Social Security
Mark Francois Excerpts(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
As I served with the hon. Lady on the PAC, I warmly congratulate her on her election as Chair of the Treasury Committee. The House has made a very good choice.
Members of the Rayleigh, Rochford and District Association for Voluntary Service, whom I met last Friday, were genuinely worried about this policy. In a nutshell, their argument was that if people on very modest incomes are now frightened to heat their homes, that could lead to illness for many of those people, who will then present themselves to hospital and increase the winter pressures on A&E. By that method, it would be a false economy. The game is not worth the candle. What does the hon. Lady, whom I respect, say to that?
Dame Meg Hillier
I thank the right hon. Gentleman, with whom I had the pleasure of serving on the Public Accounts Committee. That is an example of how the House works closely together; most people would not think that we would agree on many issues, but on that Committee we produced every report in tandem.
The right hon. Gentleman will know that the pressures on the NHS are legion, and that many of the same people who will be suffering this cut to their income—we will come on to some of the measures to ameliorate it—will be the same people queuing and waiting for a hospital appointment. I know too many pensioners who do not get that hip replacement if they cannot afford it, but many are cashing in their savings, when they have them, to pay for a hip replacement so they can have quality of life. That is not the NHS that the right hon. Gentleman or I want to see in this country, so we need to make choices. One choice that this Government are making is to ensure that we pull the NHS waiting lists back. I could digress into the NHS for a long time, but if he will forgive me, I will move on.
Looking at our schools estate, under the last Government the Department for Education asked the Treasury for capital funding for schools of £5.3 billion in 2020. It was allocated only £3.1 billion, so there is a big backlog there.
In the defence sector there are many examples, but I will pick just a couple. Not a single nuclear submarine that has come out of service has yet been decommissioned in this country. It will cost around £500 million in 2018 prices for a single one, amounting to nearly three quarters of a billion pounds in 2018 prices to complete all of those. It is getting to a critical point. These decisions have been delayed and deferred for too long—in this case, by Governments of all colours, not just the last Government—and there is a gap of at least £17 billion in the defence equipment plan over 10 years.
There is also a lack of transparency about local authority spending because of the crisis in local government audit, which was overseen by the last Government. Not enough was done to deal with it. I could go on: there is a long list of expensive things that this Government now need to put right because of neglect over a period of time.
Pensions
Mark Francois Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Guy Opperman
My hon. Friend is a champion for his constituency and rightly raises the importance of what we are doing. I draw his attention to two key points: first, the Pension Schemes Act will make his constituents’ pensions safer, better and greener; and secondly, the automatic enrolment reforms that we have brought forward as a coalition Government and then a Conservative Government unquestionably support his constituents, who are saving in their thousands, to the tune of 8% per annum.
Of course, my hon. Friend will be aware that in 2012, approximately 35% of our young people were saving into a workplace pension, and now 86% in his community are doing so. Similarly, women, who were saving at 40%, are now saving, quite obviously, up at 86%, as I outlined earlier.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
Very quickly, I have a compliment and a question. The compliment is that, as an MP of 20 years’ standing, I know that pensions are one of the most difficult things that we get inquiries on from constituents, and the Minister, when he replies, has a knack for explaining these things in everyday English that is simple to understand. I thank him for that.
Mr Francois
My question is this. The very helpful notes that go with the instrument state:
“A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument.”
We were not expecting “War and Peace”. There will be a reason why the Government took that decision; perhaps the Minister will explain it to the House.
Guy Opperman
As always, I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s intervention and support, and for his kind comments. I accept and take any praise that is due, and likewise hope that all Whips have taken due note of that.
Guy Opperman
Indeed. The practical reality is that I will write to my right hon. Friend with more detail about the impact assessment, but clearly, this is an annual review that is done on an ongoing basis to ensure that the automatic enrolment regulations should be enforced in an appropriate way, and they should be reviewed and assessed in an appropriate way.
Some colleagues have raised matters of the Budget, and I leave that to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor. Similarly, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), whose comments we always appreciate—it is an honour to respond to the great man—asked for a specific assurance that the Government will continue to support employers. I can give him the profound assurance that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on Wednesday will continue the massive support that this Government have made to employers on an ongoing basis. That will continue.
Clearly, we work on an ongoing basis to implement by the mid-2020s the automatic enrolment review; we continue to work forward on the pensions dashboard; section 125 of the Pension Schemes Act has made a significant difference on pension scams; and we continue to put climate change at the heart of pensions, which are now safer, better and greener under this Government.
Question put and agreed to.
Royal Assent
Covid-19: Child Maintenance Service
Mark Francois Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
It is a pleasure to see the Minister back at the Dispatch Box.
I begin with some good news. As an MP of nearly 20 years’ service, I well remember the old unlamented Child Support Agency, which was cumbersome, bureau-cratic and highly formulaic. I remember receiving an absolute plethora of complaints from both mothers and fathers—I had people in my constituency in tears from both sides of the fence, if I can put it like that—because of the way the CSA worked, or rather, in many cases, the way it didn’t. If I speak as I find, I now receive far fewer complaints since the changeover from the Child Support Agency to the Child Maintenance Service. By and large, the CMS works far better than the CSA, not least because there is a different philosophy at work. Whereas the Child Support Agency compelled people to pay via a very strict and rigid formula, the philosophy with the Child Maintenance Service is, wherever possible, to encourage the people concerned to make arrangements between themselves for the benefit of their children. Most parents, even if their relationship has broken down, want to do their best for their children. The CMS encourages them to do exactly that, and in most cases it works well.
However, now for the less good news: where it goes wrong with the CMS, it goes horribly wrong. The CMS is particularly poor at pursuing parents—often, unfortunately, fathers—who wilfully refuse to pay. In many cases, they are not on a regular income under pay-as-you-earn, but adopt tactics such as becoming self-employed or registering as company directors in order deliberately to make their income as opaque as possible, not just to the taxman but to the Child Maintenance Service, so as to reduce their liability. I completely agree with the excellent Chairman of the Select Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who said, in effect, that that is utterly unacceptable.
I have a constituent, Miss Laura Panza, who has permitted me to raise her case in Parliament this afternoon, and with whom, I have to tell the Minister, I have been corresponding—having checked this morning—for almost six years. She is still owed arrears that total five figures. She has been fighting very hard for that money on behalf of her daughter to provide as best she can for her future, including her future education. I cannot possibly summarise such a complex case—the file is literally several inches thick—in four minutes; I probably could not do it in four hours. However, I can ask the Minister, on her behalf, if I could have a meeting with Baroness Stedman-Scott, the Minister in the other place, in order to raise Miss Panza’s case directly.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)
As my right hon. Friend knows, I am not the Minister directly responsible for this matter—that is the noble Baroness Stedman-Scott—but I speak on behalf of the DWP today, and I want to respond to his point and to colleagues who are going to make further such points. I can assure him and other colleagues that the Minister concerned will, within 28 days, meet all colleagues who are raising specific cases brought to her by individual MPs.
Mr Francois
The Minister has a deserved reputation in this place for being a thoroughly good chap. I am very grateful for that unequivocal answer. I shall certainly, on behalf of my constituent, take him up on his very kind offer, and then hopefully we can get justice for Miss Panza and her daughter.
Now that I have unmasked the problems of the CMS, I want to commend Gingerbread for all the very good work that it has done in campaigning to raise the profile of this issue for parents around the country who, for many years, have done nothing wrong—all they have done is to campaign to try to get the best for their children. In most cases, parents can sort these things out between themselves perfectly rationally, but where they cannot, and people wilfully refuse to pay, they need a more proactive and muscular CMS to hold those people to account. I hope that Gingerbread, by campaigning, can eventually bring that about. I am sure that the Minister will do whatever he can to facilitate it too.