conservative party is no longer committed to the triple lock, let alone the triple lock plus. I can tell the hon. Member that we do not have any plans to do what he suggests.
Sir Stephen Timms
I simply point out to the hon. Gentleman that his party appears to no longer be committed to the triple lock. We look forward to clarification on that point from the shadow Minister.
Other components of state pension awards, such as those previously built up under earnings-related state pension schemes, including the additional state pension, will increase by 1.7% in line with prices. The Government are committed to supporting pensioners on the lowest incomes, so the safety net provided by the pension credit standard minimum guarantee will increase by 4.1%. For single pensioners, that means an increase from £218.15 to £227.10 per week; for couples, the increase is from £332.95 to £346.60 per week. We want everybody entitled to that support to receive it, which is why we launched the national pension credit campaign. We received around 150,000 pension credit applications in the 16 weeks after the winter fuel payment announcement.
Dr Evans
I am very grateful. We do indeed want more people to take up pension credit. However, one of the biggest problems is the processing time. The response to a written question that I tabled before Christmas showed that there was a 75% success rate in getting that done within 50 days, which means that that did not happen for one in four. I later re-tabled the same question, and it turned out that the standard had got worse. What work are the Government doing to make sure that applications are processed within 50 days? Especially when it is cold and people have had their winter fuel payment taken away, it is important that those who need that support get it as soon as they can.
Sir Stephen Timms
The hon. Gentleman is quite right; it is important that applications are processed speedily, and I am pleased with the number of applications. I can confirm—I think he knows this—that everybody who applied before 21 December will receive, if they are successful, their winter fuel payment. We have also moved extra staff on to pension credit processing. However, the hon. Gentleman is quite right to raise that point.
Universal credit and the legacy means-tested benefits that it replaces provide support for people of working age. We have committed in our manifesto to reviewing universal credit, so that it makes work pay and tackles poverty, and we will set out shortly how we plan to fulfil that commitment. For those below state pension age, the order increases the personal and standard allowances of working-age benefits, including universal credit, by 1.7%, in line with the increase in prices in the year to September 2024. In the Budget last November, the Chancellor announced that the maximum repayment deduction from universal credit payments will be reduced from April, from 25% of the universal credit standard allowance to 15%—the fair repayment rate—and 1.2 million households are expected to benefit from that change by an average of £420 per year.
In addition, the order increases statutory payments by 1.7%. That includes statutory maternity pay, statutory paternity pay, statutory shared parental pay and statutory sick pay. Benefits for those who have additional costs as a result of disability or health impairments will also increase by 1.7%. That includes disability living allowance, attendance allowance and personal independence payment. The order will also increase carer’s allowance by 1.7%. The Chancellor announced in the Budget that, from April, the weekly carer’s allowance earnings threshold will be pegged to the level of 16 hours’ work at the national living wage. That means that, from April, unpaid carers will be able to earn up to £196 per week net earnings and still receive carer’s allowance, compared with £151 now. I am pleased to say that that move has been very widely welcomed, and we expect it to bring an additional 60,000 unpaid carers into eligibility for the benefit, and, crucially, to reduce the likelihood that carers who manage to combine some work with their caring responsibilities will inadvertently fall foul of the earnings limit, because, in future, that threshold will keep up with changes in the national living wage.
On disability and carer’s benefits, we will continue to ensure that carers, and people who face additional costs because of disability or health impairment, get the support that they need, and we will set out proposals for reform of health and disability benefits in a Green Paper in the spring.
Sir Stephen Timms
I have already spoken in the debate about the two-child cap, and we will be coming forward with the report and strategy proposed by the child poverty taskforce. On pensioner poverty, I think that substantial measures will be needed, and we will come forward with those in due course.
Dr Luke Evans
I am grateful to the Minister for taking another intervention. He talked about planning for the future and people understanding what is going on with their pensions. We have the WASPI example where that was not seen to be the case. The new Government are making changes to inheritance tax and where pensions fall, but much of the public do not realise that that will have big implications for them as their pensions will be subject to tax and inheritance tax. Would he consider a campaign to let people know that that change is coming in the next year or so?
Sir Stephen Timms
I am not quite sure what change the hon. Gentleman is referring to, but I certainly agree that people need to be confident about what the arrangements will be in the future so that they can plan accordingly. That is the one of the reasons why the pensions triple lock is important, as it gives people confidence about how things will be in the future.
We are: increasing the basic state pension and the new state pension in line with earnings growth by 4.1%, meeting our commitment to the triple lock; increasing the pension credit standard minimum guarantee in line with earnings growth by 4.1%; increasing benefits to meet additional disability needs and carers’ benefits in line with prices; and increasing working-age benefits in line with prices as well, at 1.7%. This year, GMPs accrued between 1988 and 1997 must by law be increased by 1.7%, which is the increase in the consumer prices index in the year up to September 2024. The GMP is important in giving people assurance about a level below which their scheme pension cannot fall. I commend both orders to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2025, which was laid before this House on 15 January, be approved.
Pensions
Resolved,
That the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2025, which was laid before this House on 16 January, be approved.—(Martin McCluskey.)
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Luke Evans and Stephen Timms(1 year ago)
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The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)
That is good example of the kind of discussion we need among Ministers responsible for disability across Government. Department for Transport guidance on inclusive mobility and on tactile paving surfaces advises how design and layout can inform visually impaired people, including about hazards and directions. I am happy to pursue the subject further with my hon. Friend.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
Sir Stephen Timms
We are working very closely with disability organisations, and I pay tribute to the work of those to which the hon. Gentleman referred. We will certainly ensure that barriers that too often confront disabled people are removed by this Government. That is the mission that we are on.