Housing Benefit (Abolition of Social Sector Size Criteria)

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am very happy to confirm that I do not think that I said it, but if I did, then it is not what I meant to say. I was very clear that the hon. Lady was telling half a story and was not giving the House all the facts on which to make a balanced judgment.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

rose—

[Barbara Keeley]

rose—

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[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

Can I just say to the Minister who led for the Government that his statements were very thin? They lacked any sense of compassion. He wanted to debate numbers and affordability, but that showed that he does not really care about the impact on the people affected. I think that probably comes from the Secretary of State, so I am sorry to say that about the Minister, because I think that he set out to do his job with compassion. However, this policy clearly has no compassion built into it, apart from those parts forced on the Government by Opposition attacks, because it was even worse when it started.

The policy is punitive, and it is clearly designed to be so. In the context of modern family structures, it is clear that families dissipate much earlier than they used to, and young people increasingly want their independence, leaving parents who are not yet 60 with extra rooms that they are expected to give up, which often means moving out of their community. That is the effect of this policy.

There is a housing problem, with public housing stock being too low. Governments have not built enough public housing stock. As far as I am concerned, this basically comes down to a deliberate attack on people in hardship. There has actually been a 27% increase in housing benefit applications in the two authorities I represent, and a lot of that is because people are in work—we have heard the great boast about the fall in the number of people on the claimant register—but they are not working in a way that allows them to pay all their bills without claiming tax credits and housing benefit. That is what I have seen in my constituency surgeries over the last period.

The solution is very simple: we need to build more public housing to rent. That is clearly the priority, and I hope it will be taken up by the next Labour Government. We need to build houses that people in the public sector can rent, and we need to build them in such a way that there are smaller houses they can go to if they wish to move, because at the moment that cannot happen. I tried to ask the Minister—he would not let me intervene—how many of the 820,000 spare rooms have in fact been given up. The answer, it turns out, is 4.5%. When it comes to effectiveness, this policy is a failure. It does not work. Around 25,000 fewer people now have spare bedrooms, according to the Government.

In addition, there is the allocation system. Most authorities now have priorities for the homeless, for movers and for first-time applicants. What is happening is that homeless single people are demanding to move into apartment blocks that were designed for the elderly, and social dissonance is growing because they cannot live side by side. That is another aspect of this policy being forced on people by the Government. Single people would have taken an extra bedroom, but now they do not have that option and have to live within their means. Therefore, my pensioners are coming to me to say that people are being inappropriately housed in buildings designed for single pensioners. It is a punitive system and it must end.

Personal Independence Payments

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Clarke]

I am glad that my hon. Friend intervened to underline my assertion that problems exist throughout the whole United Kingdom.

The truth is that the picture is depressing, and it is not as if the Department for Work and Pensions has not been warned. The National Audit Office, which published a report in February 2014 entitled “Personal Independence Payment: early progress”, investigated the performance of the DWP as it introduced PIP. It found that

“the Department did not allow enough time to test whether the assessment process could handle large numbers of claims. As a result of this poor early operational performance, claimants face long and uncertain delays and the Department has had to delay the wider roll-out of the programme.”

The Department anticipated that it would take 74 days to decide on a claim, but the actual average wait is 107 days. For terminally ill claimants—I underline “terminally ill”—the process was taking 28 days on average against a departmental assumption of 10 days. That represents a wholly unrealistic assumption of the capacities of both the Department for Work and Pensions and Atos in Scotland. The end result is a system that would not work on paper, clearly does not work in practice and is further straining claimants’ finances and health.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said in response to the NAO report:

“The Department need to understand the causes of this backlog to develop a clear plan on how they are going to work with contractors to clear it, and ensure there are suitable processes in place to make sure this does not happen again.”

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

I have experience in my constituency, as I am sure my right hon. Friend does in his, of people winning an appeal after a considerable amount of time. The person will receive their PIP allowance some six months after, but their housing benefit is not backdated to the point at which they lost their disability allowance. When the benefit is lost, the person also loses their passport to housing benefit, but local authorities do not backdate to the day when the person lost their disability or other benefit. People are therefore left with substantial debts in their housing account that no one will pay for.

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. If I may say so, I am pleased that we have here so many Coatbridge-born Members of Parliament, including my hon. Friends the Members for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) and for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham). Not least you, Mr Gray, have close associations with Coatbridge—

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[Mr Harper]

I may at the end of my speech, but if the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will try to deal with the points raised by the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill. As this is his debate, it would be discourteous if I did not do so.

We have a new team of officials in the Department that is working on a daily basis with our assessment providers. Atos deals with assessments in Scotland, while Capita is the other provider in Great Britain. I look at their performance on a weekly basis to ensure that we are driving through improvements. The capacity of the providers has increased. We have doubled the number of health professionals carrying out the assessments. We have increased the number of assessment centres and extended the opening hours. We have also increased the number of paper-based assessments, which occur when the evidence that the claimant sends to us makes it sufficiently clear that a decision can be reached without needing to get them to attend a face-to-face assessment. We follow that process when we can. If claimants have also had a work capability assessment, we are looking at using the report from that as part of the evidence, and that is enabling us to make more decisions on paper, thus sparing the claimant the need to come in for a face-to-face assessment.

We have made a number of changes to our processes and IT systems to ensure that the transmission of information from the provider to the Department is streamlined. We have also looked at what we communicate to claimants regarding the information with which they provide us in the first place to ensure that we get the right information that enables us to make a decision earlier in the process.

We have increased the number of decisions we have taken. We made more than 35,000 a month according to the latest published statistics, which cover up to July. Since then, we have continued to build significantly on those numbers week on week. I will not pretend that the problem is fixed, but we are moving in the right direction. We will deliver the Secretary of State’s commitment to ensure that, by the end of this year, no one will have to wait more than 16 weeks for their assessment, and we will look to improve that further next year.

In Scotland specifically, Atos, which is the assessment provider there, has more than trebled its output this year. It is now clearing more cases than we send it and working through its backlog. The picture is improving, but I do not want to take away from the fact that people have been inconvenienced and experienced some delays. In Scotland, we have seen one of the best improvements for any part of Great Britain. There has been a 40% increase in the number of home consultations. The right hon. Gentleman and the report to which he referred said that given the geography and population density of Scotland, travelling to an assessment centre can involve a lengthy journey. More home consultations are taking place, and there is a new assessment centre in Edinburgh, with more to follow in Aberdeen and Dundee in the coming months.

We have improved the communication to claimants at the front end of the process so that they know the best evidence to supply and how long their claim may take to be assessed. We stress the importance of sending us relevant information to speed up the claim. We have also been communicating better with claimants to confirm when we have received their forms so that they know that their claim is in the system.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the performance of the system for claimants who are terminally ill. I am pleased to say that our dealing with those cases is now pretty close to our target. He is right that the performance earlier this year was not adequate. My predecessor, the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), put a lot of work into dealing with that, working closely with Macmillan Cancer Support. I think we have got that part of the process working well, as is right, because it is important that we make timely decisions for those with terminal illnesses and give them support. The assessment providers are giving claimants better information about where they are in the process, how long a claim may take and who to contact at each stage of their claim.

On assessment outcomes—while the right hon. Gentleman talked about delays, he also touched on the assessment itself—we want to ensure that people get high-quality, objective and fair assessments. We want everyone to get the right decision first time. The report included several quotes from CAB customers on both sides of the argument, a number of which demonstrated that once people had received their assessment, they felt that the process was fair and that it reached the right outcomes. There were, of course, some quotes setting out other experiences, but I thought that the Citizens Advice report was fairly balanced and demonstrated that the quality of assessment is good.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about the impact of some of the delays, and we also heard about that in interventions. Of course, a delay in a claim can cause claimants a cash-flow issue. It is worth saying that if someone is successful in getting PIP, their award is backdated to the date of claim, but I accept that some face such a issue. PIP is not an out-of-work benefit. It is not designed for those who are unable to work, as that is what jobseeker’s allowance and the employment and support allowance are for. Under the ESA, people are paid an assessment rate from when they put in the claim. If people are unable to work because of their disability or health condition, PIP is not the benefit that deals with their lack of income.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about the important issue of passporting, which is where getting PIP entitles someone to other benefits. I was asked about carer’s allowance, and when someone gets PIP, that will be backdated, and the carer’s allowance can be backdated, too.

[Michael Connarty]

The Minister must accept that if housing benefit is not backdated, people can be left with a substantial debt, even if they get PIP on appeal.

[Mr Harper]

I listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said about that. PIP and DLA are not passported benefits for housing benefit. There is a disability premium in housing benefit, but getting PIP or DLA does not entitle someone to housing benefit. If he wants to write to me about a specific case, however, I will look into it. PIP and DLA can give a bit more housing benefit if someone is entitled to that. However, they do not determine whether someone is entitled to housing benefit, so I am not sure I follow his point.

[Michael Connarty]

I will do what the Minister suggests. After the debate, I will be meeting the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), about that very point.

[Mr Harper]

Okay. On other passporting issues, blue badges can be issued without PIP being in payment, so if someone is not getting PIP, it does not mean that they cannot get a blue badge. NHS help with travel expenses and prescriptions is based on the receipt of income-related benefits. Local authorities are able to provide social care or help with adaptations on the basis of their assessments, and they should not exclude people just because they are not entitled to the personal independence payment.

In the couple of minutes remaining, I shall say a little more about claims relating to those who are terminally ill. In addition to the things that I have mentioned, we have put in place a dedicated phone service for such claims, as well as an electronic form so that the medical information we require from GPs and consultants can get to the Department as quickly as possible. As I said, we are now achieving the performance that we would want from the Department, so we have made progress in that area.

I understand the frustrations that people have experienced. There have been cases in my constituency of people waiting too long. I have been frank about that, and my top priority is to improve that situation. We are making progress and moving in the right direction, and we will hit the Secretary of State’s commitment by the end of the year—I give the right hon. Gentleman my assurance about that. I have clearly set out that we are spending more money on supporting those on DLA and PIP in every year of this Parliament compared with the year we came to office. It is not the case that we are dealing with the deficit off the backs of disabled people, and I want to ensure that the customer experience is improved.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about an independent review. He will know that Paul Gray has been appointed to carry out the first independent review. He has taken evidence from a range of people involved in this benefit. He is due to provide his report, which the Department will publish, by the end of the year. It will set out, according to his terms of reference, information about the quality of assessments, how the providers are performing and whether the assessments are correctly putting people into the right categories.

DWP: Performance

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

In fact, we have been more successful in getting disabled people back into work. The proportion of disabled people in work is now rising as a result of what we have been doing. On the back of the work capability assessment, some 700,000 people will now be seeking and finding work.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

I hope to be able to raise this matter again if I am called to speak. Why did the Treasury have to borrow £13.5 billion extra above its target? The reason given was the fall in income tax receipts. People are now living on poverty wages—they are being forced into what the Secretary of State calls jobs, but they do not pay a wage that they can live on.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Fond as I am of the hon. Gentleman, the reality is that this coalition Government have raised the tax threshold, meaning that 26 million people now pay less tax and millions have been taken out of the lowest tax band altogether. That is a huge statement.

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[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

The fact that we know about the work capability assessment is that 700,000 people are still waiting to be assessed.

We have heard a lot of talk about DLA. Disability benefits, including DLA, were basically Margaret Thatcher’s Government’s dumping ground for people she did not want to put on the unemployment register.

Employment and support allowance and PIP are a problem because people are not getting assessed. The problem is not about the delivery company. It is not about whether it is Atos or someone else. It is about the basis of the assessment. I had two recent cases. I had a letter in January from a woman who said, “Thank you for believing in my husband. He got his benefit back. Sadly, he died over the Christmas holidays.” He clearly was not fit to work.

I met another lady who said that the DWP had killed her husband. He had a Co-op book. Perhaps people who do not know about working-class communities do not know what a Co-op book is. It is where people pay their insurance to somebody who comes round every Friday night. He was told that he was fit to work. He got no benefit, so he took a book back. He literally dropped down dead going round the village with his book on a Friday.

The contract had no penalties. Even though 158,000 cases were overturned by the DWP and the benefit appeals system cost £40 million, the contract had no penalties for Atos or anyone else. I hope that the Government will not let a similar contract in the future.

The system must be based on medical assessments. That has gone under this Government. People relied on the assessment of a consultant. That would be taken really seriously and people would keep their benefits. It would be realised that they were not capable of work. That has all gone. Now someone is partly trained to sit at a computer and tap away, without even looking at the person who is asking for the appeal or for the benefits. That has got to stop; we have to go back to medically based assessments.

We are told that there are fewer people on the claimant count—people are in employment—but the fact is, as I said to the Secretary of State, that £13.5 billion more had to be borrowed because of the fall in income tax receipts. He said that that is because the personal allowance has now been raised to £10,000—that is £200 a week; that is 20 hours maximum. People are still getting tax credits to top that up, which is why we still have basically the working poor claiming benefits while they are working.

On jobseeker’s allowance, everyone I talk to about the Universal Jobmatch says, “Oh, it’s out of date. The jobs have gone by the time you apply.” People are searching the world for jobs when they are looking for a job locally, and they may not have the skills or education to take the things that are on offer. Telephones have been removed by the DWP from jobcentres. People cannot phone in to make their claims so they have to go and find some other way of doing it.

The Government refuse to believe diligent jobseekers. I know someone who made 20 job applications a day and was told, “We do not believe you”—sanctioned. Another person was sent for a training or work interview on the same day as they were signing on, so they did not turn up for their interview—sanctioned. Another was told at their job interview, “14 hours at a basic minimum wage”, so they would therefore lose all of their benefit to keep their home, which was a private rent—sanctioned. Those are the case-by-case facts. It is quite clear that the Secretary of State lives in a parallel universe, and so do most of the people who have been defending him.

Pathways to Work worked, and I remember the pleasure of people being trained back into work capability. Finally, we must have some concerns with DWP and jobcentre staff. I opened a telephone bank, and I said at the time, “You need counsellors to support people because they are stressed; they are missing work because they are ill, and that is caused by this Government.”

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order.

Job Insecurity

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

Yes, we are well aware that insecurity in general has negative health effects. It is important, therefore, that we restore security.

It is worth quoting a study that was carried out a year or so ago, which contrasted people’s attitude towards their work now with their attitude roughly a decade ago, in 2003-04. The workplace employment relations study said that despite recession, the level of work satisfaction is higher than it was before. Of course, these are qualitative judgments and we cannot quantify these things, but I accept the basic point—we need job security and confidence—so let me take the various policy issues raised in the motion, and that the Opposition spokesman raised.

We are already dealing with some of the issues the hon. Gentleman raised, as he well knows. The consultation on zero-hours contracts will finish on 13 March. We have made it clear that we would like to take action on exclusivity. We are discussing the practicalities of that and I will return to the House to report on it. He refers in the motion to penalties for minimum wage abuse. He may recall that I explained to the House just over a week ago—I think I was facing the shadow Chief Secretary —that the penalties are being quadrupled. We are bringing forward primary legislation that will extend the penalty system per worker, rather than per company, which will potentially be much more prohibitive.

Contrary to what it says in the motion, we are looking at local enforcement. Joint actions between Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and local councils are already taking place. Again, we have acknowledged that there are issues with false self-employment. The Treasury has admitted that this is a potential area of abuse. It has investigated it and a consultation is going out on how we can deal with the problem. Therefore, a lot of the issues raised in the motion are already being dealt with, as I think the shadow spokesman is well aware.

However, I want to deal with the areas where the hon. Gentleman reheats some of the criticisms of actions we took in the past. On the broad issue of employment rights, I have always made it clear that the hire and fire culture is not something I or we want to see. The people who argued that introducing a hire and fire culture into business was the only way to create employment have been proved as comprehensively wrong as the people who talked about a triple-dip recession, which is why we have not followed their advice.

It would also have been gracious to acknowledge that in some respects employment rights have been massively enhanced, and in two respects in particular: shared parental leave and paternity leave, and extending the right to flexible working. This affects hundreds of thousands of workers and potentially millions, whose rights at work have as a consequence been entrenched.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

Talking about hire and fire cultures, does the Secretary of State recall saying that there should be no discrimination or victimisation of trade unionists following the dispute at Ineos in my constituency? Is he therefore as shocked as I am to hear that the convenor of shop stewards has today been summarily dismissed by the company on trumped-up charges?

[Vince Cable]

I am surprised at that. I am not an expert on employment law, but I thought that protection from dismissal for trade union activities was a fully protected employment right. If the story is as has just been described, I would have thought the person concerned would have a good case to support his job.

Let me deal with the areas where the Opposition spokesperson was critical. He referred to the fact that we have quite deliberately tried to reduce the scope of employment tribunals, both by extending the qualifying period from one to two years and through the fee system, albeit with remission in respect of people on low incomes, as I think he would acknowledge. That was done for a specific reason. We are trying to ensure that difficult cases are moved from a legal, court framework to a framework of conciliation through ACAS. Lest anyone imagine that ACAS is some right-wing, business-friendly organisation that is against employees, let me point out—I do not know whether this has been picked up by the Opposition—that I recently appointed Brendan Barber as its head, so those whose employment disputes are referred to it can be pretty confident that they will be dealt with properly. It is surely right and sensible for small and medium-sized companies in particular not to tie up a lot of time and money in litigious processes when their disputes can be dealt with much better through conciliation.

The motion also refers to the dilution, as it has been described, of health and safety standards, although the hon. Member for Streatham did not refer to that in his speech. I do not know whether he has read the Löfstedt report, but it makes the position very clear. Essentially, what we have suggested is that where there is high-risk employment—and there is a great deal of it in agriculture, construction and manufacturing—the inspection regime should remain intact, but where there is found to be a low risk and that finding is evidence-based, the level of inspections should be reduced. No attempt is being made to undermine the safety regime applying to dangerous occupations.

It is worth bearing it in mind that, under the present Government, as under the last, British safety records are exemplary. According to our most recent survey, there were 148 fatalities last year. That is 148 too many, but the figure is comparable to the figure for the best previous year, 2009-2010, and significantly better than the figures in any other previous years. It means that we have a better health and safety record than almost any other country, including Germany, and that we are three times safer than France. Members should try to remember that important context before making throwaway references to diluting health and safety.

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[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

We are paying the penalty for all the interventions from people who did not put their names down to speak, Mr Speaker.

I want to focus on one part of the motion—the part that states that the Government’s watering down of rights, including protections against unfair dismissal, might be affecting the job security of people in this country. My main concern is to illustrate that describing the rights of workers as a burden on business sends a signal that has led to some businesses moving backwards in time and thinking that they can ill treat their work force with impunity.

The House will recall the threat to the INEOS petrochemical and refinery site at Grangemouth in my constituency at the end of 2013. At the time of the agreement that saved the plant, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills said that there should be no victimisation of trade unionists by the company. At the time, I asserted that the company had already victimised the joint convener, Stephen Deans, who was forced to resign, but I accept that the Secretary of States probably meant to call for that non-victimisation from the end of the dispute.

I was pleased when the Secretary of State seemed to say that he was as shocked as I was, and as the INEOS work force, my local community and elected representatives from all parties were, when we heard that the remaining convener had been summarily dismissed today. I investigated in order to find out the purpose of the dismissal and the charges against that trade union convener, who happens to be the vice-chair of Unite in the UK. One charge was that an article in the Daily Record had been commented on by the Scottish secretary of Unite, who has nothing to do with the plant, and that the convener had not done enough to influence that person not to write in that paper criticising the company. I criticised the company on the facts: there will be substantial job losses when it shuts the naphtha plant, the butadiene plant and the benzene plant. That was what was said in the article.

The second charge referred to:

“Comments attributed to you during a meeting held with the refinery management team on 12th December 2013 as detailed in the notes presented to you with the disciplinary invitation letter.”

That meeting was when the convener pointed out to the company that the shift schedule it had put together for the maintenance shutdown of the refinery would not work. The odd thing is that the company has now adopted his suggested schedule for work during the shutdown while sacking him for suggesting it in the first place. That is a trumped-up charge to get rid of the convener because, in this day and age, the company wants to get rid of the trade union.

After further investigation, I discovered that the company has been going around telling the elected shop stewards that they are not suitable people, that their credentials will be removed and that management will decide who will be the conveners and the representatives. Last night, I sought out the International Labour Organisation conventions on the matter. They are convention 87, on freedom of association and the protection of the right to organise, and convention 98, on the right to organise and collective bargaining, and they have both been breached by the company. I thought that perhaps something had happened under the UK Government to weaken those conventions, so I looked up the rights of trade unionists in the UK on the gov.uk website. The section headed “Trade union membership: your employment rights” states that people have the right to be a trade unionist and to be an activist with a trade union, and that they will be represented by their elected convener or shop steward. I went to the next section, entitled “Role of your trade union rep”, and that role is to represent members’ views to management and take part in discussions with management.

Every source is saying that a company does not have the right to sack a convener for telling the management that the work force have a different view. A company has no right to sack a convener because it does not like the fact that his union wrote something about it in a newspaper. The Secretary of State has underwritten £150 million in loan guarantees for the company to fund its expansion into using ethane from America and it has received £9 million from the Scottish Government in regional selective assistance, so I call on the Secretary of State to make these people come to the table and realise that they cannot breach ILO conventions or the laws of this land by sacking people summarily. I demand that they reinstate the convener forthwith and do what we all said. There should be no recriminations and no victimisation; let us negotiate the way forward. This is an important issue for my constituents and the economy of both Scotland and this country and we cannot have bully boys. I name Declan Sealy as the person who is behind all this in the company.

Housing Benefit (Under-occupancy Penalty)

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore]

I think we can see a large element of that in this policy.

As many hon. Members have said, if people move to the private rented sector, the housing benefit bill may actually increase. In Edinburgh, the local housing allowance, which is not especially generous, is £114 for a one-bedroom house. Some of my constituents have asked me about moving into the private rented sector. If they move from their two-bedroom council house, for which the rent is £91 a week, into a private rented property, it will cost more. Rather than a saving, there will be an increase in spending.

The vision set out by the Government is of a lot of single people rattling around in big houses with three or four bedrooms. We are asked, “Doesn’t that seem unfair? Why shouldn’t they move on?” In fact, the vast majority of my constituents affected by this tax are not living in especially big houses. It is suggested that people take in a lodger. I visited a constituent—a woman in her 50s who is on ESA, although she has always worked previously. Her home has two bedrooms, although the second is pretty small, and the kitchen is off the living room. Having a lodger is not just about having someone in the spare bedroom; it involves sharing all those quite small facilities with somebody else. While my constituent is sitting in the living room, perhaps enjoying watching television or whatever she enjoys doing in the evening, the lodger will come through the room, go into the kitchen, make a cup a tea and come out again. Hon. Members have to understand the kind of houses people actually live in.

Local councils in particular are making real efforts to mitigate the impact, but there is a downside to that, because this is another example of where savings in general public spending will not be achieved. How is money saved if, as my council will do, local authorities find additional funding to put into their DHP fund because they believe that that is the humane and common-sense thing to do, given all the disruption that various categories of people might otherwise suffer? That is additional public spending, so we will be saving with one hand and spending with the other. Crucially, the saving that central Government want to make will result in councils having to pick up the pieces.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

Many Members here who do not represent Scottish constituencies will not realise that the rate capping process carried out by the Scottish National party in government has left local government strapped, with 85% of the cuts last year being to local government budgets, so there will be less money available for the very funding my hon. Friend is talking about.

[Sheila Gilmore]

That is an important point. The council tax freeze which has been going on for nearly six years now—people in England will share the joys as well—has resulted in local councils being unable to go to their populations and say that they would like to put up council tax, so that they can perhaps borrow money to build more council houses. Of course, the people who do not benefit in any way from the council tax freeze are those on the lowest incomes, who do not pay council tax directly because they receive council tax benefit, but they are the very people who will be affected by the bedroom tax. For the lowest earners, the council tax freeze is not a blessing; it has reduced the services they received and hamstrung a lot of councils. I hope the Scottish Government will look again at the policy, which might appear populist but does not benefit the lowest paid.

Work Capability Assessments

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Cathy Jamieson]

I hope that my hon. Friend will understand that I take such issues seriously. I am very concerned to hear that she is aware of people being driven to such drastic action as taking their own lives. Going by the correspondence and contact that I have with constituents, I can say only that I know just how difficult it is for people, and that many feel they cannot face the appeal process—particularly those who have suffered from a condition for years and who feel that the process is undignified and that they do not get the right help and support, and who perhaps do not know to whom to turn.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

I echo everything that my hon. Friend says about the appeals process and the total lack of credibility of Atos. Earlier, she mentioned the systemic problem of DWP officers overruling all of the evidence, even that from Atos. Will the Minister address the fact that many people who are told that they cannot work again are suddenly taken off the support system in the DWP and put on to the other system, thus causing them great problems? They are made to go through rituals of training and work interviews when everyone agrees that they cannot work again. Surely that power should be clearly defined. If someone is told that they cannot work again, DWP officials should not be allowed to overrule that decision.

[Cathy Jamieson]

I am sure that the Minister will respond to that point, which is also one that I raised earlier. As I had concerns about the work capability assessments for people with a range of conditions, I tabled some parliamentary questions in a bid to find out how many people had been assessed in my constituency. I was disappointed to be told that such information could only be provided at a disproportionate cost.

After hearing about the experiences of a number of my constituents, I tabled another parliamentary question to find out how many assessments had been carried out on constituents who had cerebral palsy, osteoporosis, MS, who were registered blind, who had hearing impairments, who were on the autistic spectrum, who were carers themselves and who had learning difficulties or mental health problems. Those are the people who had come to me saying that they had had difficulties with the work capability assessment. Again, I was told that such information was not available at constituency level. I hope that the Minister can respond to that and tell me whether that kind of assessment, analysis and reporting will be available by parliamentary constituency in the future because it is in the interests of transparency and it would enable us to make comparisons across different parts of the country.

Finally, I have a couple of points around the issue of Parkinson’s, which my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West mentioned in his opening remarks. The Parkinson’s Disease Society says that increasing numbers of people with Parkinson’s are being rejected from the support group. Between October 2008 and November 2010, it says that 45% of people with Parkinson’s who had undertaken the work capability assessment were referred to the work-related activity group instead. As an example, the organisation cited the case of one man who was placed in the work-related activity group despite the fact that his tremor was so severe that he could not hold a pen, walk more than a few steps or button up his trousers himself.

The organisation gives examples of people having long waits for appeals and receiving inconsistent or inadequate support in the work-related activity group. It talks about the ESA assessment process impacting disproportionately or inappropriately on other benefits, the worry for carers and the knock-on effect on other statutory services.

The Parkinson’s Disease Society also gives examples of people who are clearly not fit for work being told that they should get work. A 59-year-old man with Parkinson’s says:

“I feel I could work in the right job, with the right support, but none of this has been forthcoming from the job centre, who wished me well but basically said there are no jobs for able-bodied people let alone someone like me. I’m not surprised that only 6% of people in my position get back into work in 12 months. Everything I’ve done to get back into work I've had to off my own bat.”

On the one hand, we have people who say that they want to work and to cope with their condition and feel that they can do so but who are getting no help, and on the other we have those who feel that they are being hounded. That is not the sign of a caring, compassionate and decent system. I hope that the Minister will take account of what Citizens Advice and others have said and that he will not make this a party political issue. There is agreement across all parts of the House that this system is not working in the way that it should. I hope that in his response, the Minister will consider making some changes and give us some hope for the future.

Pensioners and Winter Fuel Payments

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Cathy Jamieson]

I am sure that Mr and Mrs Watt are fairly typical of many of the pensioners we all see in our surgeries. It is not only my hon. Friend’s constituents who see this as a cut. The charity director of Age UK said earlier this year:

“While the uplift was billed as a temporary measure, renewed annually, for those older people struggling to pay fuel bills, this is a question of semantics and they will view the measure as a cut.”

Pensioners view the measure as a cut as less money is going into their pockets.

I know from my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, as was mentioned earlier in the debate, that the average household energy bill is around 14% higher in Northern Ireland than in England and Wales. In the 21st century, it is absolutely shocking that around 1,300 are estimated to have died from cold weather-related illnesses in Northern Ireland last year.

I must also gently point out to the Minister and other Government Members that, although advising consumers to shop around and switch suppliers might make sense to some people, many of the pensioners I have spoken to find the range of tariffs and options on standing charges completely baffling. If people do not have access to the internet and the price comparison sites that the better-off might use, where are they to start? Pensioners do not want the hassle of complicated forms and do not always trust advice given over the phone, particularly after the bad publicity about people feeling under pressure to switch suppliers.

I heard what the Minister said about there being an 0800 number to call for advice. I do not know whether he has sat with constituents and tried—[Interruption.] He mentions pension credit, but I do not know whether he has sat with constituents who use a range of advice lines and sometimes find them difficult to use. They might be pensioners who are unused to speaking in detail over the phone and find it an off-putting experience. It is important that people can have face-to-face advice and I would welcome any effort he can make in that regard.

I also want to mention briefly those who are off-grid, and there are similarities between Scotland and Northern Ireland, particularly in rural areas. It is not so simple for people in those areas to shop around, although some helpful work has been done, for example, in ensuring that there are co-operative ways for communities to come together to purchase fuel. I hope that that is something the Government will support.

With consumer prices index inflation at 5.2%, pensioners on low and fixed incomes are among the most tightly squeezed, and again Age UK states that

“older people have experienced a rate of inflation on average 5% above headline measures and this is, in part, because the proportion of their income spent on food and fuel is higher than for other age groups.”

The harsh reality is that, instead of supporting pensioners, this Government’s actions are making life even tougher— [Interruption.] Right on cue, the Minister starts again the usual orchestrated chorus from Government Members, attacking the previous Government rather than looking at what his Government are doing today.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

On the additional costs of food and fuel, is it not really beholden on the Government to realise that those are the areas where pensioners, in particular, feel the pinch? We are in a situation whereby many pensioners say that it is a matter of either heating or eating, so the Government should adjust not their philosophy but the reality of life to the fact that these inflationary measures are hitting pensioners, who do not have the money or the resources to back up the costs when they come in with the bills that they have to pay.

[Cathy Jamieson]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Many pensioners do not want to admit the financial difficulty that they are in. Often, they try to hide it from their family, friends and local community, so they go behind closed doors and curtains, do not put the heating on for fear of the huge bills that may come in, and choose at times when their money is tight to cut down on nutritious food and other essential items. That is the stark reality for many pensioners living in our communities today, and it is time that the Government realised that they have to take responsibility for their own decisions.

The Government have to take responsibility for their actions and face up to the consequences, so let us take a look at the facts. I am sure that I will get more sedentary comments from Government Members, but it is important to remind people that the UK economy has flatlined over the past year, with just 0.5% growth well before the eurozone crisis, which cannot therefore be entirely to blame for choking off recovery. In the European Union, only Greece, Portugal and Cyprus have grown more slowly than the UK, and the United States has grown more than three times as fast as us over the past 12 months.

The Government’s mistaken decision to raise VAT to 20% in January has hit pensioners hard. Estimates are that it will cost a pensioner couple on average £275 a year, and I return to my earlier point: that may seem like a small amount to some Members; it is not a small amount for someone who is facing the rise in prices, trying to make every penny go that bit further and facing such difficulties every day.

We know that the Government’s policies are hurting ordinary people, because we hear it every day from constituents, as my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) said, so we, like the right hon. Member for Belfast North who moved the motion, believe that the Government should look again at the impact of their polices on winter fuel payments and on VAT, which in combination have hit pensioners hard.

The Government have the opportunity to ease the squeeze on pensioners, and they should take it by temporarily reversing the VAT rise. At the very least, they could do so immediately and put that £275 back into the pockets of pensioners.

When Labour introduced winter fuel payments, it did so as part of a drive to help tackle fuel poverty among pensioners, and I accept that some Government Members genuinely want to see the problem tackled. The payments were specifically designed to give older people the reassurance that they could afford to heat their homes in winter—and do so in a way that would allow them to continue to buy their food and to pay the rest of their bills.

At the time there was, and indeed there has been since, criticism that the winter fuel allowance was not targeted in the way that some anti-poverty organisations might have wished. Some people wanted the allowance to go further, and others wanted different groups of people included, but we know from research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies that households receiving the winter fuel payment are almost 14 times more likely to spend the money on fuel than they are if their incomes are increased in other ways. That is quite important, and the IFS specifically stated:

“Households receiving the Winter Fuel Payment spend 41% of it on fuel even though there is no obligation to do so. When the same households receive additional income which is not labelled in any way, they spend just 3% of it on fuel. To put it another way, simply increase the income of a pensioner household by £100 and they will increase their spending on fuel by £3. Label that increase a ‘Winter Fuel Payment’ and £41 will go on fuel.”

Indeed, the IFS went further by stating:

“The winter fuel payment was introduced to encourage older households to spend more on heating in the winter. Remarkably it appears to have had just that effect.”

To be fair to the Government, at least for a moment, they do seem, to be fair—

State Pension Age (Women)

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Teresa Pearce]

I agree. These women have been unable to plan for this change. Already, their pension age was further away than that of the previous generation and now it is being pushed further away again. It seems that the nearer they get, the further away it goes.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is being very tolerant of interventions. Is this situation not also symptomatic of the flaw in the analysis of why the pension age should be extended? For example, in the debate on Second Reading of the Finance (No. 3) Bill, one of our former Pensions Ministers made the point that if someone has been working from the age of 16, regardless of gender, by the time that they get to 60, they have paid 44 years of national insurance and have probably burned out. Extending the pension age for people who leave university at 25 after a postgraduate degree is not a problem; indeed, they probably have a very good private pension. However, for many ordinary working-class people—men and women—it means that they are being forced to work beyond the point at which their health allows them to carry on working. This is not just a problem for women, although I do not diminish the problem for them at all. It also affects people who have had a long working life in what are probably the hardest jobs in society.

[Teresa Pearce]

I agree: this is not just an economic issue or a gender issue, but a class issue.

As I was saying, many women have done part-time work or have taken time out of the work force altogether to raise children. Many women worked in part-time jobs at a time when part-time workers were unable to take out a private pension. Those women have worked for 40 years, paying their national insurance contributions. They were looking forward to the retirement that they expected to start at 60. They, and I, were disappointed when it was announced that the age of retirement would go up from 60 to 65 between April 2010 and April 2020, but we accepted that and planned accordingly. Now, these women find that just as they are nearing the end of their time in the labour market, the goalposts have been moved yet again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Annette Brooke]

I made that particular point because those women could get justice and redress only through the courts, which is important.

A more recent instance of an injustice to women occurred during the time of the previous Government. The reduction in the number of contributory years for a full pension, to 30 years, was very welcome—it clearly helped women and so has to be welcomed. When it happened, only three in 10 women who reached state pension age drew a full pension in their own right, so that change alone should have raised the proportion to more than seven in 10—it was a good move. However, again, there was an injustice to a group of women whose birthday happened to be at the wrong time.

[Michael Connarty]

I am perplexed. The hon. Lady said that she would cite an injustice and then cited a tremendous change by the last Labour Government to give seven in 10 women pension rights after 30 years. As a Liberal Member who is part of the betrayal now, can she find any evidence that this Government will not withdraw the 30-year rights because they are looking to save money now?

[Annette Brooke]

I ask the hon. Gentleman to wait for me to identify the injustice. My point was about the cliff edge; there could be two women living next door to one another with one day’s difference in their birthdays, and there would be a cliff edge. Changes need to be phased in. In 2007, there was no phasing in, so some women missed out on as much as £28,000 over the course of their retirement because of one day. Whenever there is a sharp cut-off date, there is an injustice.

Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

I shall press on. I have already given way.

In response to the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George), I can say that we have already demonstrated our commitment to transparency by publishing data on the distributional impact of the Budget measures, which has never been done before. We are committed to continuing with that level of transparency in future fiscal events, and we will continue to look at whether we can further improve the breadth of information provided. Parliament will, of course, as my hon. Friend requested, continue to have full scrutiny of the Government’s decisions, and I hope that the information that we have already provided, and will provide in future, will facilitate that debate.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Danny Alexander]

No, I want to press on.

Thirdly, this is a Budget for fairness. Fairness underpins this Budget, and fairness runs throughout this Budget. This is the first Budget to include an analysis of the distributional impact of its measures. It shows that overall the richest will contribute most to deficit reduction, and it will have no measurable impact on child poverty by 2012-13. That is a good start, and of course we will take further action to underpin fairness on future occasions and in future Budgets. It is important to stress to the House the fact that the principles that have shaped the Budget will also shape the decisions that we make in the spending review, too.

As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said, this is a progressive Budget. It is a Budget that takes almost 1 million of the lowest-earning income taxpayers out of income tax altogether—that is progressive. It is a Budget that locks in an annual increase in the state pension in line with earnings, prices or 2.5%, whichever is highest, to the benefit of 11 million pensioners. That is progressive, too. It is a Budget that increases capital gains tax rates by 10% for higher rate taxpayers, but keeps it the same for basic rate taxpayers. That is progressive. It includes a radical programme of welfare reform to focus support on those most in need. The welfare bill has ballooned from £132 billion 10 years ago to £192 billion today. If we ignore the economic and social pressures caused by this system, we will only put the whole country and the front-line services on which we rely under even greater financial pressure in future. The Government will tackle that situation head on, including through the reforms in the Budget to the disability living allowance, housing benefits, and the uprating of benefits. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions said, these reforms will ensure that help is targeted on those most in need.