Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Monday 11th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to repatriate British nationals stranded overseas as a result of the covid-19 pandemic.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to repatriate British nationals stranded overseas as a result of the covid-19 pandemic.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

What diplomatic steps he is taking to help provide financial support to British nationals stranded overseas as a result of the covid-19 pandemic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dominic Raab]

We have, in the first instance, worked with insurance companies to make sure that they extend travel policies by 60 days when emergency support is needed. I can also tell the House that the Foreign Office has introduced a special package to make sure that those who are stranded and cannot get back can receive support with food, accommodation and other essentials of up to £3,000 for individuals, £4,000 for a couple, and £5,000 for families. That is a last-resort option, but we are making sure that those who are hunkered down or stranded and cannot get back have the support that they need.

[Nigel Mills [V]]

I commend my right hon. Friend’s Department for the efforts made to get people home, but can he update the House on progress in getting passengers and crew stranded on cruise ships home?

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. In March, when the Foreign Office changed its travel advice to advise against people travelling on cruises, we had more than 19,000 British passengers aboard 60 cruise ships. I can tell him that they have all now been brought home safely. There is still an outstanding issue with a number of UK crew on cruise ships around the world, but we are working with operators such as Royal Caribbean and Costa Atlantica to make sure they can get back as soon as possible.

Universal Credit: Delayed Roll-Out

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

I am a little confused, because my understanding is that those performance stats are indeed available. The Department has a very good record on payments and payment timeliness. Can we improve? Of course we can, and I meet with officials on at least a weekly basis to discuss that. In many cases, it is down not just to the Department but to how the claimant provides information. We are putting in additional resource, where appropriate, to help people to help themselves to get us that important information that we need to process the claims.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

Will the Minister confirm that one solution to this would be to get more uptake for the excellent help to claim service through Citizens Advice? Will he confirm that service will be extended so that it is there for the whole period through to the end of the roll-out?

[Will Quince]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question and for his work on the Select Committee. He is right: help to claim, commissioned via the Department and run by Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland, is working really well. We are now in detailed discussions in relation to a second year, but I want to go further and in April we will launch a £10 million transitional fund for UC, in particular to support disadvantaged and vulnerable groups. It will also help Members, because organisations in their constituencies will be able to bid for that funding.

Social Security

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

The hon. Lady will understand that the trigger and the earnings limit are in line with national insurance figures. The level was £6,032 in 2018-19, which has gone up to £6,136. The upper limit was £46,350, which has gone up to £50,000. There will be more people saving by way of automatic enrolment by reason of these changes, and those enhanced by this will be numbered in the tens of thousands.

With respect, automatic enrolment is supported on a cross-party basis. It is a successful policy, with 10 million people in various constituencies up and down the country now benefiting from it. In February last year, the last group of smallest employers took on their duty to enrol all staff, and we now have 1.4 million employers. In April this year, we go to 8%, and individuals and employers will therefore be saving a substantial amount. The crucial statistic is that only 9% of individuals have opted out of, or ceased to have, an automatically enrolled pension on an ongoing basis.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

I welcome the order. In considering the earnings trigger staying at £10,000—I note that that brings about another 40,000 people in, with an inflationary reduction—did the Minister think about the auto-enrolment review and the various recommendations that the trigger should be reduced to the lower earnings threshold, or should at least be extended so that someone could add up all their jobs to determine whether they qualified over that trigger? Is he tempted to make a change down to £6,000 or to a cumulative total, or is he thinking that next year, when we do not have to do the escalation, would perhaps be a better time to do that?

Universal Credit

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

We will of course respond on the High Court ruling. I am pleased the hon. Lady raised the point about what sort of jobs have been created: just to put it on the record—these are not Government figures; they are from the Office for National Statistics—since 2010 some 75% of all the jobs created are full time, are in high-level occupations and are permanent. That is something I wish Opposition colleagues would acknowledge.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

I commend the Minister for these announcements, especially the one on the two-child limit. He appears to have accepted the recommendations of the Select Committee within hours of its making them. On that theme, if he is looking for ideas, perhaps he missed some of the previous recommendations. For example, in the managed migration that he is now trialling, will he look at moving people on existing benefits over, rather than asking them to make a new claim? That would be a far more effective system, and far better for the claimants.

[Alok Sharma]

I am pleased that my hon. Friend feels that we were able to react in a matter of hours to the recommendations of the Select Committee. I think he is talking about a process of pre-population, and we will of course work throughout the pilot phase. We have responded to the Social Security Advisory Committee with some of the plans that we have. I would point out, however, that when we had the move to employment and support allowance, we underpaid people as a result of having incomplete information.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let us hear the voice of Amber Valley.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

20. What assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of the findings in the December 2018 NAO report on the level of profit made by Motability from leasing cars to personal independence payment claimants.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Sarah Newton)]

Asking the National Audit Office to investigate was an important step towards ensuring that disabled people are provided with an excellent, value for money service. It is troubling that excessive amounts have been paid out in bonuses and are sitting in reserves. We accept all the NAO recommendations and will be meeting the chairman of Motability this week to discuss how the organisation plans to implement them.

[Nigel Mills]

Does the Minister agree that the great work done by that charity is being undermined by the amount of salary and bonuses that it is paying out? Will she work with it as soon as she possibly can to make sure that that money is used for the benefit of vulnerable people, not the directors of the business?

[Sarah Newton]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. The Motability scheme is very much valued by disabled people and I want to make sure that all disabled people with mobility concerns can benefit from it, so we will be asking the organisation to use up its reserves and to make sure that it reaches more disabled people to help them play a full part in society.

Universal Credit

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

I am happy to follow the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). I agree with much of what he has said and with his constructive suggestions for making this work. That is where I want to start my speech. I still believe that this is the right thing to do. Universal credit is the right sort of benefit system. It replaces a much more complicated system that people did not understand and found really hard to work with, but it is important that we get it right and do not start rolling it out for even greater numbers until we are sure that it will get the right amount of money to the right people at the right time. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the Resolution Foundation’s recommendations, although I am a little surprised that it asked for only a 90% accuracy rate. That implies that we are happy to have 10% of people who roll over to universal credit getting the wrong amount of money on the wrong day. I would hope that we can put in place a much more reliable system than that.

I agree with the Government’s approach on test and learn. I can remember being on the Work and Pensions Committee when the full roll-out was originally planned for 2014, which drifted by a little while ago. I think we are now aiming for a nine-year roll-out. However, it was absolutely right that we did not press ahead and roll this out so fast that we ended up with hundreds of thousands of people taking on huge amounts of debt because they were being given the wrong amount of money. We saw that happening with tax credits and we do not want to repeat it. However, test and learn cannot just be a software thing. It must also be about the design of the system and the way it actually works. If it becomes plainly apparent, as we carry on the roll-out, that things are not right and that people are not getting the amount of money they are entitled to at the right time, let us fix it and remove the rough edges. In that way, we will end up with a far better system, and people will not be in debt when they do not need to be, with all the consequences that that would have.

I support what the Secretary of State has been asking for from the Chancellor. We saw some interesting ideas being leaked yesterday, and I think that most of us in this House would welcome most of them as a great improvement. Let us build on the reform that we put in place a year ago to allow people to keep an extra two weeks’ housing benefit. Let us at least add employment and support allowance to that, to ensure that people do not have a gap in their income right at the start. It is just not right to expect people to live for five weeks without any money if they do not have a redundancy pay cheque or a final pay cheque in the bank. Let us fix that and try to find a smoother transition. That would cost a significant amount, but in the great scheme of things, it would be a tiny fraction of the overall £160 billion a year welfare bill. It would not break the bank, and if that is what we have to do to get this right, let us do it.

[Jamie Stone]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the indifferent broadband coverage in remote constituencies such as mine does not help the roll-out of UC and that we should try to tick that issue off before we go any further?

[Nigel Mills]

That is probably a debate for a different day. Sticking with universal credit and managed migration, as I said to the Employment Minister yesterday when he referred to moving people over, that is exactly what we ought to do, particularly for vulnerable people who may not get the process right. We have all their information. We have all the details we need. Let us move them seamlessly from the old benefit on to the new one. We should not expect them to do that for themselves—that just risks their missing out because they have not opened their post, they do not understand it, or they are too scared to do it. There is no need to add that stress to their lives. Moving them over will not cost anything at all; it is just a far better way of the Government using the system.

Finally, the motivation for UC was to make it absolutely clear that work would pay. That is what the staff in my jobcentres really value. It is a simple system. They can explain how it works and show people that they will always be better off in work. The problem that has arisen from the savings that the previous Chancellor introduced three and a bit years ago is that it is not entirely clear how we can demonstrate to some groups of people that they will always be better off in work—lone parents and second earners are the two cases most often cited—so let us put clarity back in the system. If we want this welfare change, which we all support, to work, the fundamental promise that people will always be better off in work must be made demonstrably clear to them. Let us put money back in and get the work incentives right. That way we will have a system that we can make work.

Universal Credit

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

If the hon. Lady was so keen to help her constituents, she would have voted for the extra £1.5 billion of support, but she did not. Labour Members cannot get away from that. Members cannot call for help for their constituents—for all our constituents—and then not deliver when it comes to the votes. As the hon. Lady knows, the all-party group on hunger published a detailed report on this issue and concluded that there are myriad complex reasons for the use of food banks. It cannot be attributed to a single reason.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

The Minister referred to moving people from legacy benefits on to universal credit; will he look into doing that for vulnerable people, rather than relying on them to make a new claim and risking there being a gap in their benefit receipts if they do not understand the process?

[Alok Sharma]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I am having a series of discussions with key stakeholders, as are the Secretary of State and others in the Department. We will make sure that we get the process absolutely right so that the vulnerable are helped.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

When we came into office in 2010—and then in 2015 and 2017—it was really important for the country to take difficult decisions about what we needed to do to ensure that the benefit was sustainable and affordable, because it had grown by over 60% under Labour. We still have to ensure that the benefit is sustainable and affordable, and that we support the most vulnerable, and that is what this Conservative Government are doing.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

When we move people over, it is vital that we get them on to the right amount of benefit at the right time, so will the Secretary of State agree to put in place some targets for accurate performance, and to delay the roll-out if those targets are not achieved?

[Ms McVey]

Under the process of managed migration, the roll-out will be slow and measured. It will start not in January 2019, but later in the year. For a further year we will be learning as we go with a small amount of people—maybe 10,000—to ensure that the system is right. The roll-out will then increase from 2020 onwards. It will be slow and measured, and we will adapt and change as we go.

Universal Credit and Welfare Changes

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Thursday 21st June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

Again, I ask the hon. Lady to read the Court judgment. I had already made the decision on the disability premium. The Court did not ask the Government to alter the severe disability premium—we won on that point of law—so I ask the hon. Lady to digest the judgment properly. We have put in an extra £9 billion of health and disability funding to support people. In the last couple of years, we have got an extra 600,000 disabled people into work. That is what this is about—supporting the most vulnerable and helping more people into work. We have seen 3.2 million people move into work, including 600,000 disabled people. The hon. Lady should stop scaremongering. Should people have difficulties, I ask her to assist them so that they can get the best support for what they need. That is what Government Members are doing, and the figures reflect that.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

The Work and Pensions Committee went to Marylebone jobcentre this morning to see work coaches, who were genuinely excited about the UC roll-out that took place yesterday. I hope to find the same thing in my constituency tomorrow morning. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the key to making this work is for work coaches to have the necessary skills, training, time and access to outside support so that they can give claimants the support that they need to get ready for work?

[Ms McVey]

That is exactly right. Work coaches have received—and will continue to get—more training. People are talking about work coaches with a renewed enthusiasm because of the support that they are getting. Darren from Wales, who was put on a confidence course—we were utilising our flexible support fund—said:

“My…work coach was fantastic…helped me turn my life around…fulfilling a lifelong dream”.

That is what this is about—turning people’s lives around. I urge hon. Members to visit jobcentres and meet work coaches, who feel liberated for the first time ever because they are helping people into work.

Pensions Auto-enrolment

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan) on securing this important debate. I will not waste my precious five minutes by recounting the triumphant statistics on how successful auto-enrolment has been, but about 1,250 businesses in Amber Valley have been enrolled and about 13,000 of my constituents now have access to a workplace pension for the first time, which is a very important achievement.

It is important to look at where we can go in future. I have been through the important work of the auto-enrolment review. There are so many great ideas in there. My only slight frustration is that it will take so long to bring them all into force. I accept that we have not even finished the roll-out, we have not done the escalation and there is not much time in Parliament, but some of the ideas are important. Perhaps the mid-2020s is a little later than we could achieve them by.

We need to find a fix for people who have multiple jobs but are earning under £10,000 in each of them, so are not enrolled by any of their employments. There probably are not that many people with two jobs that sit perfectly under that, but bearing in mind that we have a tax coding system—we tell employers every year, via Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, how much personal allowance they can give each employee and how much tax to take off—it does not strike me as beyond the wit of man to put on that coding notice how much pension contribution they ought to pay. Not much data would be given away. We could just say that a person has sufficient income elsewhere, so the employer should enrol them and pay a full contribution. I hope that can be looked at.

I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to find a system for the self-employed, although I am not sure that we can force it into auto-enrolment, because the whole idea of inertia will not work. I am a little more cautious than her, because I am not sure how we could square having a much lower national insurance rate for the self-employed with giving them a pension contribution in excess of what we give people who are employed and earning the same income. That may be a step too far.

I tend towards a default from the tax system. If the Government move forward with making tax digital and requiring quarterly returns, that may take out some of the big annual bills to pay if there is just a default on the annual returns. Perhaps the way forward is having a default quarterly system where the self-employed could be encouraged to take a pension contribution of the right percentage. I am not sure how we fix choosing them a pension scheme. I suspect that, if we did that, we would have to choose NEST as the default option. The Government should be a bit cautious about defaulting people into an individual scheme. If that scheme goes wrong, they will get the blame for returns not being right.

Even if we get to the 8% that we are due to get to in a couple of years without seeing opt-out rates go far higher, that will still not be enough pension saving for most of those people to have the savings that they need for their retirement. We will have to do more to encourage people to put more into those pension schemes. The trick to that has to be greater engagement. I hope the Government will take forward the dashboard as a key part of that, so that people can understand what they have in pension saving across myriad pots.

We need clear and consistently applied savings targets so that people know how much they should have saved by the time they reach 35, 40 or 45, and understand how much they have saved for their pension, what that means and how much more they ought to save. That is the missing link. I get my annual pension statement and I have no idea whether it is good. It sounds great that I have a few thousand pounds—that sounds like a great asset—but what does it really mean in pension terms? How much more do I need? How much do my peers have? A system with clear guidance about how much people should save and what that really means would boost pensions engagement.