Backbench Business

Margaret Greenwood Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) on securing this debate. He spoke passionately about the haphazard nature of the closures, and described it as a Google Maps exercise done on the back of an envelope. He also spoke about the loss of jobs and the impact on the local economy. It has been a very important debate, even though we have already had several debates on this issue.

We have had some excellent contributions, particularly from my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), who made a measured speech about the impact on her constituents and the Government’s complacency on the economic consequences of Brexit for the financial sector, on which many of her constituents rely. The hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) spoke about practical problems, such as flood risk and the impact that might have on people being sanctioned. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) talked about the cumulative impact in her constituency of other closures, such as those of local banks.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) represents one of the most deprived areas of the country. She asked the Minister why we should be asked to support the measure, given that we have not been given the evidence base or any impact assessment. My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) made some very good points about the remote geographical location of his constituency and the loss of expertise for Jobcentre Plus. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) spoke about the doubling of public transport fares for people in his constituency. There were also contributions by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) and the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Philip Boswell).

Many questions still need to be answered. The Government appear to believe that the current levels of employment and the introduction of universal credit mean that more than one in 10 Jobcentre Plus offices can be closed, regardless of the impact on the local community. According to House of Commons Library analysis, 33% of jobcentres in London, 18% of jobcentres in Scotland and 16% of jobcentres in the north-west will be lost at a time when communities are already under real pressure due to seven years of Tory austerity.

Jobcentre Plus faces considerable challenges in the immediate future. From this April, it will play a much greater role in directly providing employment support when new referrals to the Work programme cease. From the end of this year, the Work programme and Work Choice will be replaced by the Work and Health programme. Most people claiming JSA are currently asked to take part in the Work programme, while Work Choice provides specialist employment support for disabled people.

[Margaret Ferrier]

Does the shadow Minister agree that it is about not only the expertise of jobcentre staff in carrying out their role, but the rapport built up between them and the clients? That is even more important when dealing with those with mental health issues, where continuity is crucial.

--- Later in debate ---

[Margaret Greenwood]

I thank the hon. Lady for that; she makes a good point.

Eligibility for the Work and Health programme will be much more restricted than the programmes it replaces. It will be open to certain disabled people and to people who have been unemployed for two years or more. In the light of that, the Employment Related Services Association estimates that as many as 45,000 fewer disabled people will have access to specialist employment support in every remaining year of this Parliament. Employment support for almost everyone else will be provided by Jobcentre Plus, including many disabled people with specialist needs.

How does the programme of jobcentre closures square with the Government’s aim of meeting their manifesto commitment of halving the disability employment gap? The longer and more complicated journeys to jobcentres as a result of the closures will particularly affect disabled people and people with caring responsibilities. Why has the DWP not yet published an equality impact assessment to analyse the effect of the closures on claimants and the local community?

More difficult journeys also increase the risk of claimants being sanctioned by staff for being late for or missing appointments. Will DWP issue guidance that, when considering sanctions, jobcentres should take account of increased journey times due to closures? There is already a backlog of sanctions, which in some cases is leading to money being withdrawn from claimants months after non-compliance, even though claimants may in the meantime have done what they were asked to do.

The roll-out of universal credit is continuing and will also present additional challenges for Jobcentre Plus. Jobcentres are having to do a huge range of things: provide careers advice to schools; deliver the new youth obligation under universal credit, which involves much more intensive support for 18 to 21-year-olds for the first six months of their claim; assess the viability of businesses for self-employed people claiming universal credit; and extend services to the partners of jobseekers, because universal credit applies to a household, so for the first time a spouse or partner of a claimant can be asked to attend a jobcentre to discuss work, even if they themselves have not made a claim or are in work. In future, jobcentres will also have to operate in-work conditionality under universal credit. In other words, people on low incomes who are working will be required to increase their earnings or risk being sanctioned—another first.

There is growing evidence that the supposed six-week wait for payment at the start of a universal credit claim is much longer in some areas, leading to people being in arrears with their rent and building up debts. Will the Minister assure us that the DWP has fully taken into account the need to tackle existing delays in processing claims in its plans for closures? Furthermore, universal credit is being rolled out at a rate of five jobcentres per month, rising to 30 jobcentres per month from July and 50 jobcentres after September, but by the end of last year the Department was ready to announce a dramatic programme of closures at the very time it was going to speed up the roll-out of universal credit.

Universal credit is, of course, designed for claims to be made and managed online. The Minister, in his statement of 26 January, highlighted that

“99.6% of applicants for Universal Credit full service submitted their claim online.”

As has been said by many Members, however, not everyone is confident of using IT, and many people rely on access to a computer in local libraries to do so—and libraries, too, are under threat from the cuts to local authority funding, with which we are all so familiar.

Just because a claim is made online does not mean that it can then be completely managed online. When there is a problem, a claimant may have little choice but to ring the DWP helpline or to go to a jobcentre to resolve it. We know from parliamentary questions last year that many claimants are spending long periods on the phone to DWP’s universal credit helpline.

The DWP is not alone in closing offices. HMRC is also planning to close all its 170 offices nationwide by 2020, replacing them with only 13 regional centres. Employment support works best when people have a good relationship with their adviser or work coach and it is tailored to a claimant’s specific needs. I am concerned that the system is already buckling under increasing pressure and that, in closing so many jobcentres at the same time as speeding up the roll-out of universal credit, the Government are simply asking the impossible of work coaches, who are at the heart of our system of employment support.

It is vital that we have a reliable social security system that is there for any one of us should we fall on hard times. Those closures look set to erode the infrastructure in place to deliver that system without the Government’s even having made an equality impact assessment. I urge the Government to think again.

[Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Minister, I remind him that we would like Mr Stephens to have two minutes at the end. Would the Minister mind sitting down by 4.28 pm?