Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mike Penning and Julian Huppert

Monday 9th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

The National Crime Agency looks at organised crime across the country. I am very pleased to say that the NCA is now in Northern Ireland, something we have been waiting for for some considerable time.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

The chief constable of Durham constabulary, Mike Barton, has called for a change in our drugs policy, arguing that we would best tackle crime, and gang crime in particular, by changing our approach. Will the Minister listen to the increasing number of experts in law enforcement who want a new way to deal with this issue?

[Mike Penning]

An increase in number of one, probably. I do not agree at all with the chief constable of Durham. I have told him so and I will continue to tell him. Drugs are a scourge in our society and we must do everything we can to crack down on them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mike Penning and Julian Huppert

Monday 31st March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

T8. A number of my constituents have contacted me to say that they are having to wait six months or even longer for an assessment for employment and support allowance or the personal independence payment. Surely that is unacceptable. What will the Minister do to make sure those people get assessments that are both accurate and prompt?

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mike Penning)]

There are two separate answers to that question. On WCA, Atos is leaving and we will bring in a new contractor before moving to multiple contractors to ensure that the suppliers can do what is said on the tin, all without paying a single piece of compensation to Atos—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Exactly the opposite, actually—Atos will be paying it to us. Secondly, PIP is being rolled out. We need to ensure that we get it right, as the hon. Gentleman said, and we will make sure that we get it through quicker. We need to make sure that the assessments are correct rather than making mistakes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mike Penning and Julian Huppert

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

As I have said, we have a programme going round the regions at the moment—it was started by the Prime Minister in London—to give employers the confidence to take on employees and to break the myth that it is more expensive and more difficult to employ disabled people or people with long-term illnesses. We all know that they will give more loyalty, dedication and commitment than anyone else in the work place.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

I welcome the written statement from the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), that discretionary housing payments can be made available for long-term or indefinite periods for disabled people. Will the Minister ensure that that applies across the board so that people do not have to keep being reassessed when there is no realistic prospect of them recovering?

[Mike Penning]

That is exactly what I am looking at now, as I alluded to in my answer to the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith). We want to ensure that when someone has gone to appeal and won at the tribunal, they are not called back in, because there is a suspicion that that is vindictive. We will ensure that that does not happen.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mike Penning and Julian Huppert

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

People with autism and mental health problems have particular problems with the work capability assessment, and the courts recently found that the test put people with mental health problems at a substantial disadvantage. Will the Minister or the Secretary of State rethink the work capability assessment for those people and pause the process, for which Rethink Mental Illness called?

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mike Penning)]

I have looked at this very closely in the past week. Of course, lots of groups would want us to look at individual cases. The way the assessment is done is not rigid, and it will evolve. We will look at this carefully, but I cannot make promises on individual groups today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mike Penning and Julian Huppert

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I am working with other Departments and Ministers. This is a vitally important scheme and we will push it forward as fast as we possibly can.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

Cycle infrastructure is sadly lacking across the country and that causes a number of safety problems, such as a recent tragedy at King’s Cross and many others around the country. What steps is the Minister taking to improve the quality and amount of cycle infrastructure on our roads?

[Mike Penning]

Most of the roads I am responsible for are part of the national road infrastructure, and I hope there are no cyclists on that part of the infrastructure. However, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: cycling is vital not only to local commuting and enjoyment but to the health of the nation. I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) was listening closely to what the hon. Gentleman said.

Coastguard Modernisation

Debate between Mike Penning and Julian Huppert

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I have been working with the Public and Commercial Services union since day one when I became the Minister. I met its representatives very early on. They have been desperate for this issue to be resolved once and for all. They know the service needs to be modernised and that there had to be closures. They knew that all the way through, and I have discussed that with them fully. They were part of the group that looked at the proposals and the consultation documents that came in. We will work closely with the unions and the non-unionised members of staff, so that we ensure that whatever happens they know. I do not think that there will be any redundancies in Holyhead, but, overall, we will do our level best to make sure that it is natural wastage and that we keep the skills within the service.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

I welcome the use of the vacant fire control centre at Fareham. It gives us a chance to recoup some of the half a billion spent on the fire control centres scrapped last year and described by the Public Accounts Committee as flawed from the outset. Will the Minister assure me that the coastguard modernisation process will not suffer the same problems that led to the disaster with the fire control centres? In particular, how will the link between the maritime operations centre and the coastguard stations work in practice?

[Mike Penning]

Rather than just using the radio, the new centre has unbelievable communication. The state-of-the-art technology has been put into that building at huge cost to the taxpayer, and it is a real shame that I cannot use all the buildings around the country and can only use the one.

Public Transport (Disabled Access)

Debate between Mike Penning and Julian Huppert

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mike Penning]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. One of the things in the many notes that were being passed back and forth here was that that would take place and that I would put my colleague on the spot, because the hon. Lady asked for a working group. Yes, we will have a working group while other proposals go forward. That is certainly important.

In my constituency—we are all constituency MPs at heart—I have raised such issues to my own station, where the lift is out of operation. The station is managed by London Midland. I have had detailed and quite strong conversations before I became a Minister, and certainly since.

There is often no sense as to why certain things happen. A profoundly deaf and blind constituent of mine had long been campaigning for a suitable bus for a disabled person to stop in my town centre, and it is there and has happened, which is great. However, the stop is next to a river and the railings have been taken down. Probably no one would believe that, but imagine someone who is blind, like my constituent, getting off the bus where the railings have been taken away and there is a river. Although it is not deep, we know what the problems would be. What was the logic of that? Where were the brain cells when that decision was made? Who knows what engineer decided to do that, but, as a constituency MP, I shall find out.

The points that have been raised today cross a spectrum of disabilities. Very often we talk about those who are wheelchair bound. The problem is that there are a plethora of different types of wheelchair. A lovely young man called Jack asked if he could do his work experience with me in the House of Commons—this story relates to what the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) said about the state of the Palace and its lack of accessibility. I said yes to the work experience and a risk assessment and an access assessment were carried out. The answer was then no, because they could not accommodate the size of Jack’s wheelchair. Well, in the end we did. It was a long-drawn-out route around the Palace, as I was in Norman Shaw at the time, but we did it. So often, we are told why we cannot do something instead of how we can do something.

Jack and one of my closest friends who sustained some of the worst injuries in the London bombings and survived spoke to me about the matter. They said, “Don’t keep wrapping us up in cotton wool. We’ll tell you how we can do things. We’ll tell you how we can get there, rather than you telling us.” That is why working groups and the different lobby groups are so important.

Interestingly, when it comes to access into buildings, I was told that we should ask disabled people how much access they need because we are paying through the nose—Jack’s words not mine—for the works. A whole industry has grown up around access into buildings for disabled people. Actually, the whole matter could be dealt with much more simply and easily.

Why on earth would they want to put the toilets two floors up in Cambridge? I know exactly where the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) is talking about because my daughter is studying at the Anglia Ruskin college in Cambridge and has a Saturday job in the place mentioned. The question that we must ask, as constituency MPs and Ministers, is why. Tell me the reason why that has happened and why we are in that position? As I mentioned earlier, I will pass on any question that I cannot answer this afternoon to my colleague who will then respond in writing.

All front-line rail staff are supposed to be trained, but will it make any difference if they do not have the will, inclination or empathy to help? One thing that we can all do is to say to young people, “Let us be your voice.” That is what we are here for. They do not want to fill in survey forms; they have had enough of that. I say, “Just give us a little whisper and tell us on what train or on what bus a member of staff was rude to you or did not do what they should have done.” It is amazing, colleagues, what a letter or a size 10 boot from an MP can do to energise employers to look at what their staff are doing.

[Dr Huppert]

When the Minister argues that we should offer to be the voice of some of these people, I assume that he would also support the various parliament-type organisations that enable disabled people to be their own voices and to represent themselves much more strongly.

[Mike Penning]

Such organisations do a fantastic job, but we need to ensure that there is access to this place. The all-party parliamentary groups, of which my hon. Friend is a member—I was chairman of several all party groups when I was a Back Bencher—are about access. They are not just talking shops. They are there to say that people have the right to come forward.

It is a requirement of rail employers to ensure that their front-line staff have the right sort of training.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mike Penning and Julian Huppert

Thursday 23rd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman, who had my job before me, but he should have listened to the answer I gave a few moments ago before reading out his prepared question. We will balance the environmental aspects against the safety aspects, and also take into account the legislative process and whether or not we can get Britain moving better.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

May I press the Minister a little further? What analysis has he done of the extra fuel usage and CO₂ emissions that would result from increasing the speed limit from 70 to 80?

[Mike Penning]

The hon. Gentleman should also have listened to what I said. I did not say that we had conducted the consultation; I said we would balance various aspects during the consultation, and I am sure he would like to take part in that consultation and in our discussion about what is the right balance.