Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There should be a presumption of a meaningful relationship with both parents post-separation, and the proposals we are working on for child maintenance will underline that by helping parents to realise that it is their responsibility to work together to support their children, whether they are in a relationship together or whether they are living apart.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The Minister announced today that £14 million is being spent, partly on an app that can be downloaded by couples who are thinking of splitting up,

“to help them through the painful process of separation.”

Will she confirm that the first two people to download it were the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister?

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

With respect to the hon. Lady, she is mixing up policies. This question is about universal credit, but she is referring to the cap. I am sorry that no Opposition Member tabled a question on the cap—there might be a reason for that, but I do not quite know what it is.

What I said this morning was quite clear. I said that when it comes to the cap and smaller numbers of people, we have worked very hard over the last nine months or so to ensure that we know who will be eligible to fall within the cap. We know exactly all their details, which will make it easier for us to help them through the process. She should have a word with Opposition Front Benchers, and ask them why they did not ask a question about the cap.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

When the Secretary of State introduces the new IT system, will he consider introducing a skills database for all those who want a job, enabling employers to dial into the database and match the skills required with the person seeking a job, as against the other way round as at present?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is a very good idea and I am certainly ready to discuss it with my hon. Friend. If we can make something work, it would be brilliant.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. We have had a number of robust discussions with the European Commission about this matter, and I can confirm to the House that we are formally rejecting in the strongest possible manner the Commission’s reasoned opinion against the right to reside condition of the habitual residency test. I am in regular discussions with my counterparts in other European countries, many of whom share the same concern. I regard this as a battle that I do not intend us to lose.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

With all due respect, that sounded like ministerial waffle and a refusal to answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone). Surely the answer should just have been yes.

[Chris Grayling]

Indeed, I think the answer very clearly is yes.

[Mr Speaker]

We are most grateful to the Minister, who has brought some additional happiness into the life of the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone).

[Mr Bone]

And Mrs Bone.

[Mr Speaker]

And Mrs Bone as well, as he rightly says.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As the hon. Lady knows, when we entered office we inherited a housing benefits system in a mess and local housing allowance was already spiralling —it has approximately doubled in the last 10 years—so she should look at what happened before as much as at what happens now.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that new policy announcements from his Department should be made to Parliament first?

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. It is unknown for Mr Bone to be unheard. Let us hear him say it again.

[Mr Bone]

Does the Secretary of State agree that new policy announcements from his Department should be made to Parliament first?

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I can say to the hon. Lady, much as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has before, that we are reviewing all of this. The purpose is to ensure that those who are involved in caring will get greater and better support and that they will be better cared for themselves. The reality is that we chose for that reason not to take carer’s allowance into the universal credit, which the hon. Lady has not touched on, because that would have meant that some people might have lost out.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

21. What plans he has for the future of disability living allowance; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

Disability living allowance will be replaced by the personal independence payment, which is a new, more transparent and sustainable benefit underpinned by an objective assessment of the barriers disabled people face in living full and independent lives. From 2013-14, working-age individuals in receipt of DLA will be reassessed against the new eligibility criteria for PIP.

[Mr Bone]

It is so nice to have a Minister give such a full answer. In my constituency, people are worried that DLA is going to go and not be replaced by anything. I wonder where such false information is coming from. Does she have any idea?

[Maria Miller]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and share his concern about the lack of understanding that people sometimes have about what we are trying to do. I can reassure him that the Government’s reforms are all about putting integrity back into the support available for disabled people, moving away from a discredited system of DLA in which, in terms of the higher rate for the DLA mobility component, more money goes to people who are drug and alcohol addicts than to people who are blind.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The issue that my hon. Friend has raised is complicated. We are looking at it and discussing it, and I am happy to take it further with him if he wishes. However, it does add complications to an already complicated system.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

16. What his most recent forecast is of the claimant count in (a) Wellingborough and (b) the UK in 2011-12.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

The Department for Work and Pensions does not itself produce forecasts of unemployment. However, the latest UK claimant count forecast for 2011-12, published as part of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s autumn forecast, was 1.52 million at the start of 2011-12, falling to 1.47 million at the end of the financial year. I am afraid that no figures are produced at constituency level looking ahead.

Having watched the skill of my hon. Friend over the years in combating the former Chancellor and Prime Minister over the increased level of unemployment in his constituency compared with 1997, I am relieved to be able to stand at the Dispatch Box and note that unemployment today is lower than it was under the previous Government. Let us hope that it stays that way.

[Mr Bone]

I thank the Minister for his kind words. Every Labour Government have left power with unemployment higher than when they came to power. When they came to power, unemployment in Wellingborough was 1,826; when they left, the figure was 2,916—an increase of 60%. Does the Minister agree that the Labour party is the party of unemployment and the Conservatives are the party of employment?

[Mr Speaker]

I have heard the hon. Gentleman’s question with some delectation, but sadly it relates not to the policy of the Government but to that of the Opposition. I call Mr David Winnick.

Welfare Reform

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 11th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

They will not. We have given that commitment, and it can be found within the £2.1 billion.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It is a sad fact that in Wellingborough there is a subculture of young people who have never known a family where anyone has ever worked, and who have always lived off benefits and in social housing. They come to my surgery to try to get a bigger house. How do we break that cultural trend? It is not just about incentives; we have to break the culture.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Alone, this would not be enough, but my point is that it will run in parallel with the Work programme, which will get to unemployed people, such as the young people going to my hon. Friend’s surgery, early and wrap around them a process that gets them away from that culture. Often they come from homes where there is no work. This programme will get them to see and work through the fact that being in work is the best and most important thing if they want to take control of their lives.

Welfare Reform

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have been doing the figures, actually. The hon. Gentleman should remember that the measure is not being brought in until towards the end of the Parliament in 2013. In the meantime, we have already instigated some changes to how housing benefit is paid. The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that in some parts of London there has been complicity among private landlords to push the rents up much higher than they should have done. That was because the Labour Government never sorted out housing benefit.

The reality is that we will manage the process. The numbers will be far smaller than the hon. Gentleman talks about. We will make sure that what we do as we go forward is give the taxpayer and those in receipt of benefit a fair deal. I do not think that a person needs £35,000 a year gross to live a reasonable life.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement today. I do not think that anyone in the House is more able to deal with the welfare problem than him.

With hindsight, does my right hon. Friend think that it was a mistake to announce the change in child benefit policy in a television studio last week rather than waiting to announce it in the House today? Was a written statement given to the other place, which was sitting last week?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The Chancellor made a statement in a television studio, but he made a statement to the country and my hon. Friend at the same time. All I can say is that the policy has been discussed by me, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. As far as I am concerned, come the spending review my hon. Friend will see even more details about other changes. There will be full statements on those as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

It is ridiculous for the right hon. Lady to stand there, two and a half months after leaving government with the finances in a total shambles, and try to lecture us about youth unemployment. [Interruption.] I remind her that in the whole time for which Labour Members were in government, there were only three years in which they reduced unemployment for 16 to 17-year-olds. Youth unemployment rose throughout 10 years, and the Labour Government left it worse than they found it. No lectures from the right hon. Lady, please; only apologies will do.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State take no lectures from the Opposition on unemployment? In Wellingborough unemployment doubled under the Labour Government.

What would my right hon. Friend have said if he had been in my office on Friday, when a constituent came in and said, “My granddaughter works very hard. She’s a single mum and she’s just getting by, but she doesn’t have a council house. The other granddaughter has given up her job and is on benefits. She has a house and is better off”? Which granddaughter is doing the right thing?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Those who take the risk and try to work and take jobs are the people whom we want to support in society. The trouble is that endlessly under the previous Government, the levels of support for those who did not take a risk or a chance were too high for them ever to take those risks. The answer is very simply this: we will value those who try, and make sure that things such as housing benefit and unemployment benefit are set at rates that do not discourage people from taking work.