Welfare

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman’s line of questioning is particularly fruitful. I made a very clear statement about what I am trying to achieve on day one in this new role. If he is looking for apologies, he should look to his own party’s Front Benchers and ask for an apology for the scandalous state in which they left the public finances in 2010.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on his appointment, but also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) for his previous work. A good welfare system is an important safety net that is there when people absolutely need it, but the true route out of poverty is through education and work. This Conservative Government have not only got more people into work but raised the lowest paid out of tax by increasing the tax threshold and introducing the living wage. [Interruption.] As someone who grew up in a poor area of Labour-controlled south London in the ’70s, I can say that the lack of aspiration that is evident today is the same as it was then. [Interruption.] Does the Secretary of State agree that if you want a lecture about poverty, you should ask Labour, but if you want something done about it, you should ask the Conservatives?

[Stephen Crabb]

Labour Members jeer my hon. Friend, who, with her own upbringing and her work as a cancer nurse on the south coast, has far more understanding, in real-life terms, of working with vulnerable people who need the support of the state than the Opposition are displaying.

Housing Benefit and Supported Housing

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jackson]

No, I will not.

The question has to be, where is the Labour party’s policy? Where is the coherence? Where is the comprehensive costing? Where is the alternative? It is not there. And this from the party that voted against every single welfare change that we made in the last Parliament. What would it have done? It allowed housing benefit claims to reach £104,000 for a single year. They are the people who saw a 46% rise in the housing benefit bill. They are the people who consigned millions of families to welfare dependency, with a record number of children in workless households. This Government are doing something about that.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend recall that Labour Members recently voted against the pay-to-stay policy in the Housing and Planning Bill, under which higher earners in social rented accommodation will pay more and housing associations will keep the revenue to invest in supported housing?

[Mr Jackson]

Exactly; that is a fairness issue. How can it be fair that working families effectively give a direct payment to other people in social housing, who are often not working? That cannot be fair. We have to deal with the issue of welfare dependency.

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[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

I welcome the opportunity to talk about this important issue. I am concerned that the shadow Housing and Planning Minister and Opposition Members are confusing general needs housing and supported housing. Currently, no legislation going through will cap housing benefit in supported housing. An evidence review is being conducted. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) talked about not having an impact assessment, but that is exactly what is happening. Either Opposition Members do not understand the difference or they are scaremongering.

I am a big supporter of supported housing. I was a cabinet member for housing in a unitary authority under the Labour Government. Funding supported housing at that time was difficult because of the year-on-year cuts to our supported housing grant. We funded sheltered housing blocks—both our own stock, and through housing associations and charities. With those cuts, we had to dip in and find the difference to fund our sheltered housing services. The same applied to our learning disability clients who were funded in supported houses. Let us not pretend that Opposition Members did not cut that money when they were in government.

Up until recently, I was a trustee of a homeless charity. It helps people who have hit rock bottom through drug and alcohol dependency. That may not be of interest to Opposition Members, but it is of interest to people living in those hostels. They are supported not just through rehab, but in gaining independence and in sustaining a tenancy on their own in the long term. Supported housing benefit makes a huge difference.

General needs housing benefit is being capped, but there is currently no change to supported housing benefit—it is under review. Opposition Members need to be clear about that.

[John Healey]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Maria Caulfield]

No, I will not give way.

The Housing and Planning Minister’s announcement today that the 1% reduction in social rents will not apply to supported housing for another year must be welcomed.

[Marie Rimmer]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Maria Caulfield]

No, I will not give way because I am conscious of the time and that other Members want to speak.

Let us look at the reasons why we are having to cap housing benefit. It is not just because of the economy, but because of the impact of the local housing allowance in constituencies such as mine. I have the town of Newhaven in my constituency. It is on the same LHA rate as Brighton and Hove, which is a much higher rate than the rest of East Sussex. The shadow Minister does not want to listen to this, but the LHA rate has artificially pushed up private rented rates for the ordinary person who is not on housing benefit. They can no longer afford to stay in Newhaven—the only people who can are those on general needs housing benefit. That has artificially increased the rental market and has not helped young families in my constituency.

If Opposition Members do not want to cap general needs housing benefit, how will they tackle the welfare bill, which they are proud of saying they will be able to manage so much better than the Government? Will they reduce money on the NHS, schools, the police service or the armed forces? They have to make a decision—[Interruption.] As an hon. Friend says, they could put up taxes. They need to be honest with the British public on how they would manage that.

To conclude—I know time is tight—I am a passionate supporter of supported housing. In the review that is taking place, will the Minister come to my constituency and visit Newhaven Foyer? We heard just yesterday that money is secure for that housing placement, where young people who have had a really rough start in life can have a secure tenancy for a period of time. They are able to gain skills and get into the workforce. Will he come and meet those young people and see the difference that supported housing is making for them? They are not under threat from the housing benefit cap because it is not currently relevant to supported housing. I will not support Opposition Members—they are misleading the most vulnerable in our society and scaremongering—and I will not support their motion.

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[Owen Smith]

We have not been in power for six years, and there is only so long that the hon. Gentleman can keeping waving that shroud at me. The key point is that under the hon. Gentleman’s Government there was a 40% cut, and we face the prospect of the end of supported housing in this country unless there is a change of course from his Government.

There is a lot of misunderstanding among Government Members about what we are talking about. I do not know whether they do not read the briefing from the Whips or the Whips do not tell them the truth, but there are two measures that we are debating. On the first measure—a 1% cut in social housing rents—there is now a one-year stay of execution. The second and more important measure, which the Minister did not address despite the questions raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne, is the equalising of the amount of housing benefit available to people in social rented accommodation with the local housing allowance. That is the biggest, most substantive change that the Government propose to make.

The hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) said that the measure had not been introduced and is not happening yet. She really ought to read the Government’s statements. I shall read from the autumn statement, which said at paragraph 1.125:

“The Government will cap the amount of rent that Housing Benefit will cover in the social sector to the relevant local housing allowance. This will apply to tenancies signed after 1 April 2016”.

According to my maths, that is in a couple of months, with housing benefit entitlements changing across the board from April 2018. This is not shroud waving, nor is it jumping the gun: it is the Opposition drawing to the attention of the House and, it would seem, Government Members, a measure that will impact on their constituents in just a few months’ time.

[Maria Caulfield]

The hon. Gentleman is being misleading, because the motion is about supported housing. Now he is speaking about general needs housing benefit, and there is a difference. There is no change in legislation: an extensive review is under way on housing benefit for people in supported housing. There is a difference, and I am sorry that he does not appreciate that.

[Owen Smith]

I am, unusually, lost for words. It is extraordinary that the hon. Lady does not understand what we are talking about. Supported housing—specified housing—is caught within the envelope of social housing.

[Maria Caulfield]

rose—

[Owen Smith]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady. There is no point—she does not understand.

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[Owen Smith]

It is interesting that the Minister did not ride to the rescue of his hon. Friend the Member for Lewes: he knows that she does not know what she is talking about on this subject.

The hon. Lady could have a further look at the Budget book produced by the Government for the same spending review, which shows clearly that £515 million is the saving anticipated from the cuts. The IFS goes further and says that by the time the cuts are fully implemented, the Government might save £1.1 billion. The largest part of that is the change equalising housing benefit with local housing allowance, not the one-year stay of execution that we have heard about today. Now that I have explained the position, does the hon. Lady wish to intervene?

[Maria Caulfield]

I thank the shadow Minister for his reply. I am even more worried that he does not understand the difference. The supported housing allowance is much higher than the ordinary general needs housing benefit. The Opposition called this debate and we are supposed to be discussing supported housing, not general needs housing. I am shocked that the shadow Minister does not understand the difference.

[Owen Smith]

I have made the point about general social housing catching specified supported housing. That is clear. It is also clear, because Ministers admitted it at the Dispatch Box today, that the hon. Lady is right—supported housing does cost more because it is bespoke and it is intended for people with, for example, complex autistic needs or physical disabilities, women fleeing persecution and violence, or elderly vulnerable people. It costs more money to look after those people because an in-house concierge and other things are needed. That is why it is so wrong for the Government to equalise the amount of housing benefit that they can get with local housing allowances available for the private rented sector. That is the issue we are discussing.

The issue was not raised by us initially. Those in the sector have approached us and Ministers on many occasions. I shall quote a few. Andrew Redfern, chief executive of the specialist housing association Framework, said that the planned cut

“ would mean the end of supported housing. All our schemes would close, and I think all others would as well.”

That seems fairly straightforward. Other housing organisations such as Great Places, New Charter, Hightown Praetorian and Family Mosaic all confirmed that many of their schemes would be unviable if the cut went ahead. AmicusHorizon, which I believe has 119 such supported housing bodies across London, has confirmed that it will have to close supported housing in London and elsewhere if these changes go ahead. Charlotte Norman of PlaceShapers and St Vincent’s housing said:

“We cannot believe that government understands the consequences of these changes and the vast extra costs that would fall to the public purse as a result of scheme closures. Nothing short of exemption for all such housing will be adequate and we very much hope that common sense will prevail.”

We heard a lot of common sense from Opposition Members, including from the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) and in particular from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chairman of the Select Committee, who asked the central question: what will happen to the LHA equalisation with housing benefit that the Minister failed to mention? Will there be an exemption for supported housing associations and for specified housing? He asked a further question that the Minister failed to answer, which I hope the Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People will answer in a moment. If the rents are to go up next year and are not cut by 1%, will they go up in line with the formula, as they would have done ordinarily, or are they to be frozen? I would be grateful for an answer from the Minister.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) talked about the Society of St James, which helps 2,000 people and will lose £1 million. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), drawing on their personal experience and deep knowledge, spoke about what this will mean for their constituents. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) spoke with particular expertise about her experience of running a women’s refuge. She explained how these changes would shut that refuge and begged Ministers to listen to her and to the Home Secretary about the value of women’s refuges and the damage that will be done to them. My hon. Friends the Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) and for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) also spoke.

On the Government side, Members were sanguine. On the Government side, Members dissembled. On the Government side, Members have a choice about what to do today. Will they agree with us that nothing short of the exemption of specialised supported housing is required in order to safeguard the most vulnerable in our communities and that what we have heard today from the Government is welcome but insufficient? When the Minister comes to the Dispatch Box, will he agree with me that it is time for the Government to admit that they got it wrong and, as they have done so many times this week, reverse ferret?

Universal Credit Work Allowance

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

Where do I start? I start by telling the hon. Gentleman that 7,000 of his constituents will be hit by this by the time he next stands before them at the election, and he ought to reflect on that. More importantly, I tell him that it is precisely people in work paying tax—working hard, long hours, many on the minimum wage, working every hour they get—who are getting hit by his Government. That is what these cuts are doing. This is not a different set of people—they are not the scroungers that the Government like to talk about; they are the strivers, and they are being hit by the Government. The truth, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said, is that there is no difference between these cuts and the ones to tax credits that the Government proposed, on which they U-turned. According to the IFS, the U-turn makes “no difference”. The Government will end up saving the same £5 billion, at the end of the Parliament as opposed to the beginning, and they will strip £10 billion out of the pockets of working families. They should be ashamed of themselves.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but he has previously said in the House that he is committed to making £12 billion of savings to tackle the country’s deficit. How would he make those savings if not through these changes?

[Owen Smith]

What I absolutely would not do is cut the incomes of 5.5 million working families, many of them in the hon. Lady’s constituency, by an average of £950. I would not take £1,600 from 2.6 million working families—[Interruption.]

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[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I apologise for not saying before the hon. Lady rose that I now have to reduce the time limit to four minutes.

[Maria Caulfield]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will be brief.

I want to pick up on a couple of points made in the debate. First, I want to address the economic aspect of the issue. I have pressed the shadow Minister on the matter this afternoon. We have had many debates on this issue and on tax credits. Labour Members have said that they are committed to reducing the deficit and debt in this country, and the shadow Minister has said that he is committed to reducing welfare spending by £12 billion, but yet again today we have not had any answers as to how that would happen. To give credit to the SNP, the effective Opposition in this House, while I disagree with its alternatives, at least it has some. Perhaps the shadow Minister in his winding-up speech will acknowledge how he would tackle the welfare saving that needs to be made. If it is not through savings on universal credit, how would he propose to make it?

I agree with my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff North (Craig Williams) and for Gloucester (Richard Graham). They produced figures that show that those moving to universal credit, with the tapering and transitional arrangements, will not be worse off in cash terms. They have shone a light on the smoke and mirrors from Labour Members.

With all the changes that are happening during this Parliament, and with the introduction of the national living wage, someone working full time on the current minimum wage will be £5,000 a year better off. With the free childcare being introduced for three to five-year-olds, a family will benefit by about £5,000 a year. The rise in tax thresholds—the threshold is currently £11,000 a year and the proposal is to increase it to £12,500 by the end of this Parliament—will benefit low-wage families. That is not to mention the increase in employment, a significant percentage of which is full-time work.

On my second and more important point, I have been disappointed by the patronising and insulting laughter from the shadow Minister when we suggested single parents could get back into work and life coaches would be helpful in that regard. He laughed that off as if that were something that we could only dream about.

I will tell him why I believe so passionately in this. I grew up in a working-class family. I went to school in the socialist state of Lambeth in London, where there was little or no hope or aspiration for working-class kids such as me. We got no careers advice. My careers advice was the housing office number if I got pregnant at 16. It was about how to claim my first benefits. There was no sixth-form advice or advice on how to go to university, so I never got there. There was just benefits advice, but that is the socialist way, because there is no hope or aspiration for people on a low income.

This universal credit debate is more than just about pounds and pence in people’s pockets. It is about a fundamental shift to where people can work and those who do work are paid well for doing so. I will support the Government in their move to universal credit. I urge Opposition Members to do the same.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Maria Caulfield Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Whiteford]

Scotland has already shown the progress we are making towards a high-skill economy. I was interested to hear yesterday’s announcement on improving the apprenticeship scheme in England. I hope the Government will aspire to do what the Scottish Government have already done. The uptake has been phenomenal and we are well on course to reaching 30,000 apprenticeships a year, which is far more proportionately per head of population than the current number in England. The Opportunities for All scheme guarantees a place in education or training for every single young person. It has been a phenomenal success, with more than 90% of our young people going into sustained employment afterwards. Instead of waiting until people have been unemployed for a year before intervening, we are intervening early so that every school leaver gets those opportunities. The approach is much more carrot than stick. The scale of the uptake shows that in Scotland we are committed to having a more successful economy and to growing it to meet the needs of our population.

I want to return to tax credits and not be distracted from them. Today the Resolution Foundation, which has done so much to promote the living wage and highlight the issue of in-work poverty, has said that the living wage would need to be £10 an hour by 2020—not the £9 announced yesterday—to keep pace with the cost of living under the new tax and benefits regime. Let us be clear: we are not going to get out of the poverty trap with this rebranded minimum wage. We need to bring it up to the level of a living wage if we are going to take away the support currently provided through tax credits.

The huge cuts in tax credits will make the gap between the minimum wage and the living wage even greater and it will leave the earnings of low-paid workers even further below the actual cost of living. At present, a family with two children where both parents work and who live in a house with average rent will be below the breadline, and the changes announced yesterday will not change that. Such families will still struggle to keep their heads above water and their children will still grow up disadvantaged.

We need to recognise that bringing up children is expensive—for everyone, in all income groups—but children are not some sort of luxury lifestyle accessory. Having children and encouraging family life is an essential, necessary and natural part of the human life cycle. For some years, however, we have made it really difficult for younger adults to even contemplate starting a family, simply because of the pernicious combination of low pay, job insecurity and exorbitant housing costs.

That brings me to the differential impact of this Budget on women, because, in spite of the progress that has been made, women are still heavily concentrated in low-paid work. We are far more likely to be working part-time or in zero-hours jobs, and we are more likely to be the primary carer of children or, indeed, frail or disabled relatives. Too many women end up in low-paid, part-time work such as cashiering or cleaning simply because they can work their hours around their family responsibilities. While I welcome the increase in the personal allowance, we need to recognise that many of those women working part time in low-paid jobs will not see the full benefit of it. Indeed, the key beneficiaries are, of course, higher-rate tax payers like ourselves, and 80% of the benefit of the increase will fall in the upper half of the income spectrum.

I have a number of questions for the Government about limiting tax credits to two children. I am not sure why they would do this—certainly in Scotland, we have a worryingly low birth rate so we should not be trying to deter people from having more children. I ask Ministers for clarification about the basis on which the number of children eligible for support through tax credits will be determined. Will it be a couple’s first two children together, or will children from a previous relationship be counted in the total? What will happen, for example, if a woman has her first child with a partner who already has two children from previous relationship or if a mother’s third child is the father’s first? As anyone who ever runs a constituency surgery will know, these are not abstract questions, and I hope Ministers will address them this afternoon.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady not agree that it is absolutely right for those on benefits to make the same choices as hard-working taxpayers, including choices about how large their families should be?

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[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

I congratulate all those who have made their maiden speeches today, including the hon. Members for St Helens South and Whiston (Marie Rimmer), for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Calum Kerr), for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Dr Monaghan) and for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), as well as my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Craig Tracey). They all made excellent speeches.

I welcome the Budget, as it ensures security for working people by putting the public finances in order, and sets out a plan for a more productive and balanced economy. I was particularly pleased to see a number of measures that will make a real difference to my constituents in Lewes. The first was the announcement on transport. The freezing of fuel duty for another year is to be welcomed. My constituency, like many, is rural—many residents are heavily reliant on cars, as the area has little or no public transport. Many businesses are reliant on farm vehicles and heavy goods vehicles.

Any increase in fuel duty would have had a significant impact on the amount of money in the local economy, so the freeze is very welcome, as is the announcement on ring-fencing vehicle excise duty and making the owners of more expensive cars pay more. The money raised will be ring-fenced for the English strategic road network. That is welcome news for my constituents, as more money will be used to repair existing roads and to pay for improvements to roads such as the A27, for which the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) pledged that he would cut funding if Labour was elected. The A27 in my constituency is a busy and congested road, and this year alone there have been a number of deaths from accidents. The investment in that road is very welcome.

In addition, investment in rail infrastructure is very welcome indeed. Yesterday, I spoke in a Westminster Hall debate on the issues we face locally in dealing with Southern rail. A number of MPs from Sussex, Surrey and London and from both sides of the House were there to raise issues about trains being consistently late, consistently cancelled and consistently overcrowded. I am sure that many hon. Members who came here by train today, the day of the tube strike, know exactly what I mean.

Our line from the Sussex coast up to London is at capacity. I was pleased to read in the Budget that the Government will extend the scope of the Lewes to Uckfield study, which is taking place this summer, to consider improving the line between London and the south coast and to re-examine the Department for Transport’s feasibility study of the Brighton main line, too. That is a real way to get a second rail main line from the Sussex coast to London. This work cannot come soon enough for the residents of Sussex.

As a nurse, I very much welcome the extra £8 billion to be invested in the NHS to provide a seven-day-a-week service. Owing to the changes made locally by hospital management, which I raised in Health questions this week, patients from areas of my constituency such as Seaford, Polegate and Alfriston now have to travel to Hastings for basic services. The extra £8 billion will go towards more local services and making services available at weekends and evenings, so that local people can obtain the care that they need every day of the week.

Housing is a huge issue in my constituency—not just the availability of housing, but its affordability for those who want to buy or rent. I am pleased that the rent-a-room relief will increase from £4,250 to £7,500 next April. I am also pleased that a level playing field between buy-to-let landlords and homeowners will be created by addressing mortgage tax relief for landlords. In my constituency, family homes are increasingly being bought for student lets and used as houses in multiple occupation. This change will free up family housing for local people in my constituency.

Finally, I welcome the welfare changes announced yesterday. As someone from a working-class background, I am only too aware how much of a struggle life can be on a low income. I am pleased that the Budget supports low-paid workers by increasing the tax threshold from £10,600 to £11,000 now and to £12,500 by 2020. I am also pleased about the announcement on the living wage. We have heard much debate about that this afternoon, but it is definitely welcome.

A report last year by the Scottish Public Health Observatory found that changes to tax and benefits could do more to impact on health inequalities than changes to health care itself. It found that the implementation of a living wage is among one of the most effective interventions to reduce inequality and improve health. According to Public Health England, there is currently a seven-year difference in life expectancy between those who receive benefits and those who do not. Anything we can do to get people off benefits and into work must surely be welcome, and the living wage is one way to do that. Introducing the living wage is a massive step forward.

I welcome the Budget, which moves Britain from being a low-wage, high-tax, high-welfare economy to being a high-wage, low-tax, low-welfare society, and I congratulate the Chancellor on it.