Household Support Fund

Nicholas Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Ind)]

I will take up the theme of the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince), but I first thank my friend the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) for the able way in which he introduced the topic. Views are probably widely held and similar across the Chamber.

I thank the Minister for replying to the letter that I sent to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up. The reply arrived this morning, and it gets straight to the heart of the matter. The question, of course, is: will there be a continuation of the scheme? The Government’s position as of this morning, set out by the Minister in the letter, is as follows:

“No further decisions have been taken on the Fund and the Government continues to keep its existing programmes under review in the usual way.”

Apart from thanking the Minister for her candour, I have two observations: this is not fair, and we are running out of time. Local authorities must plan ahead for the rest of the financial year, and there is absolutely no chance whatsoever of them finding the money from their own resources, particularly in the metropolitan districts, whose budgets have been constrained yet further.

I have been an opponent of the Conservative party all my life, but at least there was an element of it that believed in social justice and helping those who, through no fault of their own, needed extra help because they were the poorest. This is not doing such a thing. I usually argue my case in practical terms, but this is immoral and wrong. The Minister should announce a reversal of the policy, or at least a further implementation —that might be a better way of putting it—at the end of the debate.

DWP Estate: Office Closures

Nicholas Brown Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

To be clear, this relates to back-of-house offices that are often in our local communities. We are trying to update our estates, some of which are no longer fit for purpose, and to bring together colleagues with the right levels of experience to create clusters that will help the provision of back-of-house facilities and services. I want to be clear again—I am sorry if I was not clear earlier—that this does not affect front-of-house Jobcentre Plus. By the end of March we will have invested in an extra 194 of those facilities. We have increased the number of people who work in our Department and, as I said, we want to look after the people affected by these back-of-house changes. Hopefully that is clear to my hon. Friend.

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

I, too, think it would have been better if the Government had offered this as a statement to the House. May I ask specifically about the Longbenton site in East Newcastle, which the Department shares with the Inland Revenue? What impact will today’s statement have on employment at the site and the future location of the Department’s employees on the site? It is a famous site, and they have been there since the 1950s. The Inland Revenue, which holds the lease, is giving it up and moving elsewhere. It is pretty logical that the Department will follow. Is it moving, and if so, where to? I make the obvious plea to the Minister that we want to keep the jobs in Newcastle upon Tyne.

[David Rutley]

I understand the question and the tone in which the right hon. Gentleman asks it; I know he has a lot of concern for his own constituency. We are briefing staff right now, so I am not in a position to give him the details now from the Dispatch Box, but I will gladly meet him directly afterwards to talk through his concerns and seek to reassure him. I think that is the most appropriate way of doing it, given where we are right now in the process.

Inequality and Social Mobility

Nicholas Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I was trying to address some of the issues raised.

The issue of inequality was raised by the hon. Members for Battersea, for Oldham East and Saddleworth and for Bedford. Our policies are highly redistributive. This year the lowest-income households will, on average, receive more than £4 in public spending for every pound they pay in tax—

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Main Question accordingly put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes the findings of the Institute for Fiscal Studies that the UK is second only to the US in terms of income inequality among the major world economies in Europe and North America, that the share of income going to the wealthiest one per cent of households has nearly tripled in the last four decades and that deaths from suicide and from drug and alcohol overdoses are rising among middle-aged people; further notes that 1.6 million food parcels were handed out by Trussell Trust food banks last year and that child poverty has increased by 500,000 since 2010; recognises that following the resignation of the entire Social Mobility Commission in November 2017 in protest against the Government’s inaction and a near year-long delay in appointing replacements, the new Commission has found that social mobility has stagnated for four years; considers that the Government’s programme of austerity has decimated social security and led to growing inequality of provision across education, health, social care and housing; further considers that the Government’s austerity programme has caused and continues to cause suffering to millions of people; and calls on the Government to end child poverty, to end the need for the use of food banks and to take urgent action to tackle rising inequality throughout the UK and increase investment in public services.

Universal Credit Roll-out

Nicholas Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I am sorry, but I cannot.

Our latest data show that about 80% of new claims were paid in full and on time, and over 90% of people receive some payment at the due date. Among all claims, 92% are paid in full and 96% are getting some payment by the due date. Advances are available, paid within five working days and, in an emergency, on the same day. They are paid back over six to nine months. For vulnerable claimants, it is possible to have rent paid direct to the landlord, and 34% of social sector tenants on universal credit have this arrangement right now. Our trusted partner system will further streamline the system for landlords to identify tenants who should be on those direct payments. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) asked about publishing the schedule of when that is coming to different housing associations. I cannot see him in his place, but I say to him that we will do that. Split payments and more frequent payments are also available where needed.

I want to respond very briefly to some of the points made from the Floor. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), whom I cannot see in her place—this important point was also raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely)—asked about privacy and security arrangements for victims of domestic violence. I will look into that further, and I would welcome the opportunity to discuss it with her.

The question of universal support came up, including from my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green. I commit to him that we absolutely continue to focus on that and see the absolute value of it. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) reminded us of the valuable role that can be played by partners, including housing associations.

The hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) questioned whether we were cutting staff. We are not cutting staff—we are increasing our staffing numbers in parallel with universal credit roll-out. I would like to follow up the specific case she mentioned with her separately, if that is all right. I will also perhaps speak separately about it to the hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield).

My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) talked about emergency temporary accommodation. He has been very assiduous on these matters. We have listened to concerns on this, and we are looking closely at it. We will work with the sector to find a solution. We are also looking at the APA—alternative payment arrangement—process in the private rented sector in order to improve it, and we continue to look at the issues around housing benefit debt recovery.

IT access and capability was rightly mentioned by several Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies). Digital skills are very important. That is why we have the extra support and help in jobcentres, with PCs there. My hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) pointed out that those IT skills are also incredibly important these days in applying for jobs and when in work.

The hon. Member for Midlothian (Danielle Rowley) asked about childcare. I can confirm that within universal credit the maximum reimbursable amount rises from 70% to 85%, and that is on top of the doubling of free provision for three-year-olds and four-year-olds. The hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) asked about premium phone numbers. I share his abhorrence of companies who do this—third parties who pretend to be something they are not. I will work with him to try to find a solution. It is not absolutely clear that anything illegal is going on, but I agree that we must try to find a way to address it.

Many hon. Members made passionate speeches about social justice and child poverty. We heard excellent speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), for Angus (Kirstene Hair), for Southport (Damien Moore), for Mansfield (Ben Bradley), and for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). We all care passionately about these subjects. Although it is very welcome that child poverty has come down, there is more to do. We know that work is key. There are 608,000 fewer children in working households since 2010, but universal credit will help further.

Yes, this is a fundamental—

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36.)

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Main Question accordingly put.

The House proceeded to a Division.

[Mr Speaker]

I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby.

Supported Housing: Benefit

Nicholas Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). He came to my Westminster Hall debate on this subject way back in March when the Government report was imminent, and he held his own Adjournment debate on this topic, which I attended, on the Floor of the House last week. It is not for want of raising the issue that we remain where we are today.

I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) to his new responsibilities and thank him for the way in which he has set out the Labour party’s case in what is Labour party debating time.

I welcome, too, the new Secretary of State to his new responsibilities. I think the worst thing I can say about him is that I actually do have confidence in him. I welcome the way he responded to the questions raised by my hon. Friend. In particular, I thank him for recognising firmly, from the Government Dispatch Box, the knock-on effects in this policy area. The introduction of the cap—I accept that the Government have postponed it for a year to provide a pause for further reflection— would have a profound impact on the Ministry of Justice, which he knows well, the Home Office, the police service, the ambulance service and the national health service.

Just about every point that could be made in this debate has been made in the last few months, but this point, in particular, has profound consequences, given the interventions that flow when the police pick up somebody who is incapable of looking after themselves or who is lonely, bewildered and without a supported home. They might be picked up by the health service, but the health service can offer no long-term solution to what is really a social care problem.

It seems to me that the Secretary of State is at the head of a difficult demarcation dispute over who should pay for the care element implicit in social housing—housing benefit certainly covers the housing element but also covers a care element. I understand his point about public funds and ensuring value for the public purse—I have no quarrel with that; the Government should always have a care for the quality of public spend—but in all the debates I have attended, not a single Conservative, Scottish National or Labour Member has raised an example of professional tax eating or anything close to it.

The projects that we have visited deal with elderly people who need a care element; individuals who have drug and alcohol problems but are not managing on their difficult path towards rehabilitation; children and young people who have care needs and should not be abandoned to the outside world, red in tooth and claw; people with physical and, even more, mental disabilities who can get by in the world with a bit of care, help and direction; people with learning disabilities; people who are estranged and having difficulty resettling into modern life; and homeless people who need assistance taking up and finding their way through the education and training schemes funded by the Department as well as the employment opportunities it works so hard to get people into.

Members from across the House have also raised the plight of women fleeing violence, terrified and in need of accommodation where they feel physically safe. Sure, housing benefit can provide the housing element, but, in all humanity, there is a need for care and support and for somebody to say to someone fleeing violence, “We’re on your side and we’re here to help you.” I hope that the Secretary of State will respond to that case over the next few months.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Nicholas Brown Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) in this debate. I listened carefully to what he said about the issues of importance to his constituents, and it struck me that the issues of importance to my constituents are very different. The Budget has been presented to us as a Budget for working people, and a one nation Budget because we are all in this together, but I have to say to those on the Government Front Bench that it just will not be seen in that way in the north-east of England.

I have no quarrel with the Government’s desire to drive up wages, to increase productivity and to broaden and deepen the private sector employment base in the north-east of England, but we do not think that those things will actually happen. We believe that we will get all the welfare expenditure cuts but not the increased wages or the longer working hours, or the chance to earn a living in the private sector marketplace.

The maximum grants for students from households with incomes below £25,000, which encourage youngsters to go to university, are being converted into loans. In my constituency, one elector in five is a student. The change will mean that those in the very poorest households will be the ones leaving university with the highest debts, and that just does not seem fair. Similarly, the assault on working families tax credits will penalise the working poor. That point was very well made by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford)

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that these proposals will result in young people from deprived backgrounds being penalised and discouraged from going to university? No student should have a debt around their neck at the very time they want to make progress in life.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

May I just offer a little help to new Members? You cannot just walk into a debate and intervene straight away. You need to listen to the debate for some time before intervening.

[Mr Brown]

In fairness, Mr Deputy Speaker, I took the intervention, but I accept what you say.

There is an issue for those who rely on working families tax credits and who are in relatively low-paid jobs in the north-east of England. Let us take the example of a lone parent with two children who is working 16 hours a week on the minimum wage. Once both changes have come into place, the Chancellor’s living wage announcement makes up about £400, which is just under half the £860 that person would lose from the tax credit change. I listened to the earlier exchange between the Front-Bench teams. I take into account what was said and accept that it might ameliorate the position; none the less, the change is shown in the Red Book as a saving to the Exchequer, which means that it is money that my constituents get now but will not be getting in the future.

The reduction in the employment and support allowance to jobseeker’s allowance levels will not help anyone find a job; it just makes them poorer. The public sector pay freeze of 1% for the next four years is on top of a public pay policy that saw a freeze for two years from 2011, then below-inflation settlements of 1% up to the current financial year. This will be the longest sustained public sector pay freeze ever, and it is just not fair on the workers, especially the low-paid public sector workers. The benefit tapers have been narrowed, and on top of all that there is the benefits cap itself. I am not against the cap in principle, but reducing it from £26,000 to £23,000 in London and imposing a lower regional ceiling of £20,000 outside London is harsh on the English regions.

The Chancellor has burdened housing associations with an unwanted right to buy, which is good for the few but not for the many. Local authority housing stock is still burdened by the bedroom tax, which is not just unjust but actually counter-productive in communities such as my own constituency where a private one-bedroom bedsit in Jesmond costs more to rent than a two-bedroom council flat in Walker. Yet full housing benefit will go to the one-bedroom flat, and those in the two-bedroom local authority-owned flat will be penalised by £8 a week. I do not see how any of this helps the north-east. Certainly, it does not help to make work pay.

In some parts of the country, it may be reasonable to argue that employers should pay better wages rather than rely on the state to top them up, but the danger for the north-east is that those who rely on working families tax credit will not be able to get extra hours at work to make up for the shortfall in their weekly income and will not be able to get a pay rise because there is not sufficient profitability in the business for that to be sustained.

[Mark Field]

I understand some of the right hon. Gentleman’s concerns and I appreciate that we live in two different worlds, but does he not think it slightly ironic that he is more or less making the case that was made from the Conservative Benches 20 years ago when the minimum wage was brought in? It was said that it would somehow lead to a reduction in jobs. That is the case he is making today, yet it was one that he eschewed two decades ago.

[Mr Brown]

The even greater irony is that I was the Government Chief Whip when we put through the minimum wage legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) was the Whip on the Committee that went right through the night on this. But that is going down memory lane. Indeed, it was the current Secretary of State for Defence who was making the case in the Committee at the time. There was some substance in the point, which is why I make it now in relation to the specific circumstances of the constrained nature of the private sector economy in the north-east of England. A broader, deeper and stronger private sector economy is the way forward for our region. It will help to give us the wages and the breadth of job opportunities that the south-east of England enjoys.

The great hope offered by the Government to the north-east is in their northern powerhouse initiative. The Chancellor is right to take regional policy seriously, but he just does not seem to understand how the north-east of England works and what precisely it needs. Indeed, he did not reference us once in his Budget speech when he was going through the offers to the other English regions. The only practical manifestation of the Government’s northern powerhouse policy so far is in the rail upgrades, and they have been delayed.

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

In the north-east, there will be a huge Hitachi factory development, which will create 730 new jobs. Surely that is part of the northern powerhouse.

[Mr Brown]

When I was the regional Minister in the previous Labour Government, I met representatives of Hitachi in Downing Street. They were considering locating in the north-east of England, and wanted to discuss how they could bring that about. I give credit to the current Government for having seen that programme through, because it does involve Government support and they could have cancelled it but they did not. But it was a shared endeavour, and it was certainly coming into place well before the northern powerhouse initiative. However, the hon. Gentleman is quite right that it is exactly the sort of initiative that we would like to see for our region. If it comes under the northern powerhouse brand, I shall take no exception to that.

The problem is that we do not know the geographical boundaries of the northern powerhouse initiative or the functions ascribed to it. We do not even know whether it is some form of local government reorganisation or a regional economic development initiative, or both. We are being told in the north-east that we must sign up to a metro mayor, but not why. The Government have given no details of the powers, functions, workings, accountability or budget for the post, yet they say we must have one.

The past five years have seen a plethora of initiatives that have had no practical impact on the problems in the north-east. The new local enterprise partnerships simply do not have the resources and capacity to address the scale of the problems. The LEPs have been followed by city deals, enterprise zones, regional growth funds, local growth deals and joint leadership boards. They are fragmented, piecemeal initiatives that collectively do not amount to an effective, focused regional policy from the Government. Metro mayors risk being just the latest addition to this confused approach. There is a serious question as to whether so many proposed policy responsibilities can and should be invested in one single individual. People in Newcastle who rejected the local government version of the elected mayor in 2012 and the wider north-east should at the very least be given a choice on this in a referendum.

The past five years have seen a persistent focus on structures and process at the expense of any real, meaningful action. We continue to lag behind in jobs. We have high unemployment and a lack of skills and investment in infrastructure. We simply cannot afford to waste the next five years dithering on structures.

Benefit Claimants (North-east)

Nicholas Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 7th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan. It is also a pleasure to take part in this important debate. I congratulate my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), on securing it. It is enormously important to the people we represent that we debate these issues and tease out things that are just not acceptable.

At the heart of the problem is the mismatch between the pressure on DWP staff and what is actually obtainable for the citizens we represent in the circumstances of the north-east of England. The inflexibility of the regime—especially the ESA regime—is at the heart of many of the individual cases that have been raised so far and of the one or two constituency cases I will raise in a minute.

The restricted nature of the jobseekers labour market, as opposed to the broader north-east labour market, is a significant factor in this, as is the Department’s practice of churning people through projects, a further period of JSA and then more projects, and of migrating them from incapacity benefit to the new ESA, when their chances of actually securing sustainable employment are not that strong.

People come to my surgeries, as they do to all Members’ surgeries, but when their opening gambit is, “You are my last hope,” my heart sinks, because I know the system is failing them and that they have been referred to me, as their Member of Parliament, by others who are trying to help them or that they feel they have nowhere else to go.

One chap I met—I will call him Mr A because I do not want to put his name into the public domain—is 62 years old. He has been a labourer all his life. One look at him told me that his days of being a labourer were over. He is on ESA. He is certainly not capable of manual work any more, but he is to be churned through a range of schemes to train him for jobs that I do not think he will ever be able to do. I went to visit Ingeus, and I do not take as harsh a view of the Work programme as my colleagues. I thought that much of what Ingeus was doing, as one of the Government’s contractors, was sensible and well founded; but I was struck by how different the labour market that it was dealing with was from the broader labour market in the north-east of England. The spectrum of all the jobs across the north-east of England is not there for people on ESA. A much narrower range of overwhelmingly service-sector jobs is open to them. I do not think that it will work for the chap who came to see me.

The same will be true for another constituent, who was referred to me by the Newcastle Society for Blind People, which was trying to help her. She is 60 years old and epileptic. Her eyeballs were removed in childhood, so she is absolutely blind. She has a carer; he cares for her, but cannot read or write. She has been transferred from incapacity benefit to ESA; therefore, the system will find her a job. She cannot write or see, but can read Braille. She uses a thumbprint for her signature. I have asked the DWP to write to her in Braille. After a lot of haggling between the Department and me, it has agreed to note my request. Perhaps I may gently put it to the Minister that there are a number of ways for MPs to deal with issues of this kind: the first might be for me to ask her politely to get the Department to do a bit more than just note my request.

Given my constituent’s age and circumstances, and the obvious hardship that she has endured throughout her life, it is not fair to her to kid her on that somehow she will now find a job she can do without overcoming every one of the hardships that confront her. It seems just wrong—almost inhuman—to put her through the sort of exercises that the Department is putting her through. It is harsh and unreasonable. I once did the Minister’s job. I was the first Minister for Work when the Department was created under the previous Labour Government. In my time as a Minister I did not come up against a case of this kind, referred to me by a Member of Parliament from either side of the House. Had I done so, I would have intervened straight away to help the victim of what I would regard as oppressive treatment.

Another constituent of mine, a 62-year-old, was sanctioned for a year for not complying with JSA. As his sanction—it actually went on for a year and a month—came to an end, he was told that he would be sanctioned for another 13 weeks, but not given a reason. He was then told that he had to fill in a JSA10 form at a jobcentre. He went there and was told that the form did not exist any more, and that he had to ring the benefit delivery centre. The centre staff told him that he had to go to Felling to fill in a declaration, and he walked from Newcastle to Felling. Hon. Members might ask why he walked, when we have some very good integrated transport arrangements in Tyne and Wear. The walk is not a direct one, because there is a river in the way, and it means going to the centre of Newcastle—in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central—over the bridge and along the south bank. My constituent walked because he does not have any money to pay for his travel.

When he got to Felling the official gave him a telephone number that he had to ring. It would have been possible either to give him that without requiring him to undertake the journey, or to ensure that he had the money to make the journey on public transport, rather than having to walk. My constituent then got another phone call from the Department—which was being proactive, for once—telling him that he faced further sanctions because he had missed an appointment with his work provider. He had not missed any actual work, the House will understand —just a meeting with the provider. He missed the appointment because, as he had informed the Department, his residency at the Salvation Army on City road was closing down, and his mail was not being satisfactorily redirected. That is an issue that will apply to other people who have lived in that facility, which was quite well known on Tyneside. He spent 45 minutes on the telephone begging for a hardship payment, because he had no money at all to live on. He eventually got an £86-per-fortnight payment—just think of living on £86 a fortnight—and was then told that he stood to be sanctioned again and that his national insurance contributions would be withheld as well.

My office intervened. MPs always get the credit for dealing with these cases and it is actually our staff who do it. This is probably an appropriate time to thank our staff, who work very hard, not least on wading through pretty intransigent responses from the Minister’s Department. It is certainly not how we originally envisaged Jobcentre Plus operating when it was rolled out more than a decade ago. My assistant’s intervention meant that the matter was finally resolved in a satisfactory way; but we should not be putting people through such turmoil. The system should be on their side. It is meant to be run by the state for the citizens of the country—and it just is not. It should not be necessary for us to have to take such matters up with the Minister directly. I hope that she will take from the debate the fact that things are going wrong with case work, and that there is a need to intervene directly to turn around the culture in the Department that allows that to happen.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nicholas Brown Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I agree that local authorities have had some funding challenges due to the appalling budget deficit we inherited from the Labour party. Local authorities can set priorities. When my own local authority in Gloucestershire was making its difficult spending decisions, it rightly put adult social care and child protection at the top of that list of priorities and I am very grateful that it did so.

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

11. When he expects the business case for universal credit to be fully signed off.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

I announced in December that Her Majesty’s Treasury has approved funding for the universal credit programme in 2013-14 and 2014-15. The final stage in Treasury approvals is sign-off of the full business case, which covers the full lifetime of the programme. We expect to agree that very shortly.

[Mr Brown]

The answer to a similar question two months ago was “very shortly”, but it is taking rather longer than the Secretary of State intended. What are the major outstanding issues between his Department and the Treasury, and where does universal credit now stand in the Cabinet Office’s traffic light system?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Let me explain to the right hon. Gentleman that the reality is that we have agreed—I can run through the list for him—all the spending that is relevant to the plan that we set out at the end of last year. The final point relates to the full lifetime of that programme, which will take it all the way through, probably beyond all the years that anybody present will be in government. [Hon. Members: “Certainly you!”] To be fair, I do not think Labour will be in government given the way its Members behave. That is now being agreed and the reality is that it has to be done very carefully. I genuinely believe, from my discussions, that it will be signed off very shortly. The result will be that the programme will be seen for what it is: a programme that will deliver hugely to those who have the toughest lives and need the most support and help.

Universal Credit

Nicholas Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The reality is that our welfare reforms are working, and our pensions reforms are working. The truth is that the Opposition have absolutely nothing to say about any of this. Instead, they want to delve and delve into the detail, but that will not tell them anything. Universal credit—started by this Government—will be a great success: it will get more people into work, and it will secure more households with greater earnings.

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

The head of the home civil service clearly has reservations about the full business case for the roll- out of universal credit. Which of those reservations has he expressed to the right hon. Gentleman?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The head of the home civil service has expressed no reservations, and I do not believe that he has any reservations about these plans. As agreed, the plans will be signed off with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and when they are signed off, I hope that the hon. Member for Rhondda will write me a letter to say, “Thank you very much, indeed.”

Payment Scheme (Mesothelioma)

Nicholas Brown Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

The move will take the payment up to some £126,000, which represents an extra £13,000. That is in addition to the payment of £7,000 for legal fees, which will be introduced in separate regulations. When Ministers promise the House that they will listen, it is important that they try to do what is requested of them. I stuck rigidly to 75%, because I was not confident that there would be enough money in the fund to increase payments to 80%, let alone 100%. However, I am now confident that there is enough capacity to move to 80%, so when the scheme starts—I hope that that will be on 6 April—all those affected will receive 80%, even though we have been looking at 75%

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation, and I admire what he has done in getting us to 80%. In truth, compensation ought to be at 100%. Sufferers feel 100% of the injury, and the industry took 100% of the premiums at a time when it believed that it would often have to compensate for pleural plaques as well as for mesothelioma. I hope that the matter is not closed and there will be an opportunity to discuss it again.

[Mike Penning]

I would be amazed if we did not discuss the matter again, as we have done over the years. It would be right and proper for us to do so. If we raise compensation payments to 80%, many people will receive more than they would have done through a civil court. The payment is an average, so some people would have received less in the civil courts. By raising the level from 75% to 80%, we have ensured that more people will receive more than they would have done if they had found their employer or their employer’s insurer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), and to find myself broadly on the same side of the argument as her. I particularly thank her for her kind words about Paul Goggins, who had many friends in all parts of the House, and who made a really significant contribution to our debates on the Bill and on the issue more generally. He is still sadly missed.

The Minister has stuck to the departmental briefing that was agreed with the Treasury, and to his original agreement with the insurance industry on the parameters of the scheme, so no one could reasonably criticise him for the way in which he has carried out his responsibilities; I hope that the Government Whips and the Leader of the House, who are listening, will find that satisfactory. Having spelled that out, I must add that the Minister has done everything that he could to help the victims of this terrible condition. I pay tribute to him for that work, and to Lord Freud for his work in the other place.

Above all, I pay tribute to the Minister for sticking with this issue, because not every Minister would have done so; it is not a popular issue in Whitehall. It may be appropriate for me to conclude the thanks that are due by thanking the civil servants in the Minister’s Department who have helped us to reach this point. Once the administrator of the scheme was established, some issues must have become clearer. It must have been easier to see whether an agreement could be reached on the vexed issue of whether the compensation level should be the 75% at which it stood at the end of the Bill’s Committee stage, the 70% at which it stood when it started life, or the 100% that I wanted, which always seemed out of reach in view of the parameters of the scheme. As I have said, the Minister stuck with this, and has brought us to 80%. I must say to him, “Well done.”

The Minister has also preserved the “3% or less” parameter on which the industry would no doubt have insisted. That is an industry figure, and there is some scepticism about it on the Opposition Benches. In the letter that he courteously sent to those who were members of the Committee, he said that he felt that it would be possible to keep the cost to less than 3%. I wonder whether he is able to tell us today how much less, and whether this scheme of last resort involves a trade-off between that and a yet higher compensation level for victims. It is early days, and I do not criticise the Minister. I have no reason to doubt his good faith in these matters; indeed, far from it. He has stuck his neck out for our side as far as one would expect any Minister to do. However, having seen the calculations produced by his Department, I should like to hear something about the period over which the costs will be spread. Perhaps he could tell us whether there is any prospect of taking the compensation rate in this scheme of last resort closer to the 100% that many of us think is justified.

We have had to sacrifice our wishes for an earlier start date for eligibility. Opposition Members still think that eligibility should start from the date on which the last Labour Government consulted on the introduction of a scheme of this kind. We believe that the consultation exercise, during which the Government made it clear that they were minded to legislate, raised legitimate expectations in the minds of potential applicants. I wonder whether there is room for a little more generosity within the scheme’s parameters. The cost of picking up the several hundred cases that I understand to be involved would be a one-off; continuing costs would not be incurred, because eligibility would have to fall between the start date advocated by the Opposition and the date on which the Government settled.

The Minister said that he wanted a clear-cut scheme that would be easy to access and would not put undue pressure on applicants. I welcome that, but applicants still have to demonstrate that they are eligible. It is up to them to show that there is not still an employer whom they can sue, or an insurer who has an obligation to pay compensation. That is a big responsibility to put on the shoulders of an applicant. I welcomed what the Minister said about the £7,000 and the legal costs, but someone who puts £7,000 in front of a claims farmer or a lawyer will be presented with a bill of about £7,000.

[Ian Mearns]

I agree with my right hon. Friend that proving that one has been susceptible to exposure to asbestos during a long and sometimes diverse career can be very tough. I know that a number of people who have succumbed to mesothelioma have not worked in heavy industry but have, for instance, taught in schools in which asbestos has been present. It is very difficult to prove exposure, because asbestos fibres often lie dormant in the lungs for decades.

[Mr Brown]

My hon. Friend and constituency neighbour is absolutely right. The effects of this horrible condition can be with a victim for decades, but once full-blown mesothelioma has been diagnosed, life expectancy is extremely short. It is no accident that the north-east of England is disproportionately represented on the Opposition Benches today, because we represent people who are in the older tranche of victims. I know that I do not need to explain this to the Minister. I am talking about people who worked in heavy engineering, shipbuilding and ship repair, people who sprayed carriages with asbestos, and thermal insulation laggers. Members of that generation were the victims of those industries. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) pointed out, the new victims will be teachers who have been scraping on asbestos-based boards, school caretakers and janitors who have breathed in asbestos from insulation that is flaking because it has not been properly lagged, and builders who have carried out occasional repairs without being properly protected against the asbestos that they were drilling into, and have generated dust.

[Mike Penning]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that there has been a disproportionate effect in the north-east in particular because of the heavy industry there, and to mention many of the organisations involved. However, in such cases it is relatively easy to trace the victims’ employers, because they are large companies in large industries. This scheme is intended to cover cases in which we cannot find the employers, and hence the insurers, who are legally responsible. That is why it is a scheme of last resort. As for the right hon. Gentleman’s other point, I think it is absolutely right for us to help, because the scheme will not work if a large number of people resort to it when they could have claimed elsewhere. We need to help them to obtain compensation from the source from which they deserve it.

[Mr Brown]

I agree with the Minister that in the public sector it should be easier to trace a responsible insurer, and indeed a responsible employer, but there is a rich history of subcontracting, even in the public sector, and not all these people have insurers who maintain liability. It is the missing insurer, as well as the missing contracting or subcontracting company, who generates the cases with which this last-resort scheme is intended to deal.

The Minister is right to anticipate more public sector cases in the future. I have asked the Department of Health how many mesothelioma cases were being dealt with in England by the Department, and that number of cases, as you of all people will well know, Madam Deputy Speaker, is a precursor to the number of compensation claims that there will be—if, that is, the injury was inflicted through work. The House will be distressed to learn that the number is still rising. The number identified by the Department is now over 7,000 a year, and that is not a very easy fit with the projection of the number of fatalities coming from the Department via the Health and Safety Executive.

[Ian Lavery]

With regard to public sector workers, 10,000 teachers died because of mesothelioma. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we have to look seriously at the impact on children in schools where asbestos is present? If an adult—a teacher or a caretaker—can get mesothelioma from being at school, what has happened to the kids?

[Mr Brown]

Like my hon. Friend, I stand up for every single individual who has been exposed to asbestos. This is an entirely preventable condition. Although I understand why in law we draw the distinctions we do, morally this is not right. We should set out to save each and every one of the citizens we represent from being exposed to this awful condition. That applies to young children, too. My hon. Friend will recall me referring to the young children who found a pile of asbestos just lying in a yard in Leeds, and who threw it at each other as if it were snowballs. Of course, the inevitable happened, and 40 years later they are coming down with mesothelioma, but whom do they sue?

[Mike Penning]

As I said on Report, I think, and certainly in the Committee stage of the Mesothelioma Bill, I hope this is the start of a fund of last resort in other areas as well. What the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) and the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) are alluding to is a public liability area, not liability for employers. It is absolutely right that we should try to protect everybody, but sadly I think I have gone as far as I can within the scope of the regulations and the scheme before us.

[Mr Brown]

I welcome what the Minister says. If any Minister could take this forward in government, he would be the Minister to do so. I thank him for what he has done, and welcome what is in front of us tonight.