Housing and Social Security

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

May I begin by congratulating those new Members who have made excellent maiden speeches today? I wish to join other Members in paying tribute to the many people who died in the Grenfell Tower disaster. I also pay tribute to my constituents, particularly those who, through Borehamwood synagogue, have made an extraordinary effort in fundraising and in the provision of goods and services to help those most in need. It really is an example of the whole community coming together.

I would like today to address the question of housing. I am a proud capitalist. I believe that capitalism is the most efficient way of allocating resources and that it is what has driven prosperity in our society for so many generations. However, in order to believe in capitalism, one must first either have capital or have a reasonable expectation that one will be able to acquire it. The problem we have with housing is reflected in a wider problem of the capitalist system in this country. A failure or an inability to expect to acquire one’s own home would lead us to question our interest in maintaining this capitalist system, which is so effective for our country. In my remarks, I wish to address how we can deal with that problem.

First, let me say that, as a Government, we have made progress on this matter. I am proud of some of the things that I did during my time in Downing Street as an adviser to the Prime Minister. For example, our work on allowing the conversion of offices to residential property has increased supply. Help to Buy has allowed many families without a sufficient deposit to acquire their first house. We have also made considerable progress in deregulation, which has allowed people to extend their own homes. People do not recognise it, but deregulation is a way of increasing supply in the housing market, because it allows them to expand their own home and provide more space for themselves and their families.

Clearly, though, there is a lot more to do. At the heart of this matter lies the conflict between the generations, which is so evident in my own constituency. We are very fortunate in Hertsmere. We have a beautiful constituency, which has built-up areas and green belt land—80% is green belt. There is an understandable reluctance to encroach on that green belt land. Certainly, it is essential that we maintain and protect that land. If we are to do that, we have to look creatively at how we can draw consent for further house building.

Members have raised a number of valid points in this debate. First, we have to get consent for housing, which means maintaining the central role of councils, which know where housing can be best placed. It is right that the housing White Paper maintains that central role for local government. Secondly, we need to ensure that we get the infrastructure in place. We cannot expect communities to agree to additional housing if they do not have the schools, hospitals, roads and railways to go with it. In places such as Borehamwood where there has been a lot of housing, one frustration is the lack of infrastructure to go with it. We need to maintain pressure on that.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), the former candidate for Mayor of London, that we should not overlook aesthetics. Low-rise housing is denser than high-rise housing, but it is much more pleasant for people to live in. Certainly, one regret from my time at No. 10 was that we started to pioneer the idea of replacing high-rise with low-rise—[Interruption.] I should hasten to add that I was an adviser to the Prime Minister. If we continue with that agenda, we can get more buy-in for more housing.

We should look at design, because people are much more willing to accept housing if it is aesthetically pleasing. People will forgo some green space if it is replaced by something good. What people do not want is green space being replaced by ugly urban sprawl. Certainly, I will continue to resist that ugly urban sprawl, as I want to ensure that we maintain the character and unique charms of our towns and villages. If we can buy in communities with better design and local consent, we can get more housing, thereby ensuring that young people have a genuine hope of accessing capital. We would reinvigorate their faith in the capitalist system and ensure that, once again, we have a generation of home owners. That is what brought me into politics in the first place. My parents were able to buy their own social housing through right to buy. They got their first stake. The next generations must get that first stake too. If we are creative about this, we can do it and provide opportunities for the next generation.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend makes a key point, and I will come on to some of the specifics shortly.

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

The hon. Lady talks about in-work poverty, but can she confirm that under the last Labour Government in-work poverty rose by 20%?

[Debbie Abrahams]

No.

So how does living in poverty affect children’s development? People—

Under-occupancy Penalty

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I have not, but that is something I will look at.

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

As the Minister has said on several occasions, in both recent cases the appellants were in receipt of discretionary payments. Does he therefore agree that this demonstrates that the fund is working and helping those most in need?

[Justin Tomlinson]

That is exactly why we are getting the money to the people who need it, and rightly so.

Universal Credit Work Allowance

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

Let me be very clear: under the Tory Governments in the 1980s I remember the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) being dragged through the newspapers in this country for damaging the reputation of working mothers almost irreparably after comments he made about the St Mellons estate in Cardiff, and the Tories are back on the same track. In their sights are single mothers. They are the biggest single group of losers from all these changes to tax credits and UC, and it is an absolute disgrace that the Tories are undoing all the good work the last Labour Government did.

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman talks about examples; can he confirm that without these reforms a family with a net household income of £57,513 would be in receipt of benefits? Does he think that is in any way sustainable?

[Owen Smith]

We are not talking about families in receipt of £57,000; we are talking about families on low and middle wages. We are not talking about people who are in the highest tax bracket, and it is a complete misrepresentation of the facts and of this debate to try to turn this discussion to high-earning taxpayers. That is not what we are talking about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith]

My advice to single parents is absolutely clear: do not believe a single word that the Government say in response to today’s debate, or what they are telling the country about making work pay and about universal credit. Each and every promise is being broken.

[Oliver Dowden]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Owen Smith]

No, I have given way to the hon. Gentleman once.

The Secretary of State used to say that universal credit was a watershed benefit. Indeed, he used to say that it would

“ensure that work pays, and more work pays, for everyone”.

The cuts to the universal credit work allowance have holed that argument below the waterline. The House of Commons Library briefing, which was produced yesterday evening and circulated to every Member, makes it clear that a single mother will have to work an extra 12 hours each week to earn an extra forty quid, at £3.30 an hour, after these changes. Before the changes, she would have got £92 for those extra 12 hours at £7.66 an hour. How on earth is this meant to increase her incentives to go out and work harder and work longer? It is absolute nonsense.

--- Later in debate ---

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

The Opposition motion is a very simple one. Once again, the Opposition are asking us to duck a difficult decision. I would like to speak very briefly—I hopeful we will make up some time—about why such an approach is simply unsustainable.

As a nation, we have two very major problems. First, we continue to live beyond our means. When the Conservatives first came into government in 2010, we were spending £4 for every £3 we were earning. That meant we had the biggest budget deficit in our peacetime history. We have made progress. The Government have more than halved the budget deficit, but there is still a tremendous distance to go. Secondly, as a nation we have the persistent problem of a high tax, low wage and high welfare economy. At the root of this lies the situation we inherited in 2010, whereby people on the minimum wage were working very hard and still having to pay tax and then having their wages subsidised through the welfare system. As a result, nine out of 10 working families were receiving some sort of benefit payment. Despite all the additional spending, it was not working. As we have heard repeatedly, in-work poverty rose by 20%.

The level of borrowing and welfare spending was simply unsustainable. Under the previous Government, an extra £3,000 was spent for every single household in the country. That is burdening our children and our grandchildren with additional borrowing simply to pay for current welfare spending. This is happening at a time when countries around the world are taking difficult decisions and we are facing rising competition from countries such as South Korea and China. Living with the burden of welfare spending paid for by our children and grandchildren is simply not sustainable.

When we came to power, we produced a plan to deal with the problem. First, we said that part of the reduction in the deficit had to be funded by £12 billion of welfare savings. Labour Members can say we should not achieve those savings, but I have yet to hear a single alternative suggestion.

[Jess Phillips]

indicated dissent.

[Oliver Dowden]

Would the hon. Lady like to make an intervention?

[Jess Phillips]

As admirable as the hon. Gentleman’s party might feel his efforts are in stating that we have to cut welfare, the problem is that under this Government, welfare spending has persistently gone up. One would suggest, therefore, that your tactics do not work in the real world.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I think the hon. Lady meant the hon. Gentleman’s tactics, not mine.

[Oliver Dowden]

I would ask the hon. Lady to consider the facts. I believe that the OBR is projecting a decline in the proportion of our national income spent on welfare over this Parliament, so the plan is actually working. If Labour Members do not wish to reduce welfare spending, there are only three alternatives. First, they could choose to cut spending on public services, but I have heard nobody suggest that, instead of making this reform, we should cut spending on the NHS or education. Alternatively, they could advocate an increase in personal or any other form of taxation, but I happen to think that in this country we already have unsustainably high levels of taxation. The third alternative is that Labour Members—

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Oliver Dowden]

Yes, of course.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

What would the hon. Gentleman say to the 7,000 people in Hertsmere on universal credit who will be worse off by 2020 about the nearly £1 billion that his party is spending on cutting inheritance tax for houses worth between £600,000 and £1 million? How will he excuse that?

[Oliver Dowden]

I do not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s figures, but I do recognise the following figures: in my constituency, 5,000 people have been lifted out of tax altogether, unemployment is down by 11%, and, as a result of tax cuts introduced by this Government, 47,624 people have seen a reduction in the tax they pay. This is the Government’s plan in action. We are moving from a low wage, high welfare, high tax economy to a higher wage, lower welfare, lower tax economy, and the net result is that unemployment continues to fall at a record pace. Since we came to power, an additional 2.2 million people have acquired the stability and security of a regular pay packet and a job to provide for themselves and their families. That is a record of which we on the Conservative Benches can all be proud.

If Labour does not have an alternative plan on spending, does it have one on welfare reform? Once again, we have a clear plan. First, we will introduce universal credit to remove the perverse incentives, discussed extensively during this debate, whereby employees are refusing a pay rise because they fear that the reduction in their benefits will be greater than the benefit they receive from the additional pay. Secondly, we are increasing the personal allowance. Under this Government, by the end of the Parliament the tax-free personal allowance will be £12,500, which will lift those working 35 hours a week on the minimum wage out of tax altogether. This will end the absurd situation in which people on the minimum wage pay tax and then have it recycled back to them through the welfare system. Thirdly and most importantly, we are introducing a national living wage, made possible only because we have been so successful in reducing unemployment, meaning that employers can bear the burden of that higher national living wage. As a result, we will cease to subsidise low-paid jobs, such as in supermarkets and the cleaning industry, with welfare payments.

This is a sensible plan that, when combined with help for childcare and other Government measures, offers a route to the higher pay, lower welfare, lower tax economy we desire. The House has a choice. Do we stick with a plan that has given 2.2 million more people the stability and security of a job and that will eliminate the deficit in this Parliament, meaning we finally run a surplus and start spending less than we earn—so that when the next crisis inevitably hits, we are cushioned against it—and do we start reforming the welfare system through the excellent measures introduced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and his Ministers? Or do we take the approach advocated in Labour’s motion and bury our heads in the sand, pretend the problem does not exist and carry on borrowing forever, thereby burdening our children and our grandchildren with what the Labour party, when led by the likes of Mr Blair and Mr Brown, described as the bills of social failure? We are finally tackling those bills of social failure, and I am proud of the approach taken by the Conservative party.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak in today’s debate. I promise that I will try to be brief.

In his autumn statement on 25 November, the Chancellor trumpeted that he was reversing the proposed cuts to tax credits in full, stating that he had abandoned plans to impose £4.4 billion of cuts from this April. It now appears that he is doing a U-turn on his U-turn, because in the short time since the autumn statement it has transpired that he has lined up similar cuts affecting many of the same working families, this time to universal credit. It seems that he is ushering in a new postcode lottery by pushing ahead with cuts to universal credit, which will leave some families up to £3,000 a year worse off than others in exactly the same circumstances.

We have heard the example of a single mother of two, working full time on the minimum wage and claiming universal credit, whose net income next year will be £2,981 lower than that of someone in the same circumstances who is claiming tax credits. Meanwhile, a single parent of two on a salary of £18,000 a year will see their overall income fall by £2,601 next year if they are on universal credit. As my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State indicated, analysis shows that from April, cuts to the work allowance will also mean an annual reduction of £2,000 a year in support for disabled people in work, which is clearly a particular concern.

My constituency will be hit hard by the proposals, with 2,000 families being affected in 2017, 5,000 in 2018, 8,000 in 2019 and 10,000 by 2020. Across our country, the need for food banks is increasing. I mention that because in many cases, food bank support is provided more to people in work than to those out of work. Perhaps if the Minister and the Secretary of State took the time to visit food banks and talk to the many thousands of volunteers, they would get a better appreciation of the hardship that is being endured. The proposals to cut tax credits will make matters much worse for people and hit working families—people the Government say they want to help and are committed to helping.

I say to Conservative Members that these measures will cause great hardship to many vulnerable families across our country, in all constituencies. The Tory Government have choices. We have seen announcements of billions being allocated to the most well-off by cutting inheritance tax and further support being handed to big businesses by cutting corporation tax.

[Oliver Dowden]

There is a repeated assertion on the inheritance tax cut. Even by 2021, the inheritance tax cut will cost less than £1 billion, which is in no way comparable to the savings that are achieved through the welfare reforms. We cannot magic up the savings by not proceeding with the inheritance tax cut alone.

[Gerald Jones]

That is one example of the wrong choices being made by the Government but there are others. They have given further support to big businesses by cutting corporation tax. They have chosen to continue the cut in the top rate of income tax from 50% to 45%, allowing someone earning £2 million a year to continue to pay £250,000 a year less in income tax. Those are clearly wrong choices, and they are made on the backs of ordinary working families. Against that background, the decision to penalise working families who are already struggling to make ends meet is wrong in so many ways.

The changes will cause worry and undue stress to millions of families. I therefore urge Conservative Members to support the Labour motion today, and not to turn their backs on working families.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

Let me take this opportunity to welcome the vision of welfare reform that has been set out by the Government, and by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in particular. I think we all agree—certainly those on this side of the House—that we have a problem with the amount of money spent on welfare. When Gordon Brown first became Chancellor and introduced tax credits, he promised they would cost £2 billion. They now cost £30 billion, which is a fifteen-fold increase. We have been in a ludicrous position: people have been in work, on the minimum wage, and paying tax, only for those tax payments to be recycled through the welfare system and returned to them in the form of welfare payments.

[Patricia Gibson]

According to the Government’s rhetoric, work is the best route out of poverty, but is this not the reality of their proposals: it does not matter how hard those who live in poverty work; their poverty will remain stubbornly present in their lives owing to cuts in child tax credit and low pay? Is this not about ideology rather than necessity? Is it not about rolling back the frontiers of the state?

[Oliver Dowden]

No, it is not about rolling back the frontiers of the state. The points that the hon. Lady has raised are addressed by our introduction of universal credit, which gives people who are in work a progressive route out of poverty by helping them, as they earn more, not to have all their benefits removed. Moreover, by introducing a national living wage, we are ensuring that everyone who is in work and has a low income will be given a pay rise.

Faced with the current problem, a Government might be tempted simply to salami slice benefits across the board. However, this Government have set out a coherent vision of welfare, which has a number of elements. First, if we are to move from a low wage, high tax, high welfare economy to a higher wage, lower tax, low welfare economy, we must deal with the tax problem. The last Government, with their coalition partners, set about massively increasing the amount of money people could earn without paying tax. We are continuing that agenda, so that as people earn more they keep more

Secondly, we have grasped the problem of people who are in work but do not earn a sufficiently large wage, which is why, for the first time, we are able to increase the minimum wage significantly. Our increase is far greater than any increases that were made by the Labour party when it was in power.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his honesty. Having claimed, as his colleagues have claimed, that this is a living wage, he himself has now used the phrase “national minimum wage”. Is it not the case that all the Government are doing is increasing the minimum wage without making it enough for full-time workers to live on?

[Oliver Dowden]

I do not accept that. I hope that Members will forgive my slip of the tongue. The increase in the current minimum wage, which is less than £7 an hour, to a minimum wage of well over £9 an hour by the end of this Parliament is huge. It is not in line with the standard increase in the minimum wage. This is a step change that reflects the introduction of a national—

[Anne McLaughlin]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Oliver Dowden]

I will give way once more, but I am subject to the time limit.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I assume the hon. Gentleman knows that the Institute for Fiscal Studies has noted that it is “arithmetically impossible” for the increase in the minimum wage to

“provide full compensation for the majority of losses experienced by tax credit”

—and universal credit—

“recipients.”

Is it the members of the IFS who need to go back to school, or is it the hon. Gentleman?

[Oliver Dowden]

I invite the hon. Lady to note the analysis showing that the income of a typical renting household receiving tax credits, consisting of two people working full time with two children, will increase by 12%. That is exactly what we are seeking to achieve.

The third element comes into play once we have ensured that wages are higher—and I should point out that we are able to do that only because our welfare reform programme has been so successful that it has brought about a massive cut in unemployment. Because 1 million fewer people are receiving unemployment benefit and 2 million more people are employed, the labour market can withstand a significant increase in wages. Had it not been for those developments, the whole package would have fallen apart. Our measures reflect a more coherent vision.

Once those first two elements are in place, it is only right for us to consider reducing welfare benefits. There is a clear principle behind this. People in my constituency, and in many other constituencies, face tough choices, and those choices should also be faced by those people who are receiving welfare benefits. For example, one of my constituents will have to decide whether he or she can afford to have another child; we are saying that, similarly, child tax credits should, in due course, reflect what is appropriate for a family with two children.

[Nia Griffith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Oliver Dowden]

I am afraid that I cannot, because I am subject to the time limit.

We concluded that it should not be possible to earn more on welfare than a person who had gone out and worked every single day could earn after tax. We also concluded that it should not be possible to leave school and immediately start claiming benefits. I think that those are fair principles, and I think that principles are better than mere salami slicing.

All this has given rise to a need to change the measure of child poverty. It was absurd when Gordon Brown spent huge amounts of time and money showing people one side or the other of an arbitrary line. We are looking at more fundamental principles and measures of what drives poverty. Living in a workless household is one of the biggest drivers of poverty, and I think it right to take account of the massive reduction in workless households that has taken place under our Government. Lack of educational attainment is another huge driver of poverty. I know that such opportunity-based measures are dismissed by Opposition Members—including, as was clear from his speech,. the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms)—but I think that they are vital if we are to establish whether we are merely putting a sticking plaster over poverty, or addressing the fundamental causes.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Oliver Dowden]

I have some time left, so I will.

[Drew Hendry]

That is very gracious of the hon. Gentleman.

In my constituency, 3,900 working families will have lower incomes as a result of the Government’s changes, and 7,100 children will be pushed into poverty. Can the hon. Gentleman tell me how that encourages people to think that working is a good idea?

[Oliver Dowden]

First and foremost, we are introducing a national living wage, which will deal with the current problem and give people a massive pay rise. Ultimately, however, there is a wider point to be made. Opposition Members are decrying every single measure in the Bill, but if they oppose our welfare reform measures, they must be able to tell the House and their constituents what measures they themselves plan to introduce. Which other welfare costs do they intend to cut, and which other taxes do they intend to increase—or do they intend to continue to borrow, thus forcing our level of national debt ever higher?

That is the contrast between Labour and the Conservatives, who are willing to make difficult decisions. None of us enjoys making those decisions, but we make them in a principled fashion that sets the economy and the country on the right track.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Leslie]

No, not yet.

There was no mention of science or research and development in the Budget speech and no steps to increase mobility in the housing market. In fact, the OBR says that 14,000 fewer affordable homes will be built by 2021. How on earth that helps to reduce the housing benefit bill, I do not know. At the same time, the Government are delaying rail improvements, systematically decimating renewable energy investment and kicking the decision on airports into the long grass. There are tough choices to be made, and lower priorities where savings can be made, but the Chancellor has failed to prioritise those public services that boost productivity, and that will cost the country more in the longer run.

Seven Budgets on, it is time that that this Chancellor took some responsibility for his failure to eliminate the deficit this year, as he promised; for the drag on our economy and public finances caused by woeful performance on productivity; for the stagnation in living standards; and for the overruns in the social security budget. Growth has been revised down by the OBR, as has capital investment. These are incredibly difficult times for the wider global economy, but where is the urgent help to support our exports and productivity to tackle that other deficit, which has worsened significantly under this Chancellor—

Child Poverty

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Let me remind the hon. Lady of the statistics. There are 800,000 fewer people on relative low income, 300,000 fewer children on relative low income, 100,000 fewer pensioners on relative low income, 670,000 fewer workless households, and 390,000 fewer children living in workless households. Those are the real statistics. Let me make this point to the hon. Lady: it is far better for us to look at the real life chances of families that were left behind by Labour. Those families were trapped in poverty because they could not change their lives, but we are changing them.

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the single best way out of poverty is to have a job, and is he pleased that the number of children in workless households is at a record low under this Government?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I welcome my hon. Friend to the House, and I agree with what he has said. Let me tell him about a couple of record lows. The number of workless households has fallen by more than 670,000 since 2010 and there are 50,000 fewer households in which no one has ever worked. Those are people who were left behind by the Labour Government.