Personal Independence Payments (Wales)

Debate between Nick Smith and Susan Elan Jones

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

One of my disabled constituents was given a two-week assessment slot that had already elapsed. According to the media, civil servants are now helping Capita to deal with the backlog. Does my hon. Friend agree that this botched benefit is causing nothing but distress throughout the country, and that the implementation of PIP has been a total shambles?

[Susan Elan Jones]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. Indeed, when the Prime Minister announced that the system would change to migrate those on disability living allowance to a personal independence payment, surely that was not part of the promises he made. When PIP was first introduced last year, surely the waiting times, the missed calls and the assessments for which staff have failed even to turn up were not part of the deal. In the debate today and whenever we discuss PIP in Wales, we are talking about real people—people with serious health conditions and real individuals with real families, who are desperately struggling.

I am certain that it is hard enough to fight cancer without having to fight Capita and, by extension, the Department for Work and Pensions. Capita is letting down people in real need. The Government are letting struggling people down by not stepping in and getting the mess sorted out. Waiting times for assessment have been so long that, in some cases, people with terminal conditions have died before receiving a penny—and yet Capita remains in place and the Department for Work and Pensions has not even imposed a fine. This is a scandal of national proportions.

Some of the most vulnerable people in Wales are being let down—and yet every single taxpayer throughout our land is being asked to foot the bill for a totally inadequate service. For the sake of my constituents in Gwynfryn and Penycae, and people everywhere in Wales, I urge the Government to take action now. It is time that the Department for Work and Pensions did its job. And it is time that the relationship with Capita was sorted out, or for that company to be given the boot.

High-speed Rail

Debate between Nick Smith and Susan Elan Jones

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Susan Elan Jones]

Indeed.

There is a conflict here. I understand that people are likely, as they are entitled, to complain about local developments to which they are opposed, but we need our Government to take a broader national view, and Wales certainly needs a Secretary of State who will do better. That is why I am here to make the case for high-speed rail, and specifically the Welsh case, because I fear that it is not being made by the person whose job it is to do so.

The official ministerial answers on the benefits of HS2 for Wales may be missing, but there is plenty of evidence from elsewhere in Europe with which hon. Members can form their own opinion, such as the case of Lille. In the early 1990s, the French Government chose to divert their high-speed TGV line through Lille, as opposed to using a more direct route through Amiens, because of high unemployment and post-industrial decline in that area.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend says that high-speed rail and rail electrification are particularly important for economic development. Does she agree that it is important that we get that for the lines in the valleys and in other parts of Wales, and particularly for the Cardiff-Ebbw Vale line?

[Susan Elan Jones]

I am in total agreement with my hon. Friend’s point, both for south Wales and for north Wales.

In the case of Lille, the French Government decided that following the slightly less direct route was worth the extra €500 million that it cost because of the massive potential for regeneration and employment that the project would bring to Lille. Professor Stuart Cole of the Wales transport research centre at the university of Glamorgan, whom my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) mentioned earlier, submitted evidence to the inquiry of the Welsh Affairs Committee on inward investment to tell us what happened next. Twenty years later, Lille is ranked as the fourth most accessible European city and has been described as a boom town. As the French Government showed that they were serious about investing in the area, private sector investment followed. A major commercial centre, a retail centre, hotels and offices all sprung up around the terminal. An elite university opened a campus in the town and tourism flourished. The expansion is continuing. A major conference centre is scheduled to be built, along with significant new office accommodation and housing. Public investment in connectivity, accessibility and profile led to private investment, jobs and growth.