British Sign Language Bill

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

I will not detain the Committee for too long, because what is happening today has been set out brilliantly by the sponsor of the Bill. I want to speak on behalf of my constituents and the deaf community as a whole.

I am enormously jealous of the Minister. When I was the Minister with responsibility for this issue, I wanted to be sitting where she is, bringing these measures through as a Government Bill or a Back-Bench Bill—I did not care. As we can see, the Minister has been much more successful than me. We got pushback after pushback, and having spoken to previous Ministers from other Administrations, I know they had similar pushbacks over the years, even though, in theory, we had had recognition in 2003.

I support all the provisions today, but I want to say to the community listening today that there are massive restrictions on any Back-Bench Bill coming through Parliament. I have been lobbied extensively—“Could we have this amendment? Could we have that amendment?” —and I have passed those comments to the Minister so that we can look at them as we go forward to the advisory panel and to the Lords. The amendment is vital to make sure that the Bill is successful. As has been explained, changing the long title in no way changes the importance or the powers of the Bill; it actually takes the Bill in the opposite direction.

For those listening to the Committee this morning who are wondering why we cannot do this or that, there is one key point. This is a Back-Bench Bill and the rules for them are quite difficult, but because the Minister has worked so closely with the hon. Member for West Lancashire we have got around many of those problems. Let us get this Bill on the statute book. Let us get the advisory panel set up.

We can learn from other countries. Some of the papers I passed to the Minister last night show that we do not need to reinvent the wheel very often. If other countries are successfully doing things, we can do them too. When we brought through the Welsh language legislation all those years ago, for instance, a lot of the scaremongering about costs was categorically wrong. The Treasury may have a lot of concerns, and we need to prove those wrong too.

I welcome the amendment and I welcome the Bill. Hopefully we will not detain the Committee much longer and we can get the Bill through this House and do what the deaf community expects of us by passing the Bill.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I very much congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire, who is promoting the Bill and doing so in a way that has enabled it to progress further than one might have expected, given that she came at No. 20 in the ballot for private Members’ Bills. The only time I came up in the ballot, I was at No. 2—we will not go into the Fur Farming (Prohibition) Bill, but something pretty similar ended up on the statute book. However, I was not at No. 20, which is the last place in the ballot and the one most likely to see a Bill ruled out for time purposes when it comes to the day when these things are given priority. My hon. Friend has done well to use her opportunity to create this consensus.

British Sign Language Bill

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Friday 28th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Today is a momentous day for many deaf people, one they thought would never come. I want to begin by acknowledging the people who have been instrumental in getting the Bill to this position—David Buxton, the chair of the British Deaf Association, who has led the “BSL Act Now!” campaign; and Rob Geaney, from the Royal National Institute for Deaf People—and some of the Bill’s many supporters, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) and the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning). So many people have supported the Bill and are willing it through that I do not propose to use this valuable time naming them all. They know who they are and I am grateful for their help.

My sincere thanks go to my friend the Minister of State, who is the Minister for disabled people and has wholeheartedly embraced the campaign and even learnt to sign a bit of BSL. I also commend Deborah Lonnon from the Cabinet Office’s disability unit, who worked tirelessly and kept me sane as the fine details were being worked out—I am not famed for my patience. I also wish to thank those in my office, Michael Rout in particular, for the hard work they have done in keeping this all going and making sure that we got to today, when we are actually going to move it forward. Finally, and probably most importantly, I would like to thank the deaf community and, most of all, my brilliant parents, for everything they have given me in life: a family, a culture and a language.

Both my parents were profoundly deaf. My dad was born deaf, as were his two sisters, and my mum went deaf when she was four. BSL was a language created at least 230 years ago—some say it was even longer ago than that. BSL is my first language and, as a child of deaf parents, I have to tell the House that hearing children of deaf parents grow up fast. They have to shoulder a responsibility well beyond their years, and that is not fair. We do it willingly—I never knew any different—but it is not fair and we have a chance to help with it. Growing up, I saw at first hand the difficulties that deaf people face every day: the huge challenges that my parents had to overcome to be heard, to be listened to and, more importantly, to be understood. I am told that I booked my first family holiday when I was four years old—I do not remember that, but I did.

As for the impact of BSL, I am going to tell the House a quick story about my dad, who was a supremely intelligent human being—he was so quick, so fast. He did not have vast books to read, because his language was not great, but he was so intelligent and insightful. He was absolutely my hero. I talked to him about what happened when he was getting a job at 16 and leaving school, and I asked him what he wanted to be. He said that he had wanted to be a joiner, but then he went round looking for a job, as a BSL user. He could read and write, but he was trying to pass O-Level English right up until he was about 70—that language skill was not there. However, he was supremely intelligent and he wanted to be a joiner.

He went to firm after firm, and one said, “Yes, we’ll give you an apprenticeship as a joiner, but you have to be a labourer first.” My dad said to me, “I knew they were lying. I knew they had no intention of giving me that job, but I laboured away.” That was in wartime. One day, the big jobs were all held up because a plastering job could not be done as no plasterers were available. After a few days of the jobs being held up, everyone came into work and the plastering had been done. It had been done really well but nobody knew who had done it—the fairies had been. Everyone was looking and trying to work out how it had been done. It was great but they did not know who had done it. My dad said, “I did it.” They looked at him and said, “How?!” My dad told me, “They’re daft. I just watched.” They then said to him, “You can have the apprenticeship tomorrow, but you will be a plasterer, not a joiner.”

My dad became known as the best in the north-west. As I grew up, on a Friday night, directors of different plastering firms—the big ones such as Unit Construction and Pollock Brothers—would sit round the table in our living room, with me interpreting while my dad went, “More money” and “No, not doing that.” He was seeing them all off, and they would come and compete for him. Just think about that. In the scheme of things, they would not have given him that job. He would have been written off. It is important that we do not undervalue deaf people because their ears do not work. It is only that their ears do not work. Mine do not, either.

Growing up, I saw what a wonderful language sign language is, and how incredible the deaf community is. I often joke that I was kidnapped at birth, not just by my parents but by the whole wider deaf community in Liverpool. It is an understatement to say that deaf culture and values have shaped the person I am today. I would not be here now or be the person I am without those influences. The Bill is my way of paying it forward, because of the kindness and the care the wider deaf community have shown me. Today I am talking about the life lessons they taught me.

Sadly, I need to bring the Bill to the House because, despite the incredible progress, so many of the unbelievable obstacles I saw my parents face throughout their lives are still a problem for deaf people. People like my dad were campaigning for subtitles in the 70s—pressuring the BBC and TV companies to get subtitles. We have them today, although, if Ofcom is listening, the quality is atrocious.

Since introducing the Bill, I have been asked repeatedly, “Wasn’t BSL recognised in 2003? How is this different?” On 18 March 2003, BSL was recognised as a language—an essential and important step in this journey. But in the intervening years, deaf people have been forced to rely on inadequate provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, and little progress has been made.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for telling her story; a story that often is not heard. She is making a great speech.

I was the Minister for disabled people at the time when BSL was recognised as a language in a written ministerial statement. There was much debate then that it did not even count as a language. That line in the sand was important, but I am so pleased that my hon. Friend is now bringing forward legislation to take a further step, which has been too long coming, to promote the use of the language. It will enable it to flourish in a way that other languages that have been recognised in statute have flourished thereafter. I congratulate my hon. Friend and I wish her and the Minister all the very best getting the legislation through.

[Rosie Cooper]

I thank my hon. Friend for those remarks. It is true that we have made progress. The deaf part of me is standing here thinking that deaf people are saying, “Very good—let’s not wait 19 years more.” We need to make some rapid progress.

In bringing forward the Bill, I want to finally recognise BSL in statute—not just a gesture but a law that requires positive action from the Government, with real progress to put deaf people on an equal footing with those of us who hear. For every deaf person, like my parents, who has been ignored, misunderstood, or even treated as unintelligent simply for relying on BSL, this recognition will be clear and a message that their language is equal and should be treated as equal.

When I was pre-school and at home, we used to have lessons every day. I could not say exactly when they started, but probably when I was about two. We would learn numbers, sums and English and to read a bit. I remember saying to my mum and dad, “Other children don’t have to do this. It’s not fair.” I can well remember their reply, which was repeated right through my growing up: “You have to. Because we’re deaf, they’ll think you’re daft.” Only as an adult can I appreciate how much that said about how they—intelligent people—had been treated just because their ears did not work.

Throughout this campaign, and from my own life experiences, I have seen the shocking inequality in access that deaf people have to public services. The reason I got involved in local politics is that I was at school and my father wanted to complain to the local councillor. Guess who did the complaining? It was me. That inequality in access goes across all aspects of life: healthcare, social care, education, jobs and benefits, to name but a few. The Royal National Institute for Deaf People estimates that 151,000 people in the UK use British Sign Language and, of those, at least 87,000 are deaf. A huge number of people rely on BSL, yet we constantly let them down and fail to see the challenges they face.

This Bill requires the Secretary of State to produce guidance, which will be issued across Government, about how they should be promoting, facilitating and protecting the use of BSL in their Departments. I am sure the Minister will set out in her speech how the Government intend to ensure the guidance will reflect the needs of the deaf community.

Personal Independence Payments: Merseyside

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the administration of personal independence payments on Merseyside.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I welcome the Minister, who has been, though is not at present, the Minister for Disabled People. As a former Minister for Disabled People myself—I served for an entire Parliament, in fact—I am grateful for this opportunity to highlight a worrying deterioration that I have noticed in the administration of disability benefits in my constituency.

Personal independence payment is meant to help people with the extra costs of disability, and is payable regardless of income. None the less, many sick and disabled people who apply for it and receive it are often unable to work, tend to be poor and find it difficult to make ends meet. Many have chronic fluctuating conditions, and are very ill or very disabled. PIP is therefore usually, in my experience, an essential component of enabling people in such situations to live a decent and dignified life. It is a crucial benefit, which is all the more reason to get it swiftly and correctly to those who are entitled to it.

According to the House of Commons Library, since 2010 some £4.8 billion has been cut from disability benefit. Indeed, the introduction of PIP and the replacement of disability living allowance, its predecessor benefit, was intended from the start to cut entitlement to make it less generous, and to create monetary savings in the escalating cost of DLA. The expected savings of £3 billion a year have not materialised, but the Tory Minister in the Lib Dem-Tory coalition who introduced the benefit in 2013 said that PIP would be

“easier to understand and administer, financially sustainable and more objective.”—[Official Report, 13 December 2012; Vol. 555, c. 463.]

“Financially sustainable” means, in this context, cheaper in terms of the overall spend. That means cutting entitlement and awards when we get down to the circumstances of individuals.

Since PIP’s inception, administrative problems have been to the fore. In its first seven months, only 16% of the targets for resolving claims were met. The National Audit Office was critical, suggesting that the Department for Work and Pensions should

“set out a clear plan for informing claimants about the likely delays they will experience”.

I wish it had, because my constituents are increasingly experiencing delays, and I do not see any plan to stop them. Ever since PIP was introduced, constituents have complained to me about the way in which they have been treated when being assessed, the delays in the process of administering it, and subsequent reconsiderations and appeals. Whatever the outcome of the original assessment, it is hard to find people who are satisfied with the administration of the benefit.

Recently I have noticed that things are worsening. For the previous two years, until last December, I had a stable, steady number of cases coming through, spread over the months. I have been able to help with some cases and not others, but the flow has been pretty steady. However, during the first three months of this year my office has faced a threefold increase in complaints about PIP, and some of the circumstances my constituents relate to me are simply horrendous.

There are a set of different problems. For example, I hear about inappropriate questions at assessment, so that when people are disqualified from the benefit they consider the process completely unfair. Asking somebody who is debilitated by mental illness whether they can pick something up off the floor just does not seem relevant to that individual. In my experience, home assessments are rarely allowed, and when people cannot attend, usually for genuine reasons, they are simply disallowed the benefit.

I have one constituent who has been trying since December 2017 to be assessed. He has been refused, despite many debilitating conditions, including severe schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. There are physical and mental reasons why he cannot attend an assessment centre, but PIP administrators simply will not attend him at home. He has been unable to get to the 11 face-to-face interview assessments he has been set. Consequently, his last DLA payment, which was received in the middle of last year, has long since expired.

My constituent has lost employment and support allowance as a consequence. He has now lost almost £5,000 of income, and is financially reliant on his extremely elderly and disabled mother for the basics—all because he cannot get to an assessment. Why on earth can they not assess him at home? It is ridiculous that he has been asked to attend 11 times when he clearly has problems doing so. Why can we not have some common sense?

In addition, there are poor assessments and a poor attitude from assessors. My constituents report that they are often simply not believed. Some feel sneered at, and some are right to feel that way, from the accounts that I have heard. Inaccuracies in medical assessments mean that sometimes the reports that are produced end up bearing no resemblance whatever to what has been said at the face-to-face interview, and my constituents tell me that they feel as if a completely different case and person has been reported on.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

May I reflect on the hon. Lady’s opinions regarding PIP? I am very involved in this matter in my constituency back home, with the changes that there have been. Does the hon. Lady feel, as I always have, that it is important that the assessor or officer who comes out to visit the person in their home, or takes them to an office for interview, has knowledge of the medical circumstances of that person? Also, when it comes to mental and emotional issues, does she agree that it is important to have someone there to support the person being assessed—perhaps as a witness as much as anything?

[Maria Eagle]

I agree with both those points. A lack of understanding and basic common decency sometimes seems to creep into these assessments.

I also have vulnerable constituents who are being prevented from getting help in explaining their situation to assessors. For example, I have a constituent who has a brain stem tumour, among other physical conditions. Perhaps not surprisingly, her mother was with her at the assessment. However, she was told that her mother could not answer any questions for her, despite the fact that my constituent has significant difficulty in processing information because of her condition. That goes completely against the PIP assessment guidance, which says that

“companions may play an active role in helping claimants answer questions”.

I have constituents who were prevented from having that kind of help and, perhaps not surprisingly, thereafter had their PIP stopped because it was felt that they had not answered the questions appropriately.

There are extremely long delays in assessments, reconsiderations and particularly tribunal dates for appeals. It is hard to justify the fact that the average waiting time for PIP is now 15 weeks. That is almost four months. It is completely unacceptable to make disabled people, who rely on that money to make their lives a little easier, wait so long for a first payment.

Reconsiderations are a necessary step to be gone through, but they almost never overturn the original decision. In my recent experience, I have not come across a single case in which that has happened, even when it is blindingly obvious that that is the point at which what has gone wrong can be put right with the least possible damage. Surely the purpose of the reconsideration stage is to apply a little common sense, but these days it just seems to be a way of wasting another two or three months, during which the individual does not get their benefit.

The wait for a tribunal is the killer. On Merseyside, the average wait is more than nine months, but I know of people who have waited for 12. It is an absolute scandal. How can the Government or the Minister possibly justify treating vulnerable, sick and disabled people in such a callous and horrendous manner?

I have also come across many reports of compassion fatigue among bureaucratic and indifferent contractors who are paid to assess vulnerable and desperate people. Compassion fatigue is not a new phenomenon, but it seems to be rife these days. It was reported in the newspapers recently that a DWP official had submitted papers to an appeal tribunal in which they referred to the appellant, a disabled person, as a “lying bitch”. How revealing of their attitude is that? Yet there is not much evidence of fraud in claims for these benefits: according to DWP figures, it represents only 1.5% of the total expenditure. That figure is put into context by the heftier 4.2% of total expenditure on making up underpayments to people who have not claimed their full entitlement—one can hardly argue that there is a huge problem of fraud that we need to crack down on.

Let me give a few examples of cases in my constituency that illustrate my concerns. Some people’s benefits have been stopped, quite unfairly, when they have fallen foul of overly bureaucratic practices that take no notice of plain common sense and that apparently cannot be put right without the lengthiest process imaginable, causing extreme hardship and pain. I have a constituent with kidney disease who attends hospital weekly for dialysis. She was diagnosed with a very painful and severe complication of her condition and was treated for it as an in-patient. When she got home after being discharged last July, she was exhausted, disoriented and in severe pain. She was expecting a district nurse to attend her at home to change a dressing, but her carer was confronted at the door by someone who claimed to be a health professional, but who—sure enough—seems in hindsight to have been sent by the DWP.

The “medical professional”, who was turned away by the carer because my constituent was in no fit state to be seen, appears to have had a compassion bypass. Instead of being given another appointment at a more convenient and sensible time, my constituent had her benefit stopped last August because she was said to have refused to be interviewed. Not only was she in no fit state to be interviewed, but she had received no letter. Even if such a letter had been sent, she had been in hospital for weeks and was very poorly, so she certainly would not have seen it. Why on earth was another appointment not made as a matter of plain common sense? Her request for a reconsideration last October was refused. What is the point of having reconsiderations if we cannot reconsider a case like that?

My constituent applied for a tribunal hearing in December—given her very poor health, it took her that long to navigate the process of filling in all the required forms. For three months, she tried to make the best of things, but she came to see me last week asking how long she would have to wait for an appeal. As I have said, and as the Minister may know, the average wait on Merseyside is 38 to 42 weeks, so I had to tell my constituent that she might have to wait another six months before the matter could be resolved. I have no doubt that the decision would be overturned at a hearing, as happens in 75% of the cases that get that far.

When I asked my constituent how she was doing, she told me that she had no money for food. Her weight had reduced to just 6½ stone. On the day she came to see me, she had eaten two slices of toast—one for breakfast and one for lunch—and was planning a main meal of a bowl of soup. I would normally offer food bank vouchers to a woman in that condition, but my constituent has a special diet because of her dialysis, so she could not have eaten what a food bank would have given her. She was able to take advantage of Can Cook, a charity in my constituency that stepped in at my request to provide some fresh food commensurate with her dietary requirements—but most people do not have Can Cook in their constituency.

I happened to bump into the Secretary of State, so I asked her who I should write to about this scandalous case, given that the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) has resigned as Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work and has not been replaced. The Secretary of State got her officials to sort it out within two days, which is excellent, and I thank her for it. My constituent has been reassessed on higher rates of care and mobility than those from which she was disqualified, and she will receive full back payments this week. Thank goodness she came to see me, but she did not see me for 10 weeks—and what about those constituents who have not come to see me and who are suffering in silence and despair at home? What about those who are too vulnerable to get out to see me, particularly those who are debilitated by mental ill health and are struggling on with no money and no food?

[Jim Shannon]

I am quite moved by what the hon. Lady says. Many of us know of people in similar circumstances. At my constituency office, three people in 10 days came to see us who had fallen off the radar—no one knew about them. Their issues were clearly mental and emotional. Does the hon. Lady feel that someone in the benefits system should be following up on people who have been refused benefits? That would be a method of finding out what is happening to those people.

[Maria Eagle]

The hon. Gentleman is correct. One would have thought that the reconsideration would introduce an element of plain good sense, but it does not seem to be working in that way at present. There is a general issue with how the debility caused by mental ill health is not well recognised or sympathetically dealt with in the system. People who are debilitated with mental ill health often find it even harder than people who have physical disabilities to face up to filling in the forms and getting themselves organised to get some help, so they are even more vulnerable.

PIP has less generous criteria for its mobility component than DLA, because it is designed to save money: people are required to be less able to walk than under the older benefit system. Because PIP is the gateway to one of the world’s most innovative and practical disability entitlements —the world-leading Motability scheme, one of the best things that makes disabled people’s lives easier—problems in its administration hit recipients particularly hard. For many of my disabled constituents, access to a Motability car is a lifeline—it makes their lives liveable—yet in the last two years, the DWP’s own figures show that 44% of people who were getting the higher rate mobility component under DLA lost their entitlement under PIP. Of those who are being reassessed from the DLA higher rate mobility component to PIP, only 53% got the equivalent of the enhanced rate. The other half either got the lower rate, and therefore lost their car, or got no mobility component at all.

People naturally appeal when they lose so much, and they are entitled to do so. PIP appeals accounted for 52% of all social security and child support tribunal receipts, and 73% of PIP appeals succeeded. Too many people who should appeal do not; they put up with the loss of income and the hardship because they cannot cope with the process. For people who first joined the Motability scheme before 2012, the car has to go back once the benefit has been gone for 26 weeks. However, the average wait for a tribunal on Merseyside is nine months, which means that people’s cars have to go back even if they win the tribunal, as 75% of them do. What is the point of taking away a disabled person’s car only to give it back again? Is it any wonder that people feel messed around? They have been messed around. I have a number of cases where people have quite wrongly lost their Motability car. When they finally get to appeal, they get it back. Why mess them around in the first place?

One constituent has lost her car and is awaiting a tribunal hearing—she will have waited almost a year by the time she gets one. I tried to have her case expedited with the Courts and Tribunals Service, as I have with a number of others, as this young woman has to make three or four journeys to hospital, in different directions, to different hospitals every week. She and her parents, who are fairly low-paid workers, used the car to get her to those hospital appointments. Her journeys cost £17 per journey in a taxi, multiplied three or four times a week. When her mother came to see me, they were starting to decide which hospital appointments to go to and which not to go to. I asked the Courts and Tribunals Service to expedite the hearing, and it was put in front of the judge—that is the first time I have got that far—but he said no, so she will have to wait until this summer.

The Mayor of Liverpool has a mayoral hardship fund, with millions of pounds that were raised through the invest-to-save arrangements, which was supposed to be about improving the Merseyside economy. He now spends all of that fund supporting poor people, and the young woman now has her taxi journeys paid for. That is the only reason she is still able to attend her hospital appointments.

The Minister must recognise that there is a severe problem here, at the very least in the length of time it is taking to get appeal hearings, and in the way in which people are being messed around in the interim. The people who benefit from PIP are some of the poorest, most vulnerable and most disabled people in our society. They should not be being put through the mill to get their basic entitlement to an extra benefit. I hope the Minister will be able to show us that the situation is going to improve in future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Tomlinson]

We always recognise that there is a need for improvement, and we continue to review all the processes—not just PIP, but all parts of Government activity. It is right to do that, and I am sure any party in government would make the same commitment.

Some 92% of claimants complete the forms, but that still leaves 8% who have challenges with them. We have already tried to make improvements by changing the language, tone and style, and shortening the paragraphs. We commissioned further independent research to support further changes. For those 8%, ahead of further changes, we can grant an additional two-week extension. We try to identify vulnerable claimants whom we may have to help with the initial application. With the support of charities and stakeholders, we have produced videos to explain the process. We are trying to make it clearer and remove claimants’ understandable anxiety. For claimants who have severe mental or behavioural conditions, learning disabilities, development disorder or cognitive problems and who cannot engage with the claims process, we will try to offer what support we can, beyond the excellent work of local organisations, which has been highlighted.

Many of the concerns that hon. Members raised were about the assessment process. We encourage help from carers, family friends, social workers or local support workers. I am really disappointed to hear the two examples from Liverpool and Merseyside of people who were trying to provide that support, which would have resulted in a better quality assessment. That should not be happening, and we should look into it. That is an incredibly important part of the process—not just because people are anxious or because demonstrating all their individual challenges is a complex process, but because for some people, particularly those with long-term health conditions, their issues have become a given. They no longer see those issues as a challenge and do not raise them, so they do not get the support that they should be getting. It sometimes takes having someone with them to say, “Actually, that isn’t right. We need to do something.”

[Maria Eagle]

I thank the Minister for giving way—it is a bit hard with twins. He said he was disappointed to hear the examples that my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) and I gave of that going wrong, but can he explain what he is going to do to stop it happening? It is a fundamental problem with administration.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I will come to that. Fear not; I have woven in as many of the answers as I could.

The average length of time for assessments is now 15 weeks, and it has actually fallen. Initially, in July 2014, when it was at its worst, it stood at 42 weeks, so it has fallen by two thirds to 15 weeks. We got it down to about 13 weeks, but feedback from stakeholders and charities suggested that it was better for assessments to take a bit longer, to help people—particularly the most vulnerable claimants—to gather evidence.

The assessors must be health professionals—occupational therapists, nurses, physiotherapists, paramedics or doctors—who have had at least two years’ experience since they became fully registered. Although there has been understandable criticism of some important cases, the vast majority of the staff on our frontline are well-trained and exceptionally hardworking, and they have claimants’ interests at heart. I think that we all recognise that. In the skills that assessors must have there is an emphasis on assessing people with conditions affecting mental health, intellectual or cognitive functions. There is comprehensive training on how health conditions and impairments affect claimants’ day-to-day lives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Tomlinson]

It is difficult to comment without having seen the details. I am not saying that what the hon. Lady says is not true, but if that case is exactly as she describes, that should not be happening and needs to be looked at, which is why I have committed to doing so. In general—as in the case about which I met the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood last week—common sense is not being applied. We must make sure that the rules and guidance that are in place are consistent across the board.

A number of hon. Members highlighted that in Liverpool and Merseyside, home visits are not offered. Between 15% and 20% of claimants in Liverpool and Merseyside have actually been offered home visits, as they should be. If, for a variety of medical reasons, travelling to the assessment is a barrier to accessing the benefit, that should be taken into account. Certainly, when I was the Minister with responsibility for disabled people, we improved the communication by making it more proactive to encourage that. We want the assessment process to work for the claimant.

I also welcome our introduction of the video relay service for those who are deaf and use British Sign Language. That is important not just for PIP, but across all frontline services.

[Maria Eagle]

I thank the Minister for giving way when he has only a little bit of time left. The delay to tribunal hearings is a severe problem. Can he address that before he concludes his remarks?

[Justin Tomlinson]

That is the key thing that I will address, but I will cover one last matter first.

Some 600,000 claimants currently access the Motability scheme. I echo the comments about what a wonderful scheme it is. I think it is the second-largest purchaser of motor vehicles after the Chinese army, so it has significant buying power and is very important. I visited a car salesroom that dealt with Motability and that said it was the dream customer. Some 144,000 people who were formerly on DLA and did not access the higher rate of mobility now do, following re-assessment, and they can therefore access the scheme. That goes back to the point about the 31% against the 15%.

Those who were on DLA on a higher rate, and who could therefore lose their car, will get to keep the car through the £175 million transitional fund that was set up. They keep the car for eight weeks, and then they can either take £2,000 or keep the car for up to six further months, but with a lower payment at the end if their appeal is unsuccessful. That provision was brought in because of a recognition that the appeal process, which I will come to in a moment, often took longer than the time for which the claimant could keep the car. That meant that a car could be taken away, only to be given back two weeks later. When the difference is very close, Motability Operations can exercise some discretion. Fundamentally, the challenge is the length of time of appeals, and that is probably the most tangible concern that has been raised by all who have spoken. I emphasise that the absolute priority is getting it right first time. If we could get every decision right first time, we would not have to worry about mandatory reconsiderations and the appeal process. We all agree on that.

The MR process was introduced to try to intercept cases in which mistakes are made and stop them having to go through the appeals process, which is a real challenge and reduces capacity, and thus bring down the time for other cases. Although I accept that very few decisions appear to change, about 22% of cases are actually picked up by MR. It is absolutely right to focus on that, however, and I think we all recognise that more decisions could be changed. Often, a lot of the MR process is just checking the current processes. The nub of the matter is that the appeals process often considers late, additional evidence. The common-sense point is that we should be doing a lot more, and we are testing that concept by asking whether there are any obvious gaps that we can pick up. Has there not been a GP note? Has supporting evidence that we suspect will be presented not been submitted?

[Maria Eagle]

The case that I mentioned, which has now been fixed, involved a woman who should really just have had another appointment at home. That was not picked up on a mandatory reconsideration. There is surely a point at which some common sense should be injected.

[Justin Tomlinson]

Absolutely. That is what we are testing, so that we can assist claimants by strengthening areas where there are obvious gaps. It would be quicker for the claimant, and we would benefit, because those gaps reduce capacity in the process. We are working with Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service to try to address the capacity issue, in terms of both the new digital service and recruiting additional judges and tribunal panel members. That cannot come quickly enough.

It is true that the majority of successful appeals are successful thanks to late evidence. We should see that as an opportunity to look at how we can do more to get such evidence in the first place. We are committed to learning those lessons to improve the process for everyone.

It has been a pleasure to respond to this debate. The group of hon. Members who have spoken are passionate about this matter, and they are real champions for their constituents. I have listened to all the points that have been raised, and I will look at the individual pieces of casework. We have a collective duty to keep applying common sense to improve the situation, and we are heading in the right direction. That is welcomed by stakeholder groups, but there is still more to do, and I am committed to doing what I can to support that work.

[Maria Eagle]

I am grateful to the Minister for his constructive approach to the points that have been raised, and I am glad that he and the Department seek to improve the administration of the benefit. From our experience on Merseyside, there is still some way to go. Some simple things can be done, such as getting the assessments right and doing more to ensure that those who conduct them are properly trained and conduct them correctly.

For goodness’ sake, let us cut the amount of time that it takes to get through the process and restore some basic common sense, so that our constituents, many of whom are the most vulnerable people in our communities, are not put through the mill to obtain a benefit that should be theirs by right and is intended to make their lives easier. Instead, because of the way that the benefit is administered and the mistakes that are made, it ends up making their lives much harder.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the administration of personal independence payments on Merseyside.

Department for Education

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I would like to begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Ruth George) on the way in which she opened the debate. The context set out for us by the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), of the cuts since 2010 should be borne in mind during the debate. The House of Commons Library estimates cuts of £37 billion to working-age social security since 2010 and £4.8 billion to disability benefits.

I want to talk about a couple of cases, one of which relates to decision making in personal independence payment cases. I was interested that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) raised the issue of PIP being a bit of a problem. I have seen numerous instances of very poor-quality decision making in PIP cases, particularly when people are migrated from DLA to PIP. These are people with multiple and severe disabilities, often with lifetime awards under DLA, with fluctuating yet deteriorating conditions and usually with the higher rate mobility component entitling them to a Motability vehicle, but they simply lose that when assessed for PIP and consequently lose their cars and their mobility—the one thing that makes their lives a little easier.

In a recent written answer, the Government admitted that 44%, or a staggering 157,740 people, who were previously getting the higher rate mobility component under DLA had been reassessed and lost their eligibility to the equivalent rate. No doubt some people’s entitlement has been raised—I accept that—but a lot of disabled people have lost their access to a vehicle and had their lives upturned and made much harder, often wrongly. These decisions, many of which are perverse, have come to my advice surgery. They are inevitably overturned when they finally get to an appeal, but that takes months. When they do get to appeal, 70% of cases are overturned, and people get their higher rate mobility back.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (Ind)]

People do not get any of that additional money during the months that they have to wait for an appeal. The Government say, “Yes, but if you do win the appeal, you get the money back,” but for people who are short of money and on the breadline, this can mean many months of lost income.

[Maria Eagle]

The hon. Gentleman is correct. For people waiting, it may as well be never. The Courts and Tribunals Service tells me that on Merseyside the average waiting time for an appeal is 38 to 42 weeks—10 months.

I have a constituent whose mother came to me in despair for help. She is a young woman of 29 years but has serious and worsening immune conditions, which are baffling her doctors and causing her health to deteriorate. She has so many conditions, and I will not go through them all, but she can hardly walk at the best of times and sometimes is in a much worse state. She often has to visit four different hospitals, sometimes with two or three appointments a week, and has been using a Motability car to do so. However, she does not have her Motability car any more because it has been taken away. She had a lifetime award of higher rate mobility under DLA, but when she was migrated to PIP, she was only awarded the lower rate. She appealed for a tribunal hearing last May and is yet to receive a date for it. She was recently told that she is likely to have to wait another six months, but my office is trying to get that hearing expedited.

The young woman’s mother came to see me because the car had to be returned and the first trip to hospital without it cost the family £17.50 one way. Her parents are low-paid workers and cannot afford to make such payments. The family were considering having to choose which hospital appointments to go to, which is a shocking situation. Fortunately, the Mayor of Liverpool has a hardship fund. I have referred her to that, which is now paying for the family’s taxi trips, but she should not have to rely on that kind of assistance when she is entitled to the payments; I have no doubt that she will get her car back when she finally gets an appeal heard.

I want to raise another benefits issue affecting disabled young people who have special educational needs. It is about a difference between the rules for ESA and the rules for universal credit that seriously affects a small number of young people with special educational needs. My constituent Antony Hamilton has autism and developmental co-ordination disorder. He is in receipt of PIP and has an education, health and care plan, which required him to complete two years of specialist post-16 education provision before going on to do A-levels. As a consequence, he is a bit older than the typical A-level student, and he turned 20 at the beginning of the second year of his A-level course last October. The child tax credits and child benefit his father received for him ended at that time, but he still had most of a year of full-time education to go.

Under the legacy working-age benefits, Antony could have applied for non-contributory ESA to cover the financial loss, which is £170 a week. Under universal credit, however, there is no such option. He has been told he would have to apply for universal credit, undergo a work capability assessment and be required to work or search for it, which is something he cannot do because he is in full-time education. It is Catch-22 for people like Antony. He is working hard to achieve in educational terms, but his parents are having to spend their small savings to help him to be able to finish his A-levels. The letter his father got from the DWP said:

“The Department of Work and Pensions…does not set the policy and legislation relating to UC, this is the responsibility of the UK Government.”

Will the Minister please enlighten us about who is setting this policy, and about what he is going to do to help Antony?

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Tomlinson]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right—we have to make the transition as smooth as possible, where possible sharing data and working with support organisations.

That brings me neatly—this is why I was right to take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention at that point—on to the key point. Many of the people who will be in the benefits system are incredibly vulnerable. They do not have the family support—the network—that can help them to deal with life’s challenges as they come towards them. My ministerial colleagues and I work closely with charities, stakeholders, Members from all parties, and the Work and Pensions Committee. We also work with those with genuine, real-life experience, because they will not only raise, with their experiences, what needs to be improved, but can help with the training and guidance of our frontline staff.

[Maria Eagle]

I know this is a small point in the overall scheme of universal credit, but I mentioned my constituent Antony Hamilton and the issue he has in doing his A-levels while being a bit older because of his special educational needs. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether anything could be done to help Antony.

[Justin Tomlinson]

The hon. Lady made a powerful point about Antony, and the relevant Minister will contact her to discuss it further.

The key for us is partnership working. On domestic abuse, we are rightly working with Women’s Aid and Refuge to help with training and guidance, and to strengthen our ability to identify, refer and support. We are working with organisations such as Barnardo’s and the Children’s Society to strengthen opportunities for care leavers. Ex-offenders are working closely with the Ministry of Justice to make sure that their universal credit claim is in place before they leave prison so that no people are falling between the gaps. On homelessness and rough sleeping, we are working with a number of organisations. Only today, Crisis said that over the past two years the Government have been showing drive and energy.

Universal Credit: Managed Migration

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

My hon. Friend is very knowledgeable about these matters, as a former member of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions. We are in the process of designing the pilot. As I have said very clearly, we are having discussions with key stakeholders to make sure we get it right. Clearly, there will be plenty of opportunity in the future to debate it. Let me be very clear that we will, at the end of that phase, set out how it went.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

Many of my constituents have been left without money and food—effectively destitute—for extended periods during the roll-out of universal credit. Can the Minister guarantee that those of my constituents due to be migrated on to universal credit, whether as part of a pilot or more generally, will not be left in this condition?

[Alok Sharma]

We want to make sure that the process of moving on to universal credit works for everyone. I am sorry if I repeat myself when I talk about the extra £1.5 billion. I said earlier that we brought that forward earlier this year—I meant, of course, during 2018. I have talked about the extra money made available in the Budget as well. Of course, we want to get this right in order to help all our constituents. That is what we are here for: to ensure we help people, but also to help people to progress into work.

Poverty in Liverpool

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) on securing the debate. She will see from the turnout that we are glad that she secured it and that we are keen to support her. I also congratulate her on the way she set out our basic concerns as representatives in this place of the great city of Liverpool.

The Prime Minister said something very important to her party conference: she said that austerity is over. I always like to listen to what Prime Ministers say at their party conference—it is always a very important speech. We will have the chance soon to judge the political coherence of this Conservative Government and how worthwhile or otherwise were the Prime Minister’s words at her party conference, because next week we will see whether the Chancellor acts on the declaration that austerity has ended. I can certainly say that at this time in Liverpool it does not feel like austerity has ended. If it is over, we in Liverpool will expect the Budget to deliver real relief for those in the city who are in poverty and hardship. We will expect the incomes of the poorest to improve as a direct result of the Budget measures that we will see from the Chancellor next week.

Many people in Liverpool really need the Chancellor to deliver on the Prime Minister’s promise to end austerity. Some of them are the most vulnerable people in our society—people who need the most support and who have endured eight long years of that support and their income being systemically removed and reduced by measure after measure from Governments that, from their perspective, do not seem to care about their lives or wellbeing.

I have said before that the use of food banks is an indication of a major crisis and desperation, often amounting to destitution. People do not go to food banks for fun; food banks are an indication of crisis. People are reluctant to go to food banks because they think it is humiliating and an indication of a personal failure to feed their families or to be able to live. No matter how compassionate and helpful the volunteers and staff who distribute food at those distribution points are, it does not take away the humiliation and pain felt by those who have to resort to food banks. Many of my constituents who have been in such a position have made that very clear when I have talked to them about it.

Last year the scale of the food crisis increased, as could be seen at the south Liverpool food bank and at the Knowsley food bank, which covers the Halewood part of my constituency. It is possible to extrapolate from those two centres’ figures that, just in my constituency, in 2017-18, 3,933 people were given emergency food packages to enable them to feed themselves and their families. Some 1,457 of those helped were children—the figure increased from the previous year, which itself had increased from the figure for the year before, which had increased from the year before that. There have been increases for many years.

Last year, there was an 8% rise in the number of vouchers presented at the south Liverpool food bank and at distribution points in the Liverpool part of my constituency. In the Halewood part of Knowsley, which is in my constituency, the number of people who were helped increased by more than 20%. The number of children who were helped was up by more than 50%. In my constituency alone, more people were helped in one year than were helped by food banks in the whole of the UK in 2005. That is the reality.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree was correct to make it clear in her remarks that this should not be something that we accept as inevitable. There is nothing inevitable about having to use a food bank. It could be fixed by ensuring that people who are currently in that position have the income to look after themselves. I should make it clear that other, non-food bank, help is available in my constituency, but is not counted in the figures that I just set out. It includes organisations such as Can Cook, a charity based in Garston that provides free, freshly cooked meals to those in food poverty who need help. Although it ranges much more widely than Garston and Halewood, last year Can Cook provided 18,000 free, fresh meals to hungry people in the Liverpool city region, some of them in my constituency.

Things are worse than the Trussell Trust figures imply; the scale of the need is greater. The experience in my constituency is that the need for emergency food help, including food bank use, is increasing, and that the poverty that it represents is deepening. In a parliamentary answer to my question this week, the Government have yet again refused to take any action to begin to collect official statistics about the causes of such an increase in dependency on food banks, suggesting only that they will review existing sources of information to fill data gaps.

In my view, that is just not good enough. The Government seem to not want to know the truth, and so they do not bother to do research or collect statistics. I have been asking them for years to do that. I can tell the Minister what the main causes of food bank use are in my constituency: in the south Liverpool food bank, 49% of those who were helped said that the main cause of their food crisis was delays in the payment of benefits to which they are entitled, or changes to their benefits. Some 32% said the main reason was low income because of low wages, underemployment and not working enough hours to make ends meet at the end of the week or month. In Halewood, the figure for benefit delays and changes was also 49%, while the figure for low pay and lack of hours was lower, at 19%. Those figures are not untypical of Trussell Trust food banks around the country. When Ministers tell me, as they did in a recent parliamentary answer, that

“People use food banks for many reasons, and it would be misleading to link them to any single cause,”

they do not want to accept that the main causes of this increasing food crisis include their administration of the social security system and their austerity cuts to our safety net.

Things are about to get worse. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Dame Louise Ellman) spoke about the roll-out of universal credit in Liverpool, which is beginning to happen. The Trussell Trust tells us that where universal credit goes live, there is an average 52% increase in food bank use over the following year, compared with a 13% increase in the areas where universal credit has been operational for three months or less. The increase is there even after accounting for seasonal and other variations. In my constituency, only 13% of the households who are to be placed on universal credit have yet been put on to it, only 10% of the children who will be in households on universal credit have yet been affected, and only 2% of the households on sickness or incapacity benefits have yet been placed in that position. That amounts to a looming tsunami of further hardship, misery, poverty and hunger that the Government are about to unleash on some of the poorest and most vulnerable of my constituents. Like my hon. Friend, I urge the Government to stop and not to roll out universal credit in my constituency. I can tell the Minister now that it will cause more poverty, hardship and desperation if they press on as they have told us they will.

Riverside, a registered social landlord that covers my constituency, has been surveying some of its tenants about the impact of universal credit roll-out. It says that 7% of its tenants are on universal credit, but that their rent arrears amount to 18% of the rental debt owed. Average arrears for universal credit tenants are £600, compared with £218 for households not on universal credit. That is yet more evidence that Government policy is imposing hardship and poverty on some of my poorest constituents through their social security policy. Universal credit roll-out creates more debt and hardship and an inability to meet the basic expenses of living. That is clear from the experience of some of my constituents, who have come to be on universal credit ahead of the roll-out. I have given examples before in this Chamber and in the main Chamber—egregious examples of real hardship and pain caused by universal credit, administrative failures and by other problems with the benefit.

The Church of England and Children’s Society’s recent report “Not making ends meet” highlighted that poverty is not being caused by universal credit alone, and I agree. The lowering of the benefit cap, restrictions on help with housing costs and sustained low income, including in-work poverty, are also increasing problems. I sometimes wonder whether Ministers understand the degree to which multiple changes to benefits, with cuts that were planned and announced years ago but are only now being implemented, and loss of support from other sources, such as the local authority, can affect already vulnerable and poor individuals and families, for whom one more blow might be the final straw. Indeed, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report “Destitution in the UK 2018” made that point. It estimated that in 2017, across our nation, 1.5 million people were deemed to be destitute—unable to access the bare essentials to eat, stay warm and dry and keep clean. Food, clothing and heating were the most common essentials that people were without. Such destitution was found to be clustered in London and northern cities such as Liverpool, with Liverpool second only after Manchester in exhibiting the worst rates. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree also made reference to that study.

Since 2010, Liverpool has had the highest level of cuts in local authority funding. By 2020-21, almost 68% of its money will have been removed by central Government. That is £444 million-worth of cuts, despite increasing demand for the help that the city council provides for its poorer citizens. It provides a lot of help beyond the amount of money it is given by the Government to provide such help. The Liverpool citizens support scheme has seen a 5.7% increase in awards, mainly due to increasing demands for urgent needs awards. The main reasons cited were that the individual was waiting to receive a state benefit or had no funds due to an unforeseen crisis. Universal credit roll-out will increase the need hugely. I know from my own case load that if not for the Liverpool citizens support scheme, many of my constituents would have had nowhere to turn.

Similarly, discretionary housing payments have increased by 35%, and the city has to put more money in than it is given by the Government to support that. The Mayor of Liverpool tops up the money because he is unwilling to let vulnerable people go without help and have nowhere to turn and become homeless, thus imposing an even higher financial burden on the state. Universal credit roll-out could push the resources and schemes beyond the Mayor’s capacity to continue to fund them effectively. Unless we see significant measures in the Budget to alleviate poverty in Liverpool and really end austerity, the trends we are discussing will worsen. We will judge the Prime Minister’s rhetoric about ending austerity by the impact of the Chancellor’s Budget next week on the lives of our most vulnerable and poorest constituents.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Streeter. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and all hon. Members who contributed to the debate. I clearly do not agree with all the points they made—I am sure they will not agree with everything I am about to say—but it is crystal clear that every one of them is driven by a passion to protect the most vulnerable people in society. We all want the same result; we just disagree about how to get from A to B. I am conscious that hon. Members mentioned lots of different issues. I am merely a junior Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, so in the limited time I have got, I will try to cover the points about employment, income and poverty, universal credit migration and food banks. If time permits, I will also cover some of the other points that fall at least roughly within my area.

All speakers acknowledged that we have seen record employment, with 1,000 new jobs created every day, unemployment at record lows, and 964,000 fewer workless households. That is important because research statistics show that workless households are four times more likely to be in poverty. I will come to the specific points made during the debate about that.

Many of the speakers mentioned that there had been an increase in zero-hours contracts, for example. That is not the case: the number of zero-hours contracts actually fell by over 100,000 in the last year alone, and they represent only 2.4% of total employment, which is around the same level as under the last Labour Government.

[Maria Eagle]

Will the Minister give way?

[Justin Tomlinson]

Briefly, although I will not take too many interventions because I am conscious of time.

[Maria Eagle]

Can the Minister explain why 32% of those using the South Liverpool food bank said that the main reason they were doing so was low income?

[Justin Tomlinson]

As I said, I will come to food banks—a little patience, please.

We all recognise that getting people into work is important, but ultimately the question is whether it leads to real cash in their pockets. Research has shown that there are one million fewer people in absolute poverty—a record low—and 300,000 fewer children living in absolute poverty, but there is still more to do. While food insecurity has almost halved in the last five years alone—we are at 5.4%; the European average is 7.9%—there is still more to do.

[Justin Tomlinson]

We get reviewed as a signatory country and supporter of the UN’s work, and I will be speaking personally to the person coming.

Of the four current measures of poverty—relative, absolute, and before and after housing costs—three are lower than in 2010 and the other is the same. Those in poverty, who are the focus of this debate, are on average £400 better off in real terms than they were in 2010, while those in full-time work on the national living wage have seen a 7% real-terms increase in their income in the last two years alone. We have done that through a combination of increasing the national living wage—there are arguments about what the level should be, but I do not need to remind colleagues that the rate that we first set was higher than the one in the manifesto that Labour Members stood on in 2015—our income tax threshold, which has completely removed the lowest 3.6 million earners from paying income tax, which is worth £1,000 a year, and our extension of free childcare and other areas of support.

Let me turn to universal credit, which is very topical. One thing that surprised me was that nobody mentioned conversations with work coaches. I know that many Opposition Members have been to visit jobcentres—I have done my research and looked at their Twitter feeds. As a constituency MP—I have only recently been recalled as a Minister—I know that the work coaches on the frontline are very enthusiastic about the principle of universal credit. That does not mean that everything is right, but they are enthusiastic about it. For the first time, they can offer personalised and tailored support.

[Maria Eagle]

Rubbish.

[Justin Tomlinson]

The hon. Lady says rubbish, but has she been to visit a jobcentre?

[Maria Eagle]

The Minister knows very well that there have been coaches in jobcentres for many years helping people on an individual basis. He seems to be arguing that there is no problem—that food bank use is going down and that poverty is going down. I can tell him that that is not the experience in my constituency.

[Justin Tomlinson]

That is not what I am saying at all. I said I would come to food banks. The hon. Lady has not been to a jobcentre to talk to work coaches and see what they have to say. [Interruption.] I know that other hon. Members have.

The key is that the legacy benefits are not some panacea, where everything is great. As constituency MPs, we all know from our casework that legacy benefits are complex, involving three different agencies—HMRC, local government, and the DWP jobcentre—and frankly, one would need to be a nuclear physicist to deal with all three.

Over 700,000 families on legacy benefits were, on average, missing out on £285 of support that they were entitled to, worth a total of £2.4 billion. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) is heckling from the sides again, but these are some of the most vulnerable people, and my role as the Minister is to represent them. I have seen in my casework, as a genuine local resident in my constituency, as the MP and, formerly, a councillor, that some people were overwhelmed by the legacy system. Under universal credit, they will have for the first time a named work coach who will stick with them throughout the process to ensure that they are not missing out. That does not mean that universal credit has been perfect—we have had many debates and there have already been many changes. In some cases, under tax credits and legacy benefits we had tax rates of 90%. I know that would please the Leader of the Opposition, but that is not what the decent public want. There were 16, 24 and 30-hour cliff edges, which created a barrier to people progressing in work. The legacy benefits were seeing £2.4 billion-worth of support missed. We cannot knowingly stand by and say, “We’ve got to stop universal credit,” because these are vulnerable people missing out on money.

We are conscious that we have had to make changes to the migration. We have always said that the roll-out of universal credit will be slow and steady—it is a “test and learn”. In last year’s autumn statement, we rightly announced that we would remove the seven-day waiting list, a welcome change that was called for by a cross-party campaign.

A lot of the cases brought up involve people who have not had access to money. We realised that people did not know that the system was not designed to provide advance benefits, so it is now a given that the work coach will push that information in the initial interview.

Anybody currently receiving housing benefit will now get two weeks of housing benefit in addition—no strings attached—which can then be used. We recognised that we should not presume in all cases that they should take full responsibility for paying their housing benefit, so we now offer, particularly where people’s housing benefit payments are sent directly to their landlords.

We have launched the Landlord Portal, which is very much welcomed by local government and housing associations, and we have protected the severe disability premium. In conjunction with the £3 billion-worth of transitional support in place, over one million disabled families will be on average £110 a month better off.

Universal Credit

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

The implementation of universal credit has been an object lesson in how not to carry out social security reform. A system that was meant to be fully implemented by April 2017 will not now be fully operational until December 2023, but some of us doubt that even that deadline will be met.

The evidence that we have seen is damning. The National Audit Office says that universal credit has been too slow to roll out, causes hardship and is not delivering value for money. Some claimants waited eight months for payment In 2017, 25% of new claimants were paid late. A fifth of those were the neediest, and waited five months or more. Eight years in, only 10% of claimants are in the system, and the administrative cost is currently £699 a claim—four times as much as the Government intend to spend.

This type of chaos, and the hardship that results, is certainly what we have experienced in Liverpool. I will give just one example, although there are many more in my caseload. My constituent Kelly Redmond has three children, and her mother, who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and dementia, lives with her. Tax credits formed an important part of her income. On 28 May, her new partner, who was from Runcorn and claiming universal credit, moved in with her, and she advised the DWP of a change in circumstances. What followed was an administrative farrago of Kafkaesque proportions, allied to official indifference and incompetence, that systematically deprived the family of the means to live.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs cancelled Kelly’s tax credit claim, and told her to claim universal credit. The DWP said that she could not claim universal credit because it had not been rolled out in Liverpool, and told her to claim the tax credits that HMRC had just cancelled. HMRC told her that she could not claim tax credits for six months because her partner was claiming universal credit. It then told my office that it had reinstated her tax credit claim, but it never did. The DWP promised my office on numerous occasions that the issue would be sorted out, but did not sort it out. By the middle of August, the DWP hotline was telling me that the DWP service innovation team and the HMRC transformation team were trying to untangle the mess, and that it would be sorted out by 23 August. It was not. The DWP finally began to process a universal credit claim for Kelly on 31 August by entering a Runcorn address for her on its system. She has never lived in Runcorn, nor has she ever told the DWP that she lives in Runcorn.

Meanwhile, after three months of this chaos, Kelly had been deprived of much of her income and driven into extreme poverty. She was unable to pay for electricity, so her mother, who is supposed to use a nebuliser four times a day to ease her COPD, was frequently unable to do so, and she could neither clothe nor feed her children. The Mayor of Liverpool and local charities were the only people to whom she could turn for help. Only the Mayor’s citizens support scheme, which provided an urgent needs award and a home needs award, provided some relief.

The children were only able to get the school uniforms that they needed because of a grant from the mayoral hardship fund. The family were only able to eat because a local charity, Can Cook, provided three weeks of food for them for nothing. Without Can Cook and the Mayor of Liverpool, the family would literally have starved. The children would not have been able to go to school in appropriate uniform, and Kelly’s mum might be facing even more deterioration in her health because of her inability to pay for electricity. Destitution was certainly beckoning. Instead, Kelly has to cope with severe debt and huge amounts of extra stress.

So far, only 13% of families in Garston and Halewood who will be eligible are receiving universal credit. There are 6,000 more families on legacy benefits who will be subjected to the same nightmare. Only 10% of the children in households in my constituency have been put on universal credit, which means that 5,600 households with children may be about to go through that nightmare. My constituency is about to experience a tsunami of further hardship and poverty because of the roll-out of universal credit. Last year, the Liverpool citizens support scheme and the mayoral hardship fund spent £25 million on supporting homeless people and those in immediate need, but it will not be possible for that to continue on the scale that will be necessary if the roll-out goes ahead, and there will be nowhere else to turn.

It is not enough to slow the roll-out; universal credit must be scrapped. It will never work. It will punish the poor and create more destitution. Any Government who seek to continue this reform when it is not working and cannot work—when it is not meeting and will not meet its objectives—should be slung out of office, and the sooner the better.

Universal Credit (Liverpool)

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered roll-out of universal credit in Liverpool.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh, although in this debate it will not be possible for me to do justice to the magnitude of concerns that have been raised with me about the imminent full roll-out of universal credit across Liverpool. Disability charities, trade unions, civil servants, housing associations, private landlords, advice agencies, food banks, local councillors and the local authority have all provided me with briefings, statistics and case studies, for which I am grateful. Together, they paint a bleak picture of what lies ahead this autumn.

Starting this month, and continuing into November and December, jobcentre by jobcentre, full service universal credit will be rolled out across my constituency. I am here because of the people I have met in my surgeries and food bank visits, and because of the harrowing stories I have been told. I am here because of the people I have seen—people who are broken and who feel worthless and trapped in a cycle of poverty that they cannot escape. The roll-out of universal credit is only the latest onslaught from a benefits system that is stuck in Victorian times; it is just the latest instalment of austerity for our city—a city that has borne the brunt of eight years of cuts that have hit the most deprived areas the hardest. Our local authority budget has been slashed by 64%—£444 million since 2010—and 40% of children in my constituency are growing up in poverty.

According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Liverpool has the second highest level of destitution of any city in the UK, and there is a lack of basic essentials, including food, shelter and toiletries. That is the climate in which the Government are imposing their flagship welfare policy—a policy that had cross-party support when it was launched in 2011, but is now a byword for institutional incompetence. It is six years behind schedule, universally unpopular and, according to the National Audit Office, likely to cost more than the system it replaces.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I have a case of a mum who has started a new relationship, and consequently she has been put on to universal credit because her partner, who is from another area, is already on it. Her tax credits were stopped at the end of May, but by 31 August her application still had not started to be administered. If it were not for the mayoral hardship fund, Liverpool’s citizen support scheme and Can Cook, which have fed the family for two months, that family would be absolutely destitute. Has my hon. Friend heard of similar experiences in his constituency?

[Dan Carden]

I will come on to some of the case studies and personal stories that I have been told. Well-documented design flaws and unresolved administrative issues have seen tens of thousands of claimants plunged into debt arrears and reliance on food banks. My casework is already loaded with people who are struggling to make ends meet, and piling universal credit—a policy that Citizens Advice has called a “disaster waiting to happen”—on to an economic situation that is already bordering on crisis will lead to levels of hardship not seen in the city since the 1980s. This is the last chance to apply the brakes, stop the roll-out of universal credit, and fix the flaws in its design and delivery.

Universal credit lists its stated aims as: to improve work incentives, reduce poverty and simplify the benefit system, making it easier for people to understand, and easier and cheaper for staff to administer. Who could disagree with that? However, the National Audit Office found in June that:

“Universal Credit is failing to achieve its aims, and there is currently no evidence that it ever will.”

Worse still, the evidence on the ground in areas where full service universal credit has been rolled out is clear: not only is universal credit failing to meet its aims, but it is having the opposite effect. It is punishing those in work, exacerbating poverty, and creating an unwieldy, arduous and inefficient system that increases pressures on claimants and staff alike.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) on securing today’s debate. I apologise to the House that the Minister for Employment is not able to be here, so I am deputising on his behalf.

We are introducing universal credit at a time when record numbers of people are in work and unemployment is at its lowest rate in more than 40 years. Since 2010, 1,000 jobs a day have been created, and in the north-west region more than 3.4 million people are employed, up 268,000 since the 2010 general election. The north-west employment rate is 74.3%, up from 68.7% in 2010. Nationally, according to the labour market statistics released today, the unemployment rate is now 4%—it has not been lower since 1975—and the employment rate is 75.5%, which is again a near-record high.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh, and it is also an opportunity for me to make the point that, nationally, the number of children living in workless families is down 608,000 since 2010. As of March 2018, the employment rate of people aged 16 to 64 in Liverpool itself was 67.6%, up from 60.3% in March 2010, and in Merseyside, as of March 2018, the employment rate had increased from 64.2% before the 2010 election to 70.2%.

Turning to the points raised by the hon. Gentleman, I will try to address the issues relating to universal credit. As I am not the Minister, I may not be able to answer the specific questions raised, but, as the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) has been artfully demonstrating to me across the Chamber, I will write to hon. Members, or the Department will write to them, on the specific questions they raised.

The Government believe that universal credit remains a vital reform. It replaces an outdated and complex benefit system; the six benefits are replaced with one simple monthly universal credit payment, designed to support people whether they are in or out of work. There is no doubt that the old system did not incentivise people to come off benefits and get into work.

[Maria Eagle]

Does the Minister accept that the administration of universal credit is chaotic? I had a constituent who ended up being sanctioned for a year after his father died and he was unable to cope with going to meetings. After my office intervened, his benefit was reinstated and the sanction was removed. He had eight letters telling him that, but when he received his first payment, which was supposed to be a back payment, it consisted of £5.

[Guy Opperman]

I cannot comment on the individual case, but it is unquestionably the case that the old system had inherent flaws and, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton very fairly said in his speech, it was right for it to be reformed at that particular time. We may have a debate and a discussion about the quality of the system thereafter, but the reform of the old system was unquestionably the right thing.

Under UC, claimants are better off when they move into work and better off when they progress in work; the payment is gradually reduced as earnings increase, so claimants will not lose all their benefits at once if they are on a low income. There is no 16-hour ceiling, no 16-hour floor and no risk to people’s benefit as they move into work. It also means that the more people work, the more money they get in their pocket. We believe that universal credit lies at the heart of our reforms to transform the welfare system, because it supports those who can work and cares for those who cannot.

The UC full service is available in approximately 63% of jobcentres in Liverpool, with those remaining to be rolled out by December, as the hon. Gentleman outlined. I would urge all hon. Members to visit their local jobcentres and to speak to the staff in charge of the system, the work coaches and the claimants who are attending. I myself have visited a number of jobcentres and sat in on randomly selected interviews with dedicated work coaches. I held a jobs fair last Friday in Hexham with my Jobcentre Plus, and I am going to another jobcentre this week.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

I totally accept that, but with respect, Ms McDonagh, the integration of services is a nationwide matter, and the roll-out is happening across 430 jobcentres.

[Maria Eagle]

Would the Minister like to have a go at answering my question about administration of the benefit in Liverpool?

[Guy Opperman]

With respect, that is what I am attempting to do and intending to come to. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton raised the issue of local authority funding. The Department for Work and Pensions provides local authorities with UC support funding and new burden funding to take account of additional costs. The local authority should provide the data, and he should be aware that £14 million has been paid out in this tax year alone.

On the managed migration, there was a “Universal Credit programme full Business Case summary” early this year, which showed that when UC is rolled out it will deliver £8 billion worth of benefits to the UK economy every year. The hon. Gentleman mentioned Citizens Advice in his speech; he will be aware that only recently, when the changes were made to universal credit, it was quoted as saying:

“These changes should make a significant difference to the millions of people who will be claiming Universal Credit by the time it’s fully implemented.”

Similarly supportive comments were set out at the time by the Trussell Trust and others.

I will ensure that the Department writes to the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) on the specific point he raised. In relation to the lady from Everton, if he provides the detail to the Department I will ensure that a specific point is raised, and I will also ensure that the point about the constituent case mentioned by the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood is addressed.

It is important to mention that there have been significant changes and a “test and learn” approach to universal credit as it is being rolled out. Changes were made in November last year following the Budget, and the Secretary of State herself made changes in June this year. We have made a commitment that anyone we move onto universal credit without a change of circumstance will have their existing benefit entitlement safeguarded until their circumstances change. That is to accommodate the changes needed; managed migration will be completed in 2023. We have also announced that people on legacy benefits receiving severe disability premium will stay on legacy benefits until we move them, even if they have a change of circumstances, and we will look at protection for people previously in receipt of severe disability premium who have already moved onto universal credit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

Absolutely: I congratulate the staff in my hon. Friend’s jobcentre, and by the end of the process of rolling out UC, we will have 5,000 extra work coaches across the country.

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

T2. About 20,000 people in Liverpool have had their personal independence payments cut due to the blatantly discriminatory regulations that the Secretary of State has now accepted were unlawful. When will my constituents get their money back and their entitlement returned?

[Ms McVey]

The first decision I made was to make sure we did not appeal that question about PIP and what we on this side of the House were going to do to live up to the expectations of PIP, and I think it is a very true, honourable and correct thing that we have done. However, to make sure we deliver it correctly and give the correct amount of money to the people who need it, it will take time for us to thoroughly research what needs to be done.

Food Poverty: Merseyside

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I will begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) on securing the debate. It is tremendously important that this issue, which is of long standing and is worsening, is highlighted as regularly as possible. When I was shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, we repeatedly held Opposition day debates in the main Chamber on this matter. I remember those debates going back to 2012-13, yet the Government, as far as I am aware—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong—are still not collecting statistics on the amount of food bank use and the reasons behind it.

I find it amazing and disgraceful that the Government of one of the richest countries in the world—although we are slipping down the league—do not care enough that many of their citizens have to feed their families by going and collecting food given to them to make them research why it is happening and what can be done about it. I must say that that does not seem to stop Ministers writing to those of us who raise these issues with them, asserting that the Government are not at fault, and that benefit delays and changes are not at fault; my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby read out an example. How Ministers can say that, when they do no research into what the reasons are, is utterly beyond me. I have been calling for the Government to research this for years, but so far as I am aware they have still not undertaken to do so.

I welcome the new Minister to his place; I predicted that he would respond to the debate, because it is always the newest Minister in the Department who draws the shortest straw and has to deal with these debates. I sympathise with him. In my experience, these debates are always a hot potato for the Government; they cannot decide which Department should answer, because nobody in government is responsible for food poverty. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs does not want to do it, the Department for Work and Pensions does not want to do it and the Cabinet Office does not want to do it. The short straw used to be drawn by the Minister with responsibility for volunteering, but that post appears to have disappeared from Government. However, we have not yet had the updated list of ministerial responsibilities—a week after the reshuffle—so we do not know for certain that that is the case. It looks like, at least for the present, the new Minister has drawn the short straw and caught the hot potato and will have to deal with the matter.

He will have to deal with it, because those of us who represent constituents who have to go to food banks regularly in order to feed their families will never stop raising the issue with the Government until something is done to alleviate the problem. It is not good enough for the Minister to say—I hope he will not do so today —that it is just one of those things, that it is nothing to do with the Government and that they have reduced the number of benefit delays. The fact is that the biggest reasons by far for people resorting to food banks, certainly on Merseyside, are still changes in their benefits, sanctions on their benefits and so on.

The other big reasons why people go to food banks, which my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby referenced, are that, even though they are in work, their income is not regular enough, they do not have guaranteed hours or they are on zero-hours contracts. They do not know when the next pay cheque is coming and they have fixed costs, such as rent and other bills, which means that there are times when they simply cannot afford to feed their family.

If the Minister has anything in his speech about the best way out of poverty being work, I suggest to him right now that he crosses it out. I see him getting his pen out now; that phrase will be in his speech a lot. It is not the case in Liverpool that the best way out of poverty is work, because many people who work hard still cannot afford to feed their family. If that is the Government’s only response, they are simply complacent. In fact, if the Minister commissioned research about why people use food banks, he might actually have some real evidence that that is the case, instead of the anecdotal evidence that we get at our constituency surgeries.

The South Liverpool food bank in my constituency has seen ongoing increases in people asking for help over the years. Not only was there a 10% increase between 2015 and 2016 but last year it went up again. In 2015-16, 3,890 people in the Liverpool end of my constituency accessed a food bank. The figure last year went up to 4,076, more than 1,700 of whom—almost half—were children. In 2005-06, 2,894 accessed a food bank across the entire country, but there are now more than 4,000 just in my constituency, so when I say it is a disgrace that the Government do not collect statistics and research why this is happening, I mean it. It is a problem that they appear not to care about, because they do not seem to be finding out why it is happening and coming up with a policy for dealing with it. When we talk about our constituents going hungry or children not being able to concentrate at school and losing weight over the summer because there are no school meals, it is simply not good enough that that is our Government’s attitude.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that, even though the Government do not do any research, the Trussell Trust and those people who actually provide food and collect food for food banks do. Their research proves conclusively that benefit delays, changes to benefits and low pay are the main reasons why people resort to food banks. Will she acknowledge that, as universal credit comes to my constituency and is introduced into the Wirral, my local food bank has said it will have to collect an extra 15 tonnes of food to deal with the 30% increase in food bank use that its research suggests accompanies the introduction of full universal credit in any area?

[Maria Eagle]

I agree with my hon. Friend on the impact of the roll-out of universal credit. One reason why I say that this crisis, which is already worsening and has been over the past few years, is actually set to get even worse is that we have not yet had the full service roll-out of universal credit in Garston and Halewood and across much of Liverpool. It will be rolled out at some time during this year, although it has been delayed again.

The Trussell Trust says that it has noticed a 17% increase in food bank usage across all its food banks where universal credit is rolled out, against an average—where the roll-out is not a factor—of 6.5%. That is a significantly increased extra risk where we have universal credit roll-out, and that is about to happen in Liverpool and across Merseyside this year. We expect, as local Members of Parliament, a big increase in this kind of problem coming to us and our advice surgeries.

The Liverpool Echo’s Share Your Lunch campaign has, over the last 18 months, raised more than £73,000 and fed more than 36,000 people across the city region with fresh and nutritious meals. It has done a tremendous job within the very fine tradition of self-help that we have in Liverpool and on Merseyside. However, that initiative is now over. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby referenced Can Cook, which is also based in my constituency, although it works across the city region.

Although Can Cook is moving on to try to do more good work, the fact that, over the last year or so, its initiative has fed many local children who do not get their free school meals during Christmas and the school holidays shows definitively the importance of the initiative my hon. Friend referred to, of passporting free school meals and making free school meals available in school holidays. For many children in my constituency, it is the only good meal they are guaranteed in a day. During the summer vacation, many young people in adventure playgrounds, such as the Garston “venny” in my constituency, were kept fed with fresh and nutritious food from Can Cook and Share Your Lunch.

My hon. Friend also referred to Fans Supporting Foodbanks, an organic campaign that has grown up among football supporters, of which there are many in Liverpool. Home matches are used as an opportunity to collect food for food banks, such as the North Liverpool food bank, which is of course based around the two football grounds in Liverpool. Again, they are in the finest Liverpool tradition of self-help and of making a difference to the lives of neighbours. Unfortunately, it reminds me too much of what was happening in the early part of the 20th century in Liverpool—of the Clarion soup vans, of the initiatives organised by the early labour and socialist movement and of Bessie Braddock and her mother, Mary Bamber, who used to go around cooking food for unemployed people, who were in a desperate state at that time. We should not be going back to that.

The Minister has to make sure that his Government try to stop this happening and do not simply ignore the problem, refuse to collect statistics on it, blame the victims for what is going on and insinuate that because food is free, of course people go and access it. We have a large and growing crisis of food poverty in our city and in this country. It is my contention that the Government are doing nothing to tackle it. They will not collect statistics on why it is happening, and things are set to get worse this year, with the roll-out of universal credit.

It is not enough for our Prime Minister to stand on the steps of Downing Street and assert that she is going to do something for people who are struggling or just about managing, and then do absolutely nothing to help people who cannot feed themselves or their families, not through any fault of their own but because this Government have removed support for them via the local authority and the benefits system. The Government are not trying to make sure that work pays and that if one works for a living, there is enough in the wage packet to feed a family. That is where this Government are falling down. It is a disgrace, and I wait to hear from the Minister that he at least is going to do something to tackle it.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) on securing this debate on such an important issue.

We should be clear that it is an absolute disgrace that there are so many people suffering from hunger and poor nutrition in this prosperous country in 2018. Food poverty is, of course, part of more general poverty. People in poverty juggle between providing for essential needs such as eating, keeping warm and keeping housed, and too many people face the impossible choice: heat or eat? How can it be just that so many people, including children, are going hungry?

Let us look at what is happening in Liverpool, where the city council has already lost 58% of its disposable income. That figure will reach a massive 68% by 2020. The Liverpool mayoral action group’s important and groundbreaking report shows the cumulative impact of 20 cuts made to benefits, including benefits for people in work, since 2010. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby referred to that. Those cuts resulted in a loss of £157 million for Liverpool people by 2016. That means that 55,000 people have been affected by a reduction in their income, which was already too low to meet basic needs. The principal groups of people who have lost out are those who are long-term sick, disabled, in insecure jobs or in jobs with insecure and changing incomes and many families with children. Those problems will be exacerbated by the full roll-out of universal credit across Liverpool this year.

Inadequate income to meet basic needs leads inevitably to food deprivation. People are constantly juggling between having enough to eat, keeping warm and keeping a home. That is intolerable. My hon. Friends have referred to the work of food banks and the disgraceful situation of so many people needing to rely on emergency food supplies to survive. Between October 2016 and September 2017, 8,732 emergency food vouchers had been redeemed at one of the three Trussell Trust food banks in Liverpool, feeding 18,456 people. That is divided between 11,500 adults and 6,900 children. What a terrible situation in 2018. The main reason for this abominable situation is benefit cuts and people on low incomes, in unstable jobs and getting an irregular income.

The fact is that people are suffering. The situation is increasingly disturbing. The Liverpool public health report for 2016-17 makes alarming reading. It records that 27% of children in reception classes in Liverpool are obese, as are 38% of children in year 6. Obesity is closely linked with food deprivation and poor nutrition. That report records a disgraceful and horrendous figure—a significant rise in hospital admissions for malnutrition in women of childbearing age and young people. It is hardly believable that such a thing is happening in our day and age. The report also shows that, in 2016, provisional data demonstrate that there were 39 infant deaths in the city—the highest recorded figure since 2005. What a horrendous situation that, in 2018, in a prosperous country, more people are being admitted to hospital for malnutrition and there are more infant deaths. Those are things that nobody would believe unless they saw those figures in Liverpool’s public health annual report.

What is being done to address this woeful situation? Liverpool City Council must be commended for its efforts. My hon. Friends have referred to a number of steps that the council is taking. The city Mayor’s action group on fairness and tackling poverty has identified food poverty, together with deprivation in fuel, clothing and housing, as a key concern requiring investigation and action. It has implemented a series of practical measures, including issuing crisis financial awards for food and mitigating the impact of Government cuts on the income of vulnerable people by using discretionary funds—funds that are increasingly under pressure.

Many of the people receiving those funds because they are in an emergency and a desperate situation are in work. Let us do away once and for all with the myth that people who are suffering in poverty are in some way feckless or do not want to work. That is an outrageous untruth or, if I am allowed to use the word in Parliament, a lie. That is what that charge is.

Liverpool City Council has also instigated healthy living public health initiatives, which are very important. The basic cause of the problem is a lack of income. It is right that people are given the fullest possible information about how to make best use of an inadequate income and basic information about nutrition and how to access nutritious food. That work is important.

[Maria Eagle]

Does my hon. Friend accept that, no matter how much good work the Trussell Trust food banks do, the food that they hand out is tinned, dried, fatty and full of sugar and salt? That is not the best way to build a healthy diet. Those dependent on food bank usage are automatically getting poor-quality food, through no fault of the people who are helping to hand out that emergency support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) on securing this important debate and making such a compelling speech. I join him, as I am sure all Merseyside MPs do, in paying tribute to the food bank volunteers who work so hard to address the needs of those who need help to feed themselves and their families.

We have had some fantastic, passionate contributions, in which the points were made incredibly well. My hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) spoke with passion about the Government’s years of failure to collect the statistics needed to understand the situation. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) spoke about the disgrace of food poverty in this country, and the impact of hunger on public health, with particular reference to the increases in the number of people admitted to hospital with malnutrition and in the number of infant deaths. My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) spoke passionately about the huge inequalities of wealth in society. Her claim that poverty is not inevitable rings true. There were also good interventions from my hon. Friends the Members for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) and for Wallasey (Ms Eagle). I welcome the new Employment Minister to his post.

I believe that the debate is timely. This morning the Institute for Fiscal Studies published a study showing that one in four of Britain’s poorest households are falling behind with debt payments or spending more than a quarter of their monthly income on repayments. Earlier today the Office for National Statistics also published the latest data on food prices. Despite a slight fall in the rate of inflation compared with November, the price of food was still more than 4% higher in December, compared with December 2016.

The full service of universal credit is being rolled out on Merseyside and, despite the changes announced by the Government at the end of last year, leading voluntary organisations make it clear that universal credit has not yet been fixed. It was introduced in Bootle in October and in Wirral in November, and over the year it will spread to the rest of Merseyside, finishing with Everton and West Derby in December, at least if the Government stick to the current timetable. I want to underline the point that food poverty is just one aspect of the pressures that people on very low incomes face. They can face appalling choices such as whether to heat their home or go hungry. Parents may skip a meal so that their children can eat. Those are choices that no one should have to make. The British Medical Association and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health highlighted the link between poverty and poor diet in reports last year, and went on to point out the impact on health not just in childhood, important though that is, but over a much longer period.

The Government do not collect or publish statistics on the number of people seeking help from food banks, despite years of pressure to do so from the Opposition and voluntary organisations. The Trussell Trust, the largest organisation of food banks in the UK, does not seem to find it a problem, and nor have any of the organisations that I have contacted for help on Merseyside, so I ask the Minister once again whether the Government will produce statistics on the number of people receiving help from food banks. We need to know not just how many people seek help but for how long. The Trussell Trust statistics show that in 2016-17, 37,000 adults and 24,000 children were helped by their Merseyside food banks.

The situation varies across Merseyside. Areas such as Birkenhead, Liverpool and Knowsley have the highest rates of poverty, but it is also striking that in my constituency the demand for help has grown even in some relatively affluent areas. In 2017, Wirral food bank distributed 109 tonnes of food. In the north-west as a whole, between April and September 2017, Trussell Trust food banks gave more than 87,000 three-day food supplies to people in crisis, compared with nearly 78,000 during the same period in 2016. That is a 12% increase. The Government commissioned a report from the University of Warwick, which was published in 2014, and one of the points that it made was that people seek help from food banks as a last resort. The fact that so many people are in that situation should be a major concern.

Many of my colleagues have spoken clearly about the reasons why people turn to food banks. The Trussell Trust found that of the people accessing its support 43% did so as a result of benefit delays and changes and 27% did so due to low income. Those are things that the Government can take action on, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston pointed out. The length of time for which people wait for an initial universal credit payment has been a major reason for social security delays, if by no means the only one. That also increases the likelihood that people have to turn to a food bank more than once.

Last April the Trussell Trust warned that food banks in areas where the full service of universal credit had been introduced in the previous six months had a 30% average increase in requests for help compared with a year before. From this month, people will be able to ask for a 100% advance on the first payment, and from February the initial five-day waiting period will be removed. Will the Government make a commitment to publish regular statistics on whether they are meeting the new target of five weeks for initial payments, as well as figures for the number and percentage of claimants asking for advances, so that we can have an idea of how far removing the five-day waiting period is affecting the need for advances?

If people are sanctioned, they can be referred to a food bank by the Department for Work and Pensions. The latest statistics for sanctions published by DWP show that the sanctions rate for universal credit increased by more than 3% in the last quarter. Will the Minister look seriously at introducing a yellow card system and non-financial sanctions, as suggested by the Work and Pensions Committee, to help to reduce the number of people who need help from a food bank? Ten per cent. of the people who sought help from Wirrall food bank last year were in employment. That is one reason why it is so important for the Government to reverse the cuts to work allowances for universal credit. Will the Minister urge his new colleagues to do that?

A study published by the University of Oxford for the Trussell Trust, in June 2017, found that people using food banks were likely to belong to groups that are most affected by recent reforms to social security: disabled people, lone parents and large family households. Those groups are particularly affected by universal credit and the changes introduced last April. In the study, more than 50% of households that had received help from a food bank included a disabled person. Mental health conditions affected people in a third of the households. The basic disabled child element in universal credit is half that of the disability element in child tax credit. There is no severe disability premium in universal credit, which means that disabled people who would have been entitled to it will be £65 a week worse off than tax credit recipients.

[Maria Eagle]

Does my hon. Friend accept that many disabled people have special diets and a requirement to eat or not eat certain things? Neither food banks nor the emergency support that they normally access take that into account.

[Margaret Greenwood]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and for many disabled people, the need to heat their home is also a bigger element in their weekly bills.

Will the Government reverse the cuts to support for disabled people in universal credit? Those cuts will have an increasing impact as universal credit is rolled out to a wider range of claimants. Lone parents and their children constitute the largest number of people receiving help from food banks overall. A study for the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that lone parents were set to lose around 15% of their net income on average—around £1 in every £6—and that households with three or more children could lose as much as £5,400 per year. Will the Government look again at reversing the two-child policy, and heed the warning from the Resolution Foundation that cuts to the work allowance could act as a disincentive for some lone parents to work additional hours, once they have entered employment doing a smaller number of hours at the start?

The Government recently announced that children would be eligible for free school meals if their family’s income was £7,400 per year or less, excluding social security. That creates a cliff edge in universal credit, which could create a disincentive for people to work additional hours—that has always been the Government’s argument against tax credits in general. Free school meals are worth £2.30 per child per day, which over a 38-week school year works out at £437 per child. The Resolution Foundation has calculated that crossing the threshold by earning more than £7,400 a year would effectively mean losing £11 a week in income, and it would take £30 of earnings to claw that back, given the universal credit taper rate. Eligibility for free school meals is another area where families lose more the larger they are. People in insecure work whose income may fluctuate from week to week could face a difficult choice. Will the Government act to avoid families being put in that situation by removing the cliff edge and ensuring that all children in families who receive universal credit are eligible for free school meals?

To conclude, let me underline the seriousness of the situation. New figures this morning show that food prices are still increasing by more than 4%. There is a freeze in key working age benefits until 2020, and wages are stagnating for those in work, particularly those on low incomes. Universal credit is far from fixed, and aspects such as the low level of support for disabled people and the cliff edge for eligibility for free school meals have received much less attention. The Government should act to fix those problems with universal credit at an early stage before people are driven into extreme poverty, and they should return to the original principles of universal credit to ensure that work always pays. They need to tackle poverty, not push families into it.

Just as people are experiencing multiple forms of destitution, there may be more than one reason why someone is forced to turn to a food bank for help. If those groups most likely to use a food bank—disabled people, lone parents, and larger families—are also those who have been hit the hardest by cuts to social security support since 2012, and by cuts to local authority spending and a reduction of services in their areas, then the social security net is clearly not doing the job it is designed to do. It should be protecting people in their time of need.

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[Alok Sharma]

Four million of the lowest earners have been taken out of income tax altogether, which I hope the hon. Lady will welcome. A typical basic rate taxpayer will now pay over £1,000 less in income tax than they would have done seven years ago.

[Maria Eagle]

If what the Minister describes is supposedly helping the situation, how does he explain the fact that year on year in Liverpool, the number of people who have to go to food banks to get help with feeding themselves and their families is increasing?

[Alok Sharma]

Perhaps I may make a little progress, and hopefully I will provide some of the answers that the hon. Lady is looking for.

We plan to further increase the tax-free personal allowance to £12,500 by the end of this Parliament. Working parents are now entitled to up to 30 hours of free childcare, saving them around £5,000 a year. I hope that, whatever our political differences, all Members of the House will welcome those measures. We have also frozen fuel duty, saving the average car driver £850 over the last eight years, compared with the pre-2010 fuel duty escalator.

[Alok Sharma]

Let me come on to that—there is plenty of time left in the debate.

The basic state pension is now at one of its highest rates relative to earnings for over two decades, reversing the trend of decline that we saw between 1997 and 2010. Ultimately, however, work is the best route out of poverty.

[Maria Eagle]

rose—

[Alok Sharma]

I thought that the hon. Lady would react as she did, but she should not take my word for it. Let me quote from a recent report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation:

“People who live in workless households have much higher rates of poverty than those who live in households where at least one person is in work… Rising employment, skills and pay contributed greatly to reductions in poverty over the last 20 years.”

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[Maria Eagle]

The biggest reason now for food bank use in Liverpool—apart from benefit delays and the things that the Minister’s Department does to people—is low income. It is people who are in work, so his point is simply not accurate.

[Alok Sharma]

I am not sure that I completely understood the hon. Lady, but I was quoting from a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. If she feels that it is inaccurate, she should talk to someone there.

[Maria Eagle]

Perhaps the Minister will allow me to try again. One of the main reasons that people go to food banks in Liverpool is low income. The income they get comes from work—they are working-age people who are working but do not have enough money to feed their families. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report is about a countrywide situation. I am talking about what is happening in Liverpool and to my constituents. A lot of people are in work but cannot afford to feed their families on the income they receive. It is simply not good enough for the Minister to say that that is not a problem.

[Alok Sharma]

I did not say that it is not a problem, and of course I want to ensure that everyone, both in Liverpool and across the country, gets the help they need.

Adults in workless families are four times more likely to be in poverty than those in working families, and children who live in workless households are five times more likely to be in poverty than those in a house where all adults work. We want to see more people in work, and we want to support more people into work. In recent years, the Government have undertaken the most ambitious reform to the welfare system in decades to ensure that work always pays. This reform is already delivering real and lasting change to the lives of many of the most disadvantaged people in our society. Nationally, there are almost 1 million fewer workless households than in 2010. Indeed, workless households are now at an all-time low. In the north-west, the region that many Opposition Members represent, there are around 87,000 fewer workless households than there were seven years ago.

[Alok Sharma]

I know that this a very emotive subject and I understand that hon. Members are keen to get answers. I will seek to provide some of those if I may make progress. The latest data shows that the employment rate in the Liverpool city region has seen a 4.1 percentage point increase since 2010 and the comparable national figure shows an increase of 4.2 percentage points.

We have had a discussion about food poverty and more generally about poverty rates. The case is, whichever way you look at poverty rates—relative or absolute; before or after housing costs—none are higher than in 2010. The proportion of people in absolute poverty is at a record low. Across the country, there are 600,000 fewer people in absolute poverty compared with 2010, and in the north-west there are 100,000 fewer people in absolute poverty compared with the three years up to 2010.

Of course, we want to do everything that we can to make sure that those numbers go down further. Let me explain what we are doing in welfare reform to make that happen.

[Maria Eagle]

The Minister is being very generous with interventions. Given the statistics he has read out, which are trying to show that things are getting better in terms of poverty reduction and more people being in work, can he please explain why the number of people on Merseyside who are having to access food banks in order to eat and to feed their families is still going up?

[Alok Sharma]

I will come on to that point, but there are complex reasons why people use food banks. I want to go back to the point about work being the best route out of poverty. It is the case that across the country around 75% of children from workless families moved out of poverty when their parents entered full-time work.

Let me come on to universal credit.

[Alok Sharma]

I will make some progress. I have taken a lot of interventions. Perhaps the hon. Lady will let me continue for a moment.

When it comes to reform, universal credit lies at the heart of transforming the welfare system. Universal credit supports those who can work and cares for those who cannot, while being fair to the taxpayer. [Interruption.] I would just say to the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) that before this role I was the Housing Minister and I had the opportunity to do an engagement tour around the country, meeting social housing tenants with the aim of producing a Green Paper, and I met around 1,200 social housing tenants across the country. There was a discussion around universal credit and I have to tell hon. Members that the vast majority of people I talked to felt that, in principle, universal credit was absolutely right: it is simple, it makes sense and it helps to deliver the benefits that people need on a timely basis. I will come on to talk about the changes that were introduced in the Budget, because we always want to ensure that things can be done better.

[Maria Eagle]

Will the Minister give way?

[Alok Sharma]

No. If I may, I will continue for the moment.

There is always a comparison of universal credit with what came before. It is the case that, because of withdrawal rates, tax credits encouraged lone parents to work for 16 hours and couples to work only 24 hours a week between them. Universal credit provides the opportunity for the first time to support people who are in work to progress, so that they can increase their earnings and become financially independent. We have reduced the universal credit taper to 63%, so that people who progress into work can keep more of what they earn. Under universal credit, work always pays.

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[Maria Eagle]

It doesn’t.

[Alok Sharma]

I have to disagree with the hon. Lady’s comment from a sedentary position. It does, because for every extra hour people work, they get to keep more of the money they earn.

Universal credit claimants are able to find work faster and stay in work for longer than those under the system it replaces. Indeed, 86% of people under universal credit are actively looking to increase the hours that they work, compared with only 38% on jobseeker’s allowance.

We have to ensure that help is provided as people seek to find employment. The Government are providing a wide range of support targeted to each individual’s personal circumstances. Under universal credit, people have access to more tools than ever before to underpin their work search and help with budgeting, digital skills, preparing CVs and getting ready for job interviews.

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[Alok Sharma]

Hopefully I will have enough time to respond to that point—I believe the hon. Lady is talking about the higher rate of disability premium.

A number of other points were raised about food banks. Jobcentre staff also work in partnership with a variety of local agencies and signpost claimants to local services, including food banks, to help them access the full range of support available. The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby quoted from a report from 2016 by Taylor and Loopstra based on UN data. There are a number of reports, including one on income and living conditions produced by Eurostat, which found that the UK has a lower percentage of food insecurity than the EU average and a lower percentage than Germany, France and Italy. Ultimately, we need to ensure that we get help to people who need it, and that we help them into work so that they can support themselves.

[Maria Eagle]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Alok Sharma]

I have given way quite a lot in this debate. If I may, I will continue. If I have time at the end, I will of course take further interventions.

Food inflation has been discussed. Food prices have fallen in three of the past four years, which has a positive impact. Let me address up front the question about the use of food banks. The Government do not propose to record the number of food banks in the UK, or indeed the potential number of people using them or other types of food aid. There is a range of available food aid—from small local provision to regional and national schemes—and the all-party parliamentary group on hunger, which set up an inquiry to thoroughly investigate the use of food banks, said that there were numerous complex reasons why people use food banks.

Jobcentres engage regularly with the Trussell Trust, and are encouraged to foster good relationships with local food banks. In Merseyside, all jobcentres have a food bank single point of contact, and jobcentre staff have been working actively with food banks to ensure that staff are up to speed with the changes resulting from universal credit.

The hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) mentioned international comparisons. I refer her to statistics produced by the OECD showing that, since the mid-2000s, the UK has been one of only two major advanced economies with increasing redistribution. It found that, since 2010, growth and income from work for the lowest-income households in the UK is higher than in any other major advanced economy.

The Government have always been clear that universal credit would be introduced in a way that allows us to continue making improvements. That is why, at the autumn Budget, we announced a comprehensive and wide-ranging package of measures worth £1.5 billion to address concerns about the first assessment period and the budgeting issues faced by some claimants at the start of their claim. Since the start of this year, claimants have been able to get 100% of their estimated universal credit payment up front as an advance that they can pay back interest-free over 12 months.

I will address a couple of other points, as I have a few minutes. On the point about disability payments, as the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) knows, income-related employment and support allowance and the link to disability premiums, including the severe disability premium, are being replaced by universal credit as part of simplifying the benefit process and to address overlaps. Universal credit has two disability elements for adults, mirroring the design of ESA. The higher rate is set substantially higher than the ESA support component equivalent.

[Alok Sharma]

I am happy to have a dialogue with the hon. Lady, particularly in my new role, but I point out, as I have said, that the rate is set substantially higher than the ESA support component equivalent. However, I am happy to enter into a dialogue with her outside this debate.

[Maria Eagle]

The Minister has spent most of his time replying to this debate talking about universal credit, but the debate is about food poverty. Is he suggesting that, over the next year, as universal credit is rolled out on Merseyside, the number of people having to visit food banks will go down?

[Alok Sharma]

I cannot predict the future. The reason why I have talked about universal credit is that it is a matter raised by Opposition Members, and because I think that it is important, if we talk about welfare reform, to talk about the current reforms that the Government are putting in place.

In conclusion, the Government’s track record on helping people into work is clear. Unemployment is at a 42-year low at 4.3%, with nearly 1 million fewer workless households than in 2010. Incomes have been rising. Data published last week by the Office for National Statistics showed that in the year 2016-17, real average incomes of the poorest fifth of households had risen by £1,800 since 2007-08.

However one looks at it, poverty rates in the country—relative or absolute, before or after housing—are no higher than in 2010, and within the working-age population, all headline poverty rates are lower than in 2010. Yes, there is absolutely more to do—we certainly cannot be complacent, and I have no wish to do so—but the Government’s reforms have demonstrated real progress in tackling poverty and disadvantage.