Government Plan for Net Zero Emissions

Debate between Mark Harper and Sarah Newton

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Newton]

I welcome the fact that Barnsley has declared a climate emergency. Cornwall Council has done the same, as have most of the parish councils in my constituency. People want to play their part. The Government have recently brought in some very helpful new regulations that will help councils. For example, most councils sit on huge pension funds; the new regulations, which came into force last week, make councils think about the impact of their decisions on reaching that net zero target. There are many contributors to enabling people, councils and businesses to make changes so that we can meet the target.

As was mentioned, the climate change movement will fail if we fail to take people with us. As we saw in France, we must be clear about why action to tackle climate change matters, and ensure people are not left behind as we transition to new, cleaner industries. It cannot just be about distant international summits with acronyms that few people understand. When the UK hosts the UN climate change summit in Glasgow next year, we must ensure that every sector of society is involved in the conversation. With an issue as big as climate change, we need everyone’s collective brainpower to find the right solutions, and we must have everyone on board if we hope to implement those solutions.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

In the light of my hon. Friend’s comments about Britain’s world-leading efforts on climate change, and all the interventions talking about the action already being taken, would not efforts to take people with us be more effective if campaigners stopped insisting that nothing has happened in the past 30 years, which is simply not true?

[Sarah Newton]

I absolutely agree. There is a lot of scaremongering and misinformation. Most of the people that I meet are genuine and sincere, but there is no doubt that there are people who have seen the popular support and concern about what is happening to our climate and nature and are deliberately infiltrating and organising in a way intended to create chaos, and fundamentally to bring down our whole way of life. We must guard against that. In any democracy that enjoys as much freedom as we do—it is fantastic that we have those freedoms—we must guard against extreme elements in our society, which will always want to undermine and bring down our whole way of life. My right hon. Friend makes a very good point.

Social Security and Employment Support for Disabled People

Debate between Mark Harper and Sarah Newton

Wednesday 6th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I really would have hoped that, today of all days, the hon. Lady could have found it in her heart to welcome the changes that have been asked for by so many people inside and outside this Chamber, and to recognise the great work that has been done by disabled people, and those who work with them, to engage with us so constructively and enable us to move forward and tackle the issues that she is describing.

The hon. Lady is right to say that we said yesterday that we were going to be more ambitious in enabling more disabled people into work, because we have made such good progress. Since 2013, over 930,000 more disabled people are now in work. Over that time, the disability employment rate has increased from 7.4% to 51.5%, and the gap between the disabled employment rate and the overall employment rate has been reduced to 30.2%. I do not want to see any disabled person out of work when they would like to be in work, but we have made progress and that is why we have committed to reviewing our targets and to being more ambitious. Access to Work is a great scheme, as we all agree, and it supported record numbers of people last year, including more people with mental health conditions and more young people with learning disabilities. The Access to Work fund is demand-led, and it grows every year because every year we are seeing more disabled people into work, and that is what we want to do.

Returning to the hon. Lady’s questions about the contracts, it is really important to me that, while we are going through such a fundamental transformation of our assessment process, we have safe and stable delivery for people who are applying for benefits. That is why we have extended the contracts to 2021, to align with the PIP contracts. We have not just accepted the existing situation, as the hon. Lady knows, and I am grateful for the work undertaken by the Select Committee on this. We have been pushing for continuous improvement within those contracts. The new contracts have higher standards for service delivery, and I would be happy to put a letter in the Library so that people can see the terms of the new contracts and see that they are driving forward improvement. We all want to see the right decisions being made at the first opportunity. We do not want to see people having to go through mandatory reconsideration and then on to appeals in the courts, and we have a whole series of reforms to ensure that that does not happen.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I welcome what was in the written statement yesterday and what the Minister has reiterated about the more ambitious target to get more disabled people into work. As an aside, I also welcome what the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) said earlier. As a former Minister for disabled people, I am particularly attracted to the more ambitious target that we had in our 2015 manifesto. Indeed, I may have had a hand in writing it myself. On the substantive question, if we are going to get more disabled people into work, we need to ensure that the social care system—over half of whose budget is spent on working-age adults, not on older people—works better with our social security system and with the other means that we have of helping disabled people to become more independent. I urge the Minister to publish the social care Green Paper as soon as possible, and to start that much-needed debate so that we can deliver those policy changes that many disabled people across the country are crying out for and give them the opportunity to live more independent and fulfilling lives.

[Sarah Newton]

I very much thank my right hon. Friend for his contribution in the Chamber today and for all the work that he did when he had the privilege of holding this office. He is absolutely right to say that we want to be more ambitious. We will be looking carefully at how we can set ourselves really ambitious goals to ensure that everybody in our country has the opportunity to fulfil their potential in work, and that business, civil society and the public sector can draw on the talents of the very many disabled people who are unemployed at the moment. He is also right to talk about the importance of adult social care. It is of course the Department of Health and Social Care that leads on this, but I work closely with it and I have been encouraging it to go ahead and publish that very important Green Paper so that we can take forward those urgent reforms and enable more people to live independent lives.

Draft Mesothelioma Lump Sum Payments (Conditions and Amounts) (Amendment) Regulations 2018 draft Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment) Regulations 2018

Debate between Mark Harper and Sarah Newton

Tuesday 20th February 2018 General Committees

[Sarah Newton]

I thank the hon. Members for Glasgow South West and for Battersea for welcoming and supporting this really important uprating. I am sure that the increase will be welcomed by the people who are affected.

The hon. Gentleman asked why we are uprating using this particular measure. It is commonly regarded as the best measure of inflation. It is the one that the Treasury uses, the Bank of England uses and the Government use for uprating. There is always this debate about which is the most effective measure, but that is the settled view of the Government. At 3%, it is a decent rise that people will experience.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

On that point about RPI, not only is CPI thought to be better, but the Office for National Statistics—the independent statistics organisation—and the UK Statistics Authority have said that RPI is a flawed measure, and it is not counted as an official UK national statistic because it is so unreliable.

[Sarah Newton]

I thank my right hon. Friend for such a helpful intervention. He knows this matter well, having been the Minister in this place before. I am sure he has had to respond to that question in similar debates, and I thank him for that additional point.

The hon. Member for Battersea asked me a number of questions, and I will try my best to get through them all. If I have omitted to make a timely note, I will follow up any unanswered questions after reading Hansard. First, she asked why impact assessments have not been prepared for the statutory instruments. I remind hon. Members that the statutory instruments do not change any policy or existing scheme; they just uprate the amount that is paid. If there were new measures or policies, it would be absolutely right and proper to do an impact assessment in relation to businesses, charities and voluntary bodies; but as there would be no impact, because all of those assessments would have been done when the legislation was introduced, there is no need to do that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Sarah Newton

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

14. What progress his Department has made on its Disability Confident campaign.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Harper)]

In July last year, the Prime Minister launched the Disability Confident campaign, which sought to encourage employers to become more confident about employing disabled people. We have reached over 1,100 local and national employers throughout Great Britain, and have received more than 200 pledges from companies in their quest to have better employment outcomes for disabled people. My predecessor wrote to colleagues and I encourage them to hold Disability Confident events in their constituencies.

[Sarah Newton]

I thank the Minister for his response. May I convey to him how positive the Disability Confident events are, having joined one in my constituency this summer? Will he congratulate Pluss, a great social enterprise in my constituency that has worked with more than 500 Cornish businesses to enable more than 800 people to get into work?

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Mark Harper and Sarah Newton

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I strongly welcome these amendments, because it is vital that people’s voices are heard, especially those of the people of Cornwall, who mounted a hugely successful campaign about our desire to keep Cornwall whole. I hope that through these opportunities for public meetings, we might yet succeed in achieving that. Does the Minister agree that it would be very desirable to have one such public meeting in Cornwall, given the strength of feeling there?

[Mr Harper]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. It is obviously not for the Government to tell the boundary commissions what to do, but one of the reasons for ensuring that there can be several inquiries in various regions is that the commissions will be mindful of the areas where they suspect there will be considerable public interest. It is fairly obvious to everybody that, in the south-west of England, Cornwall will be one of those places where members of the public, in particular, and of course Members of Parliament, will be very keen to make that case.