Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Barker Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I simply do not accept that that is a fair assessment of the very considerable time and effort that we are putting into taking this matter extremely seriously.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

7. If he will make an estimate of the number of in-work universal credit claimants that have had payments stopped due to errors made by his Department in the last 12 months.

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

No estimate has been made, but customers can request a mandatory reconsideration if they do not agree with a decision to stop their universal credit.

[Paula Barker]

My constituent Georgina Mitchell is a single mum to three children, two of whom have additional needs. She works as a nurse and is in receipt of universal credit. The Minister says that work pays, but since October, Georgina has had her benefits stopped intermittently because the DWP has falsely recorded her earnings as £19,000 one month, £12,000 the next, and so on and so forth. She cannot pay her social landlord, and her ability to pay for childcare is severely impacted. I have raised the matter with local officials, but despite assurances, it keeps happening. She cannot sort this, and despite my interventions, I cannot seem to sort it. Will the Secretary of State or the Minister investigate the matter urgently, and advise me on why these mistakes keep happening and on what will be done to ensure that they do not happen again?

[Paul Maynard]

I am very concerned to hear about the case that the hon. Lady has raised. I am more than happy to look into it if she contacts me further, and I recognise the urgency with which we would need to do that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Barker Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

17. What steps his Department is taking to tackle in-work poverty.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

22. What steps his Department is taking to tackle in-work poverty.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)]

In-work progression is the best way of improving the earnings potential of those who are in work, which is why we are bringing hundreds of thousands more people into the kind of support that will develop that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mel Stride]

I do not think we should make any apology for having a system of benefits that is there whether someone is out of work or in work, and which encourages those who are in work to work longer hours if that is appropriate and to earn more through many of the kinds of provision that we provide through our jobcentres.

[Paula Barker]

Despite my question relating to in-work poverty, the Government often herald historically low unemployment rates to avoid their shame over falling living standards and endemic wage stagnation. Those on the Government Benches know they have failed British workers. Can the Secretary of State answer this, without blaming the war in Ukraine, covid or the last Labour Government? Do the Government now accept that there is an inextricable link between their failed economic policies and the fact that British workers in low and middle-income households are financially worse off since they came to power?

[Mel Stride]

It is not appropriate to dismiss completely the significant downside of covid—we spent £400 billion supporting the economy during that—the significant impact through energy price spikes of the war or the deleterious impact of the last Labour Government, to whom the hon. Lady refers. The simple fact is that since 2009-10, there are 1.7 million fewer people in absolute poverty after housing costs, and 400,000 fewer children and 400,000 fewer pensioners in that position.

State Pension Triple Lock

Paula Barker Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister recently appeared on the front page of The Times beneath the headline “State can’t fix all your problems”. While that may be true in the absolute sense, I think that the British people are right in making two basic assumptions. First, they rightly assume that the state will not make life harder, and secondly, given that the very essence of politics is priorities, they rightly expect their welfare, financial security and basic dignity to be the prime concerns that govern our actions in this place and the Government’s actions across Whitehall Departments. On both counts this Government have failed miserably, and have done so for 12 long years. In response to today’s motion, they have a golden opportunity to be unequivocal in stating that the triple lock on pensions is here to stay and will be protected.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

I have been inundated with emails from pensioners in my constituency expressing a mixture of anger, fear and despair at the removal of the triple lock. A 70-year-old woman has described sitting in her living room with only candles for heat because she cannot afford to pay her energy bills. That is unthinkable. Does the hon. Member agree that the Government must consider the full impact of removing the triple lock on our most vulnerable?

--- Later in debate ---

[Paula Barker]

I entirely concur with what the hon. Lady has said. My inbox, like hers, is full of emails giving examples similar to that of her 70-year-old constituent, from people who are choosing between heating and eating.

Why is it so important for the triple lock to be protected? The answer is quite simple. Our elderly people are suffering under this cost of living crisis, and have been suffering under Tory austerity for much longer. Pensioner poverty has been on the increase since the first half of the last decade: this is not something new. It is now widely reported that the number of pensioners living in poverty has topped the 2 million mark, including an extra 200,000 more poor pensioners in 2021 alone, according to the Centre for Ageing Better. That is a figure that should bear the hallmark of deep shame for any Government, and not least for a Prime Minister who was in No. 11 while the problem was becoming worse. Pensioners are falling into debt for the first time in their lives, with all the anxiety that that brings in later life.

[Anthony Browne]

Is the hon. Member aware of a report on the triple lock that I mentioned earlier, produced by the House of Commons Library? It shows that as a proportion of average earnings, the basic state pension is now higher than it was at any time under the last Labour Government, and that is a result of Conservative policy.

[Paula Barker]

I refer the hon. Member to the response from my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) to that very point, which I think was more than eloquent.

It is good, decent, working-class pensioners who are suffering, along with many more who may be asset-rich yet cash-poor. People who have worked for many decades are being denied the basic dignity of living free from fear. In the north-west region alone, nearly half a million pensioners are living in some form of poverty, including too many in my own constituency. Inflation is due to start falling; the Government know that. We already know that it would not be right to scrap the triple lock, nor would it make for sound economics—especially at this moment—to hit pensioners in the pocket with a real-terms cut in their incomes. People need support now, rather than the drawbridge being pulled up. The shift of wealth from working and middle-class households upwards has never been as great, and those inequalities are borne out in the way we treat our older people.

When Ministers hold great offices of state and lecture the British people about tough choices while dishing out billions in failed public sector contracts to their friends, removing the cap on bankers’ bonuses and increasing the cost of mortgages to pay for unfunded tax cuts for the few, it is particularly galling that the Government cannot come out and unequivocally back our pensioners today. If they can prioritise all that in times like covid and during these economic headwinds, the very least they can do is walk through the Lobby with the Opposition today. The last thing that our pensioners need now is uncertainty, and I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to join us in the Lobby this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Laura Trott]

My hon. Friend, on this as with so many other things, is absolutely right. I will make some progress now on my speech.

At the heart of the 2016 reforms we made to the state pension was a correction of some of the historic unfairness in the previous system, particularly for women, the self-employed and lower-paid workers.

[Paula Barker]

Will the Minister give way?

[Laura Trott]

I am just going to make some progress, I am sorry.

That means women no longer need to rely on the pension contributions of their husbands, and it is more generous to those who spend time looking after their children, as my hon. Friends the Members for Guildford (Angela Richardson) and for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) pointed out. As a result, more than 3 million women stand to receive an average of £550 more a year by 2030.

[Paula Barker]

Will the Minister give way?

[Laura Trott]

I am sorry, but as I said, I will make some progress.

Under the state pension, outcomes are projected to equalise for men and women by the early 2040s, more than a decade earlier than they would have done under the old system.

The other important pillar of the 2016 state pension reforms was automatic enrolment. That was raised by my hon. Friends the Members for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra), for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford), for Broadland and for Heywood and Middleton. Automatic enrolment into workplace pensions has had a transformative effect on pension-saving participation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland pointed out, private savings for pensions went down under Labour.

Over 10.7 million people have been automatically enrolled into a pension by more than 2 million employers in every sector of the economy, seeing an additional £33 billion saved into workplace pensions each year compared with 2012. Automatic enrolment has helped many previously under-represented groups to begin pension savings, such as low earners, young people and women.

[Laura Trott]

But it was not implemented under the Labour Government.

In 2012, 40% of eligible women working in the private sector participated in a workplace pension. As of 2021, that had increased to 87%—higher than for eligible men.

[Paula Barker]

Will the Minister give way?

[Laura Trott]

I will make a bit of progress; I have been quite generous on interventions.

We know that the coming months will be tough for everyone, but especially for pensioners. I thank all hon. Members who have raised cases on behalf of their constituents. The Government fully understand the difficulties that pensioners will face this winter and will stand by those in the most need. That is why the Government have made substantial support available for pensioners struggling with the cost of living this winter. As my hon. Friends the Members for Wantage (David Johnston) and for Gloucester (Richard Graham) pointed out, we have not heard much from the Labour Front-Bench team today about what their plan would be for this winter.

We have a plan that includes the £650 cost of living payment for those on pension credit to help with the rising cost of living. There is a £400 reduction on energy bills for all domestic electricity customers over the coming months and the £150 council tax rebate received by 85% of all UK households. Those on state pension will also receive an increased £500 winter fuel payment if they are under 80 or a £600 winter fuel payment if they are 80 or over. In total, that will mean that all pensioners receiving the state pension could receive up to £850 of additional support in the coming months and that pensioners on the lowest income who are claiming means-tested benefits will receive up to £1,500.

Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits

Paula Barker Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

I cannot claim to be surprised we are here debating the scrapping of the £20 uplift to universal credit. As the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) alluded to earlier, the fact that universal credit had to be uplifted is surely an admission that the provision afforded to those falling on hard times was not nearly adequate in the first place. Yet in this moment, when we are told that our economy is on the road to recovery, this Government shamelessly pull the rug from under the feet of millions of decent people. It is morally reprehensible and also bad economics. In my constituency of Liverpool, Wavertree, it translates to 11,500 households, affecting more than 6,000 children. That number includes the more than 33% of UC claimants in my constituency who are in work.

We on the Opposition Benches are the party of work and workers. We do not make work pay through a low-wage economy subsidised by Dickensian social security systems, no matter how many times the Government employ divide and conquer tactics through the false dichotomy of strivers and skivers.

I am sorry that the Secretary of State is not here to listen to how this cut will affect my constituents. She grew up in my wonderful city, and it obviously left a very poor impression on her if she is prepared to turn her back on the 62,000 households affected in the city of Liverpool alone, never mind the many more in towns and cities across this country. Let us say it clearly: this is a grotesque act of levelling down. It is levelling down, not levelling up. Indeed, what is “levelling up”, if her Department is prepared to remove £12 million from the pockets of those in Liverpool, Wavertree, £12.5 million from the pockets of those in Heywood and Middleton and more than £10 million from those in Darlington?

As the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) did not know the figure for his constituency, for the record it is just over £5.5 million, affecting 5,340 households and 4,008 children. It is shameful. I am sure the penny pinchers on the Government Benches are perfectly aware of those sums, but then of course there are those other sums trotted out by the Secretary of State. For someone with a PhD in chemistry, I thought she would have a good grasp of detail, such as how many hours it would actually take to make up the £20 loss in income. It is obvious, considering the bluster and false rhetoric, that she has no coherent strategy to make work pay on the back of this £20 cut. Ultimately, it represents an act of war on the low-paid and the unemployed. The consequences for ordinary people will be grave: more food banks and hunger, more homelessness and more destitution in our communities. I am sure it will provide ample opportunity for the regular circus of Tory MPs taking selfies at the very food banks their policies helped to create.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I am afraid I have to reduce the time limit to three minutes in an attempt to give everybody a chance to speak.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Barker Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman]

I will take my right hon. Friend’s compliment. The UK is the first country in the world to address the social elements of ESG. We have produced a call for evidence, “Consideration of social risks and opportunities by occupational pension schemes”, and I would encourage everyone to get involved with that. That will genuinely transform the supply chain, access to finance and investment in all parts of the world, but particularly in respect of Africa.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

T2. When a domestic abuse survivor decides to leave an abuser, having a safe, affordable place to escape to is key. Otherwise, they face the risk of homelessness. The benefits system should be there to protect women and children who need to escape, but unfortunately it can often act as a barrier—for example, when a survivor leaves a working household that is not subject to the benefit cap and then becomes a lone parent in an out-of-work household that is subject to the cap. Will the Secretary of State commit today to exempting domestic abuse survivors from the benefit cap so that they can have the best possible chance of accessing a safe and affordable home?

[Mims Davies]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. The benefit cap is there to provide a strong work incentive, to be fair for those people who are hard-working and tax-paying, and to encourage people to move into work where possible. I understand the point she makes regarding the impact of a partner and their work history in this situation, and I am happy to discuss that with her. I have been talking to other Members on this issue. Exemptions will of course apply to the most vulnerable claimants, and we take this area very seriously.

Income Tax (Charge)

Paula Barker Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab) [V]]

The Chancellor has claimed that the hard choices made by his predecessors over the last 10 years have served our economy well going into this current crisis. A decade-long squeeze on living standards, the rise in insecure and precarious work, and beleaguered public services have in every sense made his unenviable task every bit harder than it needed to be. Our economy has been shown to be particularly vulnerable and less resilient than other comparable economies of similar size, and the much deeper contraction in our own demonstrates exactly that. Alongside this, chaotic decision making and the poor timing of restrictions, all to appease Tory Back Benchers, meant that there were very real economic consequences to the Government kicking the can down the road—that is, until they eventually ran out of road.

The eye-watering sums being spent by the Treasury mean that, for the time being, the taps are on, and the Chancellor is right when he says that we need an investment-led, jobs-rich recovery. While the measures embarked on last year and this year may have just averted devastation for many, I remain unconvinced that the measures announced yesterday will secure a recovery that, crucially, all our people can share in.

The think-tanks are alive with the chatter of levelling up, and yes, there were piecemeal announcements about moving part of the Treasury to Darlington, about the investment bank in Leeds and about the collection of freeports across the land, including one in my own city of Liverpool. But despite the odd headline to help fill Tory election leaflets in marginal seats across the north, it is the poverty of ambition that will perpetuate the poverty that we see in our towns day in and day out. I have to ask: do Conservative Members think that moving the odd civil servant out of London or a one-off fund to help a struggling high street in the midlands will match the requisite scale of ambition to address the deep underlying structural inequalities that exist in modern British society between people and places and between my own north-west region and the south-east of England? If we do not fundamentally address those inequalities of opportunity and outcome, the levelling-up rhetoric will remain exactly that: rhetoric.

There was very little in yesterday’s Budget in respect of targeted sectoral support for our manufacturing base, despite the potential job losses for skilled workers at Vauxhall in Ellesmere Port. There was even less on public sector spending, as the public sector workers who have kept this country going during the pandemic once again get only insulting claps from this Government and are again bracing themselves for the continuation of pay freezes. And disgracefully, there was not a jot on social care.

Priorities are the bedrock of our politics, and it is those priorities that tell us what life looks like for people, their families and their communities. While we remain a society defined by spiralling household debt, insecure work and fire and rehire tactics, and a nation where it is normal to hand over vast amounts of your income to your landlord; where life expectancy is falling in parts of the country and the retirement age continues to rise; where the forgotten and excluded are ignored again; where the queues at food banks are getting ever longer; where children are going hungry and where our elderly are selling their homes to cover the cost of their care, we will never be the happy, confident, outward-looking nation the Government claim to be building. Importantly, this tells us that the priorities of this Tory Government are the wrong ones.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paula Barker Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

What steps her Department is taking to (a) investigate and (b) rectify errors made in the payment of the state pension to retired women.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)]

What steps her Department is taking to (a) investigate and (b) rectify errors made in the payment of the state pension to retired women.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman) [V]]

We are aware of a number of cases in which individuals have been underpaid category BL basic state pension. We corrected our records and reimbursed those affected as soon as the underpayments were identified, and we continue to check and remedy further cases that are identified.

[Guy Opperman]

As the hon. Lady knows, I cannot comment on the live litigation in respect of the WASPI women, although I can say that at the first hearing before the judicial review, notification and communication were found for on behalf of the Government—this Government, the coalition Government and the Labour Government whom she served. In respect of category BL pensions, we are improving the training and the ability of the individuals who are handling the cases.

[Paula Barker]

I join my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) in paying tribute to the WASPI women. Estimates suggest that as many as 130,000 women could have been underpaid their state pensions. Will the Minister confirm the total number who have been affected by the Department’s error and how he intends to ensure that they receive the full amount to which they are entitled?

[Guy Opperman]

This matter dates from 2008 and a Labour Government who introduced the particular changes. The Department continues to check for further cases, and if any are found, awards will be reviewed and any arrears paid in accordance with the law. We continue to encourage anyone who believes that they are being underpaid the state pension to contact the Department for Work and Pensions.