Social Security and Pensions

Debate between Paul Maynard and Justin Tomlinson

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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Maynard and Justin Tomlinson

Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

Fair and respectful treatment is a right, and we do not tolerate discrimination in any form within the workplace, including within ours. We have instigated a review of our processes and actions to ensure that all employees are treated fairly and with respect. I am proud that, as a Department, since 2014, when 6.8% of our workforce were identified as having a disability, we are now at 15.3%, which is well above the civil service average of 11.7%. We are keen to be a fully inclusive and diverse workforce to benefit from their full potential.

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

Many of my constituents reduce the number of assessments they face by discontinuing their applications themselves, because they find it far too traumatic to have to repeat their life story over and over again to every public body they come across. When somebody dies, the Government have a “Tell me once” principle to help bereaved families cope by only notifying a public entity on a single occasion. As the Minister draws up his Green Paper, can he look at whether we can have one single source of truth for each claimant to reduce the trauma they face in going through this process?

[Justin Tomlinson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely spot-on. This comes up time and again, and it is driving our desire to bring forward the integrated assessment: where a claimant has already secured sufficient evidence, with the claimant’s permission, and only with the claimant’s permission, that information can be used to increase the chance of a paper-based review and reduce the need for a full face-to-face assessment for other benefits.

--- Later in debate ---

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

In 2015, our election manifesto rightly committed us to halving the disability employment gap. By 2019, unfortunately, we had watered that down merely to reducing it. 2015 was also the last year that we published Fulfilling Potential indicators, allowing us to monitor the gap. As the Minister pulls together his new national disability strategy, I urge him to reinvent the wheel and provide robust statistical indicators to allow us to monitor the narrowing of the gap.

[Justin Tomlinson]

In the last six years alone, there have been 1.4 million more disabled people in work; in the last two years alone, there have been 404,000 more disabled people in work, bringing the figure to 54.1%—a 9.9 percentage point increase in the last six years alone. The disability employment gap has fallen by 5.6 percentage points in the last six years. We are making progress and we continue to be ambitious about unlocking everybody’s potential.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Maynard and Justin Tomlinson

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

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

I thank the disabilities Minister for accepting the recommendations of the review I chaired into learning disability apprenticeships. Will he confirm that he will look into which of those recommendations can now be applied to other hidden impairments, such as hearing loss and sight loss?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I would like to thank my hon. Friend, as his taskforce concluded its work within a month, and we have now secured agreement from my Department and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to open up in the apprenticeship programme greater opportunities for those with a learning disability. I am sure we will be coming to my hon. Friend very soon to help to extend the remit of the taskforce, which I am sure he would be delighted to chair.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Paul Maynard and Justin Tomlinson

Monday 13th December 2010 Commons Chamber

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

In the eight minutes available to me, I hope to cover two key issues that are of the utmost importance to my constituents: elected police commissioners, and the impact of alcohol in our town centres.

I was grateful to the shadow Home Secretary for addressing in such detail the germination of policy among Conservative think-tanks down the years, as I have spent many a long hour in the twilit, striplit demi-monde of Conservative think-tanks listening to speaker after speaker talk about these ideas while drinking slightly warm orange juice and eating slightly stale croissants. I have to say that it was not initially an issue that particularly excited me. I did not feel inspired by the idea of elected police commissioners.

It was only when I started talking to real people in the real world that I actually began to understand why there was such intense anger and frustration. During the Labour leadership contest over the summer, it was interesting to note that its participants had been agonising and soul-searching as to why the Labour party’s core vote has wandered away. Might I suggest that the arrogance over law and order is at the heart of the reason?

I am proud to represent the fourth most deprived Conservative-held seat in the country. There are many hard-working families on below-average incomes who routinely tell me how angry and frustrated they are at the disconnect they perceive between the police and the people. It is a growing gap. That saddens me, and it should sadden the police as well.

I get much positive and valuable feedback about individual police officers at ward level and about individual police community support officers because of the social value they add to their local communities—whether a PCSO in a local school organising football on a Saturday morning or the local beat bobby who looks after a few of the elderly residents, checking they are okay. What I do not get positive feedback about, however, is the overall structure. People do not have a sense that when something goes wrong—when there is an act of social disorder in the street or a theft from the front garden—all they have to do is pick up the phone and someone at the end of the line will listen to their concern and a policeman will appear. That confidence has long since gone. That is a very great shame, as it is fundamental.

What Sir Robert Peel said is being forgotten. We heard the Home Secretary quote Sir Robert Peel, so I thought I might offer my favourite Peel quote. He said that it is important

“to recognise that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour.”

There can be no police without the support of the public, and I worry that that is in danger at present. That is why these reforms are so essential.

My constituents do not know who to go to in order to make complaints. The police authority is not a constant presence in their life. In saying that, I do not criticise those well-meaning individuals who from a sense of public duty and public service serve on that authority, but it is a fact that police authorities are no longer fit for purpose. We need the focal point of a figurehead who can bring together all the disparate strands of crime reduction partnerships, community safety partnerships and police and communities together—PACT—meetings. Everything that goes on at a local level needs to be brought together by one individual.

The same people who are expressing concerns about the disconnect between the police and the public are expressing concern about the impact of alcohol on the town centre. It is a sad fact that many elderly people in my constituency tell me that they are too scared to go into Blackpool town centre of an evening. That is a great tragedy because it is their town as much as anybody else’s. I understand that when Labour Members brought in their reforms to licensing they wanted to create a continental style café culture. From their Tuscan palazzos, they had observed the intergenerational passeggiata and it had warmed their hearts. I think it is fair to say that the passeggiata and the café culture that they so admire on their summer holidays has yet to make it to Blackpool town centre on a Friday or Saturday evening.

[Justin Tomlinson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if he could get a safer night-time economy, that would be a real boost to tourism in his town?

[Paul Maynard]

I agree entirely. The importance of the night-time economy is much misunderstood. It is not just about vertical drinking establishments, how many stags and hens we can cram into the town centre or about how much alcohol can be consumed. A town such as Blackpool has a much wider range of things to offer. We have an excellent theatre in the Grand theatre.