Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mims Davies and Andrew Western

Monday 7th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies (East Grinstead and Uckfield) (Con)]

Jobcentres are extremely good, as we just heard from the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), who is leaving the Chamber. Yet the new Minister for Employment previously described jobcentres as places nobody wants to go, and claimed that they do not offer real help. Our jobcentres help to ensure that almost 4 million more people have work, compared with when her party left office in 2010. More than 2 million of those employed are women. Will the Minister and the DWP team who have made disparaging remarks apologise to work coaches and DWP staff, who she and they have rubbished but who now have to look up to them as the new ministerial team?

[Andrew Western]

I fear that the hon. Lady has misunderstood the criticism, which is levied not at our outstanding work coaches but at the policies of the previous Government, who have left us with economic inactivity at its highest rate in years. We are the only G7 economy with a lower employment rate than before the pandemic. Those are the challenges that we have been left with, and the problems that we will solve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mims Davies and Andrew Western

Monday 5th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies]

I thank the hon. Lady for making the important point about the numbers. I agree that behind each of those is somebody we should be concerned about, and I am absolutely looking at this point. We are continuing to learn from decisions overturned by appeal, and we will continue to make improvements to our decision-making processes to help people to get the correct decision earlier in their claim journey, and to be able to work and have the support where it is needed. Not everybody on PIP is out of work, so we need to be listening to the needs of the people in those queues. I am conscious that every one of them is not a statistic but a person who needs our support.

[Andrew Western (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

9. What estimate his Department has made of the cost to the public purse of economic inactivity due to ill health.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mims Davies and Andrew Western

Monday 18th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies]

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for his question. In fact, I have an Uber T-shirt from my time as employment Minister, which the company gave me when it brought in the pension. I applaud the work that Uber has done to support its workforce. The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point, which is actually for another Department, but I will take those messages away.

[Andrew Western (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

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

--- Later in debate ---

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

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

[Andrew Western]

I hear what the Minister says, but a recent report from UNICEF showed that of 39 OECD and EU countries, the UK came last in terms of improvements in child poverty between 2012 and 2021. As a result, one in five children in my constituency of Stretford and Urmston are growing up in poverty. What more can the Minister do to address this truly appalling situation?

[Mims Davies]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising that report. I have looked at it, and it is important that we react to it. I point to our record of action. When it comes to further support for households with low incomes, we have heard in the Chamber—indeed, the Secretary of State mentioned this—about raising local housing allowance back to the 30th percentile, which will benefit 1.6 million low-income households by, on average, £800 a year in 2024-25. When that is added to the national living wage, the uprating of benefits and the availability of work, we are determined that those families will progress.