Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

It is under different leadership in Northern Ireland, but let us be absolutely clear that someone who is undergoing treatment for cancer and is having chemotherapy and radiotherapy would, in almost all cases, be in a support group and be receiving long-term care. I do not know enough about the circumstances of the hon. Gentleman’s constituent to be exactly certain where she is in the course of her treatment, but one of the changes that we made on coming to office was to improve support for cancer patients, not to reduce it.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

A constituent visited me during the weekend to express her concerns about her husband who is blind and who has been informed that he will lose ESA in five months. He is taking a course to enable himself to get back into work, but it will take longer than five months to complete. What additional support may be provided to people in his situation to enable them to get back into work?

Work Capability Assessments

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

I became a Member of Parliament in 2010 and, right from the start, people expressed concerns to me about the work capability assessment, which was introduced by the previous Government. Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that Atos was hired by that previous Labour Government? Were some of the concerns that he was beginning to talk about exhibited at that stage, or are they only coming to light now?

[Tom Greatrex]

The hon. Gentleman must know the answer to his question, but I have not suggested that the contract was agreed under the current Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

I am conscious of the time, Mr Williams, so I will be as brief as I can. I congratulate the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) on securing the debate and I encourage him to try to secure another debate later in the year, because the process is ongoing, will involve more people, and more issues such as those we have heard about today will come forward. The opportunity to bring such matters to the Minister’s attention is important. We are dealing with the human consequences of failures in a bureaucratic, state-driven system—in this case, incapacity benefit. Similarly, many hon. Members have seen the failures of the immigration system, and its human consequences for our constituents and for people around the country.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

In my constituency, I have had the experience of the fit for work tests being piloted in the Burnley benefits centre. There has been an extreme improvement through the pilot scheme to where we are now. There is more we can do, but I echo my hon. Friend’s thoughts about waiting for the completion of the process before we pass judgment.

[Richard Fuller]

I appreciate that intervention from my hon. Friend.

I would like to place in context some of the concerns we have heard about; first, about being assessed. It is quite natural to expect people to have concerns, as we are making a significant change to people’s lives. In many comments, the issue has not been a generic concern relating to assessment, but a concern about specific types of conditions and cases. Will the Minister confirm that for every 100 assessments, nine people who are found to be fit for work go on to win their appeal? That means there are 91 people who fit into another category.

One fluctuating condition that has not been mentioned is alcoholism, and people who have chronic, long-term alcoholic conditions. One constituent who came to see me had his papers from assessments in the 1990s. Will the Minister provide confirmation on that?

Although it does not relate directly to the debate, part of work capability assessment is that there is then work. In today’s conditions, what can the Minister say will be on his agenda to try to encourage some of these people into work at the end of their assessments? There is much more I would like to say, but because of the time I have to stop there.

Living Standards

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Syms]

Yes, partly because of that. Traditionally in Britain it has been about 40%, so that gave the Government some room for manoeuvre. Any Government in office would have had a large increase in its deficit given what hit them in 2007 and 2008. There is no great argument about that and, as someone sitting on the other side of the Chamber, I think that many of the things that the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) did were beneficial in trying to maintain a fragile economic situation.

Having said that, we cannot continue to increase debt year on year at the rate we were in 2009, 2010 and 2011 or we will overwhelm the British economy. The worst thing for our constituents is not paying tax; it is paying tax to pay interest on money being borrowed from someone else. The Government had to make a judgment, and their judgment was to set out an economic policy gradually to reduce our debt over five to seven years to a level that, once it tops off in 2016-17, can then start to be brought back to the level of more normal years, which is about 40% of GDP. In an environment in which the world was growing rapidly, that would be easier. In an environment in which the eurozone is blowing up, and there are high fuel and food prices, it becomes much more difficult. That is part of the problem for the Government in the short term. It is events—it is what is happening around the world.

There is nothing surprising about where the Government are. Sticking with the policy is perfectly sensible, but things do not go in a straight line in economics, and there will be OBR forecasts and Budgets where the figures for debt increase, and some where they decrease. It will depend to some extent on world events.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is talking about debt levels. Was not one of the issues under the Labour Government the integrity of the public finances? Their estimates of public sector debt did not include the private finance initiative, which was a grossly exaggerated amount of public benefit, and they did not include the burgeoning increase in public sector pension claims on the economy. Does my hon. Friend agree that another aspect of debt in which the Labour Government’s policies were embedded was increasing the costs that people had to pay for their housing through the ever-increasing impression that housing wealth was real wealth? That has had a real impact on people’s well-being and living standards today.

[Mr Syms]

Clearly, and another problem in the British economy is that there is a lot of private sector borrowing. We have a high level of indebtedness, both of government and of the private sector. In Italy, they save rather more than we do, and as a country we should try to encourage more of our citizens to save and not live on the never-never in the long term.

I support what the Chancellor did in the autumn statement. We are clearly in choppy weather, but that is no reason to change course. We cannot adjust the budget down or raise taxation painlessly. The living standards of most of the population will be squeezed. As the IFS and other organisations have said, living standards have fallen by about 7% over the past two to three years. The good news is that next year the projection is for things to be fairly flat, with some modest recovery after that. It may well be that when we get to 2015—the general election year—we have lower living standards than in 2010 as a consequence of the fact that we have inherited a major deficit, very difficult problems and a pretty rotten international environment. That is no reason for going off course, but it is a reason for sticking to a very sensible policy. Labour Members may think that we cannot do things without breaking eggs, but that is not so. We have to raise the tax burden and reduce spending, and I am afraid that that has consequences.

Youth Unemployment

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

The hon. Lady need only look at the statistics, including those for her area. This year, long-term youth unemployment has risen by one third in Solihull. The future jobs fund was helping to bring youth unemployment down. To return to the point made by the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), we have to help young people stay close to the labour market because if we let them drift into long-term unemployment, they have a bigger chance of being unemployed in the future, of being low paid and of drifting into ill health. That is why the right decision for her constituents, as well as mine, is not to do nothing, but to act.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman did not answer the question from my colleague, the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt). We are fooling ourselves, if we think that this problem is simply to do with this Government or the previous one. This is a long-term, growing problem of youth unemployment. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) is looking for the statistics for my constituency. I can tell him: it is up 24%. As we look for solutions and as economies across Europe are being destroyed because of their excessive debt, my question is: what can we do that does not incur additional debt for the Government? Will he support our schools reforms? Will he support our efforts on apprenticeships? Will he support the reductions in taxation and regulation on small businesses indicated by the Government?

Pensions Bill [Lords]

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

I will in a moment.

This unfolding chaos has been impressive even for a Government who have presided over U-turns on forests, sentencing reform and the reorganisation of the NHS, because we thought we knew where we were. The coalition Government made a wise move in appointing the Pensions Minister to his brief—he is a man who knows a thing or two about pensions. Indeed, in one of his first major speeches, he told his audience:

“I have become known as something of a bore at pensions conferences.”

We have no problem with that. Then we had the coalition agreement. I do not know whether anyone remembers the coalition agreement—it was important once. Page 26 reads:

“We will phase out the default retirement age and hold a review to set the date at which the state pension age starts to rise to 66, although it will not be sooner than 2016 for men and 2020 for women.”

For good measure, the Pensions Minister got to his feet a month or so later and said that the Government were committed to any change not being sooner than 2020 for women. Then, 118 days later, the Chancellor arrives on the scene. He stands at the Dispatch Box and says that

“the state pension age for men and women will reach 66 by 2020.”—[Official Report, 20 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 956.]

Yet buried in the fine print, we learnt the truth—not the Pensions Minister, the Secretary of State or the Chancellor could bring themselves to that Dispatch Box and actually tell people straight that that policy set out in the coalition agreement was absolutely worthless. The truth was set out in the depths of the spending review, page 69 of which read:

“The State Pension Age will then increase to 66 for both men and women from December 2018 to April 2020.”

That is a promise well and truly broken. At least when the Lib Dems changed their minds about increasing tuition fees, they could pretend that they were just making things up to get elected, but this was a promise they made and broke in government. Just last summer, the Pensions Minister boasted of reforms in the system that he said included

“those who the system has always missed out such as women and the lower paid.”

In his own Department’s review, he said that he wanted to look at the “particular challenge” for

“women pensioners. A group I have long worked for, and who are so often the poor relations in regard to pensions.”

I will let the House draw its own conclusions. One moment the Pensions Minister is offering to protect women pensioners, the next he is presenting proposals that will punish half a million women with a bill for up to £16,000.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Byrne]

I will give way, and perhaps the hon. Gentleman can explain the Pension Minister’s change of face.

[Richard Fuller]

The right hon. Gentleman was giving a discourse on integrity in pensions provision under the previous Government, which I think is important, because many of my constituents will be worried about this issue, and will be looking for integrity. He is very good with numbers—it is when he has to add them up that he has trouble—so I am wondering, on the point of integrity, could he answer this question? The Labour party has recommendations for how best to treat the women he is highlighting who are being impacted by the Bill, and those recommendations are costed at £10 billion. In the interest of integrity, will he please advise me and other Members where he would find the money?

[Mr Byrne]

Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that he has seen the costings given in the parliamentary answer provided by the Pensions Minister on 9 March 2011?

[Richard Fuller]

I have not seen those costings, so the right hon. Gentleman can enlighten me further.

[Mr Byrne]

The Minister gave an interesting answer, because those costings say that if, for example, we increased the retirement age to 67 by 2035—that is, if we accelerated the reform by one year—that would save £6.9 billion. However, if the retirement age was increased to 67 by 2034, by accelerating the increase by two years, that would save £13.7 billion. Therefore, the question for us this afternoon is: how much will be saved by accelerating the reform for those women who are now having to retire later, and who therefore confront trying to find all that money magically, in the space of just four or five years? Has that been traded off against other options, such as introducing advances in the retirement age later on? That is the question that we have to get to the bottom of in this Second Reading debate.

[Ben Gummer]

rose—

[Richard Fuller]

rose—

[Mr Byrne]

I will give way in a moment.

Let us hear what the impact of the Government’s proposals will be, because the Secretary of State rather glided over this point. Some half a million women will receive their state pension at least 12 months later than they had previously been advised, with 300,000 women—those born between December 1953 and October 1954—experiencing a delay of one and a half years. For 33,000 women—those born between 6 March and 5 April 1954—that period increases to two years. For them, the loss in state pension will be around £10,000. For those on full pension credit, the loss will be closer to £15,000. Those women, with five years’ notice of the timetable change, have almost no time to prepare for their income loss.

Disability Living Allowance

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) on securing it. I wish to declare an interest—I am chairman of two domiciliary care service companies. They are not in receipt of disability living allowance, but they deal with adjacent issues. I welcome the debate. In particular, I welcome the Minister to her place.

The fundamental question that went through my mind when the announcement was made was what it said about our attitude towards the decency with which we allow people to lead their lives. What does it say about how we are prepared to protect the most vulnerable in our community at this difficult time, with the significant financial challenges inherited by the Government? That was made real for me by the visits of constituents; families who care for their sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, cousins and uncles, and who have to create that sense of independence every day for their loved ones in care homes.

In particular, it is my pleasure to recognise the campaigning work of Mr and Mrs Ogaza from my constituency—Mrs Ogaza is here today—on behalf of not only their son Paul, but other families. I thank the Minister for taking the time to meet me not once but twice—the second time to listen to Mrs Ogaza—and for her visit to a care home in Shefford, near my constituency. That is emblematic of how much she is trying to reach out and listen, and to understand this complex area. Indeed, that complexity is at the root of the Government’s attempts to deal with the question of decency. There is nothing decent about the system that is in place if it provides a patchwork of services for recipients in different parts of the country. There is nothing decent about a system that does not ask our care home providers tough questions to ensure that they are actually providing the services that we would like.

[Guy Opperman]

Is not the biggest test for the future to have a road map where things are clearly signposted and understood? Whatever the reason for the system being in the state that it is in, comprehension and utilisation would then be much clearer.

[Richard Fuller]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. He echoes a point that was made by my hon. Friends the Members for Banbury (Tony Baldry) and for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan). This is an opportunity to provide a clear map of the requirements and also to identify, not in a naming and shaming way but in a positive way, what local authorities and care homes should provide and where evidence shows that they are falling short.

I believe that this is the second debate on disability living allowance that the hon. Member for Arfon has secured. Is that correct?

[Hywel Williams]

No.

[Richard Fuller]

I am sorry. It is the second debate that I have attended on the subject. It shows how important it is to hon. Members that we get the correct answers. This debate is a bit more heartening in that it is not focused so much on cuts. The Minister needs to lay this to rest: the changes are not being made to reduce funding but to ensure that the funding that is available is directed in a way that gives clarity to families and the recipients of care in various care homes. It is extremely important that that message is made clear. [Interruption.] If hon. Members disagree, we need to continue to bring that to the Minister’s attention. I fundamentally do not believe that that is the intent of the policy, and I look forward to listening to those who think differently.

I should like to thank the 27 charities—the number is growing—that have provided information to other hon. Members and to me in their reports, “Don’t Limit Mobility”, and, more recently, “DLA mobility: sorting the facts from the fiction”. A number of them are in an expert position because they also operate care homes. I would be interested to hear from the Minister how many of them have come forward with examples from their own experience of the uniformity of provision across their network of homes. Has she received such representations or evidence from them about whether they experience differences in the various local authority areas in which they operate? That would be a useful body of evidence, and it behoves the charities to provide such information to the Minister, so that we can have a clearer picture.

In their reports, the charities provide some information about the rationales for the changes. I admit that several have been presented over the months, but I should like to pick up on two that are particularly pertinent and germane. I thought that the first one they listed was very interesting:

“The responsibility for mobility/transport costs should be met by the care home provider”.

What struck me in the evidence that the charities provided was that they saw a lack of clarity in what has been provided. They stated:

“Related legislation and guidance make no specific reference to mobility… While guidance places a responsibility…it contains nothing about how this is paid for… This guidance is not contract terms… the guidance does not provide a legal requirement.”

That points to the comments that were made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury and others about the need for clarity and a road map.

[Mr Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I would echo my hon. Friend’s comments about the Minister. She has gone far out of her way to reach out to colleagues across the House, and I pay credit to her for that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury spoke about contracts and specifics being written down. The Winchester and District Mencap Society has made the point to me many times that the mobility component is not necessarily used just for appointments at doctors or care homes, or for visits to friends or the hairdresser. Sometimes, for their own physical and mental health, people use it to get away from those with whom they live. Is not the key point that if we reform the system and move to personal independence payments, we will put power in the hands of disabled people who are individuals in their own right? They do not want the Government or the House to prescribe how they do everything, or how and where they spend their money.

[Richard Fuller]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. However, there are also requirements on the part of the Government to provide some guidance and clarity. If we can get clear evidence of the original intent—the changes are required because of differences in provision—people could move forward more confidently, empowered to exercise their rights. We are going through a process that we have not yet completed.

The second rationale that I wish to discuss—I will not take too much of hon. Members’ time—is No. 7 on the charities’ list:

“Local authorities’ contracts with care homes should cover personal mobility needs”.

The charities’ response focuses very much on ability to pay. Local authorities do not have the money; care home providers are not in a position to pay. That comes again to my earlier point: this issue should not be driven by the need to make cost reductions, but by the need to ensure that there is clarity about what we expect to provide on both a local authority and care home basis. If insufficient money is being provided, that should be the answer. If too much money is being provided and there is a better way of getting value for money, that should be the answer. That is what we are driving for in achieving an answer.

My final point is that this is not just about mobility. The issue is independence. A personal expenditure allowance of £22 a week is not sufficient for the broad range of an individual’s requirements. That measure was not set by this Government—they inherited it. It is a little insulting to tell someone, particularly someone who is vulnerable or people who have spent much of their own lives looking after a child or a mother who is in need and thereby saving the Government so much money, that we will leave them with just £22 a week to cover the wide range of their personal expenditure.

I ask the Minister, as she looks at the mobility component, to bear in mind the broader picture of providing decency overall for people in care. She has done an excellent job in reaching out and listening to people, and I hope that she will listen to the contributions to the debate.

Disability Allowance

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Clarke]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Like other hon. Members, I have received a huge amount of correspondence making the point that he just raised.

In order to seek clarity, I will turn to the question put to the Prime Minister last Wednesday by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain). He asked:

“How can he possibly justify this cruel cut of either £18.95 per week or £49.85 per week to some of the most decent people who have paid their taxes all their lives?”—[Official Report, 24 November 2010; Vol. 519, c. 264-265.]

To my complete dismay, the Prime Minister chose to trivialise his response. I say that because I had expected him to show greater sensitivity towards people with disabilities. In fact, he served as an office-bearer in the all-party group on learning disability and his input then was regarded as positive and welcome. I hope that the Prime Minister will think again.

In any event, the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander), put the Opposition’s position beyond doubt when he said following Prime Minister’s questions:

“The Prime Minister, after a word in his ear from his Chancellor, got it flat wrong today.

He was asked about his own government’s plans to cut mobility support for people in care homes but confused it with separate reforms…But when the Chancellor went back in his Spending Review and scrapped mobility support for people in care homes, we are clear that goes too far and is a punitive measure that could leave people in care homes more isolated.”

That clarifies the Opposition’s position on the matter, but my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East may want to add to it; I shall welcome what she has to say later. It is in complete contrast to what the coalition has said. We are calling for clarity.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making some good points, but on the issue of clarity, will he help those of us who are perhaps not as learned as him on this topic? Is there an underlying issue that different amounts of the mobility allowance go to people who are disabled based on their route into the care home? Will he provide clarity on that?

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. This does not affect self-funders, and we will be making clearer as we get towards the Bill exactly how the measure will affect all other groups. I reiterate that it is important to get clarity in the funding streams as we move towards personalisation, which is overwhelmingly welcomed by disabled people.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about the need for clarity and clarification as we move towards the universal benefit, but we must also consider the issue of decency. The measures that she is taking are having deleterious effects on the well-being of people in my constituency. Many of the families concerned have looked after their children for many years outside care. Will she take the opportunity to meet me so that we can discuss some of these constituency issues?

Welfare Reform

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Let me repeat the figures that I gave. Of all those who have been migrated through the system, about 5% have been successful in the sense that they have had their appeals upheld. There may be a slight change to that figure, because there is a backlog at the moment; we could probably make it up to 7% or 8%, but I do not think that it will get any higher than that. We should remember that all the people the hon. Lady is talking about represent the flow—that is, people who have not been in receipt of incapacity benefit until now but have been applying to come on to incapacity benefit and are being migrated through the process on to employment and support allowance or jobseeker’s allowance. The figure for those appeals is 5%, and that was part of the process that was started by the previous Government.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Many of us welcome the Secretary of State’s efforts to tackle the scourge of worklessness and to end the era in this country of indiscriminate and too often counter-productive welfare. On work capability assessment, he will know that these macro benefits are built on a series of individual assessments by a particular doctor on a particular day of a particular condition. May I press my right hon. Friend to take a personal interest to ensure that assessments of neurological disorders and mental health issues in particular are done fairly?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point. I can guarantee to him that we have already been doing that, but we will continue to do so. That is why the independent panel, which includes somebody from Mind, will review it. Mr Farmer has been tasked with reviewing that generally, as well. We will constantly keep this under review and ensure that that is the case. We do not want to use this to punish people; it is about helping people, not punishing them.

Jobs and the Unemployed

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. This is about investing in our future, because this is about the young people who will support us all for very many years to come. If we do not give them the start in life that they need, if we do not give them the work experience that they need to get into jobs, if we leave too many of them stuck on the dole for years, we will pay the bills that result from their being unemployed for years and we will lose their potential skills and talents that could contribute to our economy for many years to come.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Is not the biggest burden on the young people about whom the right hon. Lady talks so eloquently the massive debts that her Government left behind? They are already shackled by the previous Government’s policies, and that will be a burden on them and their employment opportunities for the future.

[Yvette Cooper]

If those young people cannot get jobs, if they end up stuck on the dole for years—that is what happened to young people whom I left school with in the 1980s—that will devastate their entire future. They will struggle to get work for many years to come and that will push up the deficit. The hon. Gentleman seems to fail to understand that if unemployment is high, that pushes up the bills for unemployment benefits and cuts the number of people who are working in good jobs and paying their taxes, not just this year and next, but for many years to come.

[Richard Fuller]

In my constituency, the unemployment rate doubled under the last Administration. In the last 10 years, unemployment has gone up. We recognise in Bedford and Kempston that we need small businesses to create the jobs that will employ people, not just in five years’ time, but in five months’ time. The one thing that small businesses in my constituency want is to know that the Government have control over the deficit, that their taxes will be down, and that regulation will be reduced. Surely that is the way in which we can create jobs.

[Yvette Cooper]

Unfortunately for the hon. Gentleman, if we cut the deficit at the pace and scale that his party wants, that will make it harder for businesses. It will make it harder for small businesses and companies across the economy. His party’s own appointed Office for Budget Responsibility confirms that. It says that there will be fewer jobs in the economy, not just next year, but each year for the rest of this Parliament as a result of the Budget. It is hitting businesses and employers throughout the country, making it harder for them to take people on. That is the complete fallacy in the arguments of Conservative Members. They are stuck in the mentality of not just the 1980s, but the 1930s, which says that so long as the deficit is cut, things will suddenly be hunky-dory. It will not. It cuts jobs and makes it harder for people to get back into work, and it pushes up the costs of failure too. That is what is so irresponsible.