Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

18. What steps his Department is taking to help pensioners with the cost of living.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Paul Maynard)]

More than 8 million pensioner households will receive a £300 payment this winter to top up their winter fuel allowance payment. The 1.4 million pensioners currently in receipt of pension credit may also receive cost of living payments totalling up to £900 in 2023-24.

[Damien Moore]

In Southport we have a significant number of pensioners who, having lost their partners, now face the added challenge of managing increased living costs alone. Can the Minister kindly elaborate on what specific initiatives or support mechanisms are in place to assist people in those financially difficult circumstances, to ensure that they get the support they deserve?

[Paul Maynard]

Anyone who suffers a bereavement at any time will potentially be in severe financial difficulties. I direct my hon. Friend to the funeral expenses payment, which is part of the social fund. I would also point to the wider measures that we have taken, such as applying the triple lock—there will be an 8.5% increase in the state pension next year. We will also include cost of living payments in the winter fuel payment, of £500 or £600, depending on the age of the recipient.

[David Simmonds]

Despite the welcome fall in inflation, my constituent Deborah Garrard speaks for herself and many pensioners who are concerned about a second winter of high fuel prices. Will my hon. Friend outline what further measures the Department is considering to help reduce pensioners’ financial burden?

[Paul Maynard]

I know that Mrs Garrard will not be the only older resident in the country concerned about energy prices this winter. I just mentioned the increased cost of living payment that we are adding to the winter fuel payment. In addition, we have increased the warm home discount to up to £150, and there is a whole suite of cold weather payments that can be made in the event of seven days of sustained cold weather. We have a wide range of measures to help support people when faced with cold weather and high energy costs.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

10. What steps his Department is taking to help ensure that people are financially incentivised to work.

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[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

16. Whether he has had recent discussions with the Pensions Regulator on the adequacy of the administration of defined-benefit pension schemes.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Paul Maynard)]

I am fortunate in having already been able to meet representatives of the Pensions Regulator twice since my appointment to discuss the full gamut of their responsibilities.

[Mr Carmichael]

Members of the BP pension scheme, a defined-benefit scheme, have seen the value of their pensions fall by 11% in real terms as a consequence of their senior management’s refusal to upgrade them in line with the cost of living, although the pension fund itself has a £5 billion surplus. Does the Minister agree that if the rules allow companies such as BP to deal from the bottom of the deck when it comes to their own pensioners, these are rules that need to be changed?

[Paul Maynard]

That is certainly something I need to look into. When people raise the issue of specific pension schemes, I am always conscious of just how many thousands of scheme members are potentially watching, so I do not wish to speak off the cuff and raise hopes that I may not be able to fulfil. However, I shall be happy to meet the right hon. Gentleman to discuss the circumstances in greater detail and see what can be done.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Rob Roberts. He is otherwise engaged. I call Virginia Crosbie.

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[Sarah Dyke (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

T4. Many people took the decision to pay for pension top-ups in 2020 and 2021, but in numerous instances this has not led to any increase in their state pension; nor have they received any explanation or a refund. Has the Department made an assessment of the average delay in people receiving their pension top-ups?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Paul Maynard)]

The advice to anyone seeking to top up their pension or buy extra national insurance credits would be to ring the Future Pension Centre in advance of making any payments, to determine whether they would actually enhance their pension by making them. It is always best for people to check before they make those payments, to make sure that they will improve their pension.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

T5. Ministers are rightly putting a great deal of money and focus behind back to work programmes across the country. What progress have they made towards transparently publishing the outcomes so that we can see which programmes perform better or worse in different parts of the country and why?

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[Paul Maynard]

As pensions Minister, my main focus is on making sure that we have a high-quality, sustainable pension system that, year on year, keeps the value of the overall state pension as high as possible and that meets our manifesto commitment to the triple lock. That is the best way of focusing on the value of the state pension.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Twenty months ago, the Equality and Human Rights Commission issued a section 23 agreement request to the Department, following concerns regarding breaches and potential discrimination against disabled people. Why has the Department still not reached an agreement?

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[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

My constituents Susan and David Cfas have made representations to me about the situation facing them and many other pensioners who are having to access benefits and other Government support because they are stuck in an annuity trap, whereby at retirement they posted an annuity, which has remained fixed. Will my right hon. Friend meet me to discuss the plight of pensioners in that situation to see whether more can be done to encourage them to access different approaches to increase their income?

[Paul Maynard]

That is certainly one reason why we are trying to get people to engage in a more considered way with what they do at the point of the decumulation of their pension funds, but I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss his specific concerns about annuities in due course.

[Andrew Western (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

The Trussell Trust has recently reported that in the past year there has been an 80% increase in the number of children in Stretford and Urmston being supported with food parcels. Can the Minister tell me why it believes that is the case?

Draft Occupational Pension Schemes (Amendment) (Equal Treatment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023 Draft Pensions (Pension Protection Fund Compensation) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023 Draft Pensions Act 2004 (Amendment) (Pension Protection Fund Compensation) Regulations 2023 Draft Pensions Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010 (Amendment) (Equal Treatment by Occupational Pension Schemes) Regulations 2023

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Paul Maynard)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Occupational Pension Schemes (Amendment) (Equal Treatment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the draft Pensions (Pension Protection Fund Compensation) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023, the draft Pensions Act 2004 (Amendment) (Pension Protection Fund Compensation) Regulations 2023 and the draft Pensions Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010 (Amendment) (Equal Treatment by Occupational Pension Schemes) Regulations 2023.

[Paul Maynard]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George.

The regulations were laid in the House on 18 September 2023 and are compatible with the European convention on human rights. We have four instruments: two relating to the Allonby and Walker judgments, and a similar set of two relating to the Hampshire judgment. I must make it clear that Allonby is being restated in relation solely to the impact of guaranteed minimum pensions legislation from 17 May 1990 onwards.

The well-known Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 allows the UK to reassert the sovereignty of Parliament. Where required, the UK Government are now able more easily to amend, revoke or replace retained EU law. After 31 December, certain retained EU law addressed in the three court cases I mentioned will cease applying. Two of those cases, Walker and Allonby, are about equality law for pension schemes, and the other, Hampshire, is about pension protection for those who, unfortunately, find themselves in the Pension Protection Fund, which is a compensation scheme.

I have decided to restate the law addressed in those cases because two of them are about the effects of EU equality law for pensions schemes, and the other is about protecting people’s old-age benefits when they find themselves in the PPF. It is important that any ambiguity is removed for occupational pension schemes and that we ensure there is equality in the outcomes for pension benefits.

Let me go through the judgments as speedily as I can, without going into great detail. The first judgment, Allonby, is about the right to pension benefits paid on an equal basis between men and women, where discrimination has arisen in an occupational pension scheme because of legislation on guaranteed minimum pensions. The second judgment, Walker, is about the pension rights on which survivor benefits are based, where a member is in a same-sex marriage or civil partnership.

The Allonby amendments are relatively straightforward: they are about the right to equal treatment between men and women in the absence of a direct real-life comparator to show discrimination, where the discrimination has arisen in an occupational pension scheme because of legislation on guaranteed minimum pensions. How we get to that point requires some more explanation.

First, guaranteed minimum pensions are unequal for men and women. That can result in a different amounts of occupational pension benefits being paid because GMPs are paid to women at the age of 60 and to men at the age of 65. Secondly, the 1990 Barber judgment found that pension benefits must be paid to men and women on an equal basis for pensionable service from May 1990 onwards. That means that pension schemes are required to equalise pension benefits to correct the unequal effect caused by members having a GMP.

Thirdly, the European Court of Justice judgment in the case of Allonby in 2004 means that it is not necessary for someone who brings an equal pay claim to be able to point to a real-life comparator in relation to such discrimination. For example, a man who was employed as a dustman—a role predominantly performed in the past by men—would not now need to point to a real-life female comparator who was being treated differently to demonstrate that his pension should be equalised to take account of the unequal effect of the GMP rules. A notional comparator could instead be used to show whether he would have received a higher pension if he had been a woman, because of the GMP rules.

Until the end of this year, the Allonby judgment overrides the need for an opposite-sex comparator in our equality legislation, but we of course want and need schemes to equalise for the differences between men and women resulting from GMP legislation. That is why we are amending equality legislation to ensure that the requirement to equalise occupational pension benefits as a result of GMP does not fall away where there is no real-life opposite-sex comparator.

Continuing on the theme of equality, the Walker case was about equal treatment on the grounds of sexual orientation in occupational pension schemes. The Supreme Court ruled that the Equality Act could not permit Mr Walker’s scheme to restrict the survivor benefits payable to his husband to only those based on pension rights earned since December 2005—the date civil partnerships were introduced.

The restriction in the Equality Act had previously meant that a person in a same-sex marriage or civil partnership who had worked their entire working life and built up an occupational pension could leave their surviving spouse or civil partner survivor only benefits relating to pensionable service from December 2005—potentially only a few years of their working life.

For example, someone in a civil partnership who retired in 2015, having built 45 years of occupational pension rights, could find that their surviving civil partner was entitled to only 10 years of survivor benefit rights. Mr Walker challenged that unequal treatment and won.

The changes we are making will mean that legislation will not allow schemes to restrict the pension rights that are used to provide survivor benefits for survivors in a same-sex legal relationship to only those earned after December 2005. Survivor benefits are important to so many people and help provide reassurance that a member’s survivor will be provided for, should the worst happen. That is why it is important that we reflect the Walker judgment in the Equality Act.

Moving on, the Hampshire judgment provides protection in the event of employer insolvency. The regulations retain the effects of the judgment in domestic legislation and remove redundant references to the Pension Protection Fund compensation cap from it.

Briefly, by way of context, Mr Hampshire took legal action in the domestic and European courts against the Pension Protection Fund, because under the PPF’s rules, his benefits were substantially reduced. He was under his scheme’s normal pension age when his employer became insolvent. The European Court ruled that former employees must receive at least 50% of the value of their pension rights in the event of their employer’s insolvency.

There was further litigation in the domestic courts—the Hughes judgment—which concluded with the UK’s Court of Appeal upholding the High Court’s ruling that the cap on Pension Protection Fund compensation constituted unlawful age discrimination. The cap previously applied to individuals below their scheme’s normal pension age when their employer became insolvent.

The Pension Protection Fund is now identifying its members and members of the financial assistance scheme affected by the Hampshire judgment, increasing their payments and paying arrears, where appropriate, to comply with the terms of the judgment. It is also uncapping the compensation payments of its affected members and backdating arrears.

In practice, most PPF members already receive more than the 50% minimum established by the Hampshire judgment and few were affected by the compensation cap. As a matter of fairness, however, the Government have decided to retain the effects of the Hampshire judgment beyond the sunset date. That means that all members of eligible pension schemes affected by the judgment—not just those with an entitlement before the sunset date—can be reassured that they will receive at least 50% of the value of their original pension benefits in the event of their employer’s insolvency. To tidy up the legislation, the regulations also remove redundant references to the Pension Protection Fund compensation cap, which no longer exists. That will improve the legislation and reflect the High Court’s ruling.

The regulations will give reassurance to the pensions industry and to members of defined benefit occupational pension schemes from 31 December. In practice, nothing will change in relation to the Allonby, Walker and Hampshire judgments. It is important that pension scheme members are treated fairly and equitably, regardless of sexual orientation, sex or age. I commend the regulations to the Committee.

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[Paul Maynard]

May I also welcome the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough? I am sure I will enjoy working with her. She made three points, and I am hoping that a note about the third might be coming my way—time will tell. She is right that the changes are quite distinct in and of themselves. They apply already, so the sector does not have to do anything new to reflect them. It has already been reflecting them since the judgments, quite some time ago.

On the timing, one of my first observations in this role has been the absolute avalanche of evidence—calls for evidence, consultations and consultation responses. The pensions industry is swamped, and finding people to respond to these things must be a growth industry. The hon. Lady is right that it has taken some time for the judgments to come to the House. Many of the judgments, of course, took place way back last decade, but the court system itself takes quite some time. When their final application is eventually decided, we have to start consulting on how to apply them within the private pensions industry that we have to rely on to deliver them; it is not a matter of pressing a button at the Department for Work and Pensions.

Finally, the hon. Lady asked whether there were any more retained EU laws to deal with. My understanding is that we have now completed our trawl, and I do not expect any more to come my way. Should the situation turn out to be any different, I will write to her. But I think I am right—I would have been tapped on the shoulder if I had been wrong.

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. We have had a useful and helpful initial interchange. As I said in my opening speech, these are important equality protections. We do not want them to disappear because of sunsetting. They are important and came about for good reason in the first place. I hope all Members will be happy that we are to retain them.

Question put and agreed to.

Draft Pensions (Pension Protection Fund Compensation) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Pensions (Pension Protection Fund Compensation) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023.

Draft Pensions Act 2004 (Amendment) (Pension Protection Fund Compensation) Regulations 2023

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Pensions Act 2004 (Amendment) (Pension Protection Fund Compensation) Regulations 2023.

Draft Pensions Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010 (Amendment) (Equal Treatment by Occupational Pension Schemes) Regulations 2023

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Pensions Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010 (Amendment) (Equal Treatment by Occupational Pension Schemes) Regulations 2023.—(Paul Maynard.)

Office for Nuclear Regulation Annual Report and Accounts 2022-23

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2023 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Paul Maynard)]

Later today I will lay before this House the “Office for Nuclear Regulation Annual Report and Accounts 2022-2023”. This document will also be published on the ONR website.

I can confirm, in accordance with Schedule 7, Section 25(3) of the Energy Act 2013, that there have been no exclusions to the published document on the grounds of national security.

[HCWS38]

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

Very briefly, I have set out our employment record, which we are proud of. In his last Budget, the Chancellor set aside £2 billion to fund measures to tackle long-term sickness and disability. That includes a consultation on occupational health, the roll-out of universal support and Work Well, about which the hon. Lady will hear more presently.

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

T6.   The proportion of new claimants for incapacity benefits who receive the highest amount with no work requirements has gone from 21% 10 years ago to 65% now—an astonishing increase. Will the Secretary of State reassure me that following the proposed reforms to the work capability assessment, it will work as intended, and that those who want to work, and seek work, are able to get the help they need to do so?

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for his typically astute question and for his advice in this area over a number of months. We have gone out to consultation on the work capability assessment. We have not come to our conclusions on how to move forward, but right at the centre of that will be a strong belief that if people can work, with our support and encouragement, that is the best of all outcomes.

Work Capability Assessment Consultation

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

That sentiment of taking on the employers is probably not conducive to having an economy that is generating the jobs that have occurred under this Government. As to the descriptors—indeed, the activities—that the hon. Gentleman refers to, there is a plethora of information out there about exactly what those mean. If he has trouble finding that, I would be very happy to have my Department point him in the right direction.

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

The Secretary of State rightly points to the tripling of the number of people receiving the highest award after a work capability assessment. Does he share my concern that a false assumption is growing not only that those people cannot work, but that they should not work, which therefore writes them off? Do we not have a serious moral obligation to remove all sorts of barriers that come between those individuals and the workplace? His approach is exactly right in trying to target those obstacles that most get in the way of people enjoying the agency and autonomy that activity in the workplace brings.

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for the advice and support he has given me when we have discussed these issues over the last few months. I know he is extremely knowledgeable in this area. He is absolutely right that we do not want people to be trapped, to use that expression, on benefits. We want to help people to move into the labour market and work. That is better for the economy and the labour market, but most importantly it is better for the physical and mental health of the individual concerned, as shown by all the evidence.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

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

In parts of my constituency, the healthy life expectancy is now just 53 to 54—a true regional inequality if ever there was one. That means that people—even those in the Minister’s age group—are dropping out of work far too early, which is not good for them or the economy. What steps is the Department taking as a consequence of the health and disability White Paper to address this serious inequality?

[Mel Stride]

I have already mentioned the measures that we brought forward at the last Budget, including universal support and WorkWell. The Government are of course constantly looking at how we can go further in that respect. On the over-50s specifically, the midlife MOT that we are running, the returnerships and the changes to the pension tax arrangements are all helping to bear down on economic inactivity in that group.

Social Housing: Furniture Affordability

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of furniture affordability and social housing.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Elliott. I am surprised to be starting the debate early—I was taken unawares, but strike while the iron is hot, I always say. I am delighted to be here, partly because this has been a very tricky debate to secure. Every time I go to the Table Office, they rewrite the topic. To get pulled out of the hat, I re-submit it with that same title and it gets rejected, so I have to rewrite the title again. That causes confusion.

Then we had no idea which Department should reply to the debate. Was it the Department for Work and Pensions? Was it the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities? Even the Minister did not know, but I am delighted that she has made it here today. Maybe she will enjoy the experience—who knows?

On hearing mention of the term “furniture poverty”, many people say, “What do you mean?” Some Members did so when I walked in the door. Many take it for granted that they have a chair to sit on, a fridge or freezer in which to keep food and a cooker with which to cook it. Far too many people in this country lack such basics. Some 26% of those in social housing lack one or more of the major pieces of furniture in the average household, compared with just 3% of homeowners.

Take something as basic as flooring. In social housing, more than 700,000 people—9% of those in social housing —do not have any flooring. The situation is worsening because of the cost of living crisis. Furniture inflation is running at 35%, which is even higher than food inflation. Appliance inflation is running at 21%. The answer is not to just go down to IKEA to get something cheap, because inflation at IKEA is at 80%.

The problem is not just the cost of furniture. There are some underlying problems. The first is the lack of a savings culture in this country. The average savings of people in my constituency are just £95, and most people in my constituency could not cope with an unexpected bill of even £500. That puts them in a very vulnerable position in the first place. We could have a whole debate just on the lack of a savings culture.

The second reason is the disappearance of cheap and readily available credit for the most deprived in my constituency. The usual financial service providers have withdrawn from that market entirely, leaving people with nowhere to go for credit other than to those who charge very high costs. That causes further financial problems for them.

The final reason is the lack of microinsurance products. The insurance sector has pulled out of allowing people to pay a very small amount to insure a fridge, cooker or any other piece of furniture. People are therefore flooded with large unexpected bills to replace significant items. When faced with that financial impact, they are often tipped over to the more dangerous forms of lending. I can spare the Minister a debate on illegal moneylending, but only because I recently had an Adjournment debate on the subject. Those unexpected bills push many in my constituency into risky doorstep lending. Often they borrow from illegal moneylenders, but sometimes they borrow from friends or family members. That is a type of illegal moneylending that is quite disguised, and it is a real problem.

Furniture poverty is not just about lacking items, but about the associated costs. The charity Turn2us calculates that not having a cooker can add more than £2,000 to the annual expenses that an average family of four face, because it means that they must rely on takeaways, which are becoming increasingly expensive. People who do not have a fridge cannot buy in bulk, store food for the future or plan meals. That leads to further costs, as they must rely on local convenience stores—again, we could have a separate debate on the difference between food prices in convenience stores and in supermarkets. Lacking a washing machine adds about £1,000 to the average bills of a family of four, because they have to go to the launderette to wash their clothes, which they often require for work. Launderettes are a rapidly disappearing phenomenon anyway, and significant energy costs mean that the prices they charge are going up.

There is a vicious, vicious cycle here. Let us take two examples. People may think that a dining table is almost luxury item and not necessary for a household at all—that it is something someone might go to John Lewis for, perhaps. I would argue that if we are talking about social mobility and life chances in my constituency, nothing is more important than the dining table. In smaller houses, that is where children do homework. If they have nowhere to do their homework, their educational performance will decline. There are 2.4 million people in this country who do not have a dining table, so when I hear about social mobility and everyone fretting over how to get more working-class people into Oxford and Cambridge, that is not “life chances” to my constituents. To my constituents, “life chances” means having a dining table as a space to do homework—something as simple as that.

I mentioned flooring earlier. I would love to have an hour-and-a-half debate on flooring. I put the Minister on warning: that is on the way.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)]

Flooring?

[Paul Maynard]

Flooring, yes—I am about to talk about it. You will learn something. End Furniture Poverty, the charity that has helped me on this topic, is doing a separate piece of work on the issue of flooring, which I will come on to.

Let me share a quote from one individual in social housing. He says:

“It’s cement downstairs and upstairs it’s wood with a lot of nails sticking out. It is a hazard…I have a young child.”

The lack of flooring is perhaps one of the great unknown scandals of 21st-century Britain. When someone enters into a new social housing tenancy and moves into a new flat or property, in all likelihood the social housing provider has ripped out the flooring in advance, often when it is in perfectly good condition. They do so because they believe that that is what they should do with void tenancies, and it means the person moving in is faced with a great bill to replace the flooring. Often it is simply beyond their means and capacity to afford it.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Maynard]

I was waiting for the moment. I was looking eagerly at the hon. Gentleman, and he has finally taken the bait.

[Jim Shannon]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing this issue forward. Covid had a medical effect on everybody, but it also brought about many broken relationships. What I have found in my constituency over the last three years is that families are parting because of domestic abuse, and the ladies are moving with their children into houses that are not furnished. In my area, I am fortunate that we have churches and charity groups that can help to furnish houses, but there are so many domestic abuse cases that not everybody can be helped. I support what the hon. Gentleman is putting forward. At this stage, maybe the Government, and particularly the Minister, should be looking to see what can be done to help people who have had to move out of their property because of domestic abuse and who find themselves with nothing but the clothes on their back, and certainly not the furniture that they need for their house.

[Paul Maynard]

I agree entirely. The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point, and he anticipates my 13th point, which I will come to, about why that does indeed matter.

The Minister might have thought that I was acting as a Labour Member of Parliament for the past few minutes, as I have been bemoaning the state of affairs and demanding that more be done. Of course the Government are doing something, but the challenge is that local government is not quite doing its part as well. The Minister will be more than aware of the local welfare assistance scheme. It is worth £167 million, which has been passported over to local councils to disburse as they see fit. Unfortunately, not every council uses that money to its fullest extent.

It is a wonderful pot of money, because it allows so many options: for example, that is where those fleeing domestic violence ought to go for help and support. The whole point of the local welfare assistance scheme is to meet that sort of need, but unfortunately, as End Furniture Poverty has discovered, 35 councils have now scrapped their local welfare assistance scheme, despite getting funding from the Department for Work and Pensions. Many more are spending less than 10% of what they have been allocated, which means that the burden is falling on a wider range of groups. Many charities, benevolent organisations and even churches are filling the gap that councils ought to be filling, including, sadly, Blackpool Council, which I gently chastise. I do not normally do that, but in this case I do, because it has shrunk its LWAS budget. The local welfare assistance scheme is there, but it is not being used by councils.

I urge the Minister not to overlook the existence of the local welfare assistance scheme, because since I started banging on about local welfare assistance about three years ago, the pandemic has come along, as has the household support fund, which dwarfs the LWAS in budget. The Minister now has a choice to make, and I am keen to hear her views. The household support fund is being put to so many different uses by so many different councils that it is marginalising the local welfare assistance scheme, but that means that there is now a focus on targeted pots of money for grants given to particular groups in society, which is how the household support fund has been devised, defined and decided on. That means less focus on the situation-specific support that is needed, such as for those fleeing domestic violence —as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said—who get squeezed out of the household support fund. If local welfare assistance schemes are not maintained, people cannot access the emergency support that they need to replace their furniture and white goods.

I urge the Minister to review the Welfare Reform Act 2012. Every time we have these debates, Labour Members say they want that Act to be reviewed. Even I am calling for it to be reviewed, not because I want to reverse much of what was in it, but because I want to look at the evolution of Government decision making, which I feel has been a bit patchwork. We make one change and then another, and then another, without considering the golden thread that ought to run through them, which is whether we are preventing people from falling into destitution. That is why the household support fund and local welfare assistance schemes are so important. I hope that the Minister will agree to meet me and End Furniture Poverty to discuss its ideas about how both schemes can be strengthened.

Of course, this should not just be down to the Department for Work and Pensions. One of my frustrations is that so many Departments are doing so many different things. It is often the Treasury. One of my great frustrations has been the slow gestation, and almost the non-birth, of the no-interest loan scheme, which would have enabled people to borrow money at no interest to purchase the white goods that they lack. I think the Minister needs to look at what other Departments are doing in support of that.

The private sector is doing stuff, too. Iceland—the supermarket, not the country—has a superb arrangement with a social housing provider called Clarion Housing Group to fund freezers for people who do not have one so that they can manage their food requirements more prudently and get more for their money. There are many, many ideas out there.

Another aspect of furniture poverty, particularly in social housing, is partly flooring and also the wider issue of furnished tenancies. Hon. Members might think that furnished tenancies are quite common. People often look for furnished flats and apartments in the private rented sector—Members of Parliament who are down in London for long periods of time certainly do that—but in social housing, they are vanishingly rare. A great deal of effort is being put in to encourage social housing providers to consider at least making 10% of their tenancies available on a furnished basis. I am pleased to say that Blackpool Coastal Housing does just that. It has recently approved a business case to do so, and it makes a lot of effort to improve furniture reuse, but that is by no means common across the social housing sector as a whole.

This is not about putting greater burdens on social housing landlords. A social housing provider in Yorkshire and Humberside called the Thirteen Group has gone down the path of improving its offer of furnished tenancies. It has seen its arrears fall from £7 million to £4.8 million, and the cost of a void tenancy has plummeted by £500 as those moving in can sustain their tenancies far better, because they are not lacking the essential ingredients of a household. Even the number of unstable tenancies that the social housing provider is carrying at any one time has reduced by more than half. It makes the point that it is not spending more money doing that; it is actually spending its money much better.

The Minister might wonder what in heaven’s name this has to do with the Department for Work and Pensions. This is about social housing, so it is for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Actually, the funding for a lot of that capital investment comes through the services charges that are permitted through the universal credit system. I urge her—once again, we can discuss this if and when she meets End Furniture Poverty—to ensure that the mechanisms within universal credit that allow these services charges to be made are slightly easier to understand for the tenant and the social housing provider to boost the demand for at least 10% of tenancies to be furnished.

It is clear that we do not speak about furniture poverty enough in this country. The Government are trying to do a lot to put in place a safety net beneath the safety net, but the problem is perhaps the fondness of Government Members not to ringfence things in local government, and to allow councils to spend as they see fit. That means that when we pull a lever here in Westminster, we find that it is not attached to anything out in the community.

Furniture poverty needs to be part of the national conversation. It does not get debated here enough and I am not sure that it is properly understood by many Members of Parliament, yet if they went out to the more deprived parts of our constituencies, they would see it in house after house. I hope that the Minister will agree to have the meeting so that we can all learn a bit more, not least about flooring, about which I could have a separate debate. I also hope that the Department for Work and Pensions, in particular, can look again at how local welfare assistance schemes and the household support fund interact, and how universal credit can support the introduction of more furnished tenancies in the social housing sector.

Cost of Living: Financial Support for Disabled People

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 22nd May 2023 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert, to follow the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) and, indeed, to have a second bite of the cherry in speaking about this topic, given that last Tuesday I could not make it to the debate secured by the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows). It is always good to have a second coming, I have to say—although in my case perhaps not. We have had an eloquent debate so far.

I am sure that we will hear many numbers in the course of the debate. Two stick out to me. One comes from Kidney Care UK, which cites the average annual extra cost to an individual facing dialysis as £1,918. The second big figure comes from the charity Contact a Family, which works with disabled children. It says that the average cost of the energy needs for the disabled children that the charity works with is £1,596. That covers such matters as pumps, monitors, hoists and electric wheelchairs, all of which are related to an individual’s health condition. That is one type of extra cost that the disabled face in regard to energy needs.

The second type of cost does not really relate to health needs but is a consequence of a person’s disability. I chair the all-party parliamentary group for assistive technology. Many people with profound and severe disabilities, particularly cerebral palsy, rely on computer or some sort of IT aids to engage with the wider world. They are vital to their quality of life. Such aids can be voice recognition software, eyeball-controlled software and so on. All that relies on electricity, which of course costs money as well. Those needs are a consequence of their disability but are not health needs per se.

The third sort of extra cost is that those with any sort of disability need to maintain their home at a higher temperature than might otherwise be the case merely to keep themselves warm. On that point, I give a small plug to my Westminster Hall debate at 4 pm on Wednesday, which is about furniture poverty and affordability. One area that I will focus on is the fact that all too often new tenants move into social housing and find that floor coverings have been removed, and they cannot afford to replace them. They end up with a much less well-insulated property, which for many of them affects their health. Those are the three areas that we need to consider.

Having read the Hansard report of last week’s debate online in preparation for this debate, and listening to questions, I think a consensus is emerging. The phrase “social tariff” crops up time and again, and there is much discussion about the role of personal independence payments and a recognition of the £150 that the Government have made available. There is also a lot of talk about the lump sum of £650, which one of the petitions refers to. There are positives and negatives with all of those, in my view.

I am always interested in how the personal independence payment works. It clearly has an important role to play, and is designed to meet the additional costs that people face due to their disability in their day-to-day lives. There has been a long-term debate over the extent to which it fulfils that goal. The purple pound—the premium that so many people face—is not always reflected in PIP. Whether a non-means tested benefit, which PIP is, is the right avenue to support the energy needs of the most vulnerable in society is a debate worth having. We should not automatically assume that PIP is the answer to every problem. If that is the argument, Members have to justify to me why millionaires should benefit equally to some of my poorest constituents, and why those constituents should not get more intense and focused support.

The second issue is around the social tariff. Social tariffs sound all well and good; everyone thinks they are a wonderful idea. A social tariff has to be paid for, and that subsidy is often taken from other bill payers’ accounts, where it often ends up on a standing charge. What we risk doing by our continual focus on solving every problem with a social tariff is that it then gets put on a standing charge, and there is an ever decreasing circle where more people will see their standing charges go up and then have cause to revert to a social tariff themselves because they cannot afford their bills, thereby increasing the standing charges. In reality, that would not occur, but it is a logical inference. Once again, we cannot keep solving every problem in our energy system and our cost of living crisis by placing them on a standing charge—other ways have to be found.

I accept that the intention behind the £650 payment is a good one. My point is that it is an arbitrary figure. It certainly does not reflect the overall costs experienced by many of the people I just mentioned, which go far above £650. While good, I do not think it is necessary the answer either.

The hon. Member for Battersea briefly made mention of the Retail Energy Code Company, and its report. I am going to give it a bit more of a plug, because I think it is much more exciting than the hon. Member suggested.

[Marsha De Cordova]

What?

[Paul Maynard]

The hon. Member mentioned the Retail Energy Code Company only briefly, and I wanted to talk a little more about it because the detail in it is actually quite interesting. I am not mocking the hon. Member at all, I just have the time to cover it in more detail, whereas she had more to cover. I urge her not to take offence unnecessarily.

The Retail Energy Code Company advises energy companies on the code of conduct they must adopt towards their customers. Given some of my casework, I am not sure how much the energy companies are listening to it, but that is its role within the energy sector. Andrew Mower, who has been working with it on a set of proposals on how to deal with energy costs for disabled people, has done a superb job in exploring this area and finding some of the flaws in the proposals that have been made in recent months.

In particular, it is worth looking at the NHS schemes that exist at the moment for those on oxygen concentrators and dialysis machines. It is a perfectly good model; I am glad to see the NHS recognising that it has to help people meet energy costs, but it is not universal. It goes back to my old friend the postcode lottery. In addition, the subsidy does not go up when energy prices go up, so people are always playing catch-up. People are paid in arrears, so they have to stump up the cash to pay their bills in the hope that they will get the money back at some future date. That money may not actually reflect the bill they have to pay.

It is interesting how the NHS model, which we think may be the answer to many things, actually causes as many problems as it solves. Similarly, with social tariffs, Mr Mower points out the immense difficulty they have found in the broadband sector when trying to come up with a social tariff that actually works and does not disrupt the market in perverse ways with unintended consequences that could see social tariffs costing more than the one that is available on the market to families now. Social tariffs by themselves are quite difficult to get right and need to be extremely flexible. I am not convinced that Ofgem spending hours each week reinventing what this week’s social tariff should look like every time the energy cap changes is actually the answer either.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is very informed and detailed on this topic so I defer to his superior knowledge, but does he not agree that the Retail Energy Code Company, Ofgem and all those involved in the market are clearly failing the most vulnerable in our society? I have vulnerable and disabled constituents who are turning off their energy just so they can survive, yet the disaster of the structure and the standing charges—which the hon. Gentleman mentioned —means they are no better off, but they are freezing cold.

[Paul Maynard]

I share the hon. Lady’s view about the reality that her constituents, and indeed mine, are facing. I share some of her criticisms of the energy companies themselves. The Retail Energy Code Company is trying to provide an answer, which I hope the energy companies will listen to and I hope might just persuade her that it is worth a second look, but I do not know. Time will tell, perhaps.

When coming up with proposals for the disability sector, many charities emphasise the broadness of eligibility and auto-enrolment. That is entirely logical and sensible for them to do. They have learned from the reality of the priority services register. In my constituency, I find that the people who really ought to be on that register are the least likely to be on it, so charities are right to be concerned about whether some sort of voluntary enrolment would actually get to where we want it to go. At the same time, they are missing out the potential for a more tailored scheme, which goes back to my earlier point. Everybody’s energy costs are going to be different, and one-off payments do not necessarily meet that challenge.

[Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very thoughtful speech about a complex issue. Does he accept that having some money, while imperfect, has to be preferable to being left without that amount of money?

[Paul Maynard]

Something is better than nothing. However, part of the art of speech making is building an argument, as I hope the hon. Lady understands. I have not yet culminated my argument in what I think we should do. By all means, she can agree or disagree with my critique of what is being proposed, but I am about to come on to what I think should be done, which I hope might just persuade her yet again.

Mr Mower looked at what is being done in the Australian states. They have gone into great detail on this topic, looking at all the different forms of medical equipment that people are using and their energy intensity. Each piece of equipment has a different energy consumption rate. It cannot just be measured by minutes or hours; some of them are more energy intensive than others. Australian states have done calculations enabling them to oblige energy firms to discount the energy at the point of consumption. There is then no need to request a rebate from an energy company, or some supplementary top-up, because it occurs at the point of consumption of that energy. That helps to solve the problem of how we support those with energy-intensive equipment needs. However, I agree it does not meet the needs of those who have to heat their properties generally for their own health benefits.

The hon. Member for Battersea briefly mentioned the issue of the warm home prescription, which the Energy Systems Catapult has been introducing. It has had a limited roll-out in Gloucestershire, and I think it is now operating in four areas as a pilot. It has great potential, but where I issue caution is that we need to understand, if we do not already, whether it is actually saving the NHS money. The idea is that a social prescriber looks at a person’s energy consumption, the insulation in their home and their energy needs, and works out whether a form of prescription to help with energy prices is a way of forestalling more expensive treatment for more severe health conditions at some future date. That is quite hard to capture in a short period of time because we have not seen the long-term consequences yet, but that measure seems positive to me. It would deal with the issue of people needing to warm their homes over a longer period of time, so it is a twin-track approach.

I have tried to put Mr Mower’s report into my own words and not read it out verbatim, because that would be a boring way to make a speech. In his conclusion, he said that the electricity costs of these consumers—in other words, those who rely upon equipment—would best be met through a scheme that can tailor support to the needs of each eligible consumer, rather than a policy targeted at a wider range of vulnerable consumers, so that they can have full confidence that the costs of the relevant equipment are being met. To me, that is the key word in this debate: confidence. The hon. Member for Battersea mentioned it, as did other Members in interventions. Individuals with severe health conditions who do not continue to heat their properties and run their equipment are running the risk of disadvantageous health outcomes because they do not have the confidence that they will be able to afford their bills.

I urge the Minister, and the Minister for Energy Consumers and Affordability, who was present briefly, to really engage with the Retail Energy Code Company and look at the matter in great detail to bring together the NHS and the Social Prescribing Network—I know that social prescribing is the answer to everything in life these days, but in this case it might just be—and try to work out with Ofgem whether the twin-track approach could solve the problem that we are seeking to solve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

Certainly not, and I am delighted that I actually have a far more constructive working relationship with the Scottish Minister responsible for these issues than the question from the hon. Member suggests.

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

Many families with disabled children are struggling with energy costs right now. The £150 for those receiving personal independence payment is clearly welcome, but if someone is dependent on a machine, such as a powered wheelchair, a ventilator, an oxygen concentrator or a ceiling hoist, the cost is more like £150 a month, not £150 a year. What more can the Department, and the Government more widely, do to ensure that those families do not turn their machines off and put their children’s health at risk?

[Tom Pursglove]

It is fair to say that none of us would want to see people putting their health, or their relatives’ health, at risk. We of course have a comprehensive package of support in place, as my hon. Friend is aware. There is also discretionary support provided through the household support fund and administered by local authorities, as well as the energy support that Ministers elsewhere in Government are leading on. However, I am very mindful of the need to future-proof people against those costs, and that is work that I am currently looking at.

Social Security and Pensions

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) and I pay tribute to his encyclopaedic survey of the landscape of the Department. It is fair to say that no stone was left unturned, and we are grateful to him for that. It is also always a pleasure to come to the Chamber to support the Minister when he does the right thing—indeed, it is perhaps a pleasure to listen to him here when he does the wrong thing.

I speak today to express my satisfaction—indeed, my relief—at the Government’s decision to uplift benefits by CPI. Over the summer, my most disadvantaged constituents faced real fear from the sudden increases in the cost of living and what was coming down the track towards them. They were perturbed, confused and daunted by the confusion in public messaging from both our leadership contest and the “interim” Government, as I should perhaps call it. They were very worried, so the news that we will update benefits by CPI was a great relief for them, not least because we know that inflation always hits the poorest in society worst, so protecting those in receipt of benefits from inflation is the most important duty of Government. Indeed, it was Milton Friedman no less who said inflation is a tax on the poorest in society. So the Government did the right thing. Inflation does matter. It is not an economic sideshow, and we should always remember that.

I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), the shadow Minister. She may not be aware that a shadow Front-Bench reshuffle is due, but I can only assume that that was the reason for some of her comments—she may get a surprise in a few days—because she was praising the previous Labour Government. It was like an exercise in nostalgia. Her opposition to conditionality leapt out at me. My constituents remember the something-for-nothing welfare state that Labour created in that era, and by refusing to accept the role of conditionality in our welfare system, she is committing the Labour party to that agenda once more; I was very surprised to hear it.

I represent an area that sadly still has high levels of pensioner poverty, so I particularly welcome the Government’s decision to extend CPI protection to those who rely on the standard minimum guarantee in pension credit. It will cost some £700 million above the statutory minimum requirement, so I welcome the Government’s commitment to supporting the poorest pensioners at this time of high inflation. However, like any Back Bencher, I will urge them to do more. Despite the best efforts of many, my constituency still saw a slight dip in the number of pension credit claimants last year, so I urge the Pensions Minister, who has done so much to get people claiming pension credit, to continue those efforts; the battle is not yet won.

I also urge the Government to consider the need for flexibility in our pension system. My favourite statistic of the month is that the old age dependency ratio currently shows 28 people over 65 for every 100 of working age, some of whom are probably not in work. The ratio will rise to almost 50:100 by 2050, causing fundamental challenges for any Government. All those who flatly oppose raising the state pension age need to engage with that, not take cheap positions that involve no thought at all—however encyclopaedic their speeches might be. Raising the state pension age clearly makes sense on one level, but many of my poorest pensioners dropped out of the labour market well before the state pension age. Indeed, my constituency has the lowest healthy life expectancy in the country. Given that people can defer the receipt of state pension in return for higher payments, could those claiming early, whether down to ill-health or physically intensive work, not have a slightly reduced payment? That would strike a fair balance.

The Government are doing an immense amount to support those facing sharp increases in energy bills. I welcome the extra £150 for personal independence payment claimants, and the uprated PIP being discussed today. However, will the Minister please take away from this debate the numerous emails I have had from those reliant on electronic beds, electronic wheelchairs, oxygen concentrators, sleep apnoea machines—all manner of electricity-reliant equipment—to keep them alive? They have seen their bills go up by £150 a month, not £150 a year, and they are deeply concerned at the energy price trajectory not coming down sharp enough.

Our benefits system remains generous, but it could go so much further. Too often it is being asked to bear the weight of other structural inadequacies in the system, where other Departments could or should be doing more, or where the private sector is allowed to shirk some of its moral responsibilities as players in what we ought to call responsible capitalism. The consequence is that people continually ask for more money to be spent by the welfare state, when the solution should be to make that money go further by ensuring that we have better value and a fairer system in which people can spend that money.

The cost of energy for those with complex medical equipment is just one example of the purple pound, where the disabled pay hidden costs over and above what PIP could ever meet, despite its being there to meet the extra costs of disability. The poverty premium is another area where the DWP and the wider state can ensure that the benefits system does not allow and reinforce poor practice elsewhere. For example, inflation is at its highest in the food and retail sector, but it is higher still in the smaller neighbourhood supermarket stores in the most deprived parts of my constituency. Residents relying upon a local One Stop, Tesco or whatever may not be able to afford to go to the large out-of-town supermarket for better-value food. The private sector is obliging the benefits system to take up the slack of the dysfunctional market in which my constituents are trapped.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. He highlights the fact that everyone has individual circumstances, which is why the Government brought forward the £2 billion local welfare assistance scheme. Has he had any success in his casework in getting that additional support for people with additional individual challenges?

[Paul Maynard]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. He used the phrase “local welfare assistance scheme” which, sadly, could provoke me to speak for even longer than the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), because it is my specialist topic, but I ought not to go there—[Hon. Members: “More!”] Perhaps Members should wait for me and the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) to finalise our report into emergency food aid, where they will be able to see exactly what I think.

To finish on perhaps a more fundamental point, one strength of our benefits system is that sufficient incentives are built into the structures of in-work benefits, along with conditionality—I am sorry to say that to the shadow Minister—to ensure that, as far as possible, work is seen to pay. However, that has been distorted through the more complex pattern of financial support that has emerged during covid and the wider cost of living crisis. Those living just below a particular threshold that qualifies them for extra state support get large payouts, but those just above the threshold feel greatly aggrieved. They regard it as unfair because they are being punished for being seen to do the right thing. The bedrock of our benefits system is a belief in its fairness, not just to those who need support at any one time, but to those who have to fund the system and may one day, of course, require it. Although I strongly welcome the Government’s decision to uprate benefits, we must bear in mind the needs of, and treat fairly and responsibly, not just those who are in receipt of benefits, but those who fund the system and are in work, day in, day out. They are two sides of the same coin.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.