Personal Independence Payments

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Esther McVey]

Absolutely. The hon. Lady is right that the assessment is very different, but we have to take forward the knowledge that we have learned. I have had many meetings on the need for more champions to provide the knowledge, so that people can have confidence when they are being assessed.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the continuing good influence of Professor Harrington is worth noting when considering such issues?

[Esther McVey]

Absolutely. That evidence will be taken on board and used.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question. Disability living allowance is not linked to employment or income, so I shall look into the issue she raises in more detail.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

T7. The Work programme is proving to be much needed and effective, but may I seek reassurance from the Secretary of State that there will be downstream activity from contracts so that small businesses and local community projects can also participate in delivering outcomes?

[Chris Grayling]

That is indeed happening. We now have several hundred voluntary sector organisations providing support to the Work programme in various ways, some on a localised level in local communities. They are an important part of the team delivering the project. It is a partnership between the public, private and voluntary sectors and it is making a difference to unemployed people, despite the attempts of the Opposition to put about negative stories which are completely without foundation.

Living Standards

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Seen over the whole period of this Parliament, and taking into account things such as lifting the tax allowances, the commitment of the coalition to lift them further before the end of the Parliament, and a whole variety of the points that I have already laid out, I do not agree with the hon. Lady. When Opposition Members look back, they will realise that the introduction of the universal credit will result in positive work incentives and we will get people back to work, as we are already doing.

I have already mentioned some of the things that have been introduced in the past year and a half, and yesterday the Chancellor also announced reforms to support working families which no Opposition Member has taken into consideration. We have deferred the fuel duty increase planned for January and cancelled the inflation increase planned for August 2012. The tax on petrol will be a full 10p lower than it would have been without our action in the Budget this autumn, and that means that families will save £144 on filling up the average family car by the end of next year. Fuel and the cost of driving are a very big driver of poverty and we are doing something about it. We are also regulating the rise in fares on national rail, the London tube and London buses, and we have already offered councils the resources for another year’s freeze in council tax, which I hope they all take up. Our plans to raise personal tax allowances will pull over 1 million people out of tax altogether, which is a big incentive for people to go back to work. When the Opposition complain about changes to working tax credits, they should remember their punitive decision to abolish the 10p starting rate of tax. They did not care what happened to the poorest in society.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has mentioned the 900,000 people who are being lifted out of income tax altogether. Is that not a significant step in the right direction?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The reality is that we are raising people out of tax, while what the Labour Government did by getting rid of the 10p starting rate was to drop more people into higher rates of tax. It was really dismissive, very regressive and attacked the poorest.

Youth Unemployment

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

One reason this country is in its financial predicament is that the previous Government did not understand value for money. They believed in throwing money at a problem, not trying to do the most cost-effective thing. That is one reason for the right hon. Gentleman leaving that note behind, saying, “No money left”.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

One of the key things I believe is important is rebalancing the economy towards manufacturing and engineering, which focuses, of course, on the private sector to make sure that it provides jobs. I see evidence of that happening in my constituency. Does the Minister agree that that kind of initiative is critical to ensuring that we deal with youth unemployment?

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. One of the failures of the previous Government arises when we talk to engineering firms that want to recruit young engineers and cannot find them. I think that the previous Government 's skills strategy was fundamentally misplaced. That is why the work being done by the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, who is in his place beside me, is so important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

The right hon. Gentleman is, classically, trying to have it both ways. On one hand he tells me off about national statistics, and on the other he tells me off for not obeying the rules on national statistics. What does he want? These are national statistics, and they will be published in line with national statistics rules. He will just have to wait.

What I will say now is that so far I am encouraged by the progress that is being made. All of us—Members in all parts of the House—need the Work programme to work and to make a difference for the long-term unemployed, and I am confident that it will do that. For the first time we are giving the providers genuine professional freedom to do what works for our young people, and I believe that if we trust the professionals and do not tell them what to do, as the last Government did, we are much more likely to be successful.

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way a second time. This time I want to emphasise the importance of a proper interface between the education and business sectors, providing experienced, professional contact, so that people understand that they are receiving the kind of education that will lead them into jobs.

[Chris Grayling]

Absolutely. The Department for Education is working hard to remedy the failings of our schools system in partnership with my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, who is working with the FE sector to try to deliver a much better quality of vocational education. That, along with the partnership that now exists between my Department and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, will ensure that the unemployed are presented with a genuinely joined-up offer of an opportunity to obtain the skills that they need, and it represents a real step change from what we saw in the past.

The third element of the support—

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

The hon. Lady is right that we did not reverse Labour’s planned cut in the winter fuel payment. What we did is reverse Labour’s planned cut to the cold weather payment, which pays £25 a week every time the temperature falls below zero—and we ended up paying more than £400 million to cold, vulnerable pensioners, which is money that the Labour party would not have spent.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

T3. In the context of the big society and mindful of the need for a variety of provision, what evidence is there that bidders for the Work programme have come from the voluntary sector and social enterprises?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

There is a huge amount of evidence. Two of the main providers are voluntary sector based, and getting on for half of all the subcontractors in the programme will be from the voluntary sector. This will be the biggest boost to the idea of the big society. Now that we hear Labour Members are rethinking on welfare, we hope that they will have some good things to say about it.

Amendment of the Law

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a great honour to speak in this important debate. I am mindful of the contribution made by the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher), who talked about the importance of growth. He recognised that the economy would start growing soon and suggested that this would yield a considerable amount of additional money for us to spend. He is quite right, and I welcome that admission. However, he is completely wrong to think that growth will simply happen without our tackling the deficit. That is what we must do, which is why the Budget is essentially fiscally neutral: we have already set out plans lasting for four years that will deliver the outcomes that we need for growth. That is why the Budget is all about growth, and I want to focus on those important issues.

First, one reason why I was not marching in London on Saturday—although I would not have done it anyway—was that we were celebrating the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s announcement of massive investment in infrastructure in my constituency, with the Stroud to Kemble redoubling. That kind of development really matters. My constituents are delighted to know that we will have a better way of getting to London. Businesses are already gearing up for more investment, and there is a general feeling that the scheme will lead to more prosperity. That stands in sharp contrast with, for example, the haphazard way in which the regional development agency attempted to promote growth in our area. Indeed, it was more likely to end up building houses than promoting factories. I welcome the fact that the Government have invested so wisely, and they are doing so elsewhere in the country too.

The second important thing is the announcement about the green investment bank, with £3 billion to start with. That is a great start, and is exactly the sort of investment that we need—certainly in my constituency, but across the board too. I look forward to the day when the green investment bank can start raising capital on its own. I understand why there is caution about that, but we have made an excellent start and the green investment bank will deliver some important things.

The third important thing—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned this in his opening speech, and I will develop it—is giving people the opportunity to get to work. Once people are in work, we need to ensure that they benefit from appropriate training, which is why I welcome the emphasis on training and apprenticeships. For far too long under the Labour Government, we were effectively training people up to a standard that was good, but not good enough: it was just level 2, and we want level 3. We should learn a few lessons from Germany’s export-led recovery, one of which is that good training matters. I therefore celebrate the Government’s efforts to deliver really good training for our young people.

It is important to mention planning, too. We need a more flexible and collaborative planning system, involving those being planned for—home owners and local communities—businesses and local authorities. We should see more agreement at an earlier stage, so that things happen more smoothly. We do not want to see the kind of attitude that we have seen in the past, which at worst has involved planning by appeal— and, sometimes, not a huge amount getting done. I welcome those changes.

I also welcome the measures on fuel. I have had a lot of complaints from my constituents about the rising cost of fuel, and I understand them. We are in a rural area, and we have a large number of haulage firms. For them, the changes in taxation will be welcome. We must stick to a fiscally responsible approach to public expenditure, but we need growth, and we need to be active in promoting it. The right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton was correct in saying that growth would go up, and that it would do so on the basis of investment, good training and a sensible taxation strategy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

T4. In my constituency, a large number of individuals come to my surgeries worried about being passed from pillar to post in the complicated welfare system that we have. Can the Minister give me some reassurance that the reforms are going to make it much simpler, especially in connection with people wanting to establish businesses?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I can give that assurance to my hon. Friend. We have inherited a system that has huge in-built disincentives and perverse incentives for people to do the wrong thing. The idea of this reform—the universal credit, alongside the Work programme—is that people have a clear understanding of what they will earn when they go to work. They will not need to have the brains of a professor in mathematics to figure it out; they will find it out themselves, and that will incentivise them to stay in work and not be put off by having to report to 50 different people.

Housing Benefit

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I make no apologies for saying that as a Member of Parliament, before that as the leader of Camden council, before that as an individual councillor for Holborn ward, and before that as a human being, I suppose, campaigning locally, I have always been obsessed with trying to ensure that the beleaguered ordinary residents of the area be allowed to stay there. However, that does not mean that I believe that spending £20 billion on housing benefit is a sensible use of public funds. Not a penny of that £20 billion goes on building flats or homes, it is just used to subsidise rents that ordinary people cannot afford, and I remind Government Members from both parties that 100 years ago, Winston Churchill rightly said that rent is a preliminary tax on all economic activity. That was true 100 years ago, and it is true now.

In my constituency there is a gross shortage of housing for ordinary people at rents that they can afford.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

rose—

[Frank Dobson]

No, I shall not give way. I do not have time.

When I say ordinary people, I mean nurses, street cleaners, bus drivers, shop assistants, people who clean the hospital, ambulance drivers, kitchen staff, waiters who serve Government Members, butchers, bakers, plumbers, electricians and builders. Those are the ordinary people who I want to be able to stay in my constituency, in decent housing and at rents that they can afford. That is not the case at the moment, and the Government now propose not just to cap housing benefit, but to slash the funding to build decent homes and flats that people can afford.

The Government are cutting housing investment. In Camden, certainly, private rents are very high, and in the south of my constituency they are very, very high. However, the ordinary people living there did not set those extortionate rents; grasping landlords did, and then they gave some of it to fund the Tory party’s election campaigns, election in, election out—[Interruption.] It is no good Conservative Members jeering; they know that the landlords help to fund their party.

Those profiteering landlords have set the rents, yet the Government claim that if they cap housing benefit the landlords will cut the rents. In my area, nine out of 10 private lettings are nothing to do with housing benefit, so if there is to be a reduction in housing benefit for one flat in 10, it is clearly not going to have an impact on the rest of the sector. There is unlikely to be very much impact at all.

Let us look at the cap. All hon. Members who live outside London rightly receive an allowance for a one-bedroom flat so that they can live in London. The going rate, according to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, is £340 for a one-bedroom flat. According to this generous Government, the going rate for a three-bedroom flat if one is on housing benefit is also £340. Well, if it is the going rate for a one-bedroom flat, it cannot be the going rate for a three-bedroom flat, and that just shows how unfair the system is.

All the talk about the unemployed getting housing benefit is significantly misleading, because at least one third of the people on housing benefit in my constituency are in work. They struggle to make ends meet, they send their children to local schools, and they frequently rely on support, both financial and practical, from family and friends. Many were homeless, but then the Liberal Democrat-Tory coalition council in Camden urged them to rent in the private sector. They were told that that would be okay. It did not matter what the rents were, because housing benefit would cope with them—or, as the current Leader of the House of Commons said some years ago, housing benefit would “take the strain”. All those people were told that housing benefit would take the strain, but the Lib Dem-Tory coalition Government are now going to take away the money that would have helped them, and I believe that that is wrong.

Many people from my constituency will be pushed out to outer London where they do not want to be, and among neighbours who do not want them to be there, which does not seem a very good formula for establishing decent communities in outer London. It is also worth bearing in mind that some of those areas already have higher mortgage and landlord repossessions than inner London.

The situation will affect not just people in work, but those out of work. Three such cases were brought to my advice surgery last weekend, all by well-spoken middle-class people who had hit a bad patch. One had lost a well-paid job, another was suffering from a serious illness, and another was experiencing a family breakdown. They all faced being pushed out of their homes, because the housing benefit that helps out middle-class people going through a bad patch is to be taken away from them just to suit the Treasury. Money will be taken away from those in the greatest difficulty.

We have heard of the highland clearances. There are no highlands in my constituency, but what we face is the lowland clearances—a combination of grasping landlords and a malignant Government, as existed at the time of the highland clearances. We do not want those in London, and I hope that we never will have them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Carmichael]

In my constituency one of the biggest problems is that people cannot access houses. It is one of the biggest distortions of which we should be aware, and it is grossly unfair. My hon. Friend makes a good point, because we have to free up the situation so that people who really need a house have access to a house.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is easy for Opposition Members to say, “It’s all about those evil Tory reforms to housing benefit,” but the housing market is much more complicated than that. It involves a lack of supply and, under the failed regulatory system, the over-provision of credit by our banks. All of us together have a big job to do in tackling it, but I am glad that we have seen fit to grasp the nettle and do exactly that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I have to disappoint not only the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) but one or two others on the Government Benches who called for us to be passive and calm. To be perfectly frank, my constituents would be extremely disappointed, and rightly so, if I were anything other than angry as this debate proceeds. The plain and simple fact is that this debate is about cuts to the most vulnerable—and it is not new. We saw it in the ’80s, and in earlier days when the Conservatives had control. This time, we are telling them that enough is enough.

In my constituency, the response to people who talk about fairness is that this has nothing to do with being fair—that it is unbelievably unfair and unjust. There was an air of unreality in the speeches by Government Members, including, I am sorry to say, the Liberal Democrats. I hope to have time to deal with that in a moment or two. In my constituency, as against what we have been hearing, 7,965 households are in receipt of housing benefit, and probably more than 2,000 will lose £9 a week, with many losing more if they are in the private sector. What is beyond doubt is that the overwhelming majority will lose out: how can that be fair?

[Neil Carmichael]

There is one big unfairness, and that is the level of debt that you have left us to deal with. You are talking about cuts, but we are giving people opportunities as well, and that is what fundamentally underpins the changes to housing benefit. What do you say about that?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

We are not going to use the word “you” in future, are we, because I am not responsible?

Work and Pensions (CSR)

Neil Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Miss Begg]

The original numbers I gave were those projected by the previous Government for new claimants, but they did not work out in practice—even for the previous Government. In other words, the work capability assessment, which is the test acting as the gateway to getting the benefit, is turning out to be much tighter than either the previous Government or, I suspect, this Government were expecting.

The figures are quite different from what the previous Government expected. I do not have any evidence to suggest that the new Government were expecting anything different. However, the reality is that many fewer people than expected are getting through the gateway of the work capability assessment, and they are accessing either the support element or the work-related element of the ESA.

There has been a lot of criticism of, and a lot of research has been done by organisations such as Citizens Advice—nationally and in Scotland—about the operation of the work capability assessment. At the moment, I am not sure that it, as an assessment tool intended to look at employability, is very effective in determining who is fit for work and who is not.

I was not going to go into the issue, because it is probably a debate for another day, but part of the problem is that illness and disability are being mixed up. So, people who are ill at the moment are being declared fully fit for work when, clearly, they cannot work—but that is not to say that they would not be able to work in the future. The assessment also does not take into account the employability of an individual—because the end of the whole process is to get people into work, if they are not employable and employers will not employ them, then the process will have failed.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

rose—

[Kate Green]

rose—

[Miss Begg]

I give way to the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael).

[Neil Carmichael]

Thank you. Will the hon. Lady welcome, when it comes, the report of Professor Malcolm Harrington on the work capability assessment? He was appointed by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in the summer, and he will be reporting shortly. She might find some good news in the report, in the context of what she is saying.

[Miss Begg]

I certainly hope so. I was not intending to go into the WCA and its faults, but the hon. Gentleman tempts me. I am looking forward to seeing the report by Professor Harrington. However, there is concern that by the time he reports, whether at the end of this month or the beginning of next month, the trial in Aberdeen and Burnley will be coming to an end, and there will not be a lot of time to change things. There might be time to change the procedure, but not to put in place any major changes in how the work capability assessments are carried out before the full roll-out begins in March or April next year. The volumes will be quite large and it will be interesting to find out, in Aberdeen in particular, whether Atos Healthcare can manage the volumes that will be coming through. It is a big process, but there are still some fundamental flaws in how the work capability assessment is in operation.

Does my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston want to intervene?

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Miss Begg) for securing this important debate. I will begin by discussing the comprehensive spending review in order to highlight some of the key issues that we are confronting. The first is economic growth. Improving economic growth is one function of the CSR, in terms of overall macro-economic policy. The second is unemployment; we cannot be satisfied with so many people being unemployed for such a long time. Some 1.4 million people have been unemployed for approximately nine out of the past 10 years. At the same time, we have been sucking in labour from other countries. There are some big issues for us to confront.

The overall question about the CSR is this. If the Labour party thinks that cuts should be made, it would be handy—from our point of view, at least—to have some indication where they might fall. All the ding-dong about cuts does not distract anyone from the fact that there would have been cuts whether or not the Labour party won the last general election. Discussing only the CSR’s impact on the Department for Work and Pensions is slightly misleading, because we must reform benefits anyway.

As I said, too many people have been unemployed for too long, and we need to tackle that. As a decent society, we must encourage people to think about how to get back to work. A decent society looks after people properly if they need to be looked after and focuses on those who need more help rather than those who need less, if any.

[Mr Heald]

I am following the points that the hon. Gentleman is making about the most vulnerable people and not concentrating only on DWP. One great strength of the CSR that is not really about DWP is that tax credits have been increased to help the poorest children and ensure that we do not increase child poverty. That is part of the big picture.

[Neil Carmichael]

My hon. Friend the Member for—

[Mr Heald]

North East Hertfordshire.

[Neil Carmichael]

Thank you. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is much more about the overall impact of the CSR.

The changes that this Government are introducing were anticipated in some respects by the last Government. It is misleading to say that we are suddenly coming in with a wild charge to cut expenditure simply because we want to, or even because we need to, although we certainly do. There is a general feeling that changes in the pension benefits arrangements are necessary. A good example is moving incapacity benefit on to employment and support allowance. That was not our idea from just a few months ago; it was already the direction of travel of the last Government. I will discuss that in a bit, but I have four points to make.

The first is that the CSR has certainly propelled changes in the ESA; quite right, too, for the reasons that I have given. Secondly—it is important that we make, understand and keep repeating this point—people who really need help will not go without help. Severely disabled people will get appropriate support. It is critical to make that point, because we do not want anybody to be unnecessarily alarmed.

[Natascha Engel]

I was not going to intervene; I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. That is the big problem. The number of errors being made in the reassessment of people who are on ESA—and now, also, incapacity benefit—is so high that our worry is that exactly the opposite of what he is describing will happen. People are being left destitute who are already vulnerable and poor. That is exactly what we are worried about.

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank the hon. Member for—I will have to learn a few more constituencies.

[Natascha Engel]

North East Derbyshire.

[Neil Carmichael]

Thank you. The fact of the matter is that we are reviewing those processes. I have mentioned Professor Harrington and said that our processes must be fair and decent, and that is what the Government are working to ensure.

The saving from the changes to the ESA will be approximately £2 billion, which makes a difference to our target of saving money through the CSR. However, what is critical is helping people to get to work by introducing a Work programme that delivers and encouraging the voluntary sector to help with CVs and so forth. It matters that we help people fulfil their lives by getting work if they want it and can do it; we must recognise that.

The key tool for transferring from incapacity benefit to employment and support allowance is the work capability assessment, which was introduced in 2008. It has some imperfections that we will improve, but it was introduced by the Labour Government for precisely the purpose that we are discussing. That is another important point to make.

The assessment process, as I understand it, takes account of medical conditions, mental problems and so forth and considers carefully how health policy, initiatives and solutions are being advanced. It is a fair and relatively flexible tool—

[Miss Begg]

That is part of the problem; it is not flexible or sensitive to different conditions. It is very mechanistic. Some of the employability criteria from previous assessments for incapacity benefits have been removed, when those are the very issues that need to be assessed. Those of us who have examined it feel that that is a problem. It does not always assess the right things. As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) pointed out, the wrong decisions are being made. People who are clearly not fit to work are being found fit to work and vice versa. That is a problem.

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank the hon. Lady. This might get a bit boring, but I will simply repeat that we look forward to Professor Malcolm Harrington’s report, which I gather is coming soon.

To end on a political point, I note that the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for— [Hon. Members: “Paisley and Renfrewshire South.”] Thank you. He said on “The Andrew Marr Show” that he recognised that the changes were necessary, that the Labour Government would have been interested in that direction of travel and that he did not reject all our proposals out of hand but welcomed a lot of them. That is the point that we should rest on. Labour’s Front-Bench Members recognise the problems that we are dealing with, understand that people should be encouraged and helped to work and recognise the impact that that will undoubtedly have on the CSR. However, as I have stressed throughout my speech, we must give people a fair and decent chance to fulfil their lives. That is our view and, I hope, increasingly the view of the Labour party.