Universal Credit

Owen Smith Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

I welcome the fact that the Minister will disapply the policy for 15,000 children and families, but will he confirm whether he will still take more than £2,500 from 640,000 families? What is fair or compassionate about that?

[Alok Sharma]

The hon. Gentleman is right that the policy will support 15,000 families, but we anticipate that 77,000 families and 113,000 children will benefit over a five-year period. It is important that we provide support, but ultimately, as he will know, the overall policy was tested in the courts and was found to be sound.

Universal Credit

Owen Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Johnny Mercer]

If any Member assumes that individuals on the Conservative Benches are driven by anything other than the evidence, they are seriously mistaken. I absolutely accept that there are groups in this sector working night and day that agree that we need to do more on things such as taper rates and work allowances, and we on the Conservative Benches will keep pushing for that, but the assertion that we do not see any of this evidence in our constituencies and act on it is just plain wrong. We have plenty of people coming into our surgeries talking about universal credit, but instead of launching into a diatribe about how the Conservative party is attempting to keep people in poverty, we should look at the things that this Government have done, such as the reduced waiting times and the landlord portal—things that are actually making a difference in places such as Plymouth.

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not remember that it was a Conservative Government who introduced universal credit, including the taper rate and the work allowance, a Tory Prime Minister who cut £4 billion from it, and a Conservative Secretary of State who in recent weeks admitted that more than 1 million families will be £2,400 a year worse off? Does that not worry him?

[Johnny Mercer]

The hon. Gentleman will be as aware as I am that people in this country are absolutely sick of Labour and Conservative politicians blaming each other for the situation we are in. The legacy benefits system sapped the ambition of a generation of young people in cities such as mine to go into work, to get a job and to build a family. That system needed reform. You cannot marry the idea that you should bin universal credit with a commitment to improving the life chances of our most vulnerable constituents: the two are not intellectually compatible.

We have heard about a lot of the problems with universal credit—

Personal Independence Payments

Owen Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I extend my congratulations to the Devon Partnership NHS Trust. I am glad to hear that mental health services are good in my hon. Friend’s part of the world and yes, absolutely, those who have had an award from the DWP will continue to get that award in the normal way.

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Further to the Secretary of State’s response to my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), will he confirm that he is saying that some people who have been awarded additional resources by a tribunal will see their income cut as a result of these regulations? Will he also confirm that an extraordinary number—89%—of the relatively low number of appeals relating to PIP are overturned? Does that not show that there is something deeply wrong with the system?

[Damian Green]

I think the problem that the hon. Gentleman identifies with the system as it is running at the moment is that a huge number of the very small number of people who go to appeal introduce new evidence during the appeal process. That is the main reason why the figures are as he says. It is clearly better all round—not least for the avoidance of delay for claimants—if we can get all the medical evidence in at the start of the process. That might well preclude the necessity of any kind of reassessment or appeal in the first place.

Disability Employment Gap

Owen Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House regrets the Government's lack of progress towards halving the disability employment gap; further regrets that the Government has not yet published its White Paper on improving support for disabled people; notes with concern that commitments made in the Autumn Statement 2015 to help more disabled people through Access to Work and expanding Fit for Work have not materialised; further notes that the Government is reducing funding for specialist support for claimants with health conditions and disabilities through the Work and Health Programme; and calls on the Government to reverse cuts to the work-related activity component of Employment and Support Allowance and Universal Credit work allowances that risk widening the disability employment gap.

In my opinion and that of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition, the Government are failing disabled people in Britain—failing to support them into work and failing to support those unable to work—and they are doing so deliberately, with calculation, care and even premeditation. It was entirely premeditated to go into the election boasting about cutting a further £12 billion from social security but forgetting to mention it would come from disabled people and those on low wages in need of tax credits and universal credit. I would like to say that we do not know why the Government are doing this, but we do know, because the Secretary of State’s predecessor told us in his tearful goodbye:

“we see benefits as a pot of money to cut because they don’t vote for us”.

It still shocks me to repeat that demolition of the Government’s one nation credentials—indicted by their own words.

I welcome the successor Secretary of State to the Dispatch Box, because all too often the last one failed to turn up in the House to accept scrutiny or difficult questions on issues such as this one, the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign or the bedroom tax. I welcome the decision he took on his first day in the job to stop the plans to take personal independence payments away from people unable to dress themselves or use the toilet unaided, and I also welcome the fact that in the same speech he said that there would be “no more welfare cuts”, but I deplore the fact that he must have known, even as he made that statement, that the deepest cuts had already been made. The cuts from disability living allowance to personal independence payments, the cuts to employment support allowance, the cuts to the Work programme, the cuts to universal credit: all those sharp incisions had already been made. The effects were yet to be felt, but now, a few months down the line, the pain is evident, the harm is clear and these things can be measured in the widening gap in employment between disabled people and the wider population.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman take a step back from the rhetoric and have a look at the facts for a second? Does he not welcome the 365,000 more disabled people in work over the past two years, and the 3.3 million in total who are in employment? Will he not welcome those facts?

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith]

Let me give the hon. Gentleman the facts. I welcome every job provided for a disabled person, and I welcome every opportunity for disabled people to get into work, but the facts are that the Government have gone backwards on the target for disabled people. When our Labour Government left office, the disabled employment gap stood at 28%; today, it is 34%—an increase in the size of the gap between ordinary able-bodied people in work and disabled people. That is the truth of these circumstances. [Hon. Members: “Ordinary?”] What a ridiculous point. I mean the gap between able-bodied people without disabilities and disabled people. That stands at 34%— increasing on the Secretary of State’s watch and under this Government.

I will give this Secretary of State and his Government credit where it is due. I credit them for setting this difficult target to halve the disabled person’s employment gap. It was a clear pledge in the Conservative manifesto at the last election. On page 19, it said that the Conservatives would

“halve the disability employment gap…transform policy, practice and public attitudes, so that hundreds of thousands more disabled people who can and want to be in work find employment”.

That is a genuinely laudable aim. Labour fully agrees that if disabled people can find work and want to work, we should do everything we can to encourage and assist them in doing so. It would be good for all of us: good for them to be in work; good socially for our workplaces to be more integrated and rounded places; good economically, as reducing the gap by 10% would add £45 billion to our gross domestic product by 2030.

Unfortunately, a year on from that promise, the Government are either reneging on it or just failing to take the action needed to meet it. The volume of people currently employed who are not disabled stands at 80%, but the figure for those who are disabled stands at 46%—a gap, as I said a few moments ago, of 34%. The House of Commons Library, the Resolution Foundation and the TUC have all carried out analysis to show that the Government are making little or no progress towards the target. To hit it, they will need to get 1.5 million disabled people into work.

On the basis of the current state of activity by this Government, I cannot see how they are going to achieve it in a month of Sundays. I cannot see how they are going to get it back even to where it was at the end of the last Labour Government at 28%. It is a worse performance by this Government than that of the last Labour Government. What is even worse is that it is becoming more difficult for disabled people to get into work and stay in work because of the cuts that the Government are making. That will be my next theme.

[Maria Caulfield (Lewes) (Con)]

Is it not true that under the last Labour Government, by the time someone was 26, they were four times more likely to be out of work as a disabled person than they are under the current Conservative Government?

[Owen Smith]

I have repeatedly said that the last Labour Government were performing better in terms of the disabled person’s employment gap than this current Government, and I shall say so again in a few moments.

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend as concerned as me about the effect of the Government’s welfare changes on access to the Motability car scheme? Is he concerned about how many people have had their applications for the higher rate of the mobility component of PIP turned down only to find after many months and the loss of their car that the decision has been reversed because of problems with the assessment procedure in the first place? This affects people’s ability to get to work and to hold down and keep their jobs.

[Owen Smith]

Of course it does, and I am going to say something about that straight away, because the first of the cuts that I want to discuss—cuts that are making it enormously more difficult for disabled people to get into and stay in work—is the PIP cut. As we know, PIP is a system of support that helps disabled people to deal with the extra costs of being disabled and to play a full part in life, which includes going to work. Eventually, when they have all been shifted across from Labour’s disability living allowance, 3.5 million people will be on PIP.

As I said earlier, the previous Secretary of State baulked at taking £1.2 billion out of PIP by changing the eligibility criteria in respect of washing and dressing, but he knew that he had already saved £2 billion by tightening the criteria relating to the move from DLA to PIP. One of the ways in which he tightened those criteria involved the mobility component of PIP, versus DLA. Crucially, he changed the measurement of people’s mobility—how far they were able to walk—from 50 metres to 20 metres, the net effect of which was, quite simply, that fewer people were eligible for the mobility component. As a result, 17,000 specially adapted Motability cars have been removed from people. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State says that I have got my stats wrong. He can tell us what he thinks the stats are shortly, but first I am going to tell him what Muscular Dystrophy UK has said, because it has an interest in the matter. It has said that it is deeply concerned about the fact that between 400 and 500 specially adapted cars a week are being taken away from disabled people, which is an extraordinary statement. Does the Secretary of State think that is right? Does he think for a second that it is even cost-effective? More important, what does he think about the impact on real people?

Only this morning, Muscular Dystrophy UK highlighted the case of a woman called Sarah, aged 29, from Norfolk. She has myotonic dystrophy, which means that her muscles are progressively wasting. None the less, she works as a nurse in a local hospital, although she needs a specially adapted car to get to work. We could all celebrate that, could we not, were it not for the fact that the Department for Work and Pensions has taken her car away.

Sarah says:

“The ‘20-metre rule’ does not assess how someone’s mobility is affected by their condition. Occasionally I may be able to walk 20 metres, but on other days…I could fall…decreasing my mobility further…I could…choose not to work, but…As a nurse, I make a difference in my role, but it seems like the DWP is trying to prevent me from doing so.”

That is the human effect of the changes that the Secretary of State is overseeing.

[Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman will retract his earlier choice of words, when he separated hard-working people like Sarah of Norfolk from other—in his words—“ordinary workers”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Owen Smith]

That was a slip of the tongue, and I regret making it. In this of all areas, we should be extremely careful with the language that we use. I did not mean to imply what the hon. Lady suggests that I was implying.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Department for Work and Pensions has a duty to monitor the impact of the PIP roll-out, given the projection by Disability Rights UK that it could cause about 55,000 disabled people in work to lose their Motability vehicles and thus their ability to work?

[Owen Smith]

I think it is absolutely shameful that the Government are refusing to monitor that properly. It is clear to all of us in the House that if people lose the cars that allow them to get to work, it will be harder for them to stay in work or seek employment. That, surely, is as plain as the nose on the Secretary of State’s face.

Does the Secretary of State think that taking Sarah’s Motability car away from her helps or hinders his mission to halve the disability employment gap? It seems to me that he should know the answer to that. I ask him to bring forward the review of PIP, and to think again about the 20-metre rule in particular. I ask him to look at what Atos and Capita are doing and reform their management of the system, because it is not working, and people such as Sarah are paying the price.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the real problem is the fact that the assessment process is so dehumanising for a lot of people? This is not about human beings or about realising their full potential; it is about treating people as numbers.

[Owen Smith]

My hon. Friend is completely right. As we all know, the truth is that there was a set of targets for savings to be made from the social security budget. Those targets were set by the Chancellor and passed down the road to those at Caxton House, who have set about carving up disabled people’s benefits in order to meet those targets. It is frankly shameful that people are being dragooned into this process, being treated poorly and demeaned by it, and at the end being less likely to stay in work or find work. That is very clear.

[Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Owen Smith]

I will give way in a moment. I just want to make a few more points about universal credit, then I will happily give way to the former Minister for disabled people.

Let us move on to the work allowance under universal credit. This is another way in which the Government are penalising disabled people in work. One million low-paid disabled people will be on universal credit when it is fully rolled out, and thanks to the cuts to work allowances that this Secretary of State has introduced, they will all be about £2,000 a year worse off than they are at present. What does the Secretary of State think that cut will do for the life chances of those people? What does he think it will do to help him achieve his mission of halving the disability employment gap? Does he think that earning less will make people more or less likely to stay in work? I think I know the answers to those questions, which is why Labour is clear that we will reverse those cuts.

[Mrs Spelman]

The fact is that the Government spend £50 billion a year on benefits to support people with disabilities and health conditions. Does the hon. Gentleman not want to turn his attention to how we are going to reform the system, rather than simply harking on about how much money is being spent? I think he knows better than that.

[Owen Smith]

I said 20 seconds ago that one way in which I would reform the system would be to reverse the cuts to the work allowances under universal credit. That would clearly make work pay for 1 million disabled people in this country. I would start there, and I shall mention myriad other things later that the Government could do.

I would also reverse the cut to the support for disabled students. Getting qualifications is even more important for disabled students than it is for non-disabled people in this country. This summer, disabled students will be looking at their options and considering whether they can afford to go on to higher education, and they will be grossly disappointed to learn that the Government have already made it harder for them to do so through the decision to cut the disability student allowance which supports nearly 70,000 disabled higher education students.

[Chloe Smith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Owen Smith]

I am going to finish this point. I might give way to the hon. Lady later.

Can the Secretary of State tell us how many fewer disabled students will go to university this September? I would be really interested to know, but I am not sure that the Government gather statistics on that. It would be good to know whether the cutting of that grant will mean fewer disabled students going to university. Can he explain how putting up barriers to disabled students is going to help his mission to halve the disability employment gap?

The biggest barrier that this Government have raised for disabled people seeking to enter the workplace is the cut to the work-related activity group under the employment and support allowance. That is a cut of around £1,500 a year for 500,000 disabled people whom the Government are meant to be helping into employment.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I am glad that my hon. Friend has mentioned the fact that the cuts to the employment and support allowance will leave 500,000 disabled people £1,500 a year worse off. Those measures were passed by this Parliament only once the former Secretary of State had given an assurance to this House—and particularly to Conservative Members—that there would be a White Paper on a settlement package for disabled people before the summer recess. Is my hon. Friend as disappointed as I am that that White Paper does not appear to be forthcoming?

[Owen Smith]

I am deeply disappointed. I suspect that lots of Government Members, many of whom were sold the ESA cuts explicitly on the promise that the White Paper would come through, will be deeply disappointed. In fact, I may find it in my speech to mention a few of them in a couple of minutes’ time.

[Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Owen Smith]

I am going to make a bit more progress and may give way in a minute.

Let us talk about ESA. Here is what the experts, not MPs, think about the cuts to the WRAG under ESA and how they will affect employability. Parkinson’s UK says:

“The cut to the WRAG will push people…even further from the workplace.”

Muscular Dystrophy UK states that the cut

“will widen the disability employment gap rather than reduce it.”

Mind’s chief executive, Paul Farmer, said

“Implying that ill and disabled people will be motivated into work if their benefits are cut is misguided and insulting.”

I could not agree more. It is grossly insulting to disabled people. I know that many Government Back Benchers feel the same way, because that is why they were so loth to give their votes to the Government on the ESA cut. In fact, many of them—[Interruption.] I am going to finish this point. Many of them did so explicitly because the Government promised to beef up support for disabled people. Let me quote a few Government Members and then I will give way to the hon. Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer).

I will first quote the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen), who said before abstaining on the vote:

“To secure my trust, I need to believe in the White Paper and that the £100 million will go some way to help those people. That is my warning shot to the Government.”—[Official Report, 23 February 2016; Vol. 606, c. 215.]

The hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) said that the

“White Paper is incredibly important to the matter we are discussing, because it is the replacement for what the Government are proposing to remove.”—[Official Report, 23 February 2016; Vol. 606, c. 222.]

The hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) said

“I was about to vote against ESA cuts when he”—

the previous Secretary of State—

“sought me out - he personally and angrily begged me not to”

and that he

“Promised me he was introducing a white paper which guaranteed enhanced and more easily accessible benefits for the seriously disabled”

in this country.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Owen Smith]

I will give way to the hon. Lady and then to the hon. Member for Sherwood.

[Nicola Blackwood]

The shadow Secretary of State mentioned experts and then descended into partisanship, so I thought I might try to bring him back to the experts. He has not yet mentioned the Sayce report, so what are his views on that? It discussed many aspects of employment support for disabled people and highlighted the positive aspects of the Access to Work programme, stating that it

“should be transformed from being the best kept secret in Government to being a recognised passport to successful employment”

and that the Government should double the number of people who are helped. Does he agree with that? How would he propose that the Government go about achieving it?

[Owen Smith]

I agree with lots of it, but the truth, as I have been describing, is that we have seen nothing but cuts. The shift from the Work programme to the Work and Health programme involves an 80% cut in support. Access to Work is dealing with fewer people this year than last year: 31,000 versus 34,000. Those are the facts, and the Government really need to check them. When the Secretary of State was the Secretary of State for Wales, he welcomed the Fit for Work scheme, but he has now scrapped it in my constituency. It is another scheme that is meant to be helping people, as Liz Sayce described, but it is being cut on the Government’s watch. That is the truth of the matter.

Where is this fabled White Paper? Where is it, the one that we have been waiting for all these months? Perhaps the hon. Member for Sherwood knows where the Government have it hidden and can tell us all about it.

[Mark Spencer]

I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for giving way. He talks about how strong the feelings are on the Government Benches and how much compassion there is around the issue of trying to get disabled people into work, but it is worth noting that the number of Government Members here to discuss the matter is more than double the number of Opposition Members. The number of Back Benchers here to support him in this debate has just gone down to single figures, which says quite a lot.

[Owen Smith]

Low-brow, low-ball comments such as that really do not help the debate. This is a serious debate. I am taking it extremely seriously on behalf of the Labour Front Bench, and I would expect better from even Tory Back Benchers than that sort of nonsense.

Where is the White Paper that we have been expecting? I will tell the House. A former Employment Minister—the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) may still be on the Front Bench, but I never seem to see her there any longer because I suspect she is too busy campaigning on Europe outside this House—promised it by the spring. The Secretary of State’s predecessor then turned spring into summer. This Secretary of State went one better and turned a White Paper into a Green Paper, kicking urgency, clarity and specificity down the road. It is another insult to disabled people who are seeing their incomes cut and their Motability vehicles taken away. In my view, it is yet another insult. After disabled people have been knocked from pillar to post with the cuts to ESA, PIP, universal credit, student grants and the Work programme, the Secretary of State, for all his warm words, is putting legislation to put some of those things right on the back burner. That is the undeniable truth behind the shift from a White Paper to a Green Paper. It is failing disabled people.

Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition will support the Government when we think they are getting things right, but we will stand up and be counted when they are getting things wrong. We applaud the establishment of the bold and ambitious target to assist disabled people into work, but we will call it a lie—a cruel lie—if that promise is revealed to be a pipedream without the resources and the will to make it come true.

The Secretary of State says he wants to start a new dialogue with disabled people. Well, we are waiting to hear it. More importantly, he says he intends to make a difference and halve the gap in employment that they face. Well, I am waiting to see it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

I shall keep it quick, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to be called to speak in this debate. I was genuinely pleased when I saw that the Labour party had selected the disability employment gap as the topic of its Opposition day debate, because it seemed so out of character. Why would the Labour party try to have a consensual Opposition day debate when it is all about hurling insults at each other? As ever, the shadow Secretary of State did not let me down. He did not talk about the disability employment gap at all. He gave his usual speech about disability, and he mentioned all the points that he tends to make about disability. The debate could have been called simply “Disability”. He started to refer to what he called the disability gap, and I have no idea what that even meant. It could have meant almost anything. It was a peculiar avenue to go down.

The shadow Secretary of State is quite right, on one level, to hold us to account for a manifesto pledge, but there is a certain irony in the fact that he is holding us to account for a pledge that the Labour party chose not to make in the last election. It was not clear from his speech whether the Labour party has made a commitment to halve the unemployment gap.

[Owen Smith]

indicated assent.

[Paul Maynard]

I am pleased to see the shadow Secretary of State nodding his head. It is a little churlish of him to criticise us for not narrowing the gap in the first year since the election. He is quite right to point out that the gap has broadened—[Interruption.] It really annoys me that the Opposition Front-Bench team always think that the best way to address any speech by a Conservative Member is to sit and give a running verbal commentary on everything we say—a monologue to their imaginary friends sitting on the Front Bench. [Interruption.] Will the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) be quiet for a minute? I am sorry to have to shout at her. I listened very patiently and quietly—[Interruption.] I do not want a conversation with her; I am asking her to listen to my speech. I sat patiently and listened to the shadow Secretary of State. I did not engage in a running commentary. [Interruption.] If she wishes to step outside and argue with me now, then we can do so. All I am asking is for the hon. Lady to show me a common courtesy and to listen to what I am saying, not issue a running commentary. [Interruption.] Yes, I know that my time is running down, but I place great importance on standards of politeness in this Chamber. If I choose to use my time in trying to enforce those standards, that is my choice and it is not for her to comment on it.

Universal Credit (Children)

Owen Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I do not have information or data to hand on the current estimate, but the Government previously published figures on UC and child poverty. As other Members have commented on this, I will be very happy to write to them and to the right hon. Gentleman to update them on those numbers.

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Does the Minister think that that figure will be more or less than the 200,000 additional children going into absolute poverty cited by the Resolution Foundation?

[Priti Patel]

As the hon. Gentleman has just heard me say, when we publish our life chances strategy and focus on tackling the root causes of child poverty—we are committed to eradicating child poverty, as well—we will be driving those numbers down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Owen Smith Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend asks a good question. Many of our reforms of the state pension are designed to make things simpler and less confusing for people. Since the new state pension was introduced in April, everyone has been able to get a personalised state pension statement, based on the new rules, and there is a new online service, “Check your State Pension”, which offers a quick and accessible way for people to access information about their state pension.

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to his first DWP questions. He has started today by trying very hard to strike a different tone from his predecessor. He said in an interview last week that he wanted his Department and his Ministers to understand the “human impact” of their policies. What does he think the human impact will be of his plans to cut £1.2 billion from disabled people throughout the next Parliament? What does he think the impact is for the 500,000 people who are set to lose £1,500 a year in employment and support allowance?

[Stephen Crabb]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the kind words with which he started his question. He obviously was not listening to the earlier questions on this subject, because at the end of this Parliament we will be spending more than at the beginning of this Parliament on supporting disabled people. We will be spending around £50 billion supporting disabled people—far more than was ever spent under the previous Labour Government.

[Owen Smith]

The Secretary of State seems to have forgotten already that in his very first speech he said that behind all those statistics are human beings. Disabled people will be disappointed that today he hid behind statistics once more and that he will not reverse the ESA cuts. Others will be disappointed that he refused today to address the concerns of women born in the 1950s, and still others that he has refused to address the cuts to in-work benefits under universal credit. In what way is the Secretary of State different from his predecessor?

[Stephen Crabb]

We are a Government who have helped deliver the changes that have seen a huge fall in workless households. Nearly half a million more children are growing up in a home seeing a mum or a dad go out to work. There is no reason to change policies that are changing things for the better for those who have least in our society.

Welfare

Owen Smith Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

I start by saying “Croeso a llongyfarchiadau”—welcome and congratulations —to the new Secretary of State. He and I have history at the Wales Office, and I look forward to renewing our relationship. On the basis of today’s statement at least, it looks like it will be a bit more productive than the one I had with his predecessor. I thank him for advance sight of the statement and welcome the vital and wholly inevitable U-turn on the cuts to PIP.

The way this mess has been handled is a textbook example of Tory social security policy—long on divisive rhetoric and totally lacking in competence and compassion. We had the lies before the election; the sham consultation—I welcome the new Secretary of State saying he will listen to the disabled, but the Government should have listened to them in the consultation, when 95% told them not to go ahead, instead of listening to just 11 respondents and putting it through—the announcement snuck out on a Friday night; the briefings before the Budget, the spin afterwards, the extra £20 million set aside to fight the appeals; but, above all, the deliberate targeting of disabled people to pay for tax cuts in the Budget, as exposed so mercilessly by his processor, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), at the weekend.

However entertaining it has been watching this Tory civil war over the weekend, what really matters are the 640,000 disabled people who have been in the firing line of the Prime Minister’s Budget, so on their behalf I sincerely thank the new Secretary of State for doing the right thing and reversing the cuts to PIP.

But however welcome that decision, the manner in which it came about leaves many questions unanswered and strips all credibility from the claims of this Government and this Prime Minister to protect all the people of Britain. Never again can he or this Government claim that we are all in it together. Never again can he claim to lead a one nation Government, because the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green has left that claim in tatters. Speaking from the heart of the Tory Government, he said that their “unfairness” is damaging the people: it is attacking the poor and dividing our nation.

So my question, quite simply, to the new Secretary of State is: does he agree with his predecessor about the fundamental unfairness of those welfare policies and is that why he is reversing the PIP cut today? Can he reassure us that those cuts will be fully reversed? Can he reassure us that changes made to the points system under PIP will be dropped and that full support will be maintained for people who need, for example, help going to the toilet or getting dressed in the morning? Can he reassure us that this is a real U-turn, not another sleight of hand or sham, as we saw with tax credits? Disabled people need to know definitively today that they are being protected, so can he rule out any further cuts to the incomes of disabled people?

I presume the Secretary of State cannot, because I read in the statement that he refers to the “substantial savings legislated for by Parliament two weeks ago”. He did not say what he meant by that, but I can tell the House what he meant. What he meant were the cuts to the education and support allowance work-related activity group budget—£30 a week taken away from the best part of half a million people, who will lose £1,500 a year. We know the Secretary of State’s attitude to that, because he voted for it two weeks ago and he defended it just last week. In fact, on a blog—[Interruption.] Hon. Members would do well to listen to this: they need to know about their new Secretary of State. In a blog written last week, he said that those who were opposed to the ESA WRAG cut were engaged in mere “political banter”. Well, there is nothing fun for disabled people—it is not “banter”—about losing £1,500 a year out of their fragile incomes. So can the Secretary of State be serious and tell us: did he mean the ESA WRAG cut? Is there no chance that he is not going to agree with his predecessor that that, too, is unfair and reverse it, as he should?

Thirdly, could the Secretary of State confirm for us—and correct the errors made once more from the Dispatch Box by his hon. Friend the Financial Secretary earlier today—that spending on disabled people in this country is not increasing in real terms, as was alleged, but declining? The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies confirmed last week that spending on PIP and DLA is falling in real terms by 3%, or £500 million. In fact, if we take into account all disabled benefits, as the House of Commons Library has done, in analysis for the Labour party to be released later today, we see that spending has fallen by 6%, in contrast with the 60% increase in spending on disabled people that we saw under the last Labour Government—6% down under the Tories; 60% increased for the disabled on our side.

Finally, I welcome what the new Secretary of State had to say about starting a new conversation with the disabled. He has made a good start with a U-turn, but will he decide now that he is going to put an end to the divisive rhetoric that has characterised this Government’s approach over the last few years? Will he stand up for a fair and progressive renewal of our welfare state—the system of support that should be there for us all when we need it?

The new Secretary of State stands at a crossroads today. He can choose the path trodden by his predecessor —to cut the incomes of the disabled; to defend the illegal bedroom tax; to take money from working families through universal credit—or he can choose the path less trodden by Tory Secretaries of State. He could reverse the ESA cut; he could scrap the hated bedroom tax; and he could truly speak in favour of disabled people, the poor and the vulnerable in our society.

Among the many extraordinary truths spoken by the Secretary of State’s predecessor yesterday was the shameful admission that these two nation Tories decided to cut people’s benefits because they did not think that those people would vote for them. It was extraordinary, it was shameful, and the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will have a hell of a job on his hands to wash that stain out.

[Stephen Crabb]

Let me begin by saying “diolch yn fawr” to the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) for his welcoming remarks. It is good to renew the relationship with him that culminated so happily, for me at any rate, on 7 May last year, when he had to crawl out and explain why the Labour party had lost Cardiff North, Vale of Clwyd and Gower. I am very happy to be partnered with him across the Dispatch Box once again. He has lost none of his usual spiky style, and he retains what I described, when he was shadow Welsh Secretary, as a rather “pantomime anger” approach.

The hon. Gentleman asked me about my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green . I was, and am, very proud to have served in a Government with my right hon. Friend, who has a superb record as a social reformer. His record over the last six years compares, any day of the week, with the record of Labour Governments when it comes to welfare reform.

There was a time when Labour Members used to speak the language of welfare reform. There was a time when they liked to pretend that they understood that a benefits system that traps people in poverty is not a benefits system based on compassion and fairness. The time when they talked that language was a time when the British public considered them to be a serious prospect to be voted into government. That was a long time ago.

I have no intention of repeating my statement word for word. I thought that I had been crystal clear about the fact that we are not proceeding with the proposed changes in the personal independence payment. I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman was not listening carefully enough. We are increasing real support for disabled people, in real terms, over the lifetime of this Parliament, and the hon. Gentleman should not stand at the Dispatch Box and say that we are not, because it simply is not true.

Points of Order

Owen Smith Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Before the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions leaves the Chamber, may I point out that he said in his statement that the Government will not be seeking future savings from the welfare budget? However, Treasury sources were apparently briefing to The Sun newspaper during his statement that that is not what he means, and that he means that there are no “planned” increases in the cuts to the welfare budget in this Parliament. Can he tell us which it is?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has raised his concern under the guise, or within the clothing, of an attempted point of order, but as he knows—his puckish grin merely testifies to his awareness of this—that is not a matter for the Chair. If he is beseeching the Secretary of State to come in on that point of order, he is entitled so to beseech. The Secretary of State can do so if he wishes, but he is under no obligation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Owen Smith Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The White Paper will be published well before the summer break. It is worth reminding the hon. Gentleman of two things. First, and really importantly, half the spending on welfare and public services still goes to the poorest 40%, as it did in 2009-10. Secondly, it is also important to note that we expect no change in the proportion of spending projected to be received by the lowest and middle quintiles between 2010-11 and 2020. I also say to him that it is a bit rich that the Scottish Nationalists, who are in Government in Scotland and who now face a £15 billion deficit, which would have racked them had they gone for independence, have not once referred to the tough choices that they might have to make to reduce that deficit.

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Politics is always about choices, about priorities and about values. This past weekend, we saw the values and priorities of the current Government laid bare in their decision to implement a so-called welfare reform that will see £1.2 billion cut from the incomes of disabled people to pay for—we are told—a tax cut for top-rate taxpayers. Will the Secretary of State come back to the Dispatch Box and honestly describe that as a welfare reform, and then justify those choices?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The changes that have been announced on personal independence payment are about changing, reforming and improving what goes to those who most need it in this disability allowance. The key point about this, which has been made by the Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), is that we put out a consultation long before the Christmas period. The Opposition had an opportunity to make their submissions, which they did, and we listened to all the submissions that came back. As a result, we are not implementing any of the first four options. It is right to continue to recognise aids and appliances and all the activities, as we previously did, but with a change to activities 5 and 6, changing the points numbers from two to one. That brings them into line with activity 3, in which one point has always been awarded for aids and appliances. Finally, activities 5 and 6 are less reliable indicators of additional cost. This all came on the back of an independent review published just after the last election, asking us to look again at the way those indicators are used. We have done that and, in fairness, this is the right way to go and will improve the lot of the worst off.

[Owen Smith]

For the benefit of the House, may I translate what the Secretary of State has just said? What he means is that he will take away £1.2 billion, completely eroding access to personal independence payment for 200,000 people, and cutting it by a third, from £70 to £50, for a further 450,000 people—people who are quite often unable to use the toilet or get dressed unaided. That comes on top of the cuts to ESA that went through the House last week. Before I came to the Chamber this afternoon, I asked disabled people what question they would like to put to the Secretary of State. One answer stood out. It was quite simply, “How does he sleep at night?”

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that, under this Government, spending on sickness and disability benefits has risen every year. We spend more than £50 billion, which is more than any other OECD country of equivalent size, such as Germany. I am proud of that, and, even with these changes, we will continue to see spending on PIP rise every year all the way to the end of this Parliament. As I have said, I am proud of that, because our reforms ensure that those most in need get full support and that the way that we do it is fair to everybody. I am also proud of the fact that this represents 6% of all Government spending, because, by reforming the economy and reforming welfare, we can get the money to those who most need it. By contrast, when Labour was in Government, we had a lot of promises, a broken economy and cuts all round.

State Pension Age

Owen Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to make a statement on the Government’s review of the state pension age.

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

Yesterday we announced the appointment of John Cridland to lead an independent review of the state pension age. The review will make recommendations for the Government to consider, to ensure the future state pension age is fair and affordable in the long term.

The review will report by May 2017. I want to stress that the review is independently led and evidence led. Evidence will be put forward for Sir John to consider in his important considerations about the future of the state pension. The review will consider changes in life expectancy, as well as wider changes in society.

It is useful at this point to remind the House why this kind of review is necessary. In 1945, a man expecting to retire at 65 had a life expectancy of between 60 and 63. Men’s life expectancy rose from 14.27 years in retirement after their pension age to 27 years under the present forecast and existing timescales. Women have gone from 18 years in retirement after their pensionable age to 29.5 years in retirement.

Future generations, therefore, would rightly expect that we reflect those changes in how we set the pension. They would not thank us—we very rarely hear anybody talk about future generations—if we did not take the right decisions at the right time and did not have the courage to ensure pensions are sustainable, to avoid people having to pick up an increasing bill, which would make their lives even more difficult.

I want to make clear what this review is not about. It does not cover the existing state pension age timetable—it picks up from April 2028. We have already provided legislation for this, and the review will not look to change the state pension age up to that point.

It is worth reminding the Opposition at this point that when the Labour Government were last in power, they first legislated for state pension age rises beyond 65, but without any commitment to a special independent review, which we have undertaken. When we brought forward the Pensions Bill in 2013, the then Opposition seemed to have had a change of heart, and they—quite legitimately and reasonably, I thought at the time—agreed with us on the need for a regular independent review of the state pension age. Let me quote what the then shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), said during the course of the Bill’s passage:

“The Secretary of State and I have no difference of opinion on the need regularly to review the state pension age.”—[Official Report, 17 June 2013; Vol. 564, c. 661.]

It is worth reminding everybody that in that Bill was a statutory provision for a regular set of reviews of the pension age. Yesterday’s announcement is simply in line with that statutory requirement. That is what we are now doing, and that is what the then shadow Secretary of State said in agreement. I also remind the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) that at the time Labour made no amendment to change the nature or scope of the review; nor, I recall, did it have anything in its manifesto to do with that.

Under the legislation, we are required to appoint an independent reviewer who will make recommendations on future state pension age requirements. We have appointed Sir John Cridland to lead this work. The legislation also requires us to report on this in 2017. I can assure the House that we will report back to the House in an oral statement and a written statement on whatever comes forward from that review.

This review is part of the Government’s reforms to pensions to ensure that they are affordable for the long term. It is right that we recognise those who have reached their pension age and who have worked hard, done the right thing, and provided for their families. I believe that this Government are delivering for those very people. As a result of our triple lock, pensioners will receive a basic state pension over £1,000 a year higher than at the start of the previous Parliament and under the previous Government. We have provided greater security and more choice and dignity for people in retirement, while also ensuring that the system is sustainable for future generations.

[Owen Smith]

May I start by welcoming the Secretary of State back to the Dispatch Box? We have missed him in recent months and are grateful that he is gracing us with his rare presence today.

Despite the statement we have just heard, I think that people travelling to work this morning will have been shocked to learn that the Government are planning yet another review of the retirement age and, in the immediate future, of when they can claim their state pension, with a clear implication that, as was the case with the women’s state pension, they intend to increase it further and faster than we, or the people of Britain, were expecting. People will also have been shocked to read this morning the Pensions Minister’s statement in another place, in response to the news of this review, that under the Tories the state pension age should no longer be considered as “a retirement age”. In other words, people will be able to retire only if they are rich enough or have a fat private pension; otherwise they will have to keep working—working until they drop, as one pensions professor warns this morning.

So could the Secretary of State try to clarify exactly what his Government’s long-term economic plan is for pensioners? Is it, as was the case with the botched reforms of women’s pensions, and as was implied in the terms of reference for this review, that people can expect the Government to ratchet up the retirement age much faster than expected? Can he guarantee that even if this review is not considering the planned increase to 67 by 2028, his Government will not bring forward that change? If that promise is not ratted on, can he confirm that his Government are considering speeding up subsequent rises, with increases to 69 or 70 being considered for people currently in their mid-40s? Could he also confirm that this will be a double whammy for those pension savers, as under his reforms everyone aged under 43 will have a worse state pension? Does he agree with his pensions colleague in the Lords that in the light of his reforms, the state pension age should no longer be considered as the retirement age, and so in future only the wealthy will have the luxury of retiring, while the rest will just have to keep on working?

Finally, what does the Secretary of State think is the upper limit for the state pension age? Is it 75, 76 or 77—or is it 80, as his former Pensions Minister colleague warned today? Is not the truth that the new pension promise is not the 75p that the Tories are always banging on about, but the 75 years that people will have to work and wait under this Tory Government before they get their state pension?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Well, all I can assume from that rather pathetic response is that the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) did not think that his urgent question would be granted and that, after he heard that it had been granted, he scribbled away massively, because it was utter idiocy. I want to be kind to him, because he has made a career out of being Mr Angry at the drop of a hat. I remind him—[Interruption.] Labour Members do not want to hear this, but I am going to answer the hon. Gentleman’s question. Let me remind him of exactly what his party was about before he took over as the Opposition spokesman. Let me—[Interruption.]