Women’s State Pension Age: Ombudsman Report

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I agree, and I will come to that point when I talk about the Select Committee’s discussions last week. It is worth adding that the problems caused by that maladministration were exacerbated by the decision in 2011 to increase the state pension age not to 65, as provided by legislation in 1995, but to 66, with very little notice given of that change.

The ombudsman said that had it reported directly to the DWP, it would have recommended that the Department apologise for the maladministration and take steps to put things right. As we all now know, the ombudsman did not report directly to the

Department because of concern that no remedy would be forthcoming. The interim ombudsman, Rebecca Hilsenrath, told the Committee last week that her office had been

“given repeatedly to understand that the Department did not accept our findings.”

Perhaps, when he winds up the debate, the Minister can tell us whether the Department now recognises that there was maladministration in this case.

In laying its report before Parliament in March, the ombudsman asked us in the House to “identify an appropriate mechanism” for providing a remedy. It set out its thinking, namely that the DWP should first acknowledge the maladministration and apologise; secondly, pay financial compensation to the six sample complainants at level 4 of the severity of injustice scale; and, thirdly, identify a remedy for others who had suffered injustice because of the maladministration. As we have heard, the ombudsman estimated that this would involve a sum of between £3.5 billion and £10.5 billion.

We need to find a resolution to this issue, and to find it quite quickly, because it has dragged on for a very long time. Angela Madden, the chair of the WASPI campaign, told the Work and Pensions Committee last week that a woman from the affected cohort dies every 13 minutes, which is a powerful point to make.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

I want to ask the right hon. Member about resolution. Given the maladministration and the points made by the ombudsman, the conclusion needs to happen through political choice. That political choice is between either the Government sitting there or a Government who might replace them at some point this year. Surely the WASPI women in my constituency of West Dunbartonshire, and those in everyone’s constituencies, need political agreement—not obfuscation or an abdication responsibility, but a clear political choice.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I agree. The Government have said that they will respond without “undue delay”, and that they are considering the report in detail. Can the Minister tell the House this afternoon whether the Government will bring forward proposals for remedy, as the Work and Pensions Committee believes that they should, before the summer recess? We should set a clear timetable.

We need a scheme that is easy to administer. The ombudsman said that, in principle, redress should reflect the impact on each individual, but it recognised that the need to avoid delay, and the large numbers involved,

“may indicate the need for a more standardised approach”.

Jane Cowley, the WASPI campaign manager, told the Work and Pensions Committee that given the need for action

“within weeks rather than years”,

the scheme should be based on three principles: speed, simplicity and sensitivity. The evidence that has been gathered points to a rules-based approach to working out the compensation that should be paid.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Aldous]

My sense is that there is a need to strike a balance, as the PHSO says. A way forward is beginning to emerge from the work of the APPG and the Select Committee, and I will elaborate on that.

Since the PHSO published its report on 21 March, the APPG has sought to play its role, as part of Parliament, in finding a fair and just mechanism, as quickly as possible, as the PHSO asked Parliament to do. The hon. Member for Salford and Eccles and I wrote to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and we have subsequently met the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), who is now back in his place. I thank him for the hearing he gave us.

Last Tuesday, the hon. Member for Salford and Eccles and I appeared before the Work and Pensions Committee —likewise, I am grateful to the right hon. Member for East Ham and his colleagues for the fair and full reception they provided. We are holding our own evidence sessions with the various representative groups; the first three sessions took place on Monday and there are more to follow. This is a complicated matter. While the APPG is yet to reach a settled and final recommendation about the form a compensation mechanism should take, it is fair to say that ideas are fast evolving and are pointing in a direction.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

Will the hon. Gentleman advise the House, as well as WASPI women in West Dunbartonshire and across the UK, on whether one of those recommendations will be for a ministerial apology, on behalf of the Department, for where we are now?

[Peter Aldous]

PHSO suggests an apology from the DWP should be encapsulated in what it comes up with as a way forward. The DWP’s own guidelines include an apology as well.

I will focus on the form of compensation redress, which is emerging in a little more detail. While the PHSO has suggested that compensation should be paid at level 4 on their scale, there is disquiet among those affected that that is too low and that level 6 should apply, in line with the APPG’s recommendations. The PHSO comments that a flat rate is easiest to implement but not perfect, and that there may well be a need for a balancing act, as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) suggested in his intervention.

The PHSO also suggests that the National Audit Office may be able to provide guidance on how to structure a compensation scheme. The WASPI group has emphasised, as we have heard, the need for speed, simplicity and sensitivity, and it recommends that the DWP should bring forward proposals for a financial redress scheme to Parliament before the summer recess. It also proposes that higher payments should be targeted at those most impacted.

The Work and Pensions Committee is to be commended for getting out its recommendations in less than 10 days after its evidence session. It also asked the Government to bring forward proposals for the summer recess. It, too, proposed that payments should be based on the extent of change to an individual’s state pension age, and the notice of change that they received. It adds that there should be some flexibility for individuals to be able to make the case for a higher level of compensation based on experiencing direct financial loss.

Clear parameters as to the form that the compensation should take, I sense, are rapidly evolving. Parliament, in the past two months since the PHSO published its report, in its various different guises is playing its role to the full. I would suggest that now is the time for the Government to step up to the plate. A mechanism should be put in place before the summer recess. I acknowledge that the matter is complicated, and that there is a need for contemplation and reflection, but we should have in mind that the most notable achievement of this Government is that, under enormous pressure in a very short timescale, they put in place a furlough scheme that saved hundreds of thousands of jobs and got us through covid. There is no reason why the Government cannot move with such speed and alacrity again. I would add that failure to comply with the PHSO’s recommendations would be almost completely unprecedented over the 70 years that the ombudsman has existed and would drive a coach and horses through what is an integral part of our parliamentary system of democratic checks and balances. In conclusion, I support this motion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies]

Enforcement action is used as a last resort when a parent is failing to pay their maintenance payments and other action has failed. Home detention is a powerful deterrent and, as such, we would expect usage to be low—perhaps less than 10 cases a year on average. I know that my hon. Friend focuses on this matter. The Child Maintenance Service continues to explore how existing powers can be used to encourage compliant behaviours and facilitate constructive relationships between parents to ensure that, importantly, financial support reaches the children for whom they are responsible.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

A new Work and Pensions Committee report on the health assessments for disability benefits such as PIP and employment support allowance has found that “issues or errors” in the DWP health assessment system have, in some ways, contributed to the deaths of claimants. What assurances can the Minister give the House that those issues and errors will not continue to kill our disabled constituents?

[Tom Pursglove]

We take those matters incredibly seriously, which is why we have internal process reviews in the Department to look at them. We have serious case panels constituted by senior leaders from within the Department, and the independent case examiner, for example. Where there are issues and learning that must be taken on board, that must always happen. This is structured through that. We will look very carefully and closely at the Select Committee report, and we will, of course, respond appropriately in the normal way. The hon. Gentleman can be absolutely assured that these processes must always be looked at carefully, and that any learning is taken on board and acted on.

Asbestos in Workplaces

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jane Hunt]

I certainly agree that there is work to be done. That sounds like a very good idea. The Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) will speak later, I believe.

A freedom of information request to the Department for Education last year found that nearly 81% of schools reported that asbestos was present in their buildings. The responses to my survey indicate that schools are one of the hotspots for asbestos exposure, with one response stating:

“My lovely mum was a primary school teacher, who taught children with special educational needs. She was 64 when diagnosed with Mesothelioma, and 67 when she died…After investigations, she was asked if she’d ever worked with asbestos. She said no. It was an odd question as she was a teacher. Then we found out that asbestos is still present in UK schools today.”

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this very important debate. Does she consider the idea of forcing educationalists—whether they are teachers or lecturers—to sign non-disclosure agreements about not discussing asbestos in their establishments on leaving their institutions to be an affront, and does she agree that it should end?

[Jane Hunt]

I was not aware of that. Perhaps I could put that to the Minister for a response. If she cannot give one, I will try to get an answer from the Department for Education.

Another response to my survey stated:

“My husband was diagnosed in October 2012 with Mesothelioma at the age of 34…It changed our lives forever! We do not know exactly how or where he was exposed to asbestos but, from research, we believe he either had secondary exposure from his father bringing it home on his clothes from his place of work, or he could have been directly exposed in the schools he attended which all still contain asbestos to this day.”

A separate information request to the NHS found that more than 90% of hospital buildings contained asbestos. Hospitals were identified as another hotspot for exposure in my survey, with one response stating:

“Before her 40th birthday my wife was diagnosed with Mesothelioma, a mother of 3, who for her whole life worked as an NHS Nurse. She was studying and working in what you would expect to be a safe environment.”

A further freedom of information request to 20 local authorities across England, Scotland and Wales from the law firm Irwin Mitchell revealed that 4,533 public buildings still contain asbestos. That averages to around 225 buildings per local authority. Irwin Mitchell estimates that if the data provided is repeated around the country, about 87,000 public buildings contain asbestos.

Asbestos exposure is the single greatest cause of work-related deaths in the UK, with the HSE estimating that more than 5,000 people die from asbestos-related cancers every year. More than half of those deaths are from mesothelioma, a type of cancer that can occur on the lining of the lung or the lining surrounding the lower digestive tract. Shockingly, according to the HSE, the UK has the highest rate of mesothelioma deaths per capita in the world.

Mesothelioma is not typically detected in the early stages of the disease, as it has a long latency period of 15 to 45 years, with some prolonged cases of 60 years before symptoms show. Therefore, once diagnosed, it is often advanced, so up to 60% of patients die in the first year after diagnosis, with just over five in 100 surviving for five years or more.

Furthermore, while historically, men working in building-related activities as well as other heavy industries such as shipbuilding were the most likely people to develop asbestos-related diseases, we are now seeing a trend of younger people, both men and women, dying as a result of exposure. As Irwin Mitchell highlighted, over the past 20 years, an increasing number of people have developed asbestos-related illnesses from more indirect sources.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

The historical legacy of asbestos in heavy industry is well documented, but does the hon. Lady share my concerns and those of the Clydebank Asbestos Group in my constituency about the increasing number of women being diagnosed with asbestos-related conditions, critically reflecting the reality of women’s exposure and a failure to recognise the many types of asbestos-related conditions, which can also include ovarian cancer?

[Jane Hunt]

I was not aware of the ovarian cancer element. However, I was going to mention family members washing work clothes covered in asbestos dust and that kind of thing, or non-industrial exposure. This is greatly concerning.

I will take this opportunity to share a few extracts from a statement provided to me by one of my constituents, whose husband died from mesothelioma after being exposed to asbestos:

“[My husband] at first did not show much reaction when he was diagnosed. All he really wanted was to find out what could be done to help him. He felt angry later that it could have been prevented. [My husband] was very matter of fact that all he could do now was fight it and try to survive as long as possible.

I felt absolute terror, I felt extremely upset and tearful but because [my husband] was handling it so well, I kept some of my worst feelings hidden and just supported him in the way he wanted me to, but I felt an overwhelming panic that I was going to lose my wonderful husband to this devastating cancer. Something that was totally preventable.”

A number of regulations have rightly been introduced in the past 90 years to try to limit people’s exposure, including in 1999 a full ban on its import, supply and use in manufacture. The Government’s current policy reflects HSE advice, which states that, wherever possible, asbestos-containing materials should be left in situ.

The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 provide the regulatory framework on working with asbestos and apply to all non-domestic premises. Under the regulations, the HSE requires duty-holders to assess whether asbestos is present in their buildings, what condition it is in and whether it gives rise to the risk of exposure. The duty-holder must then draw up a plan to manage the risk associated with asbestos. Importantly, that must include the removal of the asbestos, if it cannot be safely managed where it remains in place. Duty-holders are also legally required to remove asbestos-containing materials before major refurbishment or demolition work.

Despite those efforts, asbestos is still present in many buildings, and people are still suffering and dying from asbestos-related illnesses. We therefore need to take a look at what more we can do. I welcome the fact that the Work and Pensions Committee considered this subject as part of its 2022 report into the HSE’s approach to asbestos management. The Chair of that Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham, is here, and I thank him for his dedication to highlighting this very serious issue, and for his support and assistance with today’s debate. I am sure that he will want to speak in more detail about the findings of the Committee’s report. However, I would like to mention two issues that were raised by the Committee and which Mesothelioma UK has highlighted in its new campaign, “Don’t Let the Dust Settle”.

The first of those is the Committee’s recommendation that a central asbestos register is introduced. The lack of in-depth and up-to-date data is proving to be a barrier to dealing with the risk posed to the public. A central register would help to alleviate that problem and support a longer-term strategic approach to managing asbestos. It would also provide vital information on the level of compliance by those with a duty to manage asbestos on their premises, and ensure that enforcement action is focused in the right areas.

As one respondent to my survey put it:

“The existence of asbestos in public and private buildings is rife yet there is no proper cataloguing of this or scheme to remove this highly dangerous substance. The hospitals caring for people with asbestos related cancers are full of the very substance that is killing them. There is a need to systematically catalogue and schedule a programme of removal of asbestos from all buildings”.

Without a register and steps being taken to remove asbestos, the British Occupational Hygiene Society estimates that we are likely to see a spike in occupational, and potentially non-occupational, illness arising from asbestos exposure in around 2060. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister reconsidered the Government’s position on a national register.

The other recommendation from the Committee is that a deadline is set for the removal of all asbestos from non-domestic buildings. That approach would bring our strategy in line with that of France, where a general plan has been implemented to remove asbestos from every building within 40 years. Under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, the UK is obligated to seek out and adopt international best practice. Currently, the classification of acceptable exposure levels to asbestos fibres in the UK is 10 times greater than that now allowed across Europe.

The current way to deal with asbestos—to leave it in situ—is clearly not working, given that the people affected by asbestos-related cancers are becoming younger and younger. Materials are degrading over time through wear and tear, and are being damaged inadvertently. Research published last year by the Asbestos Testing and Consultancy Association and the National Organisation of Asbestos Consultants identified that more than 70% of asbestos-containing materials managed in situ had deteriorated, indicating that management of the risk was ineffective.

We therefore simply cannot afford to delay asbestos removal further. That is particularly true in education and health settings where many of our most vulnerable stay, work and study. The majority of those who have contacted me ahead of the debate are in agreement that in order to deal with the current risk, we need a national asbestos strategy. That approach has proved effective in other nations, which have accepted that leaving asbestos in situ is not safe. Since developing national asbestos strategies, such nations have seen an improvement in their asbestos monitoring and detection technologies and practices. The UK needs its own asbestos strategy that incorporates this best practice, as well as a timetable for the safe removal of asbestos, prioritising the highest-risk asbestos in settings such as schools and hospitals. Taken together, those two actions will help to focus minds across Government and industry, and will help to drive progress.

I will close with extracts from a statement provided by another of my constituents, whose husband died of mesothelioma after being exposed to asbestos. Her husband said before his death:

“I was never told about any risks of working with asbestos. The environment was so dusty that sometimes you could struggle to see clearly. It was therefore obvious to me that health and safety was being ignored.”

My constituent said later that her husband

“was 69 when he died from Mesothelioma…We had been married for 45 years.”

She continued that he

“was a family man who always put others first. His death from this terrible disease has deprived me of a loving husband and friend, his daughters of a wonderful father and my daughters’ children of an amazing grandad.”

The grandfather of one of the members of my team also died from mesothelioma. We must put a stop to this. Please, don’t let the dust settle.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

We owe a great debt to the hon. Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) for securing the debate and the way in which she moved the motion. I used to be a union organiser in the public sector before I became a Member of Parliament, in the National Union of Public Employees. In the early ’70s, when the debate started about the health, safety and welfare at work legislation, which was put in law in 1974, the issues and dangers of asbestos were known. Huge profits had been made by Turner & Newall and other companies from selling asbestos, and it was installed regularly in lots of places even after the dangers were well known. Asbestos lagging on pipes in heating installations and on exhaust systems of buses and other vehicles led to an awful lot of workers getting mesothelioma as a result.

Our great friend Alice Mahon was also a member of NUPE. She worked in a dilapidated old hospital building in Halifax and in this building. I was at her funeral in Halifax last month. It was a sombre occasion. It was a huge gathering at the minster in Halifax that paid tribute to a wonderful MP and a very principled campaigner. The collection was for victims of asbestos in the Calderdale area. In this debate, we should remember that asbestos can affect anybody. Who would have thought that a Member of Parliament would get this kind of condition from being in this building? This is not about MPs, but a lot of people whose voices have not been heard: those who clean buses or trains, those who work in or install heating systems and, indeed, people quite innocently doing a few home repairs, not realising they have actually pin-pricked into asbestos in a building.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

My grandmother, when she lived in Durban Avenue in Clydebank, had a white picket fence brought out of a sheet from Turner’s asbestos factory in Clydebank. The right hon. Member is right to remind us of the differentiation around how people get asbestos. It also relates to where the asbestos is now dumped. Does he share my concern that, besides the traditional aspect of asbestos, it is hidden in grounds across our country? They also need to be investigated—that is to say, hidden asbestos dumps.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Member raises a very important point. There are a number of unaudited rubbish dumps around the country, including unaudited rubbish dumps from the Ministry of Defence, many of which will contain asbestos remains that are completely unknown. Somebody will come along, perhaps to construct something on that site, and dig it up. As a result, asbestos will be released into the atmosphere. We are facing a serious issue of epidemic proportions.

In the 45 seconds that I have left, I thank the Minister for being present. We need a full audit of all the asbestos dangers in the country, including the tips and so on that we have mentioned. We need a programme of containment and labelling of it everywhere before it is removed, and we need a programme of removal. We should not be the worst country in Europe, or indeed in most of the world, on the question of asbestos safety; we ought to be the best. None of this is new. All of this has been around a long time, and I hope that today’s short debate will serve as a reminder that this House is determined that we will rid this country of the dangers of asbestos, and the danger of taking lives 50 or 60 years from now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

5. What steps he is taking to support people aged 50 and over into employment.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to encourage people aged over 50 to remain in the workforce.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

22. What help his Department is giving to people aged 50 and over to find employment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

My hon. and gallant Friend served with dedication in the armed forces before becoming Bracknell’s champion. He will be aware that our armed forces champions go to great lengths to assist ex-servicemen and women in finding second careers after their service keeping us safe. He will also be aware that the Chancellor may have more to say on the issue next week, on the 15th.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

The Minister speaks about the ambitions for encouraging the over-50s to remain in the workforce. Will the Minister tear up his prepared answer, and tell the employees at the Department for Work and Pensions Clydebank office—mostly working-class women over the age of 50—how he squares that with his Government’s rank hypocrisy, which has left them struggling for work during a cost of living crisis?

Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I am not going to pre-empt my decision on the uprating of benefits or indeed the triple lock. We will need to wait until at least 17 November when my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will come to the House with his autumn statement and those details will be known at that point.

The right hon. Gentleman raises the family resources survey. One statistic that caught my eye was that the percentage of households with UC claimants who are in food security rose from 57% in 2019-20 to 73% in 2020-21. Any element of food insecurity is too much—I recognise that—which is why this Government and this Prime Minister are absolutely determined to use whatever we have at our disposal to work on those figures and to improve them. That includes the various interventions that we have already discussed during these questions.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

8. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of social security payments in meeting the cost of living.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

23. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of benefits in meeting increases in the cost of living.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)]

We have already taken decisive action to make work pay by cutting the universal credit taper rate to 55% and increasing UC work allowances, which mean that on average low-income households have about an extra £1,000 a year. In addition to that, two cost of living payments, which total £650, are being paid to more than 8 million low-income households on UC, tax credits, pension credits and legacy benefits. There has also been extra help for pensioners and those on disability benefits. That totals more than £37 billion this year.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

I am grateful for the Minister’s answer, but the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has warned that if social security does not get uprated with inflation, it will be the

“largest permanent deliberate real-terms cut”

to the basic rate of social security by a British Government in history. According to the Child Poverty Action Group, that would push 200,000 children into poverty. Even the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights warns that it will mean that “lives will be lost”. What will the Minister do to stop that?

[Mims Davies]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. I note that he will be visiting his Dumbarton Jobcentre Plus shortly, which I am sure will help him to see the range of interventions in jobcentres, as well as the benefits calculator and the cost of living interventions on gov.uk. I remind him that the Scottish Government have a range of powers, including the ability to provide their own welfare benefits to people in Scotland using existing reserved benefits. The Scottish Government can see how they would like to use their powers and budget themselves.

Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

Absolutely. We want to make sure that work pays, and my hon. Friend has highlighted that fantastically.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

8. What steps her Department is taking to help ensure that disabled people are supported in work.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

19. What steps her Department is taking to help ensure that disabled people are supported in work.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)]

We are committed to seeing 1 million more disabled people in work by 2027. A wide range of initiatives are available to support disabled people to stay in work or move into work, including contracted employment support, Access to Work, Disability Confident, and initiatives in partnership with the health system.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

I am sure the Minister would agree that an important part of preventing the disability employment gap from widening further is the provision of assistive technology for disabled claimants who are applying for jobs. Can the Minister advise the House on whether every jobcentre is equipped with assistive technology for disabled claimants and whether that is supported by appropriate staff training—and if not, why not?

[Mims Davies]

We have 900 disability employment advisers who individually work with claimants to help them to progress. One of the most positive outcomes of the kickstart scheme has been the number of people with neurodiversity or disabilities getting a first start into work because they worked directly with their work coaches to understand what support they needed to get into work. There is also, of course, the Access to Work programme.

DWP Estate: Office Closures

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

We had a full debate in Westminster Hall yesterday that the hon. Member was successful in securing, and we discussed this in more detail. What we can do to support his area is not just around the changes we are proposing today, but is much broader. There is a big broad economic agenda to improve the north-east, which his constituency will benefit from, too.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) for securing this urgent question. He is open and transparent about his strong trade union membership, unlike some Members of the House, who spend their weekends partying with Russian lords and are not open about that.

The Minister talked about the process of digitisation. Estonia is one of the great digital states of Europe and, as it admitted, the big failure of its transition to digital statehood was not recognising the profound impact on the most vulnerable, not only in the delivery of public service at the front end but in the back office. Can he assure the House that there will be no detriment to public service at the front end, given that he is removing the back office?

[David Rutley]

We are not removing the back office; we are modernising it. Of course we want to ensure that we deliver, at the front end, for people in the channels that need it. It is interesting and important that many people who have disabilities or health conditions and who are staff members can now be empowered to do their work, because they do not have to travel because of digital capabilities. There are some exciting possibilities there, notwithstanding the fact that, on the frontline, we need to ensure that we are providing support for all customers in the way they need it.

Cost of Living

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that the cut to universal credit is beyond words in its cruelty and its insensitivity to the struggles that real people face every day. It is a cruel irony that, just as the Scottish Government introduced the Scottish child payment, the UK Government chose to remove the £20 universal credit uplift across the UK—pulling the rug away from struggling households in Scotland. That example really crystallises a tale of two Governments.

Yesterday, I heard hon. Members in the main Chamber say, “If the SNP is so concerned about the cost of living crisis, it should do more in Scotland to support people who are suffering.” I say to the Minister that in Scotland the hated Tory bedroom tax—a tax, incidentally, that hits the disabled hardest—has been fully mitigated by the Scottish Government. I do not have time to mention all the support that the Scottish Government have brought in, using their own fixed budget, to support those who are suffering. It is deeply ironic that Members in this House talk about how the Scottish Government could do more when they are the very people who imposed the constraints that limit the Scottish Government’s powers to do just that. Give us the powers; if we have the powers, we will do more. The irony of calling for the Scottish Government to do more while tying their hands behind their back is well noted in Scotland.

However, the UK Government have a rich array of powers with which they could help to tackle this cost of living crisis—if the political will existed. They could introduce a real living wage. A real living wage would, as it says on the tin, relate to the cost of living—unlike the current, pretendy living wage. They could increase statutory sick pay, which is among the lowest in Europe. Unless the real living wage replaces the pretendy living wage, more and more people will find that they have less to live on as their pay is eroded by the rising cost of living.

The sad fact is that, shamefully, the UK has the highest poverty rate and the worst levels of inequality in all of north-west Europe, with 11.7% living in relative poverty. Around two thirds—68%—of working-age adults in poverty in the UK live in households with at least one adult working. That figure is at an all-time high. Poverty is driving unsustainable debt, with around 3.8 million households carrying an estimated £5.2 billion of arrears in household bills—a figure that has tripled since the start of the pandemic. People are borrowing more to pay for basics and essential bills.

Further, the Chancellor could cut VAT on energy bills and provide emergency loans to energy companies that are teetering on the brink. He could rule out a rise in the energy price cap and reintroduce the £20 per week uplift in universal credit. If the political will existed—and I fear that it does not—the UK Government could replicate the Scottish Government’s child payment across the UK.

As household energy bills soar, fuel costs are rising too. That does not just hit motorists hard; it also has a wider impact on industry because it pushes up the price of food, goods and services. Amid all the pain being suffered by our constituents and communities, we are approaching the highest tax burden since the early 1950s because of the national insurance hike. The consequences for our poorest could not be more stark; they could barely be more harsh. The national insurance hike means that workers earning as little as £10,000 will soon pay a national insurance rate of 14.25%, regardless of income. If student loan repayments are included, graduates earning just over £27,000 will pay a marginal tax rate of 42.25%—and the Tories call themselves the party of low taxation! All of that will act as a drag on recovery. UK consumer confidence is at its lowest level for 11 months, as people understandably worry about surging inflation, which is expected to rise to a staggering 7% by the spring.

It looks much bleaker when we factor in the Brexit effect, which I know the Government do not like to talk about, but let us do so for a minute. The Office for Budget Responsibility—the UK Government’s own forecaster—suggests that the worst is yet to come. Make UK is an organisation representing 20,000 manufacturers, and it has said that Brexit will undoubtedly add to soaring consumer costs this year. Squeezed supply chains are under pressure, with customs delays, border red tape and labour shortages, and additional costs ultimately borne by consumers.

Last month, as the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) indicated in his intervention, we saw £15 added to the average price of groceries. The rate of food price increases is set to increase further this year, just as the national insurance hike is set to bite into pay packets in April.

Let us not forget the promises that were made—the pictures that were painted of the sunny uplands—as we approached Brexit. We were told that VAT on energy bills would be scrapped. Now we are told we cannot do that because it would be a “blunt instrument”. We were told that the price of food would go down. In the wake of Brexit, this message slightly changed to there will be “adequate food”, but we see the price of food rising fast.

It seems that there is one rule for one and one rule for another. As the Minister will stand up and tell us, there are lots of reasons why he cannot do more, there are lots of reasons why the Government cannot do more and hard choices have to be made. In that context, I cannot help but remember the words of Lord Agnew yesterday when he talked about the £4.3 billion of covid loans conveniently written off by the Treasury. He said “arrogance, indolence and ignorance” were at the heart of Government and were freezing “the Government machine”. He said:

“Schoolboy errors…allowing more than 1,000 companies”

that were

“not even trading when Covid struck”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 24 January 2022; Vol. 818, c. 20.]

to have loans could not be justified. I wonder how much pain people like the ordinary man in the street would have been saved by a cash injection from the Treasury of £4.3 billion.

We cannot forget the poor deal for pensioners in this crisis. The WASPI women—the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign—have already been left high and dry as their pension age was increased with little or no notice, throwing their retirement plans into chaos. I want to head off once again the allegation that if the SNP Government are so concerned, they can help the WASPI women. I simply quote that section 28 of the Scotland Act 2016 prevents the Scottish Government from providing support on reserved areas, including pensions assistance or assistance by reason of old age. Once again, we need to burst the myth that the Scottish Government can solve the WASPI problem. It is a problem of the Government’s own making and it is down to them to fix it. If the Scottish Government had the powers, we would be happy to do so with all the levers of an independent country.

Those who have finally reached state pension age now find they are being clobbered again as the triple lock has been abandoned—right in the middle of a cost of living crisis. State pensions have to keep pace with the cost of living, otherwise, we will see older people languishing in poverty as the threat of a rise in morbidity from the cold looms large this winter. I will say that again, because it is outrageous: there is an expectation this winter that the death from the cold among older people will rise. I do not even know what to say about that, it is so appalling.

Pensioner poverty has risen to a 15-year high under this Government’s watch as 985,065 pensioners have been directly impacted by the breaking of the triple lock, despite the fact that UK pensions are the least generous in north-west Europe. Not only are they the least generous but they have been clobbered by this Government in the middle of a cost of living crisis. It is simply not good enough for the Government to fiddle while households, pensioners and one in four children in the UK suffer poverty as a result of the choices the Government are making—and it is a result of the choices they are making. The cost of living crisis is not inevitable, although of course there are factors at play such as global energy challenges and the all-too-predictable consequences of Brexit driving up prices due to supply issues.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

I am grateful that my hon. Friend mentioned energy prices. Does she agree that the UK Government’s penchant for reducing investment in onshore wind farms, as well as removing subsidies for offshore specifically in Scotland, undermines not only renewable energy but the production of the cheapest energy that this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland can provide, which would otherwise lower energy costs for our constituents?

[Patricia Gibson]

Absolutely. That is yet another example of this Government’s skewed priorities—no joined-up thinking, no strategic thinking. Of course, at the moment, they are a Government who are not focused on governing, but are tearing themselves apart with their own internal struggles.

However, there is action that the Government can, and should, take to see people through this perfect storm of rising costs. To stand by and do nothing to alleviate this very real crisis while so many of our constituents across the UK suffer—including the Minister’s constituents—is not acceptable and, as I said, shows skewed priorities. It punishes those on low pay. It punishes those seeking work and pushes them further away from the job market, because poverty creates barriers to work that need not be there. Perhaps worst of all, it punishes those whose health prevents them from working. Among all that, it punishes the children in all the households that are struggling during these difficult times, because it blights their childhood with poverty. I can tell the Minister that the scars of childhood poverty do not easily heal and are never forgotten. If this Government wanted to, they could do more. They could use their powers for good, to protect and support those they are supposed to serve. I urge the Minister to make the case to his Government to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Derek Thomas]

I completely would, and I welcome that intervention. However, in parts of the country, including my constituency, families with fairly decent incomes who would never qualify for that list are also seeing their rents rocketing. We are talking about the nurses, teachers and police officers we need to come to take jobs in Cornwall, or stay in the county, and who cannot afford the rents they are expected to pay.

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point. Cornwall County Council, now under a Conservative administration, is ramping up the provision of social rental properties. That meets the needs of a particular group of constituents, but does not reach or solve the whole problem.

In view of the rising costs of housing, Cornish MPs are arguing in favour of protecting new buildings for permanent residents only, which will help to protect those homes for local need. I agree that we need to look at every tool available to ensure that people have secure homes for life that they can feel safe in. Those homes should be built efficiently, so that rising energy costs, which I will address in a minute, can be managed, so that we are not just heating up the planet when we are trying to heat our homes.

I want to touch briefly on energy costs. My understanding at the moment is that the cost of production of energy has not risen. Companies that are producing it, not all of them based in the UK, are making colossal sums of money due to demand. I am interested to hear from the Minister what the Government are looking to do to bring the cost that suppliers pay for energy closer to the cost of production.

Another area to look at is the feed-in tariff. For example, customers are seeing energy prices increase and that is expected to carry on this year, but those who are feeding into the energy supply, through solar panels or wind turbines they have invested in, are not seeing any change in the money they receive for that energy. It seems sensible for the Minister to look at whether the feed-in tariff should be tracked against the energy costs people pay.

There is no doubt that the energy market needs reform, but right now urgent help is needed for households most hit by energy prices. I heard the calls for a cut in VAT, but householders concerned about energy costs have already worked extremely hard to reduce the amount of energy they use, sometimes choosing not to heat their homes in order to feed their families. The VAT element of the bill for those families will be tiny: they might save £20 or £30, perhaps a little more, a year in VAT. If I owned several electric cars, a couple of hot tubs, maybe a swimming pool, and a massive house with lights on all the time, the savings I would make from the VAT cut would be significant. We are not helping the households that most need it with the headline-grabbing promise to cut VAT on energy.

There must be targeted and effective help for the families I have referred to, the pensioners, people on fixed incomes and low-income households. There should be cash to help with energy bills and, at the same time, an effective way to improve people’s homes. We have had lots of schemes recently where large amounts of money have been made available for people to retrofit their homes. In Cornwall, builders—people involved in construction—were already run off their feet with building homes and looking after Cornwall’s homes and did not choose to take up those offers. People came in from different parts of the country to retrofit homes, not doing it properly or effectively, and often going bust before they got found out.

Lots of Government money was wasted while the homes were not actually improved. The Government need to look carefully at how we retrofit homes, probably through local authorities, where that can be targeted and effective. Ultimately, not now but in the near future, the Government with their sizeable majority could properly reform the energy market so that the poorest families paid hardly anything—if anything—for energy, and those more demanding homes paid more.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

rose—

[Derek Thomas]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman and then I ought to finish, because I am getting the eye.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that energy market reform also requires a reform of transmission charges? While in most parts of England a subsidy will be given to provide energy, north of a certain line north of London people have to charge to produce energy to put it on to the national grid, and that reduces the ability of renewables to lower energy costs.

[Derek Thomas]

I agree that there is a need for a time out to properly look at the energy market and how it works. The price cap we introduced a few years back was helpful and certainly it is helping right now; my understanding is that the variable tariff is the best to be on. However, I met policy advisers some years ago to discuss some sort of block tier energy price, where the first units paid are extremely cheap or free and the more units someone uses, the more they have to pay. We have to retrofit the poorer homes to make sure that does not penalise them, but there is a need in the energy market to make those who can afford it contribute to the cost of energy for those who cannot. It is not a luxury; it is something that we need to care about. We do care about it, and we need to do something.

Social Security

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP) [V]]

These days we often talk about social media in denigrating terms, but we would sometimes do well to remind ourselves why it is a useful tool. I was reminded of this the other day when a picture popped up on my Twitter feed from West Dunbartonshire Council’s arts and heritage account. It showed a gang of riveters from John Brown’s shipyard, dated 1927. On the bottom left was my grandfather, Frances Logan, bunnet on, and wearing a pair of boots that in those days marked him out as a worker, but that these days would mark him out as a hipster. For someone in West Dunbartonshire a century ago, working usually meant Denny’s shipyard at Dumbarton, or John Brown’s shipyard in Clydebank. That is what it meant for my granddad, and what it meant for my 86-year-old father, who is a coppersmith.

Owing to our recent industrial history, Clydebank, with its former shipyards and its own former Turner and Newell asbestos cement factory, became the asbestos disease capital of Europe. It is a legacy that hangs over my constituency. The incredible achievements and ingenuity of those who came before is now marked by an anger that not enough has been done to support those who live with the legacy of long-term exposure to asbestos and other noxious chemicals that were part of the process of industry.

The fight for justice in my community has been led by Clydebank Asbestos Group. For almost 30 years, it has been fighting for the legacy of those who took such pride in their work, so that they may have dignity after it. Like other members of my party, I will be supporting these statutory instruments, because it is the least that we can do for those who continue to live with the physical effects of the conditions, and for their dependants and families who care for them. It is on behalf of those families and dependants that I have asked the Minister and the UK Government to make good on the commitments that they made as long ago as 2010 to bridge the gap between in-life and posthumous payments. It cannot be the case that the disadvantage suffered by those who were unable to gain suitable compensation during their lifetime should be visited on another generation. This is a commitment that the UK Government could honour and it would dovetail with the legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament to aid those with mesothelioma or pleural plaques. While the memories of those of us born in West Dunbartonshire may recede, we know that groups such as Clydebank Asbestos will be around for another 50 years if that is what it takes to make sure that these promises are kept. As long as I am in this place, too, I will not turn from the duty that I have as the son and grandson of shipyard workers to ensure that this Government do right by them.

Coronavirus Outbreak: DWP Response

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

It is good to follow the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger), although of course in the 1600s this Parliament did not exist, so those laws would not have applied in Scotland, thankfully.

I thank the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), and all its members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), for the report. However, I might be the fly in the ointment when it comes to some of the issues it raised.

From my perspective, and I hope that of the majority of Members on my Benches, the report provides a true exposition of the Government’s position on social security, and their ideological thinking about its role in society. At least on these Benches, we believe that a social security policy worth its name should be based on its role in defining society through support enabling equal access to security for all based on need, especially during a global pandemic. I am afraid that, at least from my perspective, the Government’s position and outlook seem to uphold a post-Thatcherite fundamentalism. It is as though they have offered a prayer to a dystopian Saint Francis of Assisi, “Where there is discord, may we bring more. Where there is error, may we entrench it. Where there is doubt, may we add to it, and where there is despair, may we embolden it.” I am afraid that I do not see UC as a national asset. I certainly see the members of staff who are having to deal with its consequences as an asset, because I and my team, and many other Members, know how much hard work they have done.

It is as though the Conservative party believes that the path to paradise begins in hell, but, just maybe, the long road to salvation actually lies in the Committee’s recommendations. For example, it says:

“The Department should continue to allow claimants to use their Government Gateway accounts to verify their identity once the lockdown has ended. It should also use this as an opportunity to reflect on what other changes to the process are needed, with a particular focus on the needs of people who are vulnerable and digitally excluded.”

I would actually go so far as to say that the opportunities of digitisation should not cloud the Government’s view of the lived experience of many citizens. Even the most advanced digital states recognise the fundamental truth of digitisation: it is to ensure that traditional means of access to services remain open to all, and it is not some mandatory utilitarian concept of happiness and human worth.

The Committee also states:

“We recommend that the Government urgently take steps to return to their pre-existing benefits, or the equivalent financial position, anyone who has inadvertently left themselves worse off by making a claim for Universal Credit during the coronavirus outbreak.”

It is as though those on the Government Back Benches see social security as they see foreign aid—as a reserve worth fleecing. Just as they fail to see the worth of foreign aid, they fail to see the worth of a needs-based social security system. I am reminded by Rachel Maddow that social security is not a Ponzi scheme, is not bankrupting and is not an outrage and that—these are my words—if it is funded and worked properly, it works. The Government should restore entitlement, as the Committee’s report highlights, not just because of covid-19, but because it is the morally just and economically sound thing to do.

The Committee’s litany of exasperation continues:

“In these exceptional circumstances, the Government should immediately suspend NRPF conditions on public health grounds for the duration of the outbreak”—

that is, on public health grounds during a global pandemic. As the Committee also notes, the Government might not even know how many citizens have no recourse to public funds—so much for a digital nation approach.

The Committee gets into its stride on the issue of the benefit cap, as the Chair of the Committee highlighted. It states:

“The Chancellor’s decision to increase Universal Credit payments by £20…is very welcome. But some households will not be able to benefit from these increases. This is because, as a result of the uplifts, they will be hit by the benefit cap.”

The Tory party giveth, and the Tory party taketh away, and all the while 4,100 of my constituents who are claimants have lost an average of £57, which was deducted during a global pandemic. That is the difference between queuing at Asda and queueing at a food bank.

I could go on to a litany of despair from Glasgow East; Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath; North Ayrshire and Arran; Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock; and Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill, in each of which nearly 4,000 constituents have lost, on average, about £52 to £55 over this period. That is less a prayer of supplication—a mea culpa, mea culpa—than a Tory mantra of faithless cold-heartedness that repudiates the worth of our common humanity. In summing up, I, my party and, I believe, Scotland repudiate that false dogma and its baseless Thatcherite foundations.