Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Glindon Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to help reduce the number of children in poverty.

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

20. What steps his Department is taking to help reduce the number of children in poverty.

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

In 2023-24 we are spending around £124 billion through the welfare system on people of working age and children. Evidence shows the importance of work in reducing the risk of child poverty. With over 900,000 vacancies across the UK, our focus is on supporting parents into, and to progress within, work. Our recent autumn statement announcements, which included the back to work plan, increasing benefits and increasing the national living wage, are all part of our clear approach to ensuring that everybody gets the right support to progress and thrive.

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[Mims Davies]

I am really serious about supporting our young people. In fact, in Lewisham the household support fund, which is my domain, has allocated an additional £13.3 million to support the hon. Lady’s constituents. There are local hubs for debt management and engagement with the local authority, and warm welcome hubs. I say to anybody struggling in her constituency to look at the benefits calculators, and indeed help for households, on gov.uk.

[Mary Glindon]

Figures from the Trussell Trust show that in the six months between April and September, food banks in the north-east provided a record 26,000 emergency food parcels for children, with the need having doubled over the past five years. The majority of families who turn to food banks do so because their income, whether from social security or from wages, is too low to afford the basic essentials. Will the Minister explain why the current design of universal credit is failing these families?

[Mims Davies]

As we have heard from the Secretary of State, 400,000 fewer children are in absolute poverty, and we thank our food banks for the work they do in supporting our communities. We do take this seriously. We have added food security questions to the family resources survey, and we will absolutely look at that. I would point to the hon. Member’s constituency having been allocated an additional £8 million in the last household support fund for exactly those families.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Glindon Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point, which is clearly a matter for the Secretary of State and the Chancellor when they make their decisions on uprating, and I am sure they will take that on board. There are always ongoing discussions about how one assesses this process but, with respect, this is the system we have had for some considerable period of time.

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

13. What recent steps his Department has taken to help disabled people to find and remain in employment.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Tom Pursglove)]

There are a range of initiatives for supporting disabled people to start, stay in and succeed in work. This includes disability employment advisers, the Work and Health programme, intensive personalised employment support, Access to Work, Disability Confident, the information and advice service, and support in partnership with the health system.

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

Research by the charity Versus Arthritis has found that one in five people described as economically inactive have a musculoskeletal—MSK—condition. Arthritis and MSK conditions were the cause of over 23 million working days lost in 2021 alone. Will the Minister ask the Chancellor for additional support in the autumn statement, to help people with arthritis and MSK to find and remain in work, and will he meet me and Versus Arthritis to discuss this serious issue further?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am always happy to meet colleagues to discuss such issues. It is fair to say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has put a real emphasis on this policy area in his previous spending announcements; no doubt he will have heard the hon. Lady’s comments in advance of the upcoming autumn statement. When we consider initiatives such as Work Well—our work in respect of occupational health and the consultations on that—we see that a lot of effort and energy have gone into recognising that retention is just as important as job starts.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Glindon Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

14. What assessment she has made of the impact of removing the £20 uplift to the standard allowance of universal credit on household budgets.

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

21. What assessment she has made of the impact of removing the £20 uplift to the standard allowance of universal credit on household budgets.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

The uplift to universal credit was a temporary measure, so we have not completed an impact assessment on its withdrawal.

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[Mary Glindon]

A survey by Christians Against Poverty found that 67% of its service users will struggle to pay for essentials in the coming months, with 35% already falling behind with bills and 27% now further into debt. What message does the Secretary of State have for these hard-pressed people in the season of good will?

[Dr Coffey]

I am sure the hon. Lady will welcome the £1.6 million that has been given to her local council specifically for targeted support through the household support fund. I am sure she will be as keen as I am to ensure that people seeking work in her constituency get the benefit of the extra work coach support. We have invested in that right across the country and we will continue to do so.

Income Tax (Charge)

Mary Glindon Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab) [V]]

I speak today as a Member of Parliament representing an area of the country that the Chancellor seems to have forgotten exists. It is not just my constituency that he has forgotten about, or, even worse, chosen to ignore; it is Wearside and Northumberland too. I was particularly anxious, listening to the Chancellor speak yesterday, because I knew that he was going to make an important announcement. The announcement I was hoping for would create over 30,000 new jobs across Tyneside, Northumberland and Wearside and provide a further 31,000 jobs in construction. It would realise £2.7 billion in new regional private sector investment and £2.1 billion in additional UK exports over 10 years. It would drive innovation, boost trade and support our world-leading clean energy, advanced manufacturing and automotive clusters. It would mean that our part of the north-east could achieve its full economic potential through investment, trade and jobs.

As it turns out, it was the final announcement that the Chancellor made in his Budget—the announcement of eight new freeports. I hoped to hear that there would be a north-east of England freeport, but my hopes were dashed. I do congratulate the eight new freeports that the Chancellor listed, particularly the one on Teesside, which has fared very well in the Chancellor’s Budget. Like all areas of the north-east region, Teesside has seen many of its industries disappear and its people have suffered economic and social hardship over many years.

Although the establishment of freeports is somewhat controversial, like many of my north-east colleagues, I knew that the bid submitted for the north-east of England freeport was one that we could commit to supporting as Labour MPs and as a cross-party group. The bid was submitted by a business and public sector partnership that included the seven local and two combined authorities, the north-east local enterprise partnership, the universities, Nissan and the ports of Sunderland and Tyne. I firmly believe that it more than met the Government’s vision for the new freeports.

As if it was not enough to reject that bid, the Chancellor added insult to injury, as he also forgot about our part of the north-east when it came to his announcement on support for the offshore wind industry. It is good to see that Teesside again, and Humberside will get funding, but what about the Tyne? Our Labour council, under the leadership of our Labour elected Mayor, Norma Redfearn, has continuously worked to regenerate our coast and our towns as well as our riverside, with considerable success. Five years ago, the council worked hard to help bring to the Tyne, Smulders’ new facility for the production and assembly of foundations for the offshore wind farm. At its peak, it employed more than 400 highly skilled workers, and the company’s only ask of the Government now is that they help to create a level playing field in that very competitive market.

What news has the Chancellor for our other offshore industries on the Tyne, such as Shepherd Offshore, which at the start of the year bought the former Swan Hunter site to expand its offshore wind business? That is a good news story, when so many of our local businesses have taken a battering during the pandemic and lockdowns.

The Chancellor said:

“Our future…demands a different economic geography.”—[Official Report, 3 March 2021; Vol. 690, c. 260.]

It is clear from his Budget statement that anywhere north of the Tees does not figure in that new economic geography. He may have erased our area from his economic plans, but (Inaudible) I and my north-east parliamentary colleagues will be fighting hard for our corner of the United Kingdom, to get it firmly on that new economic map.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Glindon Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

I know that the hon. Lady has focused on this issue for a lot of her professional career, as well as for a lot of her parliamentary career. We do important work through the Money and Pensions Service to make debt advice available, and that is an important avenue to which people can be referred. We also work closely with Citizens Advice on the Help to Claim service, to help to provide that alternative holistic approach for which we fund the CAB.

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

15. What recent assessment her Department has made of the (a) accuracy and (b) efficiency of contracted out health assessments for (i) employment and support allowance and (ii) personal independence payment.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)]

We are committed to ensuring that individuals receive high-quality assessments that are used to decide entitlement. Providers are monitored against a range of measures, including independent audit, to improve accuracy of the advice they provide.

[Mary Glindon]

Atos, Capita and Maximus constantly fail to meet their targets for acceptable standards of assessment, and many claimants in North Tyneside have suffered as a result. Will the Minister tell my constituents how his Department will remedy such failures and explain why the Government have seen fit to reward those companies with extended multimillion-pound contracts?

[Justin Tomlinson]

As I have set out in previous answers, we are now spending an additional £6 billion through personal independence payments to support some of the most vulnerable people in society. Under the work capability assessment, we have 92% satisfaction, and under PIP it is 82%. We are ambitious for more and will continue to work with claimants, stakeholders and charities to improve the experience.