Oral Answers to Questions
Mel Stride Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
I commend my hon. Friend for the extensive work that he does to promote skills and employment to his constituents. In his constituency, we of course have the full offer from Jobcentre Plus, with fairs, recruitment days and an extensive skills offering, to make sure that we keep bearing down on unemployment and economic inactivity.
Tim Loughton
Mr Speaker, you may be aware that the age profile in Adur and Worthing in my constituency is slightly higher than the national demographic, so I was particularly pleased by the Secretary of State’s expansion of the mid-life MOT—although perhaps it is slightly too late for him and me, in our seventh decade. Given the higher reliability, productivity and loyalty of older workers, what more is he doing to keep older employees in work or to tempt back those who may have taken early retirement?
Mel Stride
I have to say that I am surprised that there are so many elderly—an exemplar of the spring chicken brigade as my hon. Friend is—but he raises a very important point. There is the mid-life MOT, but we also provide returnerships—a shortened, accelerated version of apprenticeships for older workers—and of course the Chancellor announced important changes to the tax treatment of pensions to keep some older workers, particularly in the NHS and our medical services, in work.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Whatever the Secretary of State does in relation to Adur and Worthing will happen across the great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. With that in mind, let me try to make a helpful suggestion for increasing employment. Has consideration been given to enhancing steps to work placements, whereby jobseekers help out in registered community groups, with community workers, to increase their confidence? Community groups do great work, and they can be a step to further employment.
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend the Minister for Employment recently visited the hon. Gentleman’s constituency to look into those matters and reported back very favourably. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that important point.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
While my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and I have represented Worthing and district, we have survived the equivalent of eight coalmines closing in the town. Flexibility matters.
Let us remember, looking back at the youth opportunities programme and the employer assistance scheme, that it is enterprise that makes the biggest difference. Will my right hon. Friend emphasise that? In tribute to Lord Young of Graffham, let us make sure that we combine individual enterprise and public enterprise with private partnerships.
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend the Father of the House is absolutely right. It is really important that we operate with all those relationships across the private and public sectors. Jobcentres up and down the country are heavily engaged with employers at all levels, and not just the large ones but the small and medium-sized enterprises that are so important.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
In-work progression is the best way of improving the earnings potential of those who are in work, which is why we are bringing hundreds of thousands more people into the kind of support that will develop that.
Cat Smith
I wonder whether the Secretary of State can support me with some casework that I am working on at the moment. My constituent is working a minimum wage job and tells me that she is frightened about what will happen. She is 68 years old, but due to errors in the state pension, she is not receiving that yet, and we are finding that there are permanent backlog pressures with the Pension Service. Can the Secretary of State help me get my 68-year-old constituent out of the in-work poverty bracket and receiving her state pension? I am happy to share the details of the case with the Secretary of State.
Mel Stride
If the hon. Lady would like to share those details with me, I will make sure that I and the Minister for Pensions, the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) will have a close look at the case she raises.
Grahame Morris
A moment ago, the Secretary of State’s colleague, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) referred to the publication of data. Can I draw the Secretary of State’s attention to the GMB trade union’s research, which found a shocking 155% increase in the number of public sector workers relying on universal credit? How will the Department rectify this alarming trend and ensure that our hard-working public servants receive the fair pay they deserve, instead of being forced into reliance on inadequate in-work benefits?
Mel Stride
I do not think we should make any apology for having a system of benefits that is there whether someone is out of work or in work, and which encourages those who are in work to work longer hours if that is appropriate and to earn more through many of the kinds of provision that we provide through our jobcentres.
Paula Barker
Despite my question relating to in-work poverty, the Government often herald historically low unemployment rates to avoid their shame over falling living standards and endemic wage stagnation. Those on the Government Benches know they have failed British workers. Can the Secretary of State answer this, without blaming the war in Ukraine, covid or the last Labour Government? Do the Government now accept that there is an inextricable link between their failed economic policies and the fact that British workers in low and middle-income households are financially worse off since they came to power?
Mel Stride
It is not appropriate to dismiss completely the significant downside of covid—we spent £400 billion supporting the economy during that—the significant impact through energy price spikes of the war or the deleterious impact of the last Labour Government, to whom the hon. Lady refers. The simple fact is that since 2009-10, there are 1.7 million fewer people in absolute poverty after housing costs, and 400,000 fewer children and 400,000 fewer pensioners in that position.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
The reality is that after 13 long, cold years of Conservative rule, people have never worked harder, but never felt poorer. We know that 2.6 million people on fixed-rate mortgages are about to see their fixed rate expire, which will see their mortgage rates go up. Has the Secretary of State made any assessment as to how many staff in his Department will struggle to make ends meet when their mortgages skyrocket under this Conservative Government?
Mel Stride
The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies) has already addressed the approach that we would recommend to those struggling with mortgages and the approach that the Government are taking to that. I would point to the many in my Department, and indeed up and down the country, who may be, for example, among the 8 million low-income households who are receiving £900 cost of living support. There are also the £150 payments to those who are disabled and £300 payable to pensioners along with their winter fuel payments. Those, along with increasing the national living wage and the energy price guarantee, are real things that the Government are doing to help those who are feeling the most financial pressure.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
My hon. Friend will know that we are investing £900 million to ensure that we prevent a total of £2.4 billion of fraud and error by 2024-25. We launched our fraud plan last May, which is already delivering results.
Bob Blackman
I would like to thank publicly for all those who have congratulated me on my honour in the King’s honours list. Thank you for your kind words in appreciation, Mr Speaker.
My right hon. Friend is setting out a plan to deal with benefit fraud in its entirety. My private Member’s Bill—the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill—had its Third Reading in the House of Lords on Friday. Of course, supported housing has unlimited housing benefit for those who claim it. Unfortunately, there are numerous rogue landlords who exploit vulnerable people and the housing benefit system. What action can he take to ensure that we rein in those rogue landlords and prevent vulnerable people from being exploited?
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend is quite right, and I wrote to him to congratulate him on his well deserved CBE. Part of the answer to his question lies in his private Member’s Bill, which we see as an important tool to allow us to tighten up the regulations and requirements as expressed through local authorities to ensure that those who are abusing the system—it is not everyone—are dealt with appropriately.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
The National Audit Office found that benefit fraud and error was unacceptably high, totalling £8.6 billion in 2021-22. What actions will the Secretary of State take to reduce fraud? Importantly, how will he ensure that the clawing back of DWP errors—those that are not the fault of the claimant—is carefully and fairly considered so that that does not put the claimant further into poverty?
Mel Stride
The hon. Lady raises an important point. The Government’s record under my stewardship at the DWP is a good one. In fact, since the fraud plan was published last May, fraud across the benefit system has reduced by some 10%, and across universal credit there has been a 13% drop. We expect to see those figures increasing through time. We are doing that through targeted case reviews—going through cases and looking for fraud and error—and I have another 1,000 people being recruited for that purpose. We are also using artificial intelligence, data analytics and machine learning to ensure that we catch up with the more sophisticated attacks on our system. There is evidence that we are making good headway.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
My right hon. Friend will be aware that, under universal credit, there is always the incentive to work. That operates through the taper, which we reduced in recent times from 63% to 55%, and we increased the work allowance by £500 in November 2021.
Theresa Villiers
At this time of rising prices, I feel certain that many of my constituents are worried about the high cost of childcare. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the changes to universal credit announced in the Budget will help people into work by giving them better up-front support with the cost of childcare?
Mel Stride
I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend. Some of the most significant measures in the Budget, particularly on helping people get into work, were the childcare measures that the Chancellor announced. Within UC, that means that the up-front payment difficulty has been removed. Of course, there has been a 47% increase in the maximum amounts available to those seeking to pay for childcare through UC.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
The benefit system is an important part of helping and incentivising people to get back into work, but an increasing problem is the amount of time people are on hospital waiting lists, preventing them from getting themselves fit to get back into work. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with the Health Secretary about helping people get back into work and dealing with very long waiting times?
Mel Stride
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. There is no doubt that mental health and musculoskeletal issues in particular underpin part of the recent growth in economic inactivity. My Department is very engaged with the Department of Health and Social Care on those matters, not least in the piloting of Work Well, which brings together health-based solutions with employment support and universal support, which we will roll out to tens of thousands of people in the years ahead.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
The latest data from the Office for National Statistics indicates that some 21% of the working-age population are economically inactive.
Stephen Metcalfe
As my right hon. Friend will be aware, the staff at Basildon Jobcentre Plus are doing incredible work to help people back into work. That has led to a local inactivity rate that is 12.6% below the UK average. Events such as its large employer-unemployed connection event, bringing together organisations with hundreds of jobseekers, are leading to really meaningful job opportunities. Can my right hon. Friend tell the House what else the Government are doing to get people off out-of-work benefits?
Mel Stride
May I first commend my hon. Friend for all the good work he is doing locally? The 12.6% figure for economic inactivity is extremely low and is a great tribute to the work he has just referred to. Other things we are doing include: the provision of job interventions for over-50s who have retired early; the childcare provision I referred to for parents with childcare duties; and a great deal of work on how we better facilitate getting the long-term sick and disabled back into the labour market.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
In Westmorland and the south lakes our challenge is somewhat different. With an unemployment rate of only 1.4% and an average age of population 10 years above the national average, our issues are 20 million visitors every year, a hospitality and tourism industry without the staff it needs, and a care sector likely to be without the staff it needs. That needs direct intervention: more affordable housing for local people, T-levels for local young people and visa rules that work for us. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet me and local business leaders in the south lakes, so that we can come up with a bespoke solution to solve our workforce crisis?
Mel Stride
The hon. Gentleman refers to a smorgasbord of different policy areas across several Departments, including housing, skills and matters in the purview of the Department for Education, as well as my Department. However, I have heard what he says, and I will take it away and consider.
Mel Stride
The hon. Lady is absolutely right that economic inactivity lies right at the centre of those elements that will determine our economic success in the years ahead—the others being the levels of inflation and interest rates, and other matters. On what has actually happened, we reached a record low level of economic inactivity just prior to the pandemic. It then spiked up. We have now reduced that spiked-up figure by about 300,000, with a reduction of 140,000 in the last quarter alone.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
When I was appointed to this job, I came to the House and said that one of our key focuses would be economic inactivity, which, as we have just heard, has fallen: it is down by 45% since its peak, and was down by 140,000 in the last quarter alone. Another key focus is bearing down on fraud, and fraud levels have fallen by some 10% across our benefits system since we published our fraud plan in May last year.
Gareth Bacon
Some on the political left have made much noise about the third-party universal basic income pilots that have been launched in recent days. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the concept of a universal basic income was roundly rejected even during the pandemic, and that this kind of uneven, untargeted and dependency-creating communism is doomed to failure?
Mel Stride
I agree with my hon. Friend that a universal basic income is not the way to proceed, and it is certainly not something that the Government are considering. Our approach is to ensure that work always pays, and to incentivise work. A universal basic income would create perverse incentives, would come at huge cost, and would not be targeted at those who need the help the most.
Mr Speaker
Order. May I remind the Secretary of State that these are topical questions? Questions and answers are meant to be short and punchy. We are getting carried away. Let us see how it works now: I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
I listened to the “Chopper’s Politics” podcast recently. The Secretary of State was the guest, and revealed that he was saying to his friends in their 50s who were not working:
“Why don’t you just go and serve in the local restaurant or do something in the pub?”
Well, a very prominent 59-year-old has just taken early retirement. Will the Secretary of State be voting to sanction him, or is he advising him to just go away and work in the pub?
Mel Stride
I am happy to meet the right hon. Gentleman in any pub that he cares to name, and I am sure we will have a very convivial evening. I did also mention people with accountancy qualifications, among others, so it is not all about the pub, alas.
Jonathan Ashworth
The House will have noted that the Secretary of State did not tell us whether he would be sanctioning that particular 59-year-old in the House later today. As for the issue of economic inactivity, he will know that we need to do more to get the long-term sick and the disabled back to work. The working-age disability benefit bill is going to rise to £25 billion—it was £19 billion before the pandemic—but in the last 12 months the DWP has cut the number of disability employment advisers by 10%. Why is that?
Mel Stride
When it comes to the long-term sick and disabled, the right hon. Gentleman is right that that is the one cohort where inactivity is increasing—in others it is reducing. He will be aware of our White Paper and the forthcoming legislation we have planned to make sure that we focus on what those who are long-term sick can do in work, rather than what they cannot. He will be aware of universal support and the working well pilot, all of which, together, will help to bring those numbers down.
Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
With interest rates looking to hit around 6%, are the Government considering making the support for the mortgage interest scheme a little more generous, perhaps by raising the cap or the interest rate, so that it provides the safety net that people expect?
Mel Stride
As my hon. Friend will be aware, the Treasury has made it clear that there will not be a significant fiscal intervention around mortgages. Unfortunately, that would serve only to complicate the effectiveness of the measure and the monetary policy effects that the Government and the Bank of England are looking to achieve to halve inflation by the end of this year.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
Mel Stride
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman; I opened my door to him as soon as he requested and had him and his colleagues in for a discussion. We continue to consider those matters as part of the general policy going forward, and I will keep him informed of news as it may or may not occur.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Is the disability action plan in addition to the national disability strategy?
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
Mel Stride
What we are learning from our European neighbours is that this is a common problem. In fact, food price inflation in Germany, Portugal and other countries is higher than it is here. Rather than intervening in markets, as some are spuriously suggesting, and taking us back to the prices and incomes policies of the 1970s, we have entered discussions with the supermarkets, some of which have recently suggested that they will be able to lower prices, or lower the rate of increase in some prices, on the more essential items.
Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Mel Stride
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I have fond memories of serving with her on the Treasury Committee.
We always keep sanctions under review, but I am currently satisfied that they are broadly operating in an effective and proportionate manner. The hon. Lady mentions inflation on essential foods, and I point her to the cost of living payments, which are very significant, equivalent to £3,000 per family over the two-year period in which they will apply. The energy price guarantee has been extended until June, and there is a rise in the national living wage.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
What steps are the Government taking to improve the sensitivity of language on the DWP website? I recently became aware of a case in which a person trying to update their universal credit claim following the death of their wife generated a page stating, “You stopped caring for”—then the name of the wife—“from the date on which she died. This was due to the person dying. Are these details correct?” That is pretty disheartening, to say the least. Will the Minister look at this specific case, and at the issue more generally, if I send him more information?
Mel Stride
I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Gentleman on the importance of sensitive language, particularly for the most vulnerable and particularly in the circumstances he describes of someone who is recently bereaved. I will most definitely take away the specific issue he raises and look at it extremely carefully.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
The Child Maintenance Service recently wrote to my constituent Deborah to confirm that the father of her children is in arrears by £47,000. Deborah recently heard that the bailiff is potentially unable to collect the debt and, if so, the money she is owed will be written off by the CMS. Can the Secretary of State explain why parents can be left with so little by the CMS when it gives up on collecting debts for parents who work so hard?
State Pension Age: Review
Mel Stride Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement on the second review of the state pension age, which I am publishing today.
The purpose of this review has been to determine whether the existing rules about pensionable age remain appropriate, as required by the Pensions Act 2014. Two reports commissioned by the Government have formed part of the evidence base: one from the Government Actuary and an independent report led by Baroness Neville-Rolfe, both of which I am publishing alongside this review.
l am grateful to both the Government Actuary and to Baroness Neville-Rolfe for their thoughtful and valuable reports. I would also like to thank those who responded to the call for evidence that informed the independent report.
As today’s review underlines, this Government are committed to providing dignity and security in retirement and to delivering the certainty that people need to plan for later life. It also highlights the importance of ensuring that we have the best available evidence before making decisions about the course of the state pension age that impacts millions of people.
It is thanks to the measures that this Conservative Government have taken that there are now 200,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty than there were in 2009-10. This year, we are projected to spend around £117 billion on state pension-related expenditure. Next month will see the state pension’s biggest ever increase, and, as a result, the new state pension will surpass £10,000 a year for the first time.
I want to make sure that the state pension in this country continues to be the foundation of income in retirement for future generations, while also being sustainable and fair. I welcome Baroness Neville-Rolfe’s independent report. It highlights an important challenge: a growing pensioner-age population and the affordability and fiscal sustainability of the state pension. It also looks at how we can balance that with our commitment to providing fairness between the generations.
As a society, we should celebrate improvements in life expectancy, which has risen rapidly over the past century and is projected to continue to increase. Since the first state pension age review was undertaken in 2017, however, the increase in life expectancy has slowed. In fact, the rapid rises in life expectancy seen over the last century have slowed over the past decade, a trend seen to a varying degree across much of the developed world. For most people and communities, people alive today are expected to live longer than their predecessors. Life expectancy is still projected to improve over time but, compared with the last review of state pension age, those improvements are expected to be achieved at a slower rate.
Having had regard to the relevant factors, I agree with the independent report’s conclusion that the planned rise in the state pension age from 66 to 67 should occur between 2026 and 2028 and that that rise is appropriate. It has been in legislation since 2014 and will continue to give certainty to those planning their retirement.
I have noted the independent report’s recommendations that the rise from 67 to 68 should take place between 2041 and 2043. That is four years later than the first independent reviewer, John Cridland, proposed in 2017—a proposal that the Government accepted, subject to a further review—but three years ahead of what is provided for in legislation. However, Baroness Neville-Rolfe was not able to take into account the long-term impact of recent significant external challenges, including the covid-19 pandemic and global inflation caused by Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine.
The Government Actuary also notes the challenges of assessing long-term mortality trends, particularly in the context of the covid-19 pandemic. He states that,
“relatively minor changes in the mortality assumptions can result in fairly large changes to the calculated State Pension age timetable”.
Given the level of uncertainty about the data on life expectancy, labour markets and the public finances, and the significance of these decisions on the lives of millions of people, I am mindful that a different decision might be more appropriate once those factors are clearer.
I therefore plan for a further review to be undertaken within two years of the next Parliament to consider the rise to age 68 again. That will ensure that the Government are able to consider the latest information, including life expectancy and population projections that reflect the findings of the 2021 census data, the latest demographic trends and the current economic situation. We will also be able to consider the impact on the labour market of the measures we have announced to increase workforce participation and of any other relevant factors.
The current rules for the rise from 67 to 68 therefore remain appropriate and the Government do not intend to change the existing legislation prior to the conclusion of the next review. All options that meet the 10-year notice period will be in scope at the next review. The Government remain committed to the principle of 10 years’ notice of changes to state pension age and will ensure that any legislation can be brought forward in a timely manner.
The approach I am setting out today is a responsible and reasonable one—one that continues to provide certainty for those planning for retirement, while ensuring that we take the time to get this right for the longer term so that the state pension can continue to provide security in retirement and is sustainable and fair across the generations.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement and thank Baroness Neville-Rolfe and the Government Actuary for their reports.
The Opposition agree that it is not the right time to accelerate a rise in the state pension age, although I note that five years or so ago the then Secretary of State announced that it was explicit Government policy to bring forward the increase in the state pension age to 68 between 2037 and 2039. When objections were raised on the grounds of life expectancy trends, the Government said that such objections were irresponsible and reckless. They told us that bringing forward an increase was necessary for the long-term sustainability of the public finances. Now it turns out that, with a general election only a year or so away and the Government trailing so badly in the polls, abandoning the accelerated rise in the state pension age is not so reckless and irresponsible after all.
Can the Secretary of State confirm whether the review he has announced will still consider bringing forward an increase in the state retirement age to 2037? Does that remain the Government’s policy ambition, or is that now abandoned?
The Secretary of State cites life expectancy trends. It is certainly true that our trends were hit hard by the pandemic, but that is because life expectancy improvements were slowing before the pandemic. The life expectancy gap between the richest and poorest communities was widening before the pandemic, and—disgracefully and shamefully—in around one in five of the poorest areas for women and one in nine of the poorest areas for men, life expectancy went backwards from 2014 to 2019. He should have acknowledged that today.
The ongoing stalling of life expectancy is out of kilter with many of our European competitors. It is much more dramatic and it means that, in a city such as Manchester, Middlesbrough or Liverpool or a town such as Blackpool, life expectancy for men is nine to 10 years lower and for women eight years lower than in the wealthiest parts of Chelsea or Westminster. In Glasgow, as The Sunday Post recently warned, one in four men will die before their 65th birthday. That is a quite shameful record.
Why do the Government think, after 13 years, life expectancy trends have become so dismal in the United Kingdom? It is not just because so many more people are waiting for treatment in the NHS, or cannot access health check-ups for blood pressure, cardiovascular disease or cancers. It is not simply because smoking cessation services have been so cut under this Government. It is not simply because mental health services are overwhelmed, addiction services have been cut back and we are now seeing the phenomena of deaths of despair in the UK. It is not simply because social care provision has been so savaged. It is also because poverty makes people ill quicker and it means people die sooner.
After 13 years, wages are stagnant and jobs insecure. Too much housing in the private rented sector is damp and squalid. Today, there are 400,000 more pensioners in relative poverty, 1 million more children in poverty and half a million children destitute, without a bed to sleep in tonight or a hot dinner in their stomach, after 13 years of the Conservatives.
Today’s announcement that the Government are not going ahead with accelerating the state pension age rise is welcome, and it is the right decision, but it is the clearest admission yet that a rising tide of poverty is dragging life expectancy down for so many. Life expectancy that is stalling—even going backwards in some of the poorest communities—is a damning indictment of 13 years of failure, which the Minister should have acknowledged and apologised for today.
Mel Stride
I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has broadly welcomed the decisions that I set out in my statement. I will address a couple of the points he raises. On poverty and, as we are particularly focused on pensioners, pensioner poverty, the situation has improved. The poverty situation has improved right across the board since 2009-10, with some dramatic reductions to both absolute and relative poverty levels across that period, not least because of the policies pursued by this Government. He suggests we are something of an outlier in terms of the flattening of the increase in the expectations of length of life in future. That is simply not the case; as I said earlier, it is an international phenomenon.
The right hon. Gentleman raised a couple of questions I would like to address. First, he asked whether a move of the rise of the pension age to 68 was possible, along the lines of the Cridland recommendations of 2037 to 2039. Given we have made a commitment to a 10-year notice period, that would suggest that, if the next review —and I say if, because that is for others to decide in the course of time—were in, say, 2026, that would indeed make those dates possible. Of course, it would not preclude decisions being taken for dates further out than 2037 to 2039.
Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman asks what our policy is at the moment. We are very clear what our policy is: the current legislative position is appropriate, but there will be a review within the first two years of the next Parliament.
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Unlike the Labour party, I do not welcome this decision. From the 1940s to today, life expectancy from retirement has increased by seven years, which would indicate a retirement age of 72 rather than of 67 or 68. The benefit of long-term decision making is that it gives everybody the chance to plan well in advance. Delaying the decision is a decision in itself, and it is not exactly a sign of strength.
Mel Stride
I hear what my right hon. Friend says. As I set out in my statement, there are a number of uncertainties, some of which are in the fiscal sphere. In fact, if he reads pages 13 and 14 of the Office for Budget Responsibility economic and fiscal outlook, he will see what the OBR has to say about the uncertainty of the public finances around labour supply, energy prices and, indeed, interest rates. For that reason, among others, I believe it appropriate to wait until we are more certain about what the future holds.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. The Work and Pensions Committee called on the Government to publish the reports by Baroness Neville-Rolfe and the Government Actuary, which have been used to inform the review of the state pension age, and it is regrettable that that did not happen in good time. I am sure that many of us are left wondering why the Government did not publish those reports earlier to allow proper parliamentary scrutiny and a more informed decision. Is it not the case that this is a political decision because this Government, who are at the end of their days, do not want another fight before the next general election?
We in the SNP oppose further increases to the state pension age. We are glad that life expectancy is now finally being factored into the wider consideration of what is an appropriate state pension. The reality is that Tory austerity, followed by covid, has caused an overall reduction in average life expectancy figures. The UK has one of the worst state pensions in western Europe; too many pensioners in Scotland live in poverty, which is a damning indictment in what is supposed to be the sixth largest economy on the planet. Is the Secretary of State not embarrassed that pensioners on these islands have to choose between heating and eating in 21st century Britain? He talks about a reduction in poverty rates, but that is because the Government are using lagged data to analyse poverty rates and ignoring the cost of living crisis that is on us now. With 7 million households in fuel poverty, the Government cannot talk about poverty rates decreasing.
There is evidence that increasing the state pension age from 65 to 66 caused absolute poverty rates to rise. Has the Secretary of State seen the Institute for Fiscal Studies report on that and, if so, has it been part of the decision-making process? What lessons has he learned from the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign about raising the state pension age for women born in the ’50s? When will they see some compensation?
Finally, we look forward to an independent Scotland being the best place to grow old in prosperity, not in poverty with a Westminster Government we did not vote for.
Mel Stride
The hon. Gentleman raises several points. First, on the publication of Baroness Neville-Rolfe’s report, I have always been clear that we would publish that at or around the time that my report of the review was released, and that is precisely what we have done, including by giving advance sight of my report and her report to the Opposition.
I believe that the hon. Gentleman’s remarks about pensioner poverty are misplaced. Pensioner poverty has fallen since 2009-10, as has poverty across other cohorts of the economy. He will, of course, be aware of the huge amount that this Government have been doing by way of intervention to ensure that we support low-income households, and pensioners up and down this country—many millions of them—with billions of pounds of targeted transfer payments, which will be going out over the coming months.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman mentioned the WASPI women. He will know that I am not able to comment on that matter as it is subject to a current inquiry by the parliamentary ombudsman.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
What would be the saving were the Government to raise the age by one year to 68?
Mel Stride
That is a beautiful question because it is precise; it requires an answer that one cannot duck. I will write to my right hon. Friend with that information.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.
Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I am grateful for early sight of the statement. I understand why the Secretary of State has chosen to defer the key decision. Like John Cridland’s independent review six years ago, Baroness Neville-Rolfe’s report should have been published soon after the Department received it six months ago, rather than kept needlessly under wraps until today. John Cridland proposed early access to pension credit. Will the Secretary of State consider leaving access to pension credit at age 66 when the state pension age rises to 67 in three years’ time?
Mel Stride
The right hon. Gentleman raises the issue of when Baroness Neville-Rolfe’s report was published. We had a fairly detailed discussion about that when I appeared before his Committee yesterday, so he knows my arguments around that. It is something that I certainly would not rule out for future reviews as a perfectly reasonable practice, but he knows the reasons it did not happen on this occasion. In terms of early access to pension credit, that is not something that the Government are currently planning—nor was it something that previous Governments planned to do at any stage—but of course, as with all matters around pensions, we will keep that under review.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
Is my right hon. Friend aware of the various spurious claims that have been made by those who support Scottish independence not just about the amount that would be paid in future for pensions but about who would pay it? Does he agree that the best way to achieve long-term security for Scottish pensioners is for Scotland to remain at the heart of the United Kingdom?
Mel Stride
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. What matters for sustaining a fair and just pension system is a strong economy. We are stronger together, and if we continue to work together—all the nations of the United Kingdom—we can continue to afford decent pensions for our pensioners.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
The statement has provided clarity on when somebody will receive their state pension—the age of 67—but we also need to focus on what people will receive. The Government’s response to the Future Pension Centre backlogs, and people’s absolute inability to get through for advice on whether to top up their national insurance credits before the 5 April deadline, was just to move the deadline back by four months. That remains woefully inadequate, and it is clear that that will have to be extended again. Will the Secretary of State commit to extending the deadline to April 2025, as I asked for in the first place?
Mel Stride
The hon. Lady raises an important point. As she acknowledges, there has been an extension to the deadline, and the reasons for that were in the very point she made about waiting times and so on. We are keeping that under review—I can say no more than that—and we are also increasing the amount of resources going into telephony to resolve the issues.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that there are real complexities in understanding life expectancy? From listening to the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), one would think that it was very easy to understand. The Secretary of State is my constituency neighbour, and the difference in life expectancy between the north and south of our county is over 10 years, with the lowest being in my patch—it is incredibly complex. Does he agree that setting the state pension age is also a complex process, and that it should be set through data-led decision making rather than political point scoring by the Opposition?
Mel Stride
I agree with my hon. Friend and neighbour. She is absolutely right that we need to use the best possible data that we have, which is precisely why we have taken the decision that we have, and I am pleased that the Opposition have welcomed it.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I am sure that it is always a relief for a member of this Government to postpone an unpopular decision, especially in the light of what we have seen in France. Like the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), I am curious about the likely impact on Treasury calculations and whether it has been factored into recent projections.
Mel Stride
The hon. Gentleman will know that fiscal sustainability is one of the key issues that we examine in coming to these conclusions and in the work carried out by the independent assessor of these matters. If he has further specific questions about the impact of one particular set of decisions on the fiscal outlook over and above any other, I am happy to discuss those with him outside the Chamber.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement, because we are trying to encourage people to save for their old age and retirement, and it is important that people get as much notice as possible. However, there is a dilemma right now. One of my constituents contacted me to say that she had been saving £1,500 a month for her retirement, which was fixed for September 2022 when she was 67, but by the time she came to realise her pension, it had dropped by £25,000, so she was no longer able to retire. Worse still, she wanted to replace her car so that she could be compliant with the ultra low emission zone because of the Mayor of London’s ULEZ extension, but she can no longer afford to do so.
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend has landed a very important point, as I think he knows, and I will leave it there.
Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
Some 31% of pre-state pension age households have no savings at all. Will the Government finally establish an independent pensions and savings commission to ensure that pension policies are fit for purpose, and if not, why not?
Mel Stride
I have already identified that we have been bearing down on pensioner poverty. We have stuck with our manifesto commitment to the triple lock, which has seen pensions rise to historically high levels. This is the party that stands firmly behind pensioners.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
Blackpool has the lowest life expectancy in England, with men on average living five years less than the national average. Shockingly, in some wards in my constituency, male life expectancy is 13 years lower than the national average. So that people in all parts of the UK can enjoy a broadly similar retirement period and the state pension remains fair for all, does the Secretary of State agree that we must redouble our efforts to reduce such large inequalities in health across this country?
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend is right, and that is why the Government are majoring so hard on the levelling-up agenda. He is right to point to the different life expectancies between regions and, indeed, within regions; there are sometimes stark differences between cities and towns. That is the kind of element that will need to be looked at again when the next review occurs.
Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)
My right hon. Friend knows well that pensioners are much more susceptible to rises in the cost of living because they are often on fixed incomes. On behalf of the more than 18,000 pensioners in Southend West, I simply thank my right hon. Friend and this Government for delivering the biggest ever increase in the state pension, which is going up by over 10% in just a few days’ time.
Mel Stride
I thank my hon. Friend for that observation. She is quite right: we have stood by our pensioners. There will be a further £300 cost of living payment to pensioners alongside the winter fuel allowance. We are encouraging as many pensioners as possible who qualify to apply for pension credit, which is worth £3,500 on average. That, in turn, passports pensioners on to £900 of payments in three instalments over the coming year.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
People in France are taking to the streets to protest against proposals to raise the state pension age to 64, yet in the UK people are expected to simply accept, despite today’s announcement, that the pension age should continue to rise, perhaps even to 70 or older by the mid-2050s. Given the poverty into which women born in the 1950s were thrown when their pension age was raised with little or no notice, and the fact that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has warned of a “pensioner poverty time bomb”, can the Secretary of State explain what consideration is given to rising levels of pensioner poverty—it is currently at 2.1 million, although he is seeking to deny that—when decisions are made about raising the state pension age?
Mel Stride
I set out in my previous response a number of the measures the Government have taken to make sure we look after our pensioners. I have also made it clear that since 2009-10, pensioner poverty has decreased.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. A number of people in my constituency work in the construction sector and manual labour. To expect someone in their late 60s to work in a manual labour job is simply impractical and unworkable, so I support the Government’s temporary stay of execution on this increase, so that people can retire when they have some semblance of health and strength to enjoy life. However, this again underlines the unfair treatment of the WASPI women born in the ’50s. I noted the Secretary of State’s response on that issue, but it would be unfair of me not to make that comment on behalf of the many constituents who have contacted me. May I gently ask him to act on their behalf, to ensure that there is fairness and parity?
Mel Stride
As the hon. Gentleman recognised, I am not in a position to comment on the matter he raised, as it is before the ombudsman at the moment, but his comments will have been heard.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the Minister for his statement and for responding to questions for just short of half an hour.
Incomes and Living Conditions: 2021-22 Statistics
Mel Stride Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
The Department for Work and Pensions has today published its annual statistics on incomes and living standards covering 2021-22. This includes households below average income (HBAI), which contains estimates of household incomes and a range of low-income indicators for 2021-22, derived from the family resources survey. Further publications in today’s release are: income dynamics, pensioners’ income series, children in low income families, improving lives indicators, separated families statistics and the family resources survey. These publications cover the four statutory measures of child poverty required to be published by DWP under the Child Poverty Act 2010.
This Government have overseen significant falls in absolute poverty since 2009-10, largely driven by increases in labour market participation, with 3.8 million more people currently in employment and sustained improvements to the national living wage, which will increase to £10.42 per hour from April. There were 1.7 million fewer people in absolute low income, and the rate has fallen by 4% after housing costs in 2021-22 compared to 2009-10. This includes 400,000 fewer children, 1 million fewer working-age adults and 200,000 fewer pensioners.
Between 2020-21 and 2021-22, median income grew by £8 per week in real terms but there was a slight increase in the number of people in absolute low income. This was driven by increases in the numbers of pensioners in absolute low income, due to lower occupational pension income and higher inflation than in the previous year, impacting the value of the state pension. For working-age people, absolute poverty rates were unchanged, with strong earnings growth offsetting the impact of the withdrawal of the unprecedented levels of Government support to protect incomes and jobs during the pandemic.
Building on the food insecurity data which this Government first published in 2019-20, we are publishing official estimates of food bank use for the first time. In 2021-22, 3%—0.8 million households—had used a food bank on at least one occasion in the past year. HBAI recorded that less than 0.1 million pensioner households used a food bank in the past year. In 2021-22 7% of individuals, or 4.7 million people, were living in households classed as food insecure, down from 8% in 2019-20.
These statistics are for 2021-22 so do not reflect the impact of the cost of living challenges caused by Putin’s illegal war and global supply chain pressures. We recognised the pressures households faced as a result and acted, providing substantial cost of living support in 2022-23 including cost of living payments worth up to £650 for those on means-tested benefits, £150 for eligible disabled people and £300 for pensioner households. At autumn statement 2022, the Government announced benefits and pensions uprating of 10.1%, the largest ever cash increase to the national living wage and generous cost of living support for 2023-24. This included additional cost of living payments for more than 8 million households on means-tested benefits, 6 million people on disability benefits, and 8 million pensioner households across the UK. It also included an additional £1 billion, including Barnett impact, to enable the extension of the household support fund in England, to help households with the cost of essentials. As announced at the spring budget, to further support households with the cost of living, the Government are maintaining the energy price guarantee at £2,500 for a further three months, from April 2023.
This Government are committed to obtaining the best evidence to ensure policies are targeted at helping the most vulnerable in our society. Last year a suite of further material deprivation measures were published. To further improve the evidence base, the Government are resuming work to develop experimental statistics based on the social metrics commission's innovative work on poverty measurement.
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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Mel Stride Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
This Budget and the measures it sets out for providing additional support and encouragement for millions of people to re-engage with the labour market spoke to the very heart of our Conservative principles of compassion, of incentive, of self-reliance and of collective responsibility. Above all, it spoke to that age- old truth that work matters: that work is the source not just of income or paying the bills, and not just of supporting businesses or growth, but of something arguably greater still—of individual pride, of self-worth, of better health, and of making a fundamental contribution to the whole of society. That is the Conservative way.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
The Secretary of State talks about compassionate Conservatism; does he believe the measures in the Budget will increase or decrease sanctions over the next 12 months?
Mel Stride
Our policy and rules around sanctions have not been changed by the Budget, but it is important that where somebody can work and is offered support to work and decides to take benefits and not engage with the system, sanctions can under certain circumstances be appropriate. That is not to say that sometimes people will not have perfectly reasonable reasons for not engaging with the jobcentre, in which case no sanction will be applied. The hon. Gentleman seems so often to be suggesting that there is no scope or role for sanctions whatsoever within our benefit system, and that is not going to help the very people we are out to support.
This Budget will help break down the barriers stopping people moving into work or progressing within it, and it is most particularly a Budget for those who face the greatest employment challenges. It is a Budget for disabled people and those with health conditions, with new and extended employment support, better integration of work and health services, and, through our health and disability White Paper, the biggest reform to the health and disability benefits system for a decade. It is a Budget for older workers, with the removal of disincentives in the pensions tax system, and with more help to retrain and reskill and more tools to help people plan for the future.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I am fascinated by the Secretary of State’s contribution and the improvements in pensions, particularly for high earners, but did the Chancellor forget to mention the injustice to mineworkers and the opportunity presented to address that historical injustice through a fair share of the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme to assist some of the people who are existing on meagre and modest pensions?
Mel Stride
I am very happy to engage in detail with the hon. Gentleman on the specific point he raises, but as to the general point of removing the pensions lifetime allowance, Labour has to decide exactly what its policy is. The right hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) tells us this afternoon that she is against the policy, but we know that it will mean that thousands upon thousands of additional highly skilled people working in the national health service will as a consequence stay in the national health service where we need them. The shadow Health Secretary, the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), who is in his place on the Front Bench, made exactly the same point not that long ago—[Interruption] —saying that a failure to act could cost lives. I say to the right hon. Lady: what is it? Political opportunism, or standing shoulder to shoulder with our national health service and the millions of people up and down the country who depend on it?
Rachel Reeves
My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) called for a targeted scheme for doctors. That would be at a fraction of the cost. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me how many doctors will benefit from this scheme?
Mel Stride
I have made it very clear that thousands upon thousands will be affected. The right hon. Lady is adopting a completely perverse policy in view of the position taken by the shadow Health Secretary until quite recently, when political opportunism around this Budget reared its head. I say that we should stand up for the national health service and the millions of people who depend on it, and we should do what is right for them. That is the right thing to do.
This is also a Budget for parents, with a multibillion-pound extension to childcare support. I note and appreciate the right hon. Lady’s welcome for those proposals. They formed a major centrepiece of the Budget, and I am pleased that she has personally welcomed them.
Mr Dhesi
I am so glad that the Secretary of State is talking about pension reforms, but the Resolution Foundation noted that the beneficiaries of these reforms will predominantly gain large amounts of money, and they will be concentrated among the very rich. Does he agree with the Resolution Foundation’s conclusion:
“The more you think about this policy, the worse it is”?
Mel Stride
I point the hon. Gentleman to page 9 of the distributional analysis that accompanied the Budget, where he will find that those in the lowest income deciles proportionally benefit the most from the measures in this Budget. It is thoroughly progressive. I urge him to look at page 9 of the distribution report, where he will find his answer.
This is also a Budget for people who are looking for work and want to earn more, with more intensive support through jobcentres to help people to get a job or increase their pay. In total, my Department’s measures in this Budget represent an investment of £3.5 billion to boost workforce participation.
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Lab)
To go back to the childcare proposals, they have the potential to be transformative, although the Chancellor did say that they will not fully come into force until 2026. For someone who has a one-year-old or a two-year-old now, their child will be too old to benefit. What is being done to help parents who are struggling right now?
Mel Stride
The answer to the hon. Gentleman’s inquiry is in the early measures, which I was going to come on to. The Chancellor has dealt with the one-month requirement for the up-front payment by making it clear that jobcentres will fund that payment. That will come in in the short term, as will the increase in the cap—the maximum amount that those who claim those benefits can receive.
Before I come on to specific measures in detail, I think it is important to put workplace participation in the wider context of a robust and resilient UK labour market and economy. As confirmed again by Tuesday’s labour market statistics, unemployment is at a near-historic low of 3.7%, payroll employment is at an all-time high and economic inactivity continues its downward trend. However, there are still 1.1 million job vacancies, and we have many people who could work and want to work, but who do not work. This Budget will help to unlock that potential and fill the vacancies. It builds on our key Conservative belief that we should make work pay, and on our sustained efforts to reward and incentivise employment to get more people into work. That is why, as well as keeping unemployment low, I am determined to see participation in the labour market continue to rise and inactivity fall. In doing so, we will see more people fulfil their potential and more employers get the skills they need to support their businesses and ensure the economy grows for the future.
Over the past few months, I and my Ministers have been leading work across Government to look in detail at the issue of participation in the labour market. I have looked carefully at the cohorts that make up the 8.9 million inactive people in the economy and the nature of the barriers these groups face, and I and others have thought innovatively about how we can help many of them into the workforce. That involved examining in detail international comparators, as well as engaging with a wide range of stakeholders and experts, and I thank in particular those who served on my expert panel.
It is clear from this work that concerted action across the board is required, and yet it is important to recognise that the level of economic activity in the UK is lower than in the United States, France and Italy. It is below the EU average and below the average of OECD countries. However, it is equally important to recognise that, whereas for most other comparable countries the increase in inactivity that occurred during the pandemic has since returned broadly to its pre-pandemic level, in the UK it has remained elevated. So this Budget focuses on economic inactivity and on the key groups that I considered in my review: disabled people and those with health conditions, the over-50s, parents and carers, and people looking for work or working a low number of hours.
We know that many disabled people and people with health conditions want to work and benefit from the positive impact on health and wellbeing that employment can bring. We have made good progress, contrary to the remarks of the right hon. Member for Leeds West. There are over 1 million more disabled people in work compared with 2017—a milestone that I am particularly proud of and that we marked last year, having delivered on this commitment five years early. That is a record of which this Government can be proud.
Sir Stephen Timms
I am pleased that the White Paper says the Department will keep a focus on the disability employment gap, which is the really telling indicator. Will the new target that the Secretary of State sets relate to that gap, rather than a rather arbitrary number of increased jobs?
Mel Stride
The right hon. Gentleman will know that hitherto we have indeed focused on a gap. The Department will come forward with something to say on that in the not-too-distant future, and he will have to wait until that point to know the exact kind of target, although I recognise that the current measure has value.
The measures we have set out in the Budget and in our health and disability White Paper will help to remove barriers, so that disabled people have the same opportunity as anybody else to thrive in work. Some 20% of those who have been assessed through the work and capability assessment as having limited capability to work and to look for work say that they want a job at some point in the future, but one of the barriers to work is the health and disability benefits system itself. For too many disabled people, the system feels like it focuses on what they cannot do, rather than what they can do.
Having listened to disabled people, the White Paper that we published at Budget yesterday sets out how we will fundamentally rewire the benefits system, changing it from a system that can often leave people feeling that moving towards work is too risky and that they might not be able to return to benefits if that work does not work out. I want to give people the confidence to try work without the worry that they will not be able to access benefits again promptly if a job does not last. Under our new approach, people will have the confidence that they will receive support for as long as it is needed. Our reforms will also provide additional support to those disabled and long-term sick who request it.
These reforms have been years in the making and follow the Green Paper that we published in July 2021. We have engaged widely on these changes, including with disability charities and disabled people’s organisations, as well as with disabled people themselves who have been through the current process and understand how and why it needs to change. Just as we have taken a measured approach to developing this way forward, so we will operationalise this approach with care.
Chris Stephens
The Secretary of State is being generous in giving way. A number of disabled charities are sceptical about the package that he is putting together because of the severe delays to the Access to Work scheme, which are blocking people from going into employment. How does he plan to tackle that in the coming year?
Mel Stride
As I just suggested, we will take a measured and appropriate approach to the delivery of a fundamental reform of how these benefits will work. It will involve primary legislation, most likely in the next Session next year, and it will be rolled out some time after that. There will be plenty of time to ensure that we have thorough engagement with stakeholders, disabled people and those who represent them, to ensure that we get exactly those matters right.
In addition, our new Work Well partnerships programme —delivered through the health system—will pilot a new model for delivering integrated work and health support in local areas, providing employment-based targeted health support to prevent people from falling out of work or to enable a return to work quickly. For those who need more intensive help, there will be universal support. We will work directly with employers to quickly match people with jobs and provide up to 12 months of personalised place and train support. This approach means that after helping someone into work, we will stay with them to ensure that they remain in employment.
We are also investing to expand the additional one-to-one support that work coaches are already providing to disabled claimants in one third of jobcentres. From the spring, we will start to make this extra support more widely available, so that it is in place across the entire jobcentre network by 2024. We will also work with the occupational health sector and employers to reform the market and improve access to quality occupational health services. That will include testing financial incentive and support models to help small and medium-sized businesses and the self-employed overcome barriers to occupational health services.
Chloe Smith
My right hon. Friend is very kind. May I say how pleased I am to see this work making progress? Does he agree that all these factors together make for a golden opportunity to encourage employers to rise to the challenge and do more? All the support that he is laying out, and the major reforms that have been put on the table, also represent an opportunity for employers to recognise that they, too, will get support to encourage somebody to start with them, stay with them and succeed in their workplace.
Mel Stride
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I thank her for what she did when she was Secretary of State, and before that as Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work. I am fully aware of the contribution that she made, having spent some months in the Department. She is right that we need to think about not just providing support on what one might say is the supply side, but making sure that employers are in the right place so that the demand is there. We see that across the various cohorts, including with Disability Confident and with those who interface with our 50-plus job champions, to make sure that they engage with more elderly workers in an appropriate way. She is right to raise that point.
There is little doubt that the experience and skills of older workers are a huge asset to our economy, but more than 1 million over-50s have taken early retirement. With them, they taken many skills and much experience from which business could benefit. Let me slay one myth: that older people will never return to work. We know that four in 10 50 to 65-year-olds who have left their jobs since the start of the pandemic would consider returning to work. Last year, we introduced a package of additional support for the over-50s, including DWP’s network of 50-plus champions, which is carrying out outstanding work. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor introduced significant encouragement to the over-50s through the changes he made to the lifetime allowance for pensions yesterday.
We know many people overestimate how far their savings and pensions will go in retirement, so to help more people in their 40s and 50s get a reality check about what retirement decisions mean for their long-term wealth and wellbeing, we are digitising the midlife MOT. This will deliver a fivefold increase in the number universal credit claimants who access the tool each year in jobcentres. We will also work with employers and pension providers to help nudge people to access it.
Gaining new skills and getting the right training and experience are vital to helping people move back into work, and that is why we are significantly expanding the number of placements in the DWP’s sector-based work academy programmes by 40,000 in the next two years, with around £30 million in funding just announced. Our new type of apprenticeship, returnerships, to be introduced by the Department for Education, will bring together the Government’s existing skills programmes, focusing on flexibility and previous experience and speeding up training.
Turning to parents and carers, we know that 1.7 million people say they are economically inactive because they have caring responsibilities. One of the biggest barriers to work is the affordability of childcare. To help parents return to work, the Budget expands the support on offer by providing 30 hours a week of free childcare for 38 weeks a year to eligible working parents of children aged nine months to 3 years. We will also increase support for parents on universal credit by paying the initial childcare costs for parents on universal credit up front, instead of in arrears, which we know creates one of the biggest barriers to moving into work. We are, as I have already stated, increasing the maximum amount that can be claimed.
It is right that people who can work and are available for work are helped to do so wherever possible. That is why I have put a particular focus within the DWP on testing and implementing new and innovative interventions that help unemployed people on universal credit to move into work and to support people who work only a small number of hours to progress. Through our additional jobcentre support pilot, we are rolling out daily work support across 60 jobcentres. That will occur over two weeks at two crucial points in a claimant’s journey when they are most at risk of falling out of the labour market.
We are also increasing the administrative earnings threshold in universal credit to increase conditionality. We are stepping up jobcentre engagement for partners in universal credit households who are not working or who have low earnings. Because this Conservative Government are on the side of young people, we are expanding the DWP youth offer to enable more people on universal credit to see a work coach in a youth hub or to benefit from the expertise of our youth employability coaches.
This Budget, together with our White Paper, will fundamentally change and enhance the effectiveness of the benefits system. It will provide more practical and financial support. It will boost participation in the workforce. It will turbocharge our labour market. It will unleash untapped talent up and down the country. It will pump renewed life into our businesses. It will strengthen our economy, and so strengthen our communities. It will still and will always be there to place an arm around those who need help the most. We on the Government Benches will never forget the power of work to change lives and to give to each and every one of us that vital chance—that gift—that employment brings.
Chris Stephens
That is exactly what happens. What is also happening is that people who receive sanctions then miss out on cost of living payments, so they incur not just one punishment but a double punishment—and that, too, is pushing people into poverty.
Mel Stride
I have enormous respect for the hon. Gentleman, as he knows, but I genuinely wish to clarify one point. Is he at least saying that there are some circumstances in which a sanction is appropriate?
Chris Stephens
I will come on to that point, and yes, I will say that; but how can be it be humane to proceed with a ramping up of sanctions without knowing the basic facts, when Members are asking questions about, for example, how many children are living in households where a sanction has been applied? Does the Secretary of State not accept that with more people at risk of being sanctioned, now is the right time to roll out the yellow card benefit warning system for which many of us have been arguing, to ensure that misfortune does not lead to people being left destitute?
There are some things that the Secretary of State could do before sanctions are applied, and I believe that such a warning system is one of them and would help people into work. The Department did consider it, and we thought, when I was a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, that it was heading in that direction, but then it changed course. Perhaps the Secretary of State will want to look at the issue again. I would encourage him to look at the great work done by the Committee in this regard, and particularly at its suggestion that the yellow card system would be appropriate.
The fact remains that the measures in the Budget require those who are struggling on low incomes to jump through extra hoops, such as attending jobcentres even when they are working in what we all agree are vital roles, for example as teaching assistants or care workers. The earnings threshold has more than doubled in the space of just a year. This puts hundreds of thousands more people at risk of benefits sanctions, although we know sanctions do not work ethically, practically or economically. The Chancellor needs to understand that, no matter what he is promising for the future, far too many people are struggling to survive now.
There remains a large degree of scepticism about the employment support package, which the Secretary of State talked about today and the Chancellor referred to yesterday. Some believe that tighter sanctions will likely be a disaster for people on universal credit, and they will not help people into work, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) said. The Federation of Small Businesses has said that the proposals to help people with poor health to get back to work are “ill-designed” and poorly thought out, and some “won’t happen for years”. Those with health conditions and disability have been let down by a Government who have ignored employers’ views on what can best help. The FSB continued:
“Small measures on subsidising occupational health are welcome but not the big bang needed.
“Measures on the over 50s are token efforts at best…The principle of what’s announced on childcare is positive—but this Government’s Achilles heel is in delivery”.
So, as the FSB says, we will believe it when we see it.
The Royal National Institute of Blind People has said:
“For those of working age, employment should be a route to coping with rising costs. “
But it remains of the view that urgent action is needed
“to fix the Access to Work scheme—a scheme where, right now, thousands of people are facing severe delays of many months to get the support and equipment they need to do their jobs”.
I hope that the Secretary of State will note its comments, because Access to Work is clearly not helping enough people and the delays are preventing people from getting into work.
Not everyone is convinced that the childcare reforms will help get people into work. Even if the money is there to pay for childcare, there is no workforce—the pay is very bad—to deliver it. The UC changes in the administrative earnings threshold will mean more Department for Work and Pensions staff caught up in in-work conditionality, as well as swathes of extra work for staff in jobcentres. There was no mention in the Budget about whether there are any extra staff to deliver what we believe will be huge amounts of additional work. The Secretary of State is saying that there will be, so while he is answering that question, perhaps he can say what pay rise he is going to give DWP staff as well. They took industrial action yesterday. [Interruption.] I am chair of the Public and Commercial Services Union parliamentary group, but my union is Unison, of which I am a proud member. I think that answers the question from the Exchequer Secretary. I would have thought he would have done his research to have known that. Perhaps there is a very real need for civil service pay to be addressed, and I will come on to that later.
Another issue that has not been tackled is deductions. One measure that would have cost the Government very little but could have resulted in many fewer people needing to use food banks would have been to ease significantly the rate of deductions from UC. Better still would have been to waive deductions resulting from official error, or to introduce a one-off amnesty on deductions. Why no action on that, the single biggest factor affecting people going to food banks? Despite almost half of all households on UC now facing a deduction, during the last six-month period, ending January 2023, just 14 cases were fully waived and a further five were partially waived. So will the Secretary of State revise the guidance to ensure every household subject to a deduction is automatically informed of their right to request a waiver?
On public sector pay, the Budget offered nothing. As the Prime Minister sorts out his swimming pool heating, it is incredible that public swimming pools were the only public services mentioned for support in the Budget speech. Although the pension cap cut might help our NHS to retain doctors, the measure could have been limited to medicine or the NHS, rather than being a lifetime tax cut for the wealthy. The only mention, without actually announcing more money, was that cutting public sector debt would lead to more money for public services. Public sector pay bodies have noted that only a 3.5% pay rise is affordable under current Treasury allocation; as the IFS said, that is a political choice. The TUC has said that the lack of support for public services and for public pay is the “elephant in the room”. The Budget goes nowhere near a high-wage, high-skills economy.
With strikes all over the country, it is striking that the Budget said nothing about them. Public transport, public health and even public sector TV hosts are on strike, but the Government seem to prefer to fight a culture war over Gary Lineker than pay attention to ensuring that our public services have the funds they need.
The Government are again scrambling to fix the economic problems of their own making. Yesterday’s Budget is a huge disappointment to people, businesses and charities left paying for the UK Government’s mistakes. They created a crash a few months ago—there is selective amnesia about that—and they have not yet said sorry for it. There is, however, one thing on which I agree with the Chancellor, who said:
“Independence is always better than dependence.”—[Official Report, 15 March 2023; Vol. 729, c. 844.]
We could not have put that better ourselves.
Health and Disability White Paper
Mel Stride Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
I would like to update hon. and right hon. Members on the publication later today of “Transforming Support: The Health and Disability White Paper”.
This White Paper is a significant milestone demonstrating this Government's commitment to ensuring disabled people and people with health conditions can lead independent lives and fulfil their potential. It sets out an ambitious policy reform package that will transform the health and disability benefits system and help disabled people and people with health conditions to start, stay and succeed in work. This will help to deliver the Prime Minister’s priority of growing the economy, creating better paid jobs and opportunity right across the country.
We set out our case for reform in “Shaping Future Support: The Health and Disability Green Paper”, published in July 2021. During the consultation, we heard from more than 4,500 people and organisations on which proposals we should take forward. From the responses, we know many disabled people want to work and could work, with the right support. Our White Paper responds to those views.
We are proud of our record on disability employment and support. Last year, we surpassed our 2017 manifesto goal to see 1 million more disabled people in work— delivering our manifesto commitment five years earlier than expected. Our ambition remains to close the disability employment gap, and I will set a new disability employment goal.
The measures set out in this White Paper will build upon our achievements, unlock new opportunities, and support people most in need. With low unemployment and more than 1 million vacancies, we are focused on ensuring more people are supported into the workforce so that they can seize the opportunities of work and employers can access the skills they need to grow their businesses.
We will deliver action in these areas in three ways:
First, the Government will transform the future benefits system so it focuses on what people can do, rather than on what they cannot, including removing the work capability assessment (WCA). In our new system, there will be no need to be found to have limited capability for work, or limited capability for work or work-related activity, to receive additional income-related support for a disability or health condition. We will introduce a new universal credit health element that people receiving both personal independence payment (PIP) and universal credit will be entitled to, which will enable people to try work without the fear of losing their benefits. We will also introduce a new personalised approach to employment support and engagement, with the aim of helping people to reach their potential and live a more independent life. We will give people confidence that they will receive support, for as long as it is needed, regardless of whether they are working.
Secondly, we will invest in our employment offer to help more disabled people and people with health conditions start, stay and succeed in work and contribute to a growing economy. Our research shows that 20% of people with limited capability for work-related activity (LCWRA) on universal credit, or who are in the employment and support allowance (ESA) support group, would like to work at some point in the future. We are therefore investing in additional work coach time and tailored support to help disabled people to get the support they need to start work. We will continue to work with employers and the occupational health sector to help more people remain in work and reduce health-related job loss.
Thirdly, we will ensure that people can access the right support at the right time and have a better overall experience when applying for and receiving health and disability benefits. We are doing this by testing new initiatives to make it easier to apply for and receive health and disability benefits. This includes extending the enhanced support service, which offers support for those who find it hardest to navigate the benefits system. We are also testing a severe disability group which means people with the most severe health conditions can benefit from a simplified process without needing to complete a detailed application form or go through an assessment.
Our benefit reform proposals will take time to implement. They will require primary legislation, which we would aim to take forward in the next Parliament. These reforms would then be rolled out, for new claims only, on a staged, geographical basis from no earlier than 2026-27. We would expect the new claims roll-out to be completed within three years—so by 2029 at the earliest—when we would then begin to move the existing caseload on to the new system.
Throughout and beyond the work of this White Paper, we will continue to listen to, and work with, disabled people, organisations, charities, and experts, to ensure the voices of disabled people remain at the heart of delivering action.
I am certain that our White Paper reforms will support more people to reach their full potential and reap the health and wellbeing advantages of work.
[HCWS636]
Oral Answers to Questions
Mel Stride Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
My Department has carried out a comprehensive campaign of communication since April 2022 to promote pension credit. I am pleased to inform the House that the average number of pension credit applications is up 73% compared with this time last year.
Simon Baynes
I strongly backed my right hon. Friend’s campaign in December last year, particularly in my Clwyd South constituency. Will he give us a further assessment of how effective that campaign has been in Wales and across the rest of the UK?
Mel Stride
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work that he has been doing in his constituency on this matter. I can inform him that for the week commencing 12 December, for example, there were 7,200 claims, which is a 177% increase compared with this time last year.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
This is not party political; we all want to make sure that pensioners in need get the help and support that they can get. The Secretary of State will understand, though, that in communities such as mine there are still too many pensioners eligible for pension credit who are not yet accessing it. Given the success of his campaign so far, what further will he do to ensure that the really hard-to-reach pensioners get the support that they deserve and need?
Mel Stride
I very much welcome the hon. Gentleman’s question and the non-partisan way in which he presented it. He is absolutely right; there must be no let-up in this matter. Two thirds of those we believe are eligible for pension credit receive it, but that means that one third do not. We cannot identify them precisely in advance, which is why communication is so important. We will write to 11,000 pensioners soon to tell them about the uprating and to stress the point about pension credit. From today, we are launching television advertisements to further that message.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
The Government seem to be trying to pat themselves on the back after years of failure on pension credit. As we just heard, hundreds of thousands of pensioners are still missing out on a vital top-up benefit that is needed to get them through the cost of living crisis. Why has the Government’s response been so ineffective, and what on earth will the Government do about their dismal failure to help pensioners during their hour of need?
Mel Stride
I am very surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman pose that question, first, because of his party’s record on this matter when they were in government; and secondly, because of the clear progress that I have outlined to the House today and on previous occasions about the increase in take-up that the Government are securing.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
My review of the state pension age is under way. The review will consider a wide range of evidence, including two independent reports, to assess whether the rules on pensionable age remain appropriate.
Patrick Grady
I hope that the evidence that the Secretary of State examines includes analysis by Age UK that 1.5 million pre-state pension age households have no savings at all. Age UK warns that accelerating the rise of the state pension age
“will condemn millions to a miserable and impoverished run up to retirement”.
Instead of risking that increase in pensioner poverty, should he not establish an independent pensions and savings commission to ensure that pension policies are fit for purpose and reflect the demographic needs of different parts of the United Kingdom?
Mel Stride
The two reports to which I have just referred are independent—from the Government Actuary’s Department, on matters such as life expectancy; and from Baroness Neville-Rolfe, on the metrics that should be taken into account in determining when the next increase in the state pension age should occur. We certainly take into account issues such as pensioner poverty, on which we have an excellent record. In fact, relative pensioner poverty before housing has halved since 1999, and there are 400,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty—that is before or after housing—compared with 2009-10.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Is it realistic to continue to expect people to spend a third of their lives on a pension?
Mel Stride
I have great respect for my right hon. Friend, but I am afraid that although he tempts me to answer that question, I cannot prejudge the decisions that I will take in the review.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
The Prime Minister has asked me to review the matter of economic inactivity, and the results of that review will be shared with the House shortly.
Rob Butler
One of the keys to getting working-age people to return to work is obviously providing the right incentives, such as the training programmes and advice provided by my right hon. Friend’s Department—the likes of Jobcentre Plus—but it is also important to remove disincentives. What discussions is he having with Treasury colleagues about ensuring that tax policy, especially on pensions, does not stand in the way of people who have skills and experience staying in, or returning to, the workplace?
Mel Stride
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important matter, which of course is well known to the Chancellor and Treasury colleagues. We have a variety of discussions with the Treasury on those kinds of matters and others. Of course, tax policy is a matter for the Treasury.
Stephen Hammond
I commend my right hon. Friend for the work that the Department is doing to try to reduce economic inactivity. He will know that many of the over-50s moving out of employment and into economic inactivity are concentrated in the self-employed and part-time workforces. Can he confirm that his review will look at measures to bring those people back into the workforce?
Mel Stride
I can reassure my hon. Friend that we are most certainly looking carefully at that particular cohort of people who have prematurely retired—if I may use that term—and are over the age of 50. It is one of the biggest cohorts that we are trying to encourage back into the workforce, and I will have more to say on that matter in due course.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
The pandemic made a revolutionary change to the way we work. I know the Secretary of State has heard me mention Work Hull: Work Happy before, but research published today by the Phoenix Group on economic inactivity in the over-50s states that
“flexible work…support with new technologies…and the opportunity to work from home”
are favoured support strands for people returning to work. Will the Secretary of State therefore back Labour’s plan to make flexible working a force for good for all workers?
Mel Stride
I very much welcome the hon. Lady’s question—I certainly enjoyed my time working with her on the Treasury Committee, where she raised these matters with great passion. She is absolutely right that flexible working is the way forward, and not just for the over-50s but often for those who have disabilities. This is a big opportunity that we need to seize.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I understand that the latest figures reveal that there are 788,000 young people not in employment, education or training. Does the Secretary of State regard that as an acceptable figure, and if not, how and when is he going to tackle it?
Mel Stride
Even one person in the circumstances that the hon. Gentleman refers to is one too many. We are going to come forward very shortly with further measures on how we address those particular people, and at the time of the Budget on 15 March—which is very close now—the hon. Gentleman will probably learn more.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
I understand that Ministers are struggling to convince the Office for Budget Responsibility that their inactivity plan will get half a million people back to work. One way in which the Secretary of State could hit his target is by encouraging more parents to move into work. Of course, many women, in particular, are blocked from returning to work because of childcare costs. Given that we should be doing more to help parents move into work, why has he now frozen the childcare cost cap in universal credit for the seventh year in a row?
Mel Stride
As to whether the OBR is or is not scoring the various measures that are being presented to it by the Treasury, I am intrigued as to how the right hon. Gentleman seems to know that it is having problems. The OBR operates under conditions of utter confidentiality in these matters, and I would not doubt that that is the way it has proceeded this time around. As for childcare, he is absolutely right. He will have to be a little patient—I know that he sometimes struggles to be patient—and we will then come forward with measures, and no doubt we will have something to say about the matter he has raised.
Jonathan Ashworth
I know that because the Secretary of State’s Government sources briefed The Sunday Times yesterday on that particular point, but I will wait and see. I will wait for the OBR report next week, and we will see what target for inactivity the Government publish and what the OBR endorses. He will know that many working parents would return to work if they could afford childcare, but many are expected to find hundreds of pounds—sometimes £1,000—to pay for childcare up front. Who has £1,000 down the back of a sofa? Will he make universal credit work by introducing more flexibility in how it operates, or is he prepared to punish hard-working parents by pushing them into more debt?
Mel Stride
I am afraid that I am just going to have to repeat what I have said, which is that the right hon. Gentleman will have to be patient. I am confident that we will have some things to say about the matters he has raised, but he will just have to wait another couple of weeks before he learns what we are doing.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
Post pandemic, and under this uncaring Conservative Government, we have seen sanctions skyrocket, pushing many people into destitution. Can the Secretary of State come to the Dispatch Box and outline how plunging people into poverty helps deal with economic inactivity? Is it not the case that the only activity it stimulates is at local food banks?
Mel Stride
I am surprised, in a way, that the hon. Gentleman raises the issue of poverty, because what we have seen, certainly since 2010 and under this Government, has been absolute levels of poverty declining and fewer children growing up in workless homes, for example, in distinct contrast to Governments prior to my party coming into office.
Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
The Office for National Statistics regularly publishes statistics relating to estimates of local inactivity. I have been leading work across Government with a further piece on participation, and the Chancellor and I will shortly be setting out more details of our plans.
Mick Whitley
Some 2.5 million people are economically inactive as a result of long-term illness, and half a million have left the labour market due to ill health since 2019. Does the Secretary of State accept that tackling health inequalities and improving health outcomes in deprived communities such as Birkenhead is essential to achieving equitable economic growth? Can he inform the House what conversations he has had with colleagues across the Cabinet about the need for a holistic economic strategy that recognises that health and wealth are inextricably linked?
Mel Stride
It is important that we take into account the issues of poverty and regional variations to which the hon. Gentleman refers. They lie right at the heart of all the decisions we have taken. We have come forward in recent times with significant cost of living support measures. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies) will be taking through the remaining stages of the Social Security (Additional Payments) (No. 2) Bill this very afternoon to address the people to whom the hon. Gentleman refers.
Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)
I do not know whether my right hon. Friend saw my article in The Times a few weeks ago, but it discussed opportunities for towns, such as Mansfield, that have specific local requirements when it comes to tackling economic inactivity, the opportunities of building bespoke local schemes with local employers and training providers, and the opportunities from those relationships on a local level as part of a wider strategy within the region. What is his stance on devolving decision-making powers in this space down to local areas?
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend raises a significant and important point. There are areas, particularly around the Work and Health programme, where we have done exactly that. We are engaged in discussions, contingent upon or subsequent to the White Paper that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities published on levelling up, and in particular with areas such as the west midlands and Greater Manchester, to make sure that we leverage the knowledge, know-how, expertise and all the resources they have at the local level to continue to bring people back into work.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
It is always a joy at Question Time to hear Labour MPs supporting Labour policy, but even more so to hear Conservative MPs supporting Labour’s policy of localising our efforts to get people back to work. On that, may I ask the Secretary of State something? I have been listening to what he has said, and I know that he will not pre-empt the details of the inactivity review, but can he just confirm that one of its objectives will be to rebalance our economy, particularly in this connection between health and labour supply?
Mel Stride
That is at the heart of our manifesto, Madam Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] Sorry, Mr Speaker! Where did I get that from? It is a sign of the times. Right at the heart of our manifesto, and of the Government’s raison d’être, is the need to make sure that we level up communities across the United Kingdom. Of course, our action will take many forms, but one of them is most certainly the support that we will provide to make sure that, up and down the country, there is equality among those seeking work, and those who are economically inactive, and that they have the same opportunities.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
Constructive discussions take place with the Public and Commercial Services Union, FDA and Prospect unions on a range of topics, as is set out in our employee relations handbook. The PCS and Prospect unions are in dispute with the Department for Work and Pensions, along with a number of other Departments, about various issues. As ever, we will remain positively engaged.
Beth Winter
Is the Secretary of State aware that more than a quarter of DWP staff are paid so little that the national living wage floor increase this April will lift their salaries? Is he aware that thousands of civil servants forced to take strike action are going without food and having to use foodbanks? Will he commit to constructive talks with the PCS union to resolve the dispute, to put a real pay rise on the table and to make ending the scourge of low pay in his Department a priority?
Mel Stride
The hon. Lady raises an important point. We will continue to have constructive and positive discussions with the PCS and other unions. She raised the national living wage; she will know that it is to rise by 9.7% this April, to its highest level on record.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
The Department’s major focus is looking after the vulnerable and those most in need. I am therefore delighted that next month, the basic state pension will increase by 10.1%, as will most benefits. The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), will be taking legislation through the House this afternoon to ensure that we continue substantial cost of living payments for the year ahead.
Bob Blackman
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcements. The extra £842 million for the household support fund, of which Harrow will receive £3 million, is extremely welcome. Could he update the House on what monitoring is taking place so that best practice is followed across the country and that the money that the Government are allocating reaches the most vulnerable?
Mel Stride
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue. He is right that almost £3 million from the household support fund will go to his constituency, on top of the £7.4 million that his local authority will receive in total. We monitor very closely how the money is administered to ensure that it has the maximum effect, by liaising closely with the local authorities concerned.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
Does the Secretary of State understand and agree that expediting the rise in the state pension age is less about life expectancy, which, according to the Office for National Statistics is very much arrested, and more about a cost-cutting measure for the Treasury? Can he tell the House what representations he has made to the Chancellor about that in advance of next week’s Budget? Or is it just the UK Government’s policy that people should work until they drop?
Mel Stride
The hon. Gentleman is prejudging an awful lot of potential outcomes. He should wait until the Chancellor and I have taken those particular decisions. I am focused on a variety of metrics. Life expectancy is one of them, as is regional impact. The fiscal impact certainly cannot be ignored, and I would be surprised if he suggested otherwise. Fairness between generations and the period of life in which one is expected to be healthy in later years are also important considerations.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
Public and Commercial Services Union members in Scotland get a raw deal from this Government on pay, with many civil servants themselves using food banks. When will the Government give them a proper pay rise?
Mel Stride
As the hon. Lady will know and as I explained earlier, we are engaged in positive discussions with the PCS. It has been pointed out that many people working in the DWP are on the national living wage, and that will increase by 9.7% in April.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
Working with Disability Action Yorkshire in my constituency, I have observed the important and growing role in the jobs market played by people with disabilities. I have spoken before about the Access to Work programme. Will the Minister update the House on what is being done to promote that excellent scheme among employers?
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
On Friday night I was given the terrible news that a popular business in my constituency, Mortons Rolls, had ceased trading, putting at risk 250 jobs. Will the Secretary of State take the time to meet me to discuss what can be done to support that business and the 250 staff who are now threatened with redundancy?
Mel Stride
The hon. Lady raises an important matter, and she is right to raise it on the Floor of the House. We have a number of measures that we would typically stand up in the circumstances that she describes, including a surge of local support to get jobs going and vacancies matched up with those who are sadly going to lose their jobs. I will certainly ask the Employment Minister to meet her to discuss this as a matter of urgency.
Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)
I echo the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) about Access to Work. Can I ask what progress is being made on the disability action plan and how the Minister will ensure effective work across Government?
Labour Market Activity
Mel Stride Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
It took the right hon. Gentleman a little bit of time to get going, but he certainly got going at the end of his speech—he was both Pinky and Perky at the finish there, which was good to see. I am afraid that I cannot accept the motion as it stands, of course, but I can reassure him that it makes fair points, highlighting the challenges that exist around employment, unemployment and economic inactivity. I welcome the opportunity to have a debate about those issues this afternoon. However, where the motion falls short is that it is entirely wrong, first, to deny the very considerable progress that the Government and previous Conservative Administrations have made in these areas, and secondly, to suggest—as the right hon. Gentleman does—that the Government have somehow been sitting on their hands. Nothing could be further from the truth.
It is this Government and my party that have seen 3.7 million more people in employment since 2010, with 2 million of those being women. We have seen 1.3 million more disabled people in employment since 2017—these are simple facts. We have seen long-term unemployment decline by 12% since before the pandemic, and as the right hon. Gentleman recognises, unemployment stands at 3.7%, which is a near-historic low. Under this Government we have also seen payroll employment at a record level, and of course we saw this Government in action under the then Chancellor, now the Prime Minister, at the time of the pandemic. The Government intervened in the labour market, to the extent that all those economists who said that we would be back to the unemployment levels of the 1980s, up at about 12%, were disproved by the actions of this Government.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Ind)
Would the Secretary of State extend his gratitude and congratulations to the frontline jobcentre staff who provided the statistics that he has just used? After thanking jobcentres such as Blackfriars Road in my constituency, can he then explain why they are being closed?
Mel Stride
It is a fact that we are going through an estate rationalisation programme, and there are very good reasons for that. During the pandemic, we stood up a lot of additional jobcentres for which we do not now have a requirement, and it is also important that we make sure we have an estate that is fit for the 21st century, with the right technology, job opportunities and so on. However, I join the hon. Gentleman in congratulating and thanking those very hard-working frontline staff—the work coaches in our jobcentres up and down the country—who do an extraordinary job. I will pay further tribute to them a little later in my remarks.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mel Stride
I give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood).
John Redwood
I am very grateful to the Secretary of State, who is right to point out the excellent record on employment, which is a great strength of our economy. Is he, like me, a bit worried about the fall in self-employment more recently, and will he have a word with the Chancellor? I think some of that is to do with changes in tax rules that now impede the self-employed in getting contracts from companies.
Mel Stride
My right hon. Friend makes a really important point, and this Government are absolutely committed to encouraging self-employment. I think it is fair to point out that in the past some apparent growth in self-employment has been due to individuals incorporating themselves for tax purposes, and it may be that more recently some of that effect has started to unwind. However, I totally agree with my right hon. Friend, and I am sure the Chancellor has heard his words, because he has made the point many times before that it is really important that we support the self-employed.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
I have noted down some of the things that the Secretary of State has said the Government have done. I do not see anything about what the Government are doing to tackle the shameful waiting list for Access to Work support. Will he tell us what the Government are doing right now to rectify that problem, and will he admit that the Government have let people down?
Mel Stride
The hon. Lady points to an issue that is a focus within the Department. We have taken on more staff, and we are in the process of taking on still more staff. We are also looking at processes and, in the longer term, examining processes that will increase the rapidity of supply of that particular set of support.
I will now turn to where the motion is clearly so wrong.
Geraint Davies
A moment ago, the Secretary of State claimed that 500,000 more people are in payroll employment than before the pandemic. Am I not right in saying that the Office for National Statistics says that 400,000 fewer people are in overall employment, because the payroll does not include the massive reduction in self-employment that he has so briskly avoided noticing? Will he now set the record straight: 400,000 fewer people are now in work overall than before the pandemic?
Mel Stride
I think it is the hon. Gentleman who has misunderstood what has been said here. There is a distinction between payroll employment, which is clearly those who are on PAYE employed by an employer, and somebody who is self-employed, which is a totally different matter. The statistic, or the fact that I presented, was simply that the level of payroll employment is currently at a record high in this country.
John Redwood
I want to clarify that I think there is an issue with capacity in things such as plumbing, jobbing building and that kind of thing. We are short of capacity there, and we need to look at why those trades have been afflicted by some of this decline.
Mel Stride
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is why we have stood up important programmes, such as sector-based work programmes, and it is why skills and apprenticeships are so important—[Interruption] —as are skills bootcamps, as an hon. Friend reminds me.
This motion is wrong on unemployment and employment, but it is also wrong on economic inactivity, because while it is true that economic inactivity rose during the pandemic, it is also true that, with the notable exception of the United States, in most countries it has gone back down to broadly where it was before the pandemic. That has not happened in the UK. It is not true to say that working-age inactivity rates have not been on a long-term decline. They have in this country, and the trajectory has been downwards. The level of economic inactivity in the UK is lower than in the United States, France and Italy. It is below the EU average, and it is below the average of OECD countries.
While there has been some softening in recent months on the level of economic inactivity in the United Kingdom, I accept that there is a lot more work to be done, which is why the Prime Minister has asked me to work across Government to review how we approach these issues, particularly in respect of disability, the long-term sick and those who are over 50 and have retired early.
Before I come to those cohorts, let me state clearly what lies at the heart of this Government’s success on unemployment and employment: the key Conservative belief that we should make work pay. The universal credit roll-out has been a huge success, despite the fact that the Leader of the Opposition suggested as recently as 2021 that it should be scrapped. We have enhanced universal credit by improving the taper, dropping it from 63% to 55%. We have increased the work allowance by £500. In terms of making work pay, for the very lowest paid we will be increasing the national living wage by 9.7% this April. We have stood up a number of important programmes that have helped to encourage people into work, among them Restart and our youth offer.
Chris Stephens
The Secretary of State says that the route out of poverty is work and making work pay, but the example I gave to the shadow Minister is one that came up when I was on the Work and Pensions Committee, of a lone parent not taking additional hours because they would lose state support. What are the Government proposing to fix those sorts of issues?
Mel Stride
I think the main point—I do not know the specific example to which the hon. Gentleman refers—is that under UC the whole driving principle is that work always pays. As someone gets into work, the benefit is tapered away, but none the less work always pays. That is why we are looking, in part at least, at these very low levels of unemployment and very high levels of paid employment.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State says that work always pays, so why is the clawback rate for universal credit so high? The effective rate of tax for every pound someone earns when on universal credit is about 73%—far beyond what any of us pay in here, and we are in the top 5% of earners in this country. Why does he think it is fair that someone on universal credit should be paying an effective rate that is so high, given the clawback?
Mel Stride
It is true that at certain levels of income, marginal tax rates are very high. To improve that situation, we have reduced the taper from 63% to 55%. I would like us to go still further, and if we had the finances we would almost reduce it altogether, but that is not the reality of where we are. None the less, a substantive point remains that people are always better off under UC if they are in work, within the UC benefit environment.
Angela Richardson (Guildford) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Labour party has a shambolic record on making work pay in this country, not least because 1.4 million people spent most of the 2000s trapped in out-of-work benefits under Labour?
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and the 1.4 million figure is depressingly true. Under the last Labour Government, over 1 million people were parked on long-term benefits. Of course, when we talk about unemployment, we know that every Labour Government in history have left unemployment higher at the end of their term in office than it was at the beginning.
Margaret Greenwood
I very much appreciate the Secretary of State giving way. He was saying that he had been tasked to work across Government on tackling this issue. Adult education has a really important role to play in building people’s confidence—it can be particularly important for people who, perhaps in midlife, have had to give up work to look after a family member who was ill or whatever, and later find themselves struggling to get back into work and having really lost their confidence—yet the Government, as part of what they call their reorientating the vision for non-qualification provision in adult education, have plans that could actually remove some of the very non-vocational courses that people who may feel daunted at the prospect of having to go for a high qualification would none the less get. Could he please speak to his colleagues to ask them to look at this issue again?
Mel Stride
If the hon. Lady would drop me a line about the point she raises, I would be very happy to raise that specifically and to consider it myself as well.
Could I turn to economic inactivity, and to disability and sickness? This Government have been acting, and we will come forward with further measures very shortly, which I am sure will be of interest to the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth). For example, our Work and Health programme has now been extended to September 2024, bringing an extra 100,000 people into support. We have rolled out health adjustment passports to facilitate more structured conversations between those seeking work, those seeking to employ them and employees in jobcentres. We have been co-locating employment advisers alongside therapists in NHS talking therapies. For those with autism, which is often a very considerable barrier to employment, we have funded no less than 28 different initiatives across local authorities.
Charlotte Nichols
I am very interested in what the Secretary of State says about the links between poor mental health and economic inactivity, but one thing I find particularly surprising in this context is the fact that the Government—the Home Office in particular—are specifically blocking research into new therapies and new medicines. Would he perhaps have a word with the Home Office, and get it to reschedule the drugs that we could be looking at for curing people with such conditions?
Mel Stride
The hon. Lady is tempting me to plunge into the Department of Health. I certainly hear what she has to say, but let me make a general point about mental health. The most important thing—and, to be fair, the right hon. Member for Leicester South made this point—is that we intervene at the point in the health journey that is as close to the labour market as possible and that we do so as early as possible. What we know is that the longer we allow those conditions to develop and persist, the more difficult it becomes to bring those individuals back into the workforce. That is very much at the heart of the approach I am taking in the work I am carrying out at the moment.
We are also providing more support to those who are waiting in the work capability assessment queue, promoting Disability Confident among employers and promoting Access to Work with disability employment advisers up and down the country. All of that has led to 1 million more disabled people in work since 2017, meeting our 1 million target five years early.
Looking to the future, the White Paper probably contains lots of ideas on health and disability that the right hon. Member for Leicester South has pre-empted and pre-judged—perhaps he has come to similar conclusions to those that we have already come to but are unable to speak about at the moment—so he should be a little patient.
On those in early retirement, who have increased significantly in recent times, we have taken action: with a £20 million fund we substantially increased the number of one-on-one sessions in jobcentres; we focused on skills, rolling out 50-plus champions across jobcentres up and down the country; our midlife guarantee ensured that those in that age group are confident in seeking work, understand their potential skills gaps and, critically, have looked closely at finances so that they know whether they can survive comfortably through to the end of their lives or perhaps would benefit from taking on some work. I will have more to say about the over-50s in time.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
Members of the House often hold jobs fairs, which are too often focused on the unemployed and youth sectors—I hope to mention my own jobs fair later. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is also a need to have jobs fairs to encourage the elderly—by which I mean the over-50s, so I am elderly by that definition—to get back into work where it is suitable for them?
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The constituency and part of the country that he represents has quite a preponderance of more elderly residents, and there is certainly scope for over-50s jobs fairs. Indeed, there have been successful examples of those up and down the country, sometimes involving support from the Department for Work and Pensions.
I am aware of time, Madam Deputy Speaker, and of finishing by about twenty to six, so let me turn and say something about work coaches. These are truly brilliant people. They are people who know that work is not just a job; they understand that work is about improved health outcomes and self-esteem, and a greater sense of pride. They know it is about not just individual growth, but growing the economy, which in turn allows us to provide more tax revenues to fund those public services that we all know are the hallmark of a civilised society. Our work coaches are right at the centre of all that, and I want them to do even more to support people. I want to reward them for the work they do, where they are particularly successful.
I have laid before the House a written ministerial statement setting out how greater support will be provided to claimants, with two weeks of additional intensive support at the 13-week and 26-week stage of the universal credit journey. That will include more one-to-one support, as well as support in groups. I also want to reward job centres and those individuals who exceed the aspirational targets that we have rightly been setting. I have been carrying out that work through a series of pilots. We started with four, and yesterday I announced that that is expanding to 60. I am confident that the innovation, approach, support and confidence that we are giving our work coaches in those pilots will lead to even better outcomes and an enhancement of even more lives.
Far from being complacent, this is a Government of powerful interventions around covid, and more recently the cost of living crisis, to support people up and down the country. It is a Government of large-scale ambitious programmes to get people into work, and allow them to progress within work. It is a Government who are about creative thinking and innovation, piloting new approaches so that we can ensure we are even more successful in the future. As we met the challenges of the past, so we will continue to meet those challenges in the future.
Several hon. Members rose—
Additional Jobcentre Support: Pilot Roll-out
Mel Stride Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
I wish to inform the House that today the Department for Work and Pensions will start expanding the additional jobcentre support pilot following testing in Coalville, Crawley, Partick and Pontefract jobcentres.
The current pilot will continue to test how enhanced daily work focused support, across two weeks, can further support eligible universal credit claimants into employment in 60 jobcentres across central Scotland, Surrey and Sussex, West Yorkshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire.
This additional support will increase a claimant’s employability through provision of additional one to one work search conversations with work coaches and through work search support sessions to help claimants overcome any challenges they may be experiencing. The claimant commitment, which sets out each claimant’s agreed work-related activities, will be regularly reviewed and activity will be focused on specific steps to support people to move into work.
Evidence shows that the longer a person is out of work the harder it is for them to return. A claimant’s likelihood of securing employment declines after 13 weeks, so we will focus this support on those who remain unemployed or with low earnings after 13 and 26 weeks of claiming Universal Credit.
Claimants in the intensive work search regime will receive prior notice of the requirements they will be expected to fulfil. Claimants who will not be in scope for the pilot are those:
Awaiting a work capability assessment;
Required to undertake less than 20 hours a week of work search activity;
Who are gainfully self-employed;
Who have no work related requirements;
With an easement in place; and
On a full-time provision offer.
Within the pilot, we will also test a scheme to recognise and reward jobcentre teams who furthest exceed their aspirational targets. The reward scheme will be rolled out to 30 of the 60 jobcentres testing enhanced daily support and an additional 30 jobcentres.
Therefore, in addition to a control group, 90 jobcentres will now be involved in the pilot:
30 sites will test enhanced daily support only;
30 sites will test enhanced daily support and the rewards scheme; and
30 sites will test the rewards scheme only.
[HCWS582]
Social Security (Additional Payments) (No. 2) Bill
Mel Stride ExcerptsTuesday 21st February 2023
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Social Security (Additional Payments) Act 2023 View all Social Security (Additional Payments) Act 2023 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
A hallmark of a civilised society is that it looks after the most vulnerable and those who are most in need. That lies at the centre of this Bill. The House will be aware of the challenges that inflation has presented to millions of our fellow citizens up and down the country—inflation that was there before the Ukraine-Russia conflict but that has been substantially exacerbated by it.
As a newly appointed Secretary of State, some of the first actions that I took were to increase and uprate pensions by 10.1%, to respect and uphold the triple lock, to increase benefits by 10.1% and to increase the benefit cap by the same percentage. Those actions, along with measures such as the increase in the national living wage by more than 9%, which will come into effect in April, have done a great deal to underscore this Government’s approach to looking after those who are most in need.
In 2022 alone, 30 million support payments were made by my Department. Eight million low-income households received £650. Eight million pensioners received a £300 payment along with their winter fuel payment, and 6 million disabled people received a payment of £150. That was alongside various other measures from the recent past, such as the reduction in the taper rate for universal credit, which provided 1.7 million families with, on average, an additional £1,000 per year.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)
There is a substantial lag between the announcement of the uprating and April when it will be brought in. What steps can be taken to reduce that lag so that people benefit earlier?
Mel Stride
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that a series of payments were made last year right up until the autumn. The energy price guarantee and various other payments of which he will be aware will help millions of our fellow citizens come through what is a difficult period. The household support fund administered by local authorities is available, particularly for those who have not benefited from the assistance that I am setting out.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
The third iteration of the household support fund has come through. I went down to the Hinckley hub to see how people there were getting on. They expressed their thanks to the Government for this important fund. They have the accountability to be able to give funding to people in extreme circumstances when they need it. It is not heavily red-taped and regulated, so they can use it how they see best to help their clients. Is that something that the Department for Work and Pensions will take forward?
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend is entirely right, and I am pleased to hear his personal experience of the measure. He is right to point out that there is great flexibility in how it can be administered by local authorities. We place a particular emphasis on making sure that that assistance goes to those who may not have benefited from the measures I am outlining, but who are still in need.
In addition to the taper, we recognise that pensioners need additional support where it is appropriate. My Department has thrown itself into promoting the uptake of pension credit. The Minister for Employment, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), did such sterling work as the Pensions Minister and, more recently, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), has promoted pension credit with such vigour on social media and radio that there has been a 73% increase in applications for pension credit compared with this time last year.
My Department has an excellent record on unemployment. Disabled employment is up by 1.3 million since 2017. We have arrived at our target for the employment of disabled people a full five years earlier than originally planned.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I just wonder whether the Secretary of State would like to comment on the disability employment gap.
Mel Stride
As the hon. Lady will know, the disability employment gap is a key measure on which we are focused. It has more recently increased a little, which I think is the point that she is alluding to, but generally, prior to that it was on a downward trend. The Department is very focused on making sure that we get it as low as we possibly can.
In the last year we also had the energy price guarantee, which ensured that average energy bills came in at £2,500 on average, and £400 off energy bills directly paid to bill payers. In England, we had the council tax discounts for bands A to D. We had two further extensions to the household support fund, as was just referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans). For the devolved Administrations, there have been Barnett consequentials of £1.5 billion since October 2021. I am very proud of our record and the wide package that has already been deployed, which is valued at £37 billion.
That brings me to this year, when we intend to go still further. As the Prime Minister has stated, one of our key aims as a Government is to reduce inflation by 50% by the end of this year. I am confident that we will achieve that, but we recognise that, despite the relief that that will provide to millions up and down the country, we need to provide further support payments. There will be three payments totalling £900 for around 8 million low-income households. Like last year, there will be a £300 payment alongside the winter fuel payment of £300 to pensioners, and a £150 payment to disabled people. The delivery of the support for pensioners will be via regulation and is not the subject of the Bill, but the other payments will be delivered through this legislation.
The Bill sets out the basis of qualification for the payments and who makes the payments, whether that is me and the DWP or His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in the case of, for example, tax credits. It makes provision as to how the timing of the payments will be set out and it exempts the payments from charges to taxation. It sets out the arrangements that will ensure that data can be transferred and shared between my Department and HMRC, so that all the payments run smoothly and we avoid duplication and minimise fraud.
Sir Stephen Timms
As I understand it, the eligibility for the payments is based on being in receipt of benefit—at least 1p—in a specific month. There will be people who, for example, are paid every four weeks instead of every month and may get two payments in a particular month, so they do not get any benefit in that month. Would it not work better to base eligibility on a two-month period to reduce the likelihood of that problem arising?
Mel Stride
The right hon. Gentleman raises a valid point and we looked at instances where anomalies can occur in what is known in the legislation as the “qualifying period”. The reality is that we cannot iron out all the possible hard edges, but we did break the payments into three for this financial year, rather than the two that we had last year, so that in the event that the circumstances he described were to occur, there would at least be other periods in which someone could qualify. There is also the household support fund, which has already been referred to and is for just the kind of circumstances that he described.
Dr Luke Evans
I am glad that the Secretary of State has looked at how to break up the payments. Will he ensure that people who find themselves with an anomaly can swiftly speak to someone to make sure that such issues are resolved quickly? When someone is struggling with their finances, one of the biggest sources of heartache and stress can be trying to get some of these payments.
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend makes a characteristically excellent point. Anybody will be able to go on to the gov.uk website for further information, and we will have additional resources in place to ensure that people are manning telephones to answer the type of queries that he and the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), have raised.
The Government are on the side of the most needy. We demonstrated that first in the pandemic, through the furlough scheme and the support that we provided for businesses; and secondly, as I have outlined, with the £36 billion of direct payments last year to support those most in need. As I have set out, this Bill will bring forward yet further support in the coming year to help millions.
The Government will always stand alongside those most in need; the Bill is yet another example of just that. Let the record show that this Government, more than any other, understand that the hallmark of a civilised society is that it looks after those most in need.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mel Stride Excerpts(3 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
The Department for Work and Pensions provides specialist help for those who are suffering from mental ill health, both through the Access to Work scheme and by funding advisers in the NHS Improving Access to Psychological Therapy services in England.
Liz Twist
Since 2019, economic inactivity due to mental illness and nervous disorders has increased by 22%. People with mental ill health need support in order to get back into work, and Access to Work grants are a vital resource in helping to ensure that they have that support, but in the past year alone waiting times have doubled and the size of the backlog has trebled. People have been forced to turn down jobs that they want to do because they cannot gain access to the support and flexibility they need. What will the Government do to address those delays?
Mel Stride
The hon. Lady is right: there is an issue with economic inactivity, which is why the Prime Minister has tasked me with reviewing this entire area, including the matters that she has rightly raised. We will, in due course, publish a White Paper to address some of those matters.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
On Friday I had the great pleasure of visiting the New Skill Centre in south-east Ipswich. It is run by a community interest company that works closely with adults with a range of health and learning disabilities. I was amazed at what I saw. Much of what the centre does involves helping adults to live independently, but some of the carpentry and artwork I saw was so good that I think that many of those people may get back into work. Does the Minister agree that the moral of the story is that we should never give up on people, that we should never write them off and stop working with them to enable them to achieve their true potential, and that we should support organisations that help them to do so?
Mel Stride
My hon. Friend is entirely right, and I commend him for the huge amount of work that he does in his constituency in this regard. There is no doubt that the conditions of those who suffer from mental health issues are often dramatically improved when they can get into work, hold down a job and benefit from all that working provides.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
As the Mayor of South Yorkshire, I worked alongside Mayor Andy Street in the west midlands to introduce Working Win, a pilot employment scheme designed to help people with mental and physical health challenges to get into or stay in work. In South Yorkshire the pilot has been very successful, smashing all targets and helping 2,500 people to get into work. I understand that the Department is considering whether the scheme could be rolled out nationally. Can the Secretary of State guarantee that the funding will be maintained in the interim?
Mel Stride
I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has raised the subject of this pilot, which I agree is hugely important. We are looking closely at the results, including the effect not only on mental health but on productivity. As he will know, £7 million has been invested so far.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister for the leadership they are showing on this issue. They are exactly right: it is the increase in the number of, in particular, younger workers dropping out of the labour market owing to mental ill health that is driving the increase in economic inactivity. As he prepares the White Paper, will my right hon. Friend keep the focus on how a close link with the employment support agency and the labour market can be maintained? Once someone leaves the labour market and is out of work for an extended period, it becomes far less likely that they will ever make it back.
Mel Stride
My right hon. Friend has great experience in these matters, and he too is entirely right. It is essential for the Department to do whatever it can at the early stages to support those with mental health issues who are already in work, particularly those who are in danger of falling out of work, so that we do not end up seeing more and more people experiencing longer-term absence from employment.
Mel Stride
I would be very happy to write to the hon. Lady on exactly how many people are waiting for access to that scheme. We should not in any way play down the importance of the Access to Work scheme, which is highly successful and provides up to nine months of support for those who badly need it. On recent announcements being made on the hoof, as the hon. Lady seemed to suggest, we have been supporting those in such situations for many years and have made much progress over so many years to get those with mental health issues and wider disabilities into employment.
Alison McGovern
The Secretary of State says that we should not play down the importance of Access to Work, but he does not even know how many people are waiting for a decision. The charity Scope says that the number of disabled people waiting for a decision on their award in March 2022 was nearly 21,000. That is an increase of 327% on the same point the previous year. That is dreadful. Nothing works in this country. When will the Secretary of State sort it out?
Mel Stride
I stand by, and make no apology for, our record on encouraging disabled people back into work. We were set a target for dramatically increasing the employment level for disabled people by 2027. We met that target of 1 million new disabled people in work a full five years early. I think that record speaks for itself.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
As the House will be aware, I am currently reviewing economic inactivity—it is not satisfactory that we currently have almost 9 million people who are economically inactive—and I will be come back to the House in due course with various measures.
Chloe Smith
I welcome that work and wish my right hon. Friend well in concluding his review. Many disabled people and people with long-term health conditions want to work and we should help them to do so. Does he agree that the current health and disability benefits can pose a financial disincentive against trying work, and that it is right for us to look again at providing better support?
Mel Stride
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. May I just say how helpful it is that, having left the Department, she continues to show such a positive and constructive interest in the matter? She is entirely right that we need to focus on what people can do when they are disabled, rather than on what they cannot do. That will be very much at the heart of the White Paper.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has just said that we should be focusing on what people can do. One key to getting older people back into work is for employers—public and private—to value experience as much as paper qualifications, and in particular not to insist on degrees and A-levels unless they are strictly relevant. He could even take up my private Member’s Bill, the Employment (Application Requirements) Bill, to bring that about.
Mel Stride
I would, of course, be happy to look at the right hon. Gentleman’s private Member’s Bill. He makes an important point, which is that we have to ensure that employers see disabled people with eyes wide open—their abilities and the contribution they can make. That is why we promote Disability Confident, and why we have so many work coaches up and down the country focusing on just that.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
In 2020, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, the Government boosted the local housing allowance by almost £1 billion, taking it to the 30th percentile of rents. For those where there is a shortfall, the discretionary housing payments arrangements are available. We should all be mindful of the expense of the support for housing, which is running at £30 billion a year, and is projected to rise to £50 billion in 2050.
Sir Stephen Timms
Rightmove reported last autumn that rents in London had increased by more than 16% in a year, yet, as the Secretary of State has said, housing support through local housing allowance has been frozen since 2020. Will Ministers look again in the Budget at the level of local housing allowance for the coming financial year?
Mel Stride
The right hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly valid point, but he needs to see this issue in the round. My fellow Ministers have outlined at some length the cost of living support payments that were made available last year and that were announced in the autumn statement and will be available from April onwards. I have already mentioned discretionary housing payments, with £1.6 billion of support since 2011. There is also the household support fund, which gained an extra £1 billion for 2023-24. I look forward to appearing before his Committee at the end of March, where no doubt we can discuss these matters in greater detail.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
As the House knows, the Prime Minister has asked me to review economic inactivity. We have 9 million people who are economically inactive at the moment, and I will be looking closely at all those in that review, not least the long-term sick and disabled, those with caring responsibilities and those over the age of 50 who have retired early.
Justin Madders
Following on from the question from the Select Committee Chair, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), many of my constituents are required to seek a housing solution in the private rented sector, but cannot afford it due to the freezing of local housing allowance and the increase in rents. Can the Minister have a conversation with his colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to see whether they can do more to enable councils to widen their lists for the housing register to ensure that people can access housing they can afford?
Mel Stride
I can provide the hon. Gentleman with that reassurance. There are discussions ongoing between officials in my Department and in DLUHC, and we will continue those through time. We are aware of the issue. I have raised the inordinate expense of these measures, but none the less it is important that we look at them closely.
Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
According to my friends at the Centre for Social Justice, around 700,000 people with no work requirement could go to work if given the right support. The Labour party put forward proposals. The Secretary of State’s spin doctors said they were cynical. Then, two days later, he briefed that he was going to copy them. So when will he introduce reforms to the work capability assessment and Access to Work to get more people back into the workplace?
Mel Stride
The right hon. Gentleman knows the answer to his own question, which is that we are looking at precisely those matters as part of our review of economic inactivity. He is well aware of the extensive consultation that surrounded the White Paper, which we will come forward with in due course. All the questions he poses will be answered in greater detail then.
Jonathan Ashworth
Economic inactivity has been rising for three years, and the Labour party wants to get Britain back to work, but all the Secretary of State can say is that he will bring forward a White Paper in due course.
Let me ask about the long-term sick. The Secretary of State will know that a third of the inactive across South Yorkshire are long-term sick and that a quarter of the inactive across the west midlands are long-term sick. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), he said he was looking carefully at the long-term sick programmes across South Yorkshire and the west midlands. However, in December, his Department withdrew the funding. Why is he cutting the funding for Andy Street’s West Midlands and across South Yorkshire when we need to get the long-term sick back to work?
Mel Stride
As I have said, we have invested £7 million in the west midlands engine pilot, and we are looking closely at that pilot. The right hon. Gentleman criticises us on the employment front, but it is Labour that saw the number of workless households almost double on its watch, Labour that always has unemployment higher at the end of its term of office than when it went in, Labour that parked millions of people on benefits with little incentive to leave them, and Labour that left us with 2.5 million unemployed in 2010.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
Mel Stride
I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning the Huddersfield jobcentre and the extraordinary work of the staff there. They organise several job fairs every month, and I commend my hon. Friend for the support he provides to them in that endeavour.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
Today, we have probably had an insight into one of the battlelines for the next general election. It was on the front page of the Daily Mail—not something I would normally read—which talks about a “something for nothing” Britain. Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to distance himself from that ridiculous remark? I suggest it would be a brave move by the Conservative party to tell pensioners that their state pension is something for nothing.
Mel Stride
I have a clear view on all these matters, which is that a hallmark of a civilised society is that it looks after the most vulnerable; the Government have a proud record in that respect. I could go through chapter and verse on the various measures, not least the cost of living support for 8 million low-income households up and down the country. If people—fraudsters and others—are prepared to abuse the system that is there to support the most vulnerable, we should not hesitate to come down hard on them and they should face the full force of the law.
Gary Sambrook (Birmingham, Northfield) (Con)
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
Mel Stride
The hon. Lady raises an interesting and important point. We are certainly in discussions with DLUHC about those kinds of matters—perhaps I will leave it at that.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
The number of people claiming unemployment benefit has fallen in my constituency over the last year, but does the Minister agree that more needs to be done? Will he therefore support the jobs fair that I am holding on 3 February in partnership with the DWP, Halesowen business improvement district, Halesowen College and the Cornbow shopping centre in Halesowen so that we can get more people back into work?
Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)
Mel Stride
Sanctions quite rightly play a role in the work of work coaches and jobcentres, because the provision of benefits involves a contract between the jobcentre and those receiving those benefits, who in many cases have an obligation to seek work. Where that contract is broken by the individual who is meant to be seeking work, it is only right that a sanction should be available. But it has to be applied with due care—and, indeed, that is the case.
Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)
Unemployment is falling in Grimsby, but it still stands at 5.1% compared with the UK national rate of 3.7%. What is the Department doing to make sure that we can get more people into work when we have the vacancies?
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
During the lockdowns, conditionality was, understandably, relaxed, but I fear that it has not returned to its pre-covid levels. Can the Secretary of State assure me that those pre-covid levels of conditionality, which are so vital to getting people back into work, will return as a matter of urgency?
Mel Stride
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Conditionality plays a central role in the way in which the benefits system works and our drive to get people back into work. She is right that it was relaxed during the covid crisis, and I think it is right that it was, including in relation to people coming in for face-to-face appointments. That has now been reinstated and I will be looking at conditionality as part of my review of economic inactivity.