Personal Independence Payments

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I will primarily raise issues around the access to assessments, and I will run through some examples of constituents who have approached me. This is by far the biggest area of casework that I receive in my office.

Mr M’s daughter had a stroke and is partially paralysed. She was expected to get to an appointment 40 minutes’ drive away in Scunthorpe for 9 am. There is no direct bus service so they would have had to have caught the 7.34 am train from Grimsby to get there on time, and they did not know how to get to the assessment centre from the railway station. That all put additional pressure on an older parent who is responsible for somebody who has suffered a stroke.

K has mental health issues and other difficulties, including domestic violence issues that impede her ability to freely leave the house. Despite being advised of those difficulties, requests for a home visit or a local appointment were refused and she was expected to attend in Scunthorpe. C is vulnerable because of her alcohol dependency, alongside her depression and anxiety. She has no means of transport but was expected to attend in Scunthorpe. M has learning difficulties, but no exception for that, or consideration of it, was made. There was no real humanity in dealing with that individual.

Another constituent, J, had a stroke. After parking his mobility vehicle away from the assessment centre, he made the extraordinary effort to walk what is a very short distance but what took him more than 25 minutes, with frequent breaks on the way. Having made that journey and dragged himself to the assessment, he was deemed to be sufficiently mobile not to require his mobility car, which has put enormous pressure on him, his family and his ability to live a normal life. Those are a few examples, but there are more: Hogan, Arnold, Snell, Read, MacDonald, Lamb, Jones, Stewart and Godfrey are just a few of my constituents who have all had barriers placed before them just to get to an assessment.

I have had conversations on this and have had questions responded to, and we managed to get additional assessors in the area. However, issues with appointments, maternity and sickness—the assessors made available were under such pressure with the volume of assessments that they went off sick themselves; I hope they did not have to go through the assessment process, because that would have been a double injustice—mean that we do not have enough assessors in the local area to support the needs of my constituents.

I have been able to assist in some of those cases and resolve some of the issues, but why do these people have to come to their MPs or place enormous stress and strain on other support services, which also have issues with their funding, to receive that advice? Why is the system so complicated? People should not have to come to see me to have these issues resolved.

When the courts ruled that the system was wholly inadequate for those with mental ill health, did that extend to the ability to access the assessment process in the first place? My constituents face not only the physical challenge of their condition but poor public transport links, the removal of Motability vehicles and the cost of alternative transport, such as private taxis. There is also a lack of consideration when those with autism or Asperger’s have to go somewhere different, travel in an unusual vehicle or simply be around other people in crowded environments, or of those who struggle with depression, anxiety or agoraphobia when they are asked to go on unfamiliar routes to unfamiliar places. It is all too much and too overwhelming and it is placing these people under enormous stress. 

I will make one final point, because I know lots of Members want to speak. Surely we deserve a properly resourced assessment centre locally, with more flexibility given for assessors to undertake home visits and support people, rather than to target them.

Universal Credit: Private Rented Sector

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Lloyd]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I think that is something that needs to be considered, particularly as regards the further caps that have come in over the past couple of years. I think those are unsustainable.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Has the hon. Gentleman given any consideration to the issue of 18 to 21-year-olds who are on universal credit and have no recourse to any funding for the housing element? Very often they will be on a lower wage, as obviously the minimum wage for younger people is lower than that for people over 25. There are big issues for the sector and I think it will ultimately end in a rise in homelessness among that group. Does he agree?

[Stephen Lloyd]

I agree. As regards that particular age group—unless they have some sort of bank of mum and dad—in our surgeries we are already seeing that young people are tremendously adversely affected, both by the lack of housing benefit at that age, and, frankly, some of the issues around universal credit.

Another issue that has not been properly addressed, and I would welcome hearing about this from the Minister, is that there is a portal for public sector housing and councils and housing associations to access as regards people in their area, or their tenants, going on to universal credit, but there is not one for the private sector. I urge the Minister not to tell me that there is, if she has been told that by her civil servants, because I have been told by all the residential trade associations that there is not, or it is not working.

At the risk of misquoting Tony Blair, who kept saying, “Education, education, education,” I want to talk about evidence, evidence, evidence. All those years ago, when I and others first challenged the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, in the Work and Pensions Committee, saying, “You must understand, if you retain the original plan, which is that all the money goes to the tenant and the tenant pays the landlord, it will be an absolute disaster,” I did not have evidence. I just had a hunch, based on years of experience dealing with thousands of people. I just knew that, as did many others. Where are we now? We are five or six years down the line, and I want to provide some evidence.

In the past 12 months, the RLA reports, one in three landlords has attempted to evict a tenant; 60% were due to rent arrears, and the majority of those were on universal credit. This means not only unnecessary suffering for tens of thousands of housing benefit recipients, but it poses a threat to the future of benefits claimants ever succeeding to rent in the private sector, because once a tenant has a bad record, it is extremely difficult to unwind.

Secondly, a recent study carried out by the RLA shows that almost 87% of landlords would not be willing to let their properties to claimants of universal credit, while 38% have already experienced universal credit tenants going into arrears. Where are we going with this madness? I remind everyone of the percentage of rent arrears among those on universal credit in Northern Ireland. A recent study commissioned by Crisis—a homelessness charity—and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that 90% of local authorities were concerned that universal credit would increase homelessness, which it has, because of section 21s. The list of evidence goes on and on.

The RLA has found that 73%—Minister, these are the facts, the stats and the evidence—of its thousands of members,

“lack confidence in renting to tenants on the Credit due to uncertainty that they will be able to recover rent arrears.”

Another major landlords’ trade association, the National Landlords Association, found that only one in five of its members would let their properties to tenants on universal credit. I have already talked about Crisis. The trade association for letting agencies, the Association of Residential Letting Agents, which many hon. Members deal with, found that

“34% of ARLA Propertymark letting agents who we surveyed told us that they had seen a reduction in landlords renting to Universal Credit claimants.”

The list goes on and on, so it is time to fix it.

This is what I propose to the Government. I am delighted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer listened to me, the MP for Eastbourne, and made those amends in the Budget. I suspect that a few others probably had a little more influence than me; but, heck, like all politicians, I have been banging on about it for years so I will take the credit. So there have been some adjustments, but where do we go next? I ask the Minister to report back to the new Secretary of State, with whom I worked in coalition and whom I congratulate on her position, and persuade her to go to the Chancellor and do what it takes to make defaults to landlords, by mutual tenant-landlord agreement, automatic; and to go over to Northern Ireland, see their minority Government colleagues in the DUP, find out exactly what their computer programme does that allows colleagues in Northern Ireland to do automatic default payments, follow their two-week advice—I would do the same on that—and implement it across the country.

I believe that what would happen is that the housing stock capacity in the private sector would go up exponentially—even potentially double—because of what I mentioned earlier. Despite the challenges with tenants sometimes being on benefit, the prejudices that landlords sometimes have against them are often founded on the reality that landlords do not feel secure that they will receive the money. I am absolutely certain that if landlords know that they will get a default payment, over a couple of years there will be a substantial increase in the amount of private rented stock available to people on universal credit, and that could make a significant difference in reducing homelessness.

There is an opportunity for the Government. Despite the ideological and fundamental errors that underpin some elements of universal credit, finally, after years and years of banging on the door, they are beginning to change. Thank heaven! Now that door is open, the Minister and her Government have an opportunity to be game changers and to convert universal credit into what I believe it always should have been: a decent benefit. One of the key things they need to do is around the default payment, which I have debated this morning. Along with that—this is my other favourite—I would go to the current Secretary of the State at the DWP and ask her to have a word with the previous MP for her constituency, the former Chancellor George Osborne, and ask for the £3 billion back. He took that out after 2015, when the Liberals were defenestrated at the election; he slashed £3 billion a year out of universal credit, which was supposed to be about the work allowance.

If we get that money back and properly convert what should be a default payment to landlords, we can produce what universal credit should have been, and was originally designed to be: a progressive, positive benefit that gives people transformative opportunities. After five years of it being a complete car crash in so many ways, I believe that the Government finally understand that. I urge the Government to make my day and, possibly, that of the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, and to make automatic payments as a default to landlords. I ask that they to do it instantly, they do it in both the private and public sectors and they do it now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Aldous]

The hon. Lady highlights an example of the problems with implementing universal credit that many of us have experience of from our constituency casework.

[Melanie Onn]

In October, the housing association Shoreline in my constituency had 182 residents who were already on universal credit, and 80% of them were in rent arrears. Such examples create a stigma against people who are on universal credit, because of those issues. Fundamentally, we have to iron out some of those problems to prevent people from getting into arrears and to give private landlords confidence that those people will not be defaulters or bad debtors when paying their rent.

[Peter Aldous]

Yes. It is quite clear that private sector landlords’ confidence in the system has been very severely dented. I sense, from my own perspective, that the situation has improved, but I acknowledge that there is still a great more work to be done. Local letting agents advise me that the majority of their landlord clients are still reluctant to let to universal credit claimants. It is also necessary to bear in mind that many landlords own only one or two properties and the rents that they receive are a very important part of their annual income.

The Eastern Landlords Association, which has 1,400 members, highlights the lack of a level playing field, with council and housing association landlords able to secure direct payments after eight weeks’ arrears, while private landlords need specific tenants’ approval to do so. This is still proving a disincentive to private landlords to let to universal credit claimants; as we have seen, many of them have lost confidence in the system. It highlights the need for better communication with the DWP and describes the system of claiming alternative payment arrangements online as “hit and miss”. It advises that while some claims do get processed, in its experience at least 50% do not get looked at.

The roll-out of universal credit is a mammoth task. There is a lot of heavy lifting to be done, which the DWP cannot do on its own. There is a need for a partnership approach, which should involve private landlords as well as councils, the 1ocal voluntary sector, such as citizens advice bureaux, and housing associations. To give credit to the DWP, under the guidance of my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds)—perhaps I should say my right hon. Friend; I wish him all the best in his new role—it has begun to adopt such an approach in recent months, and I anticipate that the Minister will continue in the same way. It is important that full consideration is given to the Residential Landlords Association’s recommendations and to the innovative proposals from Crisis to adapt the Newcastle trailblazer for reducing homelessness to ensure that those in receipt of universal credit do not fall into rent arrears.

In Lowestoft, three suggestions have been made. First, in each DWP office, the Government should have a landlord liaison officer for landlords to contact to discuss issues with their tenants’ housing claims, when the landlord has applied for an alternative payment arrangement. Secondly, housing moneys should not be released to a tenant when they are being sanctioned, as they often choose to use the money to support the sanction shortfall. In effect, that means the landlord is penalised. Finally, when a sanction does happen, the housing money should automatically be paid through an alternative payment arrangement to the landlord.

A lot of people wish to speak in this debate, so I will conclude by saying that if universal credit is to be a success and to do what it says on the tin, it is important that the DWP listens to the proposals that I have outlined, as colleagues will too, so that we fully regain the confidence of private landlords, because they have a very important role to play.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tracy Brabin]

Gingerbread is a fantastic charity. In my constituency, a young woman came to me who was being bullied by her landlord in all sorts of ways because of her inability to pay her rent. Single women living with children are incredibly vulnerable to that.

The ending of an assured shorthold tenancy agreement with a private landlord is now the primary reason for families presenting themselves as homeless to the local authority. The pressures on local authority housing could not be more severe. In Kirklees, for example, there are currently 9,700 applications for only 171 properties. It is a priority for all of us to support the private rental sector as universal credit is rolled out, if we want to lessen the burden on local councils. But this problem will not go away any time soon. The number of working households claiming housing benefit in the private sector has more than doubled since 2009, whereas the wages of some of the lowest paid in our society have stagnated. DWP figures confirm that only 7% of private renters are actually unemployed and seeking work. Sadly, although the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that the private rental sector has grown by a third over the past 12 months, the number of those being evicted has also grown, with 7,200 more private tenants losing their homes in 2015 than in 2003.

[Melanie Onn]

My hon. Friend’s point is incredibly important. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has been working with the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research, and they showed that in 2015, 80% of private sector evictions were no fault evictions. That resulted in individuals going to local authorities, but perhaps being considered as people who had made themselves intentionally homeless. Does she agree that that creates a huge difficulty in the system?

[Tracy Brabin]

The idea of people making themselves intentionally homeless is a huge problem for a number of my constituents. It affects their credit rating and rolls on into the rest of their lives in a really unacceptable manner.

The greatest concern for landlords is the move away from direct payments. Many worry that tenants will not have the capability to budget effectively and will end up spending the housing element of universal credit on other essentials. In the debate last year on UC, the Government argued that delaying payment for rent was the same as those in work being paid at the end of the month, so the delay was a good lesson in budgeting and responsibility. Well, maybe for middle-class families with savings or relatives with cash to see them through a tricky financial patch, but when—as the English housing survey discovered—66% of private renters have no savings, the ability to budget is not so straightforward.

After the Budget, the Residential Landlords Association did a snap survey, which found that 36% of landlords would have more confidence in letting to tenants on universal credit. Sadly, 64% said they would not. I suppose their caution is not surprising, given that the RLA reported a high rise in rent arrears where universal credit has been introduced. The National Landlords Association chair agreed, saying that they expected to see

“a steady decline in landlords being willing to rent to benefit claimants in the next 18 months to two years.”

Only 18% to 20% of private landlords accept tenants who pay their rent with local housing allowance. That is down from 46% in 2010-11. Why? Because universal credit encourages tenants to fall into arrears, and 38% of landlords have seen tenants in receipt of UC entering rent arrears. In Kirklees Council—my constituency council—437 claimants are on universal credit, with further roll-outs scheduled for later in the year. Some 82% of those are in arrears, to the tune of seven weeks’ rent on average, whereas before going onto UC, the figure was 5.1 weeks in arrears.

Landlords do not want to evict tenants, because it costs £1,800 to end one tenancy and start another. They want the security of knowing that they will have their rent paid regularly, in a timely fashion. Although bad and greedy landlords have given the sector a bad press, a substantial number of landlords in the private sector are hard-working and understanding. They often have only one property to let out as a contribution to their pension, or as a way of saving for the future. In fact, two thirds of landlords are basic rate taxpayers and are not on high incomes. However, although they are sympathetic to tenants, they know that they too would fall into debt if the rent was not paid.

In conclusion, it is vital that we pause and fix universal credit, ensuring that families are not made homeless due to delays in the system. More widely, we must also increase the number of affordable homes that are available. Only by increasing the numbers of affordable homes being built will we reduce waiting lists, keep rents low and keep families in private rental housing to ease the burden on councils, supporting them to provide excellent social housing for the most vulnerable in our communities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

I will certainly consider my hon. Friend’s kind invitation. I agree that a lot of Disability Confident events have been very productive in engaging employers at local level and encouraging them to see the benefits of employing disabled people. The Department for Work and Pensions continues to support local authorities and MPs in holding such events, so maybe I will have the opportunity to attend one in his constituency.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

The truth is that this simply is not working. My constituent, Alan, has just graduated with a BSc honours degree in computing technology. He is blind and has a guide dog to assist him, but when he tells prospective employers about this in advance, they just do not take his applications. He has applied for 857 jobs but he has got absolutely nowhere. What is he going to do?

[Mr Gauke]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question. We have undoubtedly made progress in the last few years. We have 600,000 more disabled people in work than was the case in 2010, but there is more to do, which is why the Government have an ambition to increase the number from 3.5 million to 4.5 million over the course of 10 years. It is also why we published our recent Command Paper on the subject. It is really important to bring about a culture change among employers so that people like Alan can have those opportunities.

Universal Credit Project Assessment Reviews

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

I do not accept the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. There are now more people with better opportunities—whether children going to better schools, more working-class kids going to university or people on lower incomes taking more of that income home to support their families. I grew up in a Labour stronghold where I was told repeatedly to know my place, which was to remain on welfare like everybody else in my community. That is why the Conservative party introduced universal credit, and why it is so important that we ensure that it is successfully delivered. Universal credit is founded on the belief that work should always pay, and it encourages people to find work and not stay trapped in the vicious cycle of the benefits system.

The request for the publication of the reports in the motion has been granted. I am, though, a little perplexed about why we need to see reports on assessments from back in 2012 when we have facts and figures that we can rely on today. I hope that the Minister can shed some light on that. Here is what is already in the public domain. Critics should welcome the fact that each person on universal credit is treated as an individual and provided with tailored support, working around their personal needs. For the first time, people have a named work coach. This is the first time that their personal requirements and unique needs are being assessed. It is the first time that their childcare, housing or work support is being assessed. More importantly, this will be the first time that many people from my community have had real support that tackles their needs and supports their aspirations to improve their and their families’ lives. They are no longer just a number to be told to get to the back of the queue.

Let us not forget that the previous welfare system created cliff edges, discouraged people from working for more than 16 hours a week and, most damning of all, trapped 1.5 million on out-of-work benefits for nearly a decade. I challenge anyone who would disagree that those people had been failed by the system.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I have wanted to make a comment for some time, so I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way.

On the supposed blocks in the previous system, I have been contacted by constituents who were previously nursing students in receipt of a nursing bursary and, under the old system, tax credits. Because that bursary was not considered an income, they were still able to get tax credits, so they could continue to pay their rent, bills and so on. Now, under universal credit, someone is doing a teaching degree and is in receipt of student finance, which counts as an income, so they are not eligible for any other benefits and they are already three months behind on their rent. Is that a demonstration of somebody being able to move on?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

The hon. Lady has made a speech; we will have short interventions.

Universal Credit

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I have similar experience of visiting jobcentres and being struck by the enthusiasm of the staff for UC. I urge Members from all parts of the House to visit their local jobcentre and talk to the staff there. The work coaches and jobcentre staff generally are doing excellent work, transforming lives, and they believe overwhelmingly that UC is giving them the tools to help people to transform their lives. That is what this reform is all about, and it is why I am so determined to deliver it and why I am so pleased we have united support for it today on our side of the House.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Given the Government’s assumptions on minimum incomes—the so-called floor, which penalises self-employed people on low incomes—will the Secretary of State review these rules, as they are putting people such as my constituent Tracy out of business and into debt?

[Mr Gauke]

The minimum income floor is an important part of our system. If we do not have it, we can leave the system in a place where we are simply not able to help people in self-employed jobs that are not giving them sufficient income to have the living standards they want. We have to provide support to those people, so that they have a sustainable job that provides sufficient income to them and does not provide an unfair burden on the taxpayer.

Universal Credit Roll-out

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) on an excellent maiden speech. I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) on securing this debate.

At Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition raised the issue of a letting agency in my constituency that has issued all its tenants with a notice of eviction, in anticipation of the universal credit roll-out beginning next month. It is effectively a pre-emptive notice of eviction, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), who is no longer in his place, mentioned in an intervention. That notice means that any constituent who falls into rent arrears as a result of the delays in their welfare payments can be evicted without notice. The roll-out of universal credit in my constituency is due on 13 December for all new claimants. Because of the issuing date of the notice, the earliest that people could find themselves at risk of eviction is mid-January. Because the notice has already been served, people could be evicted without notice from mid-January to mid-May, at which point the notice expires, and I assume the plan will then be to re-issue it. The constituent who first contacted me about this said she feels “utterly helpless” and “heartsick”. This is an absolutely outrageous way to treat people.

[Vicky Ford]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Melanie Onn]

The notice will have left all those who received it stressed and worried for their futures.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) can ask to intervene, but she cannot remain on her feet.

[Melanie Onn]

I was really disappointed that the Prime Minister did not condemn that letter in the Chamber yesterday, and I invite the Minister to do that today. Rather than acknowledging the impact this policy is clearly having, she waxed and waned about the fact that she had not seen a copy of the letter. Well, I have the letter here, and I am very happy to hand it over to the Minister once I have finished my speech, so that he has a chance to read it for himself, if he has not done so already. The letter appears to be a blatant attempt to circumvent the laws passed in the Housing Act 1988 and the Deregulation Act 2015, which require two months’ notice to be given to tenants before an eviction can be carried out.

[Vicky Ford]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. A number of us on the Conservative Benches would like to join her in condemning that letter, which we believe is illegal, and we would like to have a copy. Has she actually met the housing association to tell them that it is not legal?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The letter is becoming quite contentious. I am sure that it can be passed to the Minister.

[Melanie Onn]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I need to make it absolutely clear that this is about the private rental sector; it is not about a housing association. Conservative Members may well feel that this is illegal and I know that one of them condemned the intervention that was made earlier about the fact that they believed this to be illegal. I received some completely unsolicited legal advice—lawyers in housing contacted me—to the effect that this is not illegal. It is completely legitimate; nothing prohibits it. One of the big issues would be that even if it were illegal, many of these people would not have the capabilities to seek legal redress. That is a real issue.

[Frank Field]

It’s immoral.

[Melanie Onn]

Despite the very clear moral questions around this action, I am advised that it remains a lawful way of operating. I have even had some indication that some landlords are issuing these notices at the outset of tenancies, which is really quite frightening—a much bigger issue than that which we are discussing here today. I really hope that the Government will look at closing this loophole in future. I am happy to share the information. It is online; it is on my Facebook page. People are very welcome to look at that.

The Government said that my Opposition colleagues and I were guilty of scaremongering when we warned that rolling out universal credit would lead to people going into debt or being evicted from their properties. Well, it is not just us who are making that claim; it is charities, councils and housing associations. It is the statistical evidence from the areas where universal credit has been piloted, and now it is the letting agencies, too. My local housing association, Shoreline Housing Partnership, has 182 tenants who have already gone on to universal credit. Of those, 145 are in rent arrears of an average of £400. That is 80% of them. When universal credit is fully rolled out, the housing association expects the total debt from tenants to increase to £2.2 million.

[Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it would help if the Government were to extend the implied consent, so that third sector organisations such as housing associations, but more importantly citizens advice bureau and welfare advisers, could give support and advice to people on universal credit without first having to jump through dozens of hoops to speak with the universal credit managers?

[Melanie Onn]

I thank my hon. Friend. That is an excellent idea, which I hope the Minister will consider carefully and respond to.

My local housing association anticipates an increase in possession orders and evictions. It expects the condition of its properties to deteriorate as tenants opt to eat rather than heat. The Library estimates that more than 13,000 people living in Great Grimsby will be eligible for universal credit once it is fully implemented, so I am sure that everyone will understand that I am really concerned that people in my town will pay a heavy price if the system does not work.

The warnings against pushing ahead with this roll-out now are loud and clear. The Government cannot feign ignorance of what is likely to come. If they go ahead next month in my constituency as planned, they will knowingly be putting more people at risk of debt, eviction and homelessness, and that, for me, really sits at odds with their much-heralded and noisily launched Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, because it appears as though two areas of policy are at complete odds with each other. That is the test: which is more important to them? I am pleading with the Government today to listen, press pause on the roll-out and get this right before moving ahead.

Social Security Support for Kinship Carers

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered social security support for kinship carers.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. There are about 200,000 kinship carers in the UK, three quarters of whom live in poverty. By taking in their relatives’ children they save the state tens of thousands of pounds in care costs and keep families together, often in tragic circumstances. Research suggests that children living in kinship care also have better outcomes than children fostered by non-relatives.

According to a report by the University of Bristol,

“Children in kinship care are more likely to have better mental health and behavioural outcomes due to the stability of placements and they are also more likely to preserve their identities through family and community ties.”

Yet although foster carers receive extra support from the state for their efforts, kinship carers are often denied even the bare minimum. According to the Family Rights Group, the majority have to give up work completely or temporarily to look after the children they take in. As a consequence, kinship carers have been disproportionately affected by the benefit cap. They are more likely to be unfairly sanctioned, because of the lack of joined-up working in the state system. For example, their appointments at the jobcentre might be scheduled at the same time as their meetings with a social worker—if they are lucky enough to get a social worker—none of which they are allowed to miss or move.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing a debate on this important issue. She makes an excellent case for the needs of kinship carers. Does she agree that we need to look more generally at the extraordinary contribution that carers make every single day to our society and our economy?

[Melanie Onn]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Indeed, this morning I was contacted by a constituent who has previously been to my office for assistance and who wanted to raise the issue of carers more generally. Her daughter had a brain injury at birth, and 24 years later she is still caring for her. She was keen to ensure that I understood the financial, social and emotional impact of taking on the responsibility of caring for another family member. We must always remember that many people around the country do excellent work in caring for their relatives, and their friends and neighbours in some instances. Too often we forget them and they are an overlooked group in our communities.

Due to reductions in funding to local councils, local authority allowances for carers have been cut. Although foster carers can receive fast-tracked support from social workers or child mental health services, kinship carers usually are left to get with on with it themselves. With regards to the support that does exist for kinship carers, a survey by the Family Rights Group and the Kinship Care Alliance found that 80% of carers do not know enough about the legal options and support that are available to them.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. She talks about kinship carers not understanding some of the benefits available to them. One of the difficulties that kinship carers face is that often they are grandparents, who would never not take in their grandchildren. However, lots of them have retired so they are not financially ready to take on young children again. I have cases in my constituency where grandparents face having to take equity from their properties to support the grandchildren who are now, in effect, their children. Does she agree that the Government lack understanding of what kinship caring is about? There is a real lack of understanding and support, particularly for older generations of people—grandparents—who are looking after children.

[Melanie Onn]

Certainly, there is a huge amount of expectation on families to ensure that children are cared for in a family setting. The state should be aware of those people and the support that they deserve should be available. Too often, kinship care arrangements are informal, unofficial and under the radar. Sometimes parents are in a crisis situation, some simply cannot cope and in more extreme cases there may be death in the family, and that burden falls on the wider family circle.

Older people who perhaps have retired are caring for members of their family for a second time—in my experience, it is often not the first time that they have done so. They may have looked after their children or other family members in their time, and then face doing that again in their retirement years, which they may have been looking forward to enjoying, free from the responsibility of the school run. Children are incredibly tiring and we tend to forget too easily the burden that is placed on people.

There is a huge amount that I would like the Government to do, not least to address the points that my hon. Friends highlighted in their interventions, to recognise the enormous value of kinship carers and to provide them with the support that they need. However, I want to focus on two measures that the Chancellor could adopt in his Budget next month at very little cost that would have a huge effect on younger carers today. The Minister may already have read the recommendations in the October 2015 Family Rights Group and Kinship Care Alliance report, but if she has not, will she do so? If she feels that my two measures do not go far enough and she would like to do even more, those recommendations would be well worth a read.

In September, I raised the case of my constituent Alyssa at Prime Minister’s questions. Alyssa took responsibility for raising her three younger siblings when their mother passed away four years ago. She was only 18 when she took on the care of her sisters and brother, which is an enormous responsibility for someone of such tender years who is just about to start out on their life journey themselves. She did an absolutely brilliant job, despite the numerous daunting challenges that she faced. She had to work to clear her mum’s debts while looking after her family. Her eldest sister is now in her second year of university, and Alyssa has just started a family of her own with her partner, which is wonderful news.

However, because Alyssa cared for her siblings, she is being denied the Sure Start maternity grant and child tax credits. She is missing out on up to about £3,000 a year in total. When the Government restricted the Sure Start maternity grant to a family’s first child, they reasoned that families could reuse the equipment that the grant helps to purchase, such as prams, toys and clothes. I do not think that Ministers really considered that some carers take children into their care after infancy, so they never had clothes, prams or bottles to begin with.

It seems to me that Alyssa’s case is an anomaly in policy—an unintended consequence of the one-child limit on Sure Start and the two-child limit on child tax credits—but she is not a one-off. Another constituent contacted me recently to say that his wife had taken on her sister’s two children a few years ago after she passed away. He and his wife are now expecting their first child, and they, too, will not be entitled to tax credits for their own child. If they had already claimed tax credits for a child of their own and had later put in a claim for her nieces, that would have been accepted and all the children would have been eligible for tax credits. The Government included an exemption for kinship carers in the Welfare Reform Act 2012, but I just do not think that they realised that the exemption did not cover all cases.

Lisa from Grimsby took care of her 18-month-old nephew five years ago. He was diagnosed with global developmental delay—autism—and has an extra Y chromosome. His mother’s mental health issues meant that she was unable to meet his care needs, which only increased as he got older, so Lisa and her husband eventually both gave up work to look after him. That is another example of the financial hardship that kinship carers often face. When they had a child of their own this year, they were denied the the Sure Start maternity grant. Unfortunately, it is all too tempting for Governments to take kinship carers for granted, allowing them to make enormous sacrifices and raise children who are not their own, without offering them the support they need and deserve.

It is unknown how many carers are or will be affected by these policies, because the Government do not measure that. However, a survey by the Family Rights Group suggests that 25% of kinship carers have both their birth children and kin children living with them, and about one in five—up to 40,000—carers has three or more children living with them. As the two-child and one-child limits are not applied retrospectively, a small fraction of that number will be affected by this issue.

The number will be growing every year, but we are talking about a small amount in cost terms to extend the exemptions for kinship carers to those who have children of their own after taking kin children into their care. That small cost would be of huge benefit to kinship carers, like those in my constituency who are sacrificing a massive amount to do the right thing and give children a loving home within their family.

I am calling on the Government to ensure that kinship carers are eligible for child tax credits and the Sure Start maternity grant when they have children of their own. I asked the Prime Minister about Alyssa’s case on 13 September and she asked me to write to her about it. I sent her a letter that day, and I sent another letter with more information on 3 October after Alyssa’s appeal for the maternity grant was rejected, but as I mentioned before, I still have not received a reply. I hope the Minister will be much more forthcoming in how she plans to deal with these anomalies in the law so that kinship carers are no longer penalised for the amazing work they do.

State Pension Age for Women

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Guy Opperman]

Not yet, no—I am not going to. All of us here, as constituency MPs, have met women who have been affected by the state pension age rises. I have met them ever since my election as Member of Parliament for Hexham in 2010, and during the passage of the 2011 Act. Whether they are affiliated to the WASPI campaign or not, I have seen them in and out of my surgeries, like all colleagues have done. Like many, I have answered correspondence on the issue. I make it clear that I will be delighted to meet the all-party parliamentary group when it is re-formed, as I am sure it will be, and will be in a position to sit down with them to discuss their ongoing situations.

The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) said that she expected me to speak only about the 1995 Act, the 2011 Act, all the transitional arrangements and so on. I accept, and she will understand, that I have to make the case on those matters, not least because of what has been said, but I want this debate to be done in a different way. I want to say two things at the outset.

If individual Members of Parliament have specific cases where they feel their individual constituents are affected by state pension age changes and find themselves in financial hardship, whether they are people who have to reduce their hours because of sickness, disability or caring responsibility, I and the London DWP team will look into those individual cases. As Members pass them on to us, we will do what we can to provide assistance, whether that is understanding of the availability of carer’s allowance, housing benefit, tax credits, income support, employment and support allowance or other benefits. However, the essence of what I want to address the House on is this.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Guy Opperman]

No, I will not. It is not the Government’s position that we will make further concessions by the 1995 or 2011 Acts. The fundamental point—at this point I really wish to address the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South—is that the Government have done a massive amount on a progressive basis to get people back into employment or retraining in their pre-pension years.

First, we created, and we have now extended, a network of older claimant champions in all 34 Jobcentre Plus districts in the country. The champions work with Jobcentre work coaches to provide advice and best practice on skills provision, digital and social support and job-search support, which leads into the “Fuller Working Lives” strategy issued by the Government on a cross-Government basis in February this year.

Secondly, we have committed massively to lifelong learning. The reality is that more than 200,000 people aged over 60 have entered further education since 2014-15. [Interruption.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I would say two things in response to that question. First, we have been considering particular issues around our armed forces in the Green Paper, which gives opportunities not just for ESA but for PIP. We are also looking at being able to passport information that may be in someone’s war pension record or medical history into our benefits system. I am quite happy to look at the case the hon. Lady raises with regard to Motability.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

What does the Minister say to the private landlord who came to see me with his tenant with concerns about future eviction rates if there is no option under universal credit for rent to be paid directly to landlords?

[Damian Hinds]

There is, of course, the facility for rent to be paid directly to landlords where necessary, and we are streamlining the process for doing that. However, we think that the general principle is right that most people in receipt of universal credit should know what their housing liabilities are and pay their rent when they are out of work and when they are in work.

Housing Benefits (18 to 21-year-olds)

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

The YMCA has been involved in the consultation process. As I believe I said at an event downstairs last night, it is always a trusted adviser that provides excellent advice and information. Absolutely: those with complex needs and mental health conditions will be exempt from this policy.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

Will the Minister tell me whether she has made any assessment of the impact of these changes on excellent small charities, such as Doorstep in my constituency, that help young people who find themselves unable to continue to live at home?

[Caroline Nokes]

I have received a great deal of information from and had roundtables with a number of providers and charities, including some of the smaller ones. We have been very clear: those for whom it is inappropriate to live at home will be exempt from this policy.