Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Lady is right that we now have 1.4 million people on universal credit and we expect another 1.6 million to move on to it during the next 12 months as part of natural migration. I am of course collecting information as we go to ensure that that is done fairly, accurately and efficiently, as I want it to be, but I will take her suggestion on board. I am very keen to ensure that everything we do is evidence-based.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Rugby jobcentre has quite a lot of experience with universal credit, having been a pilot centre since 2013 and on full service since May 2016. The staff there have had a hand in making the transition easier based on the test and learn approach. Will the Secretary of State acknowledge the hard work of staff at jobcentres such as Rugby’s in making improvements to the universal credit system?

[Amber Rudd]

May I particularly thank the people in the Rugby jobcentre? I have had an opportunity to visit many different jobcentres since being appointed, and I find universally that the people who work in them are enthusiastic about universal credit and passionate, caring and compassionate about the claimants they work for. I urge Opposition Members not to underestimate the good work being done by work coaches in their constituencies to help the people most in need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

Yes, in the report it says just that. It says that it needs to continue to go forward and it needs to continue at a faster rate.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

The NAO report acknowledged the close links between local authorities and universal credit. As one of the first full-service sites, Rugby and its borough council received an £85,000 payment to assist with the cost of digitisation. Will the Secretary of State join me in welcoming that valuable support for local authorities in full-service areas?

[Ms McVey]

I will indeed join my hon. Friend in praising that support. It is really important that local authorities are involved in what is happening and that we provide the right support on the ground for individuals to get their benefit.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

We will implement the judgment in full, but it is really important that we continue our work with stakeholders to get this right. We are working at pace to make those changes. On the general points that the hon. Gentleman makes, we are utterly committed to making sure that, with PIP and ESA, people have a good claimant experience, and we are regularly implementing changes.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

I recently visited the local centre at Cofa Court in Coventry where PIP assessments take place and saw the process. Will the Minister confirm that assessments are always based on what claimants are able to do and that they are always carried out by a medical practitioner?

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

First, I should like to associate myself with the hon. Gentleman’s remarks about the Deputy Speaker, who has the thoughts of the whole House with him at this time.

In respect of the hon. Gentleman’s question, however, I disagree with him. The point that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was seeking to make is that we have made great progress in recent years on increasing the level of disabled people in work. That is a good thing to do, and he made it clear that he considered it to be a good thing. That is what the whole Government want to achieve.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

The small employment adviser at Rugby jobcentre has just signed up 15 new employers to become Disability Confident. Does the Secretary of State agree that the role of those officers in building links with small employers in local areas is crucial to ensuring that more disabled people get access to the workplace?

[Mr Gauke]

Yes, I do. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is really important that that engagement happens up and down the country, and I am pleased that we are making progress. As I have said, we have over 5,000 Disability Confident employers, and I hope that we will continue to increase that number. My Department will certainly be doing everything it can to achieve that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

We hear a lot from Opposition Members about universal credit, but we have to remember that it is a much more effective system at getting people into work. Nationally, 113 people move into work under universal credit for every 100 under the previous system. My constituency, which was a pathfinder for universal credit, is seeing very substantial falls in the number of people claiming. Is it not a better system all together?

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Universal credit is helping people to get into work and to progress in work. It is also clear that people on universal credit are spending more time looking for work than those on legacy benefits. It is really important that we all work to ensure the success of universal credit. We believe it will result in 250,000 more jobs—something worth achieving.

Universal Credit Roll-out

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

Absolutely, and I will go on to make those points in a moment.

Getting back to the principles, we supported those then and we support them now. The Government wanted to pilot the implementation of UC, so they introduced a number of pathfinder areas, including my Oldham constituency, and planned a phased roll-out between 2013 and 2017.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

My constituency was also a pathfinder, and since the introduction of UC in 2012, the claimant count in my constituency has halved. Does the hon. Lady think the two issues are connected?

[Debbie Abrahams]

There may be many and varied reasons why the claimant count is down, not least the system of punitive sanctions the Government also introduced in 2012.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

What I would say—this is exactly the point I made earlier—is that I do not believe that anybody should be left without any support for six weeks when they do not have savings or an alternative source of income, which is why it is important that advances are available within the system. The majority of claimants now make use of advances. We need to ensure that that is properly communicated to claimants. I will certainly do that, as I am sure will all Members of this House.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

My constituency was one of the first to introduce universal credit, and it went on to full service in 2016. Staff in my constituency tell me that they are very familiar with the new system. Does the Secretary of State agree that we need to ensure that what we have learnt from the pathfinder jobcentres is quickly rolled out to those now taking up the new system?

[Mr Gauke]

We must constantly learn from experience—this is about testing, learning and improving. We must ensure that awareness of the advances system is high, and clearly that has increased in recent months. My hon. Friend makes a point about jobcentre staff, and my experience of meeting such people up and down the country is that they are enthused by what universal credit can do for claimants to help them to get into work.

State Pension: Working-class Women

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Flello. I thank the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) for securing this debate and putting across vividly the impact on women in her constituency. My hon. Friends the Members for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) and for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) spoke about the human cost of what has happened and the fact that so many women have been denied what is rightfully theirs.

I dearly wish that none of us were here today because the case has been made time after time, and it is time that the Government started to take notice. The phrase, “doing the right thing” has been used, but when reflecting on all that has gone on, not just all our debates but the 245 Members of Parliament who have lodged petitions on behalf of the WASPI women, the Government must respond to the pressures those women have been under.

What we cannot get away from is that the women rightly feel let down and that they have not had adequate communication. The point has been made, and no one disagrees that equalisation should take place, but it must happen fairly. This affects so many women— 2.6 million throughout the UK and 243,900 in my own country of Scotland. Many of those women are working-class and have faced particular pressures. There is an opportunity here today for the Government to admit that a wrong has been done and that effective notice was not given of an increase in pensionable age, and to recognise that the process of increasing pensionable age must be slowed down. It must be slowed down before it is too late.

I want to pick up on the issue of a pension being a right. Frankly, I am sick fed up of hearing the Government say that this is not a right but a benefit. They cannot get away with weasel words, because that is all they are, Minister. All these women, including many of the women sitting here and the women from Newcastle upon Tyne Central, have paid 42 years-worth of national insurance contributions. If that does not give them a right to a pension, I do not know what does. It really is about time that the Government accepted their moral and ethical responsibilities and stopped hiding behind the language that this is not a contractual obligation.

As my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran said, if what has been done had been done by private pension providers, you can bet your boots that the ombudsman would have been involved. You can bet your boots that those pension providers would have been taken to court, so for once, when you stand up this afternoon—I appreciate that you are not the Pensions Minister and are here in another guise. I apologise for using the word “you”, Mr Flello. I am asking the Minister to recognise that this is not about benefits. It is about women who have paid in, and it is about time that they got their just rewards.

We often hear that the issue is affordability, and the point was made about austerity. The Government cannot run away from the fact that there is a national insurance fund and that fund is sitting, in year 2016-17, with a surplus of more than £30 billion. We have heard about mitigation, and different proposals have been made. We in the SNP have tried to contribute to that by commissioning our own research—the Landman Economics report, which was published last year—and it has been ridiculed and brought into question by the Government.

I have always made it clear that our favoured option, option 2 in the report, which calls for the slowing down of the increase in pensionable age, which would take a further two and a half years, would cost, in the lifetime of this Parliament—I stress “in this Parliament”—an additional £8 billion, but the Government have told us that we are wrong and the figure is £30 billion. The Government should sit down with me and go through our calculations, which are based on the Treasury model. They need to stop traducing the SNP and admit that the £8 billion figure is correct and that they can meet that cost out of the surplus that they have today in the national insurance fund. I say that because the payments into the national insurance fund have come from these women. This is about their entitlement and the fact that in the course of this Parliament, the Government could easily meet that obligation. When will the Government start to listen and actually do the right thing?

Thanks to freedom of information requests, we learnt that the DWP began writing to women born between April 1950 and April 1955 only in April 2009 and did not complete that process until February 2012. It wrote to women to inform them about changes in legislation going back to the Pensions Act 1995, but they had taken 14 years to start the formal notification process. It was 14 years after the legislation had been passed before the Government bothered to write to people. Taking 14 years to begin informing women that a pension that they had paid for was to be deferred is quite something. Can we imagine the outcry if a private pension provider behaved in such a manner? There would be an outcry in this House. Considering that entitlement to a state pension is based on national insurance contributions, the Government have an obligation to act in a fair manner. They have changed the entitlement to something women have paid in for with an expectation of retiring at age 60, and when the goalposts were moved, the Government could not get round to informing the women in a timely manner.

A woman born on 6 April 1953, who under the previous legislation would have retired on 6 April 2013, would have received a letter from the DWP in January 2012 with the bombshell that she would now be retiring on 6 July 2016—three years and three months later than she might have expected, but with only 15 months’ notice. We are talking about 15 months’ written notice that what she thought was a contract the Government had willingly ripped up. That is exactly why the Government have a duty to act: women born in the 1950s have not been fairly treated.

The lawyers Bindmans have published a guide to DWP maladministration in the WASPI women’s case, and let us be in no doubt that it is maladministration that we are talking about in this instance. The paper is a damning indictment of a failure to communicate effectively and directly with the women involved. It refers to the events that led to a change in women’s pensionable age, beginning with a White Paper in December 1993 that stated:

“In developing its proposals for implementing the change the Government has paid particular attention to the need to give people enough time to plan ahead and to phase the change in gradually.”

There is not much there I would not agree with, but when we accept the need for people to plan ahead, we need to write and tell them. The intent was there in the White Paper in 1993, yet it was 2009 before the Government acted.

Then there is the issue of phasing in gradually. I would not define that as increasing women’s pensionable age by three months for each month that now passes. The pensionable age will increase by three months in the month of February and by another three months in March. That is not gradual. It is scandalous that women’s pensionable age is increasing so rapidly. It is not within the spirit of what the Government outlined in their original White Paper.

In October 2002, while giving evidence to a Select Committee, the DWP suggested that the role of the state was

“to provide clear and accurate information about what pensions will provide so that people will understand how much they can expect at retirement before it is too late to do something about it”.

How does the statement

“before it is too late to do something about it”

equate with the 15 months’ notice that women were given? It was far too late, and the DWP must accept that women were not given appropriate notice, and must put in place mitigation. I might add that it was stated that the lead-in time in the original White Paper in 1993 allowed plenty of time for people to adjust their plans, but people can do so only if they are aware of it.

We also had the DWP public policy statement from March 2002, which stated:

“It is widely accepted that the department has a duty to give information or advice to inform the public about any new policies and developments that may affect them and crucially keep them informed on a continuing basis on their rights and responsibilities. It would be unreasonable for the department not to do this.”

I could not agree more. Where, then, were the letters to the women to inform them of the changes? This was 2002. The DWP has to take responsibility for that failure to communicate and, crucially, for the lack of time that women have had to prepare for an increase in their state pension age. Rather than recognising that women deserved to be communicated with directly, the DWP issued leaflets headlined “Equality in State Pension Age”. Can anybody in this Chamber remember those leaflets? No? I did not think so. I do not recall seeing them.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

You’re not a woman!

[Ian Blackford]

It is interesting that a Government Member is actually laughing about this, because that defines what the problem is. There are women who are really struggling, and the Government laugh. You should apologise and you should accept responsibility for this and stop demeaning the women—

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I am happy to speak to the hon. Gentleman about the situation in his constituency, but the Trussell Trust recently found that there has been no overall increase in the use of food banks over the past 12 months. Indeed, the average price of food has fallen by 2.5% over the past 12 months, and average wages have gone up. We continue to spend more than £80 billion on working-age benefits to support those in need.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

When I visited my food bank in Rugby I saw advisers who were meeting people’s individual needs and making a big effort to understand the circumstances of the people there, and to provide help, support and some direction. Is it not entirely right that that should happen?

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend is right. I have been a trustee of a food bank, and I know a bit about how they work on the ground. Effective food banks are those that partner other organisations, such as Citizens Advice and Christians Against Poverty, to provide debt advice and other support to help tackle the underlying causes of why somebody might be at a point of crisis and dependency and need to use a food bank.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Crabb]

What we are focused on—more than any previous Government—is tackling the underlying causes of poverty. One of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues talked earlier about entrenched poverty; if we are going to tackle entrenched poverty, we need a coherent, integrated life chances strategy that focuses on the underlying causes and on some of the measures and indicators that track them.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Rugby was in the first group of jobcentres to introduce universal credit for single people, and it is now introducing the benefit for families. Will the Minister join me in paying tribute to staff at Rugby jobcentre for their hard work and flexibility in implementing this important change?

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: staff at Rugby Jobcentre Plus have done a brilliant job, as have staff in jobcentres all over the country, in rolling out universal credit. They are achieving some really important things.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I will happily look into it, because without having all the details I cannot comment. On the broader issue, we are now helping more than 38,000 people a year—close to record numbers—with the access to work funding, which is in the fourth year of growth, and we have just secured funding for a further 25,000.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

My constituent, who is also registered blind, has told me how valuable the access to work scheme has been in getting him into work. His disability employment adviser contacted a new employer about his needs and they made workplace adjustments without which it would be very difficult for him to hold down his job. Is it not the case that this scheme is extremely valuable in supporting people such as my constituent?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I thank my hon. Friend. That is why we were so delighted to secure the extra funding for a further 25,000 places. We will be doing a lot more to promote this scheme, and I encourage employers to take advantage of it.