Oral Answers to Questions

Russell Brown Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Pensions (Steve Webb)]

I am very happy to brief my hon. Friend. Tackling the poorer pension outcomes for women has been a long-term priority for him and for me. Our reformed state pension will come in during 2016 and will deliver a fairer pension for women. Millions of women have been automatically enrolled and so will have a pension of their own, on top of a decent state pension—the difference, dare I say it, that a Liberal Democrat Pensions Minister makes.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

Responding on the issue of youth unemployment, the Minister for Employment painted a rosy picture, but she needs to take additional action in rural areas, especially those such as mine, where youth unemployment continues to rise month on month and the whole economy is based on agriculture and tourism. What additional support does she think she can genuinely give to areas such as mine?

[Esther McVey]

We have provided a whole array of support. We measured what was working best and asked how we would roll that out. By working with businesses, we found that the answer was work experience, the sector-based work academies, and apprenticeships; we have introduced 2 million of those—and it is national apprenticeship week. Getting young people into a job is about skills, including employability skills, and we are doing as much as we can.

Housing Benefit (Abolition of Social Sector Size Criteria)

Russell Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I am delighted that we have the opportunity for this debate. I would actually have preferred another debate, though; on 2 April, the Select Committee on Work and Pensions published a report entitled “Support for housing costs in the reformed welfare system”. As yet, however, we have not had the Government response.

It was interesting to hear the Minister say that various things had recently been published, given that we are still waiting for that response. You will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the Government are normally given two months to respond to a Select Committee report, and it has been a lot more than two months in this case. Every time the Government’s response has been chased up, we have been told that it is lost somewhere in government—I am not quite sure where. Of course, a Select Committee cannot apply to the Liaison Committee for a debate if it does not have the Government response. However, today’s debate gives me an opportunity to raise some of the points that the Work and Pensions Committee made.

The Committee did not call for the scrapping of the bedroom tax, although personally I would like it to be scrapped as soon as possible, and we called it the “social sector size criteria” to try to depoliticise the matter. However, we made important recommendations about how the worst effects of that pernicious policy could be mitigated. A lot of them were about exempting particular groups that have already been mentioned in the debate—such as carers, disabled people who need extra room and anyone living in a property that has had adjustments made to it, who would probably find it impossible to move.

The Minister gave the game away when he talked about discretionary housing payments. Groups of people such as I have mentioned were clearly not meant to be included in the bedroom tax when the policy was designed; the fact that they were to get discretionary housing payments indicates that they were not meant to be caught by it. However, discretionary housing payments are what they say they are—discretionary. They are not long-term.

In reply to my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State, the Minister said that they had been extended to give families time to adjust, but the family that my hon. Friend mentioned cannot adjust—they need a house the size of the one they are in. A woman who has had a refuge built cannot adjust and move, because it has been specifically built for her. I cannot see why the Government persist in turning their face against sensible proposals for exemptions. They keep arguing that it is all right because people get discretionary housing payments, but those payments are not permanent. People need permanent provision for their adjustment.

The number of people across the country caught by the bedroom tax is quite staggering. In my constituency, where unemployment is really low, there are still 419 people affected by the bedroom tax. Across Aberdeen, where most people are in work—there is almost full employment —more than 1,600 are affected. The irony in such a place is that people are being forced out of a two or three-bedroom council house because of the bedroom tax, but the Government seem willing to pay even more through housing benefit in the private rented sector, because the rent on a one-bedroom house in that sector is higher than that on a three-bedroom council house.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I am sure that all Members will recognise that people are being driven out of the social rented sector into the arms of private landlords. I trust the figures given by my hon. Friend and her Committee more than the ones that the Government give. Has she seen a figure for the number of people who have been driven from the public rented sector into the private rented sector?

[Dame Anne Begg]

I am afraid I do not have that figure.

Affordable Homes Bill

Russell Brown Excerpts

Friday 5th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

rose—

[Andrew George]

I shall give way first to the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) and then to the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown).

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[Andrew George]

I promised to give way to the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway.

[Mr Russell Brown]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his Bill. He has much support from Labour Members. May I take him back to his remarks about the legislation introduced by the Labour Government on private sector housing and the subject of those who had desperately to look to the private sector for rented accommodation? Will he please correct the record, because that legislation was not retrospective? Moreover, everyone was included in it. There were no exceptions, so pensioner households were included as well. That legislation, which the previous Labour Government put through, made no exceptions for anyone, so it is fundamentally different.

Job Insecurity

Russell Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

It is a current problem, but it is a declining problem. The trend over the past year is striking: the new jobs being created are full-time jobs and part-time employment is declining. Of course, there are a lot of people who took part-time employment under very difficult conditions who now want full-time work. If the recovery is sustained, as it must be, then this problem will resolve itself, but I accept that there are a lot of people in unsatisfactory employment situations.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

We have now had nearly four years of talking about the numbers of people who are unemployed and the number who are employed. Does the Secretary of State have the figures for the number of hours worked on a weekly basis? Is he able to track that over the past three or four years?

[Vince Cable]

I do not have those figures, but I am sure we could get them. I am sure my colleague the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will dig them out for him. I am sure that they reflect the pattern I describe that, certainly over the last year, full-time employment is rising relative to part-time employment.

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[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I want to begin by reminding colleagues of exactly where we have come from over the last couple of decades. When I entered the House in 1997, in my communities there were many households where families were working flat-out. Many women in particular were holding down two, and sometimes three, jobs in order to make ends meet. Frankly, for many families there was little or no quality family time as parents operated like ships that passed in the night; as one parent came in the door from work, the other was quite often leaving, or at least soon thereafter, to go out and do their job. Work-life balance was not even a thought for many households.

The then Labour Opposition gave a commitment to introduce a national minimum wage, which the then Conservative Government laughed at saying it would lead to the loss of about 1 million jobs. The evidence showed that if we took £1 million and gave it to the poorest-paid workers, it had the potential to create between 35 and 40 jobs. I served on the national minimum wage Committee stage, as did you, Mr Speaker. I distinctly remember two or three long nights when we sat through the night to get that legislation passed.

What effect did that national minimum wage have? In my area we depend very much on small and medium-sized businesses, but there was a recognition that by paying the poorest people additional income, that money “washed around” in the local economy, giving local businesses the confidence perhaps to take on another member of staff as prospects looked brighter. If every small business had taken on one new member of staff at that time, there would have been no unemployment, and that is still the position today. If every small and medium-sized enterprise took on one additional member of staff, we would have no unemployment. The big issue, however, is whether businesses feel confident enough to do that. They are looking for a degree of certainty, and a glimmer of hope that there will be a brighter future.

I put it to the Secretary of State that there might well be a recovery going on out there, but it is pretty patchy across the various parts of the United Kingdom. Any economic recovery that has taken place under this Government has involved a race to the bottom for those who earn the lowest wages and have the fewest rights at work. People at work are being hit by rising insecurity, as Ministers have made it easier for employers to fire rather than easier to hire, watered down people’s rights at work and compounded the cost of living crisis for many families. The Opposition have made it clear that we plan to ban zero-hours contracts when they exploit people, to end the scandal of false self-employment, to strengthen the national minimum wage and its enforcement and to incentivise employers to pay a living wage through “make work pay” contracts.

I want to finish by mentioning a couple of issues that have arisen in my own area. As I have said on many occasions, it is an area with a low-wage economy. I am not, however, one of those individuals who is constantly moaning, and we are now, thankfully, seeing a slight increase in the average wage in rural south-west Scotland. It has moved from being around 24% below the UK national average to being between 18% and 19% below it. One of the big crises in our area is youth unemployment, which remains stubbornly high at 6.1%, compared with the UK average of 4.9%. It has remained at that high level for many years. It is all very well for us in this House to talk about young people being our future; those young people are there today. They are the future, but that is what is happening today.

A major ferry company operating in my area is now considering exploiting a loophole that would enable it to get rid of its UK crews and bring in crews from non-European economic area countries. That could involve seafarers who, in some parts of the world, are being paid as little as £2.41 an hour. I put it to the Secretary of State that that is a disgrace. It represents the sheer, naked exploitation of a loophole that exists in this country, and I would have expected much more of the company involved. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will look seriously at what can be done to close that loophole.

The other issue came to light in my office towards the end of last week. I have a young constituent who is a single parent. She has been on a zero-hours contract for some time. She wants to establish a business, but her contract states that if she leaves her employment, she cannot go on to do similar work elsewhere within three months. She wants to develop her own business, but she is being told not only that she cannot take on similar work or run a business within three months of leaving that company, but that she cannot work within a 10-mile radius of where she is currently working. Her employers have pulled her in and told her that they are prepared to sack her and take her to court. The terms of that contract are unbelievable, and I sincerely hope that the Secretary of State will look at some of the contracts that people such as my constituent are having to tolerate in 2014. Finally, I thank him for the figures that he has given the House to illustrate the number of hours being worked per month, but I would like to see the figures for the past four years, if possible.

Housing Benefit

Russell Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

Dumfries and Galloway council does not have any housing, so in my constituency we depend on three or four registered social landlords. The two biggest social landlords are Dumfries and Galloway Housing Partnership and Loreburn Housing Association. Opposition Members have been good enough to explain the human consequences of this measure: its impact on disabled people and their carers, and on the access fathers from broken relationships have to their children. While foster carers have been supported, kinship carers have not. For single homeless people in my area, the situation has become very difficult indeed, as no one-bedroom properties are available. I also have to say, in case it has passed people by, that the cost of moving home for the poorest in society comes at a price that many cannot afford to pay.

I have two or three points I would like to raise with the Minister. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg), who laid out how the local housing allowance came into being. The big difference between what has gone before and what we are faced with is the simple fact that when this legislation came into effect people were trapped—they had nowhere to turn. The idea that 1 million empty bedrooms and 250,000 overcrowded households could all of a sudden be put right is totally wrong. Last year, my Tory-run council wrote to the coalition Government to tell them to rethink the bedroom tax, because one-bedroom properties simply were not available. I have to ask: why do the Government not listen to their own?

The Minister of State, who opened the debate, is consistent—he always comes out with the usual nonsense about it being everyone else’s fault. On the complaint about the inherited position, not once did I hear anyone on the Government Benches talk about a school that we built that they did not want, a hospital that was built that they did not want, or infrastructure we put in that they did not want. Investment was not the problem for this nation—it was the banks. Government Members want to forget that.

I am amazed that we still have this legislation. Whatever lies behind it, there must have been Government targets. Was it about saving money? Seven months in, how much money have the Government saved? Was it about swapping people around in the system to make sure that those who were under-occupying moved out and that those who needed larger homes got them? Has that succeeded? Will the Minister tell us how many families have been able to downsize? How many social tenants have moved into the private sector because no social housing was available? I say: bring forward that review. As we have heard time and again from Government Members, the Bill was introduced because it was populist, and for no other reason. It is about kicking people in society when they are down. That is the true face of compassionate Conservatism.

Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Bill

Russell Brown Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

No, there was not a serious oversight; the judgment was about a technicality. The High Court agreed that the regulations were satisfactory. It did not have a problem with the amount of detail in the regulations, whereas the Appeal Court did. I therefore believe that the judgment was about a technicality; it was about the amount of detail in the regulations. The Appeal Court thought that there should be more detail about the schemes. We felt, for reasons of efficiency and responding quickly to identify schemes that would help people to get back into work, that it was helpful to have some detail in the regulations but not as much as the Appeal Court wanted. To ensure that we could respond flexibly to the changing labour market and the changing needs of the unemployed, we designed the regulations in the way we did. We are seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court to continue to press that point about the amount of detail that should be in the regulations.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

On the very points that the Minister is making, of course it is right that those involved in the system—those seeking employment and training—should have as much information as possible. Does he recognise that the wider public need to be confident that the system—what is happening out there to find employment and training for those in need—should be robust and stand up to scrutiny, including scrutiny by the courts?

[Mr Hoban]

I think that the system is robust and that it does stand up to scrutiny by the courts. That is why the High Court accepted the amount of detail in the regulations. The Appeal Court disagreed with that and we are seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court to argue that point. It is not unusual for there to be a limited amount of detail in regulations and much more information to be supplied in guidance or notices provided not just by the DWP but by other Departments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Byrne]

I will address that point directly, as the answer is very simple: because this Bill restores the general legal power of the DWP to issue sanctions. It is a broad sui generis power that has been in place since 1911. I will be interested to hear later the hon. Gentleman’s argument on why he thinks the power to issue sanctions, which has been in place since 1911, should now be struck down for the period in question.

The worst aspect of all this is that the Secretary of State was warned that he was heading for a failure not simply in this House, not simply by commentators opposed to his plans, and not simply by people who had a profound disagreement with him, but by the very specialist Committee he set up to advise him on these questions. This is what the Social Security Advisory Committee said about the 2011 regulations:

“SSAC ask why the Department did not opt to narrow the scope of the original regulations”,

Indeed, it was, of course, their broad and unspecified content that the Court of Appeal objected to.

[Mr Russell Brown]

I want to take my right hon. Friend back to the recent intervention of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), from the Scottish National party Benches. Has my right hon. Friend picked up from those comments that the SNP is totally opposed to sanctions of any kind?

[Mr Byrne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am afraid that no other conclusion can be drawn from that intervention.

The Secretary of State said to us in the House a couple of weeks ago:

“That advice came to us; it was checked and it said that the regulations were fine.”—[Official Report, 11 March 2013; Vol. 560, c. 19.]

Well, either the lawyers are bad or the Secretary of State made the wrong judgment. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that there are a huge number of questions that the Secretary of State must now answer.

If this were the only recent example of such incompetence by a Government Department, we might look on it more sympathetically, but all of us clearly remember the west coast main line debacle that cost taxpayers so much money and all of us remember that the Department for Transport responded by appointing an independent reviewer to get to the bottom of exactly what went wrong and how so much public money was put at risk. That is the response we must see now from the DWP. There must be an independent inquiry into how the Department got this so badly wrong.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

It is an honour and pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery). My contribution might pale into insignificance compared with his comments of the past 20 minutes or so. He has probably saved me some time, because he has obviously taken to heart what the Child Poverty Action Group has been telling us all about the inequity of workfare schemes in the past couple of years. However, my starting point will be some 15 or 16 years ago.

I want to compliment Department for Work and Pensions staff. We sometimes forget the job of work that people do in their day-to-day life, and how difficult it can be. I only have to look back to when I came into this place in 1997. At that time, DWP staff were doing excellent work and were up for the challenge, keeping in mind that unemployment levels were excessively high when we came into government. They took on board the task of delivering for the then Labour Government the whole concept of new deal: new deal for long-term unemployed, new deal for young people, new deal for lone parents and new deal for disabled people. It made a vast difference to the lives not only of individuals, but of families and communities the length and breadth of the country.

It is therefore disappointing when things go wrong and DWP staff get castigated—it is grossly unfair. In recent weeks, I have held a couple of welfare reform summits, with some 30 or 40 different organisations attending. A member of DWP staff attended, explaining fully the changes that are about to hit many families across the country. As I said to people at the meetings, “Do not shoot the messenger.” The member of DWP staff explained what would be happening. The fault does not lie at the door of DWP staff; it lies at the door of the Department and the Ministers who are pushing the policies that everyone is faced with on a day-to-day basis.

One worrying aspect of the Bill is that this is emergency legislation. The point has been made about the number of times the previous Labour Government pushed through emergency legislation, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) knows full well what that emergency legislation was about. I have to tell the House that it was not in the realm of what we are seeing today. The retrospective element of the Bill is galling. My right hon. Friend knows that yesterday I had certain difficulties with the Bill. I still do—I have to be honest with the House. However, I recognise that he has worked hard to secure concessions from the Government to make the pill just that little bit less bitter than it would have been had he not made any such attempt.

The element of sanction is important. There are sanctions in all walks of life. We live in the real world, not the ideal world. If we lived in the ideal world, we would not have to have sanctions at any time, anywhere. The fact of the matter is that not everyone co-operates and not everyone plays by the rules, and so there are times when people have to be taken to one side and told where they are going wrong. However, that is no excuse for what has gone wrong here. Lord Justice Pill stated:

“Claimants must be made aware of their obligations and of the circumstances in which, and the manner in which, sanctions will be applied.”

I am not saying that that has not happened in every case. I am sure there are cases where staff have made it abundantly clear to claimants exactly where they stand. However, when we talk about the best part of 300,000 people, I have some anxiety about how many did not know.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

In the case of one of my constituents, it took three months to determine whether he should be sanctioned, as it was not clear whether the responsibility rested with the manager of the placement or the jobcentre. At one stage I wrote to the Minister, and I cannot say that his letter made the matter any clearer. In that case, is it right that the sanction is maintained against my constituent? It is perfectly obvious that not only did he not know the conditions relating to the sanction, but neither did the manager of the placement nor the staff at the jobcentre. Surely the Minister is simply covering up an error, if he is allowed to do that.

[Mr Brown]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is abundantly clear that the system is not robust. I made the point earlier that it is not only those who are out there actively seeking work or training who need to know the rules of the game. Every one of us in this House needs to know the rules, and the wider public need to know what is going on out there in their communities. When they see in their local press half a dozen vacancies and potentially 40, 50, 60 or maybe even 100 people applying for jobs, they need to know that systems are robust. They depend on good government to ensure that the legislation is correct.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that what this tells us is that we need root and branch reform of how DWP communicates with the public? It is bitter when constituents of mine go to the jobcentre or take part in the Work programme already feeling bad and communication by DWP makes them feel so much worse. That has got to come to an end.

[Mr Brown]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I also want to come back to the point I made at the beginning. Staff are under so much pressure. I can tell both Ministers here that there will for ever be a question mark over targets. Let me assure them and the Secretary of State that if evidence ever comes my way that clearly indicates that there are targets that have been denied by Ministers, I will make the House fully aware. I hope that hon. Members on both sides would do likewise. If that evidence is to be found, if that is happening, then it is only right that we expose it.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

We all support high quality training and work experience, but the court case to which the Bill relates was about someone working at Poundland for an extended period. Does my hon. Friend agree that most ordinary people watching this debate will feel that it is outrageous that people are being asked to do such jobs without being paid?

[Mr Brown]

I can only wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend. Members of the public expect better from the shops, facilities and services we use. We expect people to be paid, and that point has been made this afternoon. All we are asking is for a real choice of a real job with a real wage. That is the decent thing to do, and there can be no doubt whatever about that.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Some of the newer Members might not realise this, but under the last Conservative Government, people in Coventry were being paid £1 an hour. I remember raising the matter with Ministers at the time. We are going back to those days.

[Mr Brown]

My hon. Friend and I are of an age to remember when people were being paid pitifully poor wages, but thankfully—I will come to this in a minute—we introduced the national minimum wage when in government.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who has left the Chamber, was absolutely correct to make the point that the sanctions being imposed were wholly unfair, verging on the criminal. A number of us heard yesterday about someone who was asked to report to the jobcentre and sign on as unemployed at 9.30 on a Tuesday morning. At the same time, they were asked to turn up at a new training organisation at 9.30. They went to the jobcentre and said, “Look, I can’t come at 9:30 on Tuesday morning. I’m reporting to a new trainer,” but was told, “No, you need to come here, otherwise you’ll face sanctions. You’ll need to get a letter from your new trainer.” When they went to the trainer and said, “You’ll need to provide me with a letter that allows me to avoid signing on,” they were told, “We don’t provide letters.” So individuals are being trapped and end up being sanctioned. There is no fairness in that sort of system.

I want to touch on the £130 million that my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck spoke about. This is the bit that really concerns me. Tomorrow, we will hear more from the Chancellor, and I am sure that Labour’s play will be for growth. As my hon. Friend pointed out, when we give money to the poorest, they go out and spend it, and it flows into and washes about in the local economy.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the only consequence of this judgment will be to put claimants in the position they would have been in had the Government not broken the law? Is it not deplorable that they now seek to use the House to change history and make their illegal actions legal? The Government broke the law and are now using the House to avoid the consequences.

[Mr Brown]

My hon. Friend is correct. It is as if time has stood still for all these people. The only thing they have felt all this time is pain and hardship.

I told my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) that I would mention the national minimum wage. When we introduced it, the assessment showed that for every £1 million that we gave to poorer people and which went into the economy, we created 40 jobs. Even if every £1 million now created only 10 new jobs, that £130 million would create more than 1,000 jobs.

[Mr Hoban]

If we had to pay out this £130 million, we would have to find it from another group—potentially other benefit claimants who had done the right thing.

[Mr Brown]

In life, when things regrettably go wrong, we have to face the consequences. I firmly believe that the Government should be facing the consequences in respect of this £130 million penalty. Can the Minister tell me exactly how many of these people were, like Reilly and Wilson, innocent? I think that a fair number of those 300,000 should have had their money repaid to them.

I know that other colleagues want to contribute, so I shall finish by saying that this is a tough decision for all of us in opposition. We still believe in sanctions—in government, we recognised that we needed them—but the Government have got it horribly wrong. On behalf of both the Ministers, I am disappointed that, up until now at least, we have not heard any attempt from Government Back Benchers to defend what is happening.

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[Simon Hughes]

I did hear the hon. Gentleman and I accept what he said.

My fourth constituent was sent to a charity shop. He was required to carry out mundane manual lifting work. He said that he had a problem with a back injury, which meant that the work was inappropriate. He has asthma, and therefore work in a dusty environment was not great. There was a failure to provide sufficient work for people to do, including for other people who had been sent there. There was a clear breach of the rules that state that people are meant to work four weeks for five days a week from Monday to Friday. The person at the work placement said, “You have to work on a Saturday if I say so.” Clearly, that was not in the paperwork. The crude point for the Minister is that I am not sure that a graduate seeking work in finance should be sent to a charity shop to dust shelves and move boxes. This seems to be regular and routine in the current system. The Government are spending taxpayers’ money on providing schemes that should help people back to work. I am not sure, however, that there is any intelligent management of the schemes being offered.

It is entirely reasonable for somebody who has been out of work, and has extremely low qualifications, to do a relatively low-skilled mandatory work activity. It is not reasonable if they are seeking to do something else. The Secretary of State is in his place, and he has always been very courteous and helpful in responding to such issues. I ask him and his team to consider how we can significantly improve the quality of mandatory work activity, monitor it better and ensure that we do not send people to do work that, bluntly, will be of no use to them in enhancing their job prospects. Almost nobody wants to be on benefits all the time. People on benefits struggle to make ends meet and we need to do better.

[Mr Russell Brown]

Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that to impose a sanction over a menial task on a highly qualified individual who may never use those skills again would be wrong?

[Simon Hughes]

We could have a complicated and long debate. Should people in this House, if they find themselves later in life to be unemployed and it is deemed appropriate that they are sent on mandatory work activity, be sent to work in a charity shop moving boxes and dusting shelves? One could argue that it would be good for us, and good for everybody—

Housing Benefit (Under-occupancy Penalty)

Russell Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies]

rose—

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

rose—

[Geraint Davies]

Instead of having a policy of evicting people because their children have grown up, would it not be better to offer cash incentives to move to smaller housing? When I was chairman of the housing department and leader of Croydon council we offered people cash benefits rather than by evict them because their children had grown up. [Interruption.]

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[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—

[Mr Russell Brown]

rose—

[Greg Mulholland]

I do not think that the Government have got it right, and I ask them to address the issue compassionately and with common sense, not only through the application of discretionary housing payments, which are essential and welcome, but through the provision of further exemptions for certain categories.

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[Greg Mulholland]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady again, but I will give way to the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) if he still wishes to intervene.

[Mr Russell Brown]

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify something for me? There is much talk about 1 million empty bedrooms, but there is some confusion about that. Are we talking about 1 million empty bedrooms in households that exclude pensioners, or would pensioner households create 1 million-plus empty bedrooms? Are we talking solely about households excluding pensioners?

[Greg Mulholland]

As the hon. Gentleman has clearly heard, it is the former. I hope that is clear.

The simple reality is that the social housing sector has an exemption in this regard that the private rented sector does not have. It is important to remember that in April 2008, when I sat on the Opposition side of the House, the previous Labour Government introduced the local housing allowance. I was a member of the Work and Pensions Committee at the time and know that it was not an entirely controversial measure, as Opposition Members will remember. We scrutinised it and raised concerns, but the then Labour Government were absolutely clear that local housing allowance would and should depend not only on the maximum rent allowed for properties in the area, but specifically on the number of rooms a tenant needed.

Again, the principle behind bringing this measure into the social housing sector is reasonable, and it would be helpful if the Opposition at least acknowledged that and said that they wish to assist and encourage people who are over-occupying and have more bedrooms than their family need to seek alternative accommodation in order to free up those properties. We all know from our huge case loads that that is needed. We can blame the previous Government and the Government before them for simply not building enough and for the absurdity of allowing the right to buy a council house without then building more to replace them. Those are things that this Government have committed finally to addressing.

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[Mr Russell Brown]

rose—

[Jane Ellison]

Let me develop my point a bit further, unless the hon. Gentleman wishes to confirm that he will be calling on those on the Labour Front Bench to make a manifesto commitment on that point.

[Mr Brown]

I appreciate that the hon. Lady came to this House in 2010, but may I tell her something of which she may not be aware? When the Minister who opened for the coalition Government was in opposition, along with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury he condemned the Labour Government time after time when we considered welfare reform and said that we were not doing enough. They have both completely flipped over. They are worse than any of the hon. Lady’s Conservative colleagues because they relish the job they are doing.

[Jane Ellison]

With all due respect, that was not in any sense a response to the challenge I made to Opposition Members.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Redwood]

My spare rooms are a matter for me because I paid for them myself, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman has spare rooms and I dare say he paid for them himself. That is exactly the kind of society we all want to live in, I would have thought. I do not know of any Labour MPs who could stand up and say that they are at the minimum accommodation level—I invite them to do so, but I do not see anyone rushing to stand up.

[Mr Russell Brown]

rose—

[Mr Redwood]

The hon. Gentleman stands up but he has no voice. I think that means he does not want to say that he has the minimum accommodation available or thought specific to certain people.

I want to live in an aspiration society. We want to promote better jobs, better paid jobs and more people owning their own home. Where that is not possible, we need a fair distribution; we need to provide more and to distribute it more fairly. I just hope that Opposition parties, if they have serious aims to be in power one day, will think more carefully before pledging to repeal things, or will come up with better ideas on how we can promote that better use of the housing stock that must make sense.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I apologise to the House for leaving the Chamber earlier. I had a meeting with a local firefighter who had travelled 300 miles to see me.

According to the four main registered social landlords in my constituency, the bedroom tax will affect 1,770 tenants in my area. That is not an insignificant number and the landlords are working hard with each and every one of them. There is no doubt that some tenants will decide to try to squeeze money out of their budget in order to avoid moving, if moving is an option for them in the first place.

We have already heard—I do not want to go over a lot of the same ground—that this is about some of our most vulnerable people, including the disabled, students and the military. The last thing that those who serve our country in theatre want to see when they return to their barracks and spend time at what they call home is their family, particularly their parents, being punished in any way.

We have also heard about foster carers. Things are not easy for emergency foster carers, who sometimes have to take in more than one child. If there has been a family breakdown, two or three children might have to be taken into emergency foster care. Kinship carers are also common in my part of the country. Mothers and fathers or aunts and uncles sometimes take in children in an emergency, because of the parents’ chaotic lifestyle.

The hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) asked whether assistance will be provided if someone manages to downsize. Will the Minister explain clearly what that assistance will be? Will it merely be discretionary support? It is important that we understand what it will be.

As has been said, people will lose, on average, £14 a week. What will it mean to take in a lodger in such circumstances? Yes, people will be able to make up that shortfall, but if the lodger pays £50 or £60 a week for board and lodgings, that could throw the benefits system into turmoil for many claimants, because there might be a reassessment of benefits. Will the Minister provide clarification on that?

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire) for encouraging me to hold a welfare reform meeting in my constituency last week. I held it in the town of Dumfries and will hold a similar event in Stranraer, at the other end of my constituency, next week. We brought together charities, churches, registered social landlords, the council, benefits advice organisations and a gentleman from the Department for Work and Pensions, whom I thank. I told the audience, “Do not shoot the messenger. Department for Work and Pensions staff are there to deliver on a policy devised by politicians.” Some horrendous stories were told. The aim of the event was to encourage those working in the community to look for the tell-tale signs of families starting to feel the pressure as a result of the bedroom tax or universal credit.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) was right to highlight the amount of money that this will take out of the local economy. When we debated the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill, I pointed out that the 1% freeze would take money out of the local economy and away from some of our poorest people. That will also happen as a result of this provision. Taking money out of the local economy does not stimulate it, and does serious damage.

My local authority, Dumfries and Galloway council, has a Conservative and SNP administration. Some months ago, it set up a welfare reform working group. My Labour colleagues, who make up the largest political grouping on the council but are in opposition, did not take part in that group. Instead, they established their own welfare reform working group. The report by the Labour group came before the council’s policy and resources committee yesterday. Lo and behold, the Conservative leader of the council accepted all 21 recommendations the Labour councillors put forward. I will not go through them all, but they include an urgent report on the legal and financial implications of using discretionary housing benefit to cover any shortfall in the first year for those affected by the tax, and a report on the proposal to expand access to credit unions and to explore other banking options for bad debtors.

The Conservative leader of the council accepted the recommendations wholeheartedly, but he took the matter a step further. He decided that it was right for Dumfries and Galloway council to write to Lord Freud to make him aware that the steps he was taking, especially the bedroom tax, were wrong. The leader of the council said on the radio this morning:

“In Dumfries and Galloway we’ve taken the decision in the past that we don’t see one bedroom being the ideal situation. Two bedrooms is what we’ve been basing our housing strategy on in the past and we feel that the minimum should be two bedrooms rather than one bedroom when they are looking at under-occupancy legislation. This is something that we feel that we need to push harder on for our tenants across the region.”

That comes from a Conservative leader of a local authority in Scotland.

Pensions and Social Security

Russell Brown Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the main rate of ESA will rise by 1%, which is just over 70p a week, and the addition that people in the support group receive will go up by 2.2%.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

What message can I give to one of my constituents whose doctor has notified me that she has terminal cancer and is on a syringe drive and whose disability living allowance has been taken from her?

[Steve Webb]

I sympathise with the hon. Gentleman’s constituent, whose individual circumstances I do not know. Disability living allowance has not yet been reformed by this Government, so we have changed nothing about DLA. If his constituent believes that she has been wrongly assessed, I hope that she will have his support in appealing against that decision.

On working-age benefits, as the International Monetary Fund has said, strong fiscal consolidation is under way, and reducing the high structural deficit over the medium term remains essential. As we continue to face pressure on our national economy, we have had to take some tough decisions. There was, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) has suggested, speculation about benefit freezes. It is true that we cannot afford to be as generous this year as we have been in the past. However, in the exercise of his discretion in the uprating of certain benefits, having regard to the national economic situation, the Secretary of State has found sufficient money to pay a 1% increase to those of working age on the main rate of jobseeker’s allowance or income support, as well as for housing benefit and the main rate and work-related activity component of employment and support allowance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Webb]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman’s Front Benchers share his loathing and contempt, but they have a vote to cast and they can use it if they want to.

[Mr Russell Brown]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

It is unfortunate that the order cannot be disaggregated, which would allow us to vote for its individual elements—supporting the increases at the rate of inflation and opposing those with a 1% increase. The breaking of the historic link between inflation and social security benefits, which has lasted over a generation on a political consensus, is a significant step, so it is important for us to judge it issue by issue in respect of the people affected by it.

I have looked at the Government’s impact assessment, which says that we are affecting one in eight households. The households most affected—those most likely to receive a cut—will be those further down the income scale, families with children and women who are heading lone parent families. I think that when we take decisions such as this, it is important to assess the position of those whose benefits are at stake and to look at their plight. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that 2.5 million workers’ families will lose an average of £215 a year; 7 million in work will lose £165 a year; and, to reiterate what was said in previous debates, 68% of those affected by the order will be in work.

An assessment undertaken by the House of Commons Library showed that these families are already facing higher inflation because they spend more on food and utilities. Their experience of low income is quite startling. Children born in families with low incomes already have a birth weight 130 grams lower on average than children in social classes 4 and 5. These families are more closely associated with infant mortality and chronic disease later in life, yet these are the ones whose benefits and income we are cutting. Before their second birthday, a child from a poorer family is already showing a lower level of attainment than those in professional families. By six, a poorer child will already have been overtaken in terms of attainment by a child of lesser ability from a professional family. Children aged up to 14 from unskilled families are five times more likely to die from an accident and 15 times more likely to die from a fire at home than a child from a professional family. Such children also leave school with fewer qualifications.

Last year, according to the figures, 130,000 people—and they will be the people whom we are discussing tonight—including 20,000 children were fed by the Trussell Trust through its food banks. That is the reality of what is happening to the people whose benefits we are cutting tonight—for that is effectively what we are doing.

I pay tribute to Save the Children for two pieces of research that it conducted. One was a survey of parents, and in the other it talked to children directly, which I think was quite a significant thing to do. It is important for the voices of children to be heard in the House. As the survey of parents showed, what families are currently experiencing is shocking; and, as I have said, those are the families whose benefits we are cutting.

In response to the survey, well over half the parents on low incomes—more than 60%—said that they were having to cut back on food, while more than a quarter said that they had skipped meals in the last year. One in five families said that their children had to go without new shoes when they needed them. A large number of the children in poverty said that they were missing out on things that many other children took for granted, and one in five specified school trips. One in five parents in poverty said that they had had to borrow money to pay for essentials such as food and clothes in the past year. Those are the families who are in the most poverty, and they will be impoverished even further as a result of what we are doing tonight.

[Mr Russell Brown]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Organisations such as Save the Children, Barnardo’s and the Children’s Society have produced the cold hard facts that Labour Members all know about. I should like to think that Government Members would get a grasp of the facts as well.

Does my hon. Friend recognise, as I do and as, I think, many people do, that a mother who is trying to prepare a meal and put it on the table often says that she will eat something later, when in fact she is skipping that meal in order to feed her children, knowing full well that they need food in their bellies to get through the rest of the day?

[John McDonnell]

Indeed. According to the survey, half the parents questioned had gone without food themselves at some time in the past year to ensure that their children were fed.

We sometimes forget that children have views as well, and that those views can permeate a whole family. When a family is living in poverty, the children understand what is going on. They have a glimpse of what is happening, and they realise what their parents are going through. I found the survey of children shocking as well, and quite startling. Save the Children said that

“the most striking finding from the survey is the extent to which children are aware of the financial strain their parents are under. Parents are stressed by lack of money and”

—whatever they do—

“many children are sharing this burden.”

It said:

“The majority of all children (58%) think it is getting harder for their family to pay for everything.”

Those children understand. It also said:

“Over half of children in poverty (52%) agree that not having enough money makes their parents unhappy or stressed.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I had not intended to speak this evening, but my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has somewhat inspired me. He spoke on a subject that I want to say one or two things about. It is extremely saddening that we are taking both orders together, because we on the Opposition Benches—[Interruption.] Well, we can support one order, but we have severe difficulties with the other. We will see what happens.

[Steve Webb]

Just to clarify, for the convenience of the House, we have three hours to talk about both orders. One is uncontentious, so the hon. Gentleman can talk to his heart’s content about the other and vote against it if he wants to.

[Mr Brown]

We are taking one vote, and the Minister knows that.

[Kate Green]

Is not the problem that there is a single order dealing with the uprating of a whole range of benefits, including disability living allowance, which is going up by more than 1%, and other working-age benefits that are limited to only 1%? The problem is that a single order is dealing with a combination of benefits within it.

[Mr Brown]

Exactly, and that is the difficulty we face this evening.

I have raised the point about the 1% freeze on benefits before. I have asked Ministers in both the Department for Work and Pensions and the Treasury what kind of impact assessment has been done and what consultation there has been between the two sets of Ministers, but I have never had a straight answer. What we will be witnessing over the three-year period, according to the Government’s figures, is almost £6 billion being saved or, as I would put it, £6 billion being taken away from the lowest income households. The Minister must surely know that that £6 billion would have been spent in the local economy.

When I first arrived in this House, in 1997, the then Labour Government decided to introduce a national minimum wage, which effectively put money into people’s pockets. The impact assessment at the time was based on £1 million being given to the poorest households, which clearly would then be spent in the local economy. For every £1 million spent in the local economy, 40 jobs were created.

If the Minister is able to do his work—I think that he is an intelligent man—he will see that taking £6 billion out of local economies over three years will have a detrimental impact. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) is telling me that yet another high street outlet is on the brink this evening, so more jobs might go.

[Julie Hilling]

Does my hon. Friend agree with the International Monetary Fund, which states that the cuts to welfare benefits will cost the UK economy £40 billion, almost double the cuts to welfare?

[Mr Brown]

I do not know whether it will be £40 billion, because I have not seen the figures, but I trust what my hon. Friend says. There is no doubt that it will have a severe and adverse impact on the economy.

I come now to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington made about families and children. If we do not give the next generation the right start in life when they are children, we give them the wrong start. I must say to the Minister that even now we see across our country the struggle that my party had in government to undo some of the damage from the previous 18 years. The damage can be done in a short period, but it takes an awful lot longer to recover from. We struggled in government to try to get things back on track. What the Minister is doing today is not what he said he would do when he was in opposition.

When he leaves this place tonight, I implore the Minister to pick up a copy of a documentary called “Poor Kids”. I have seen it a couple of times and it is heart-breaking, to say the least. As a father and grandfather, I say to the Minister that what the documentary shows is not beyond belief, because it does happen. It happens in many towns and cities across this country where families are living on basically nothing. Children as young as eight, nine or 10 years old have become worldly wise: they know about not having money and what debt is, and they understand how trying to put a meal on the table can result in other elements of poverty. That is not how children in this country should be spending their early years. They survive on hand-me-down clothes, not necessarily from older brothers or sisters but from other family members. Despite what many people think, charity shops on our high streets are an absolute godsend for such families, because sometimes they are the only way children can be clothed.

Parents sometimes sacrifice their own meals to feed their children. Perhaps I have led a sheltered life, but it was only when it was drawn to my attention that some mothers will prepare a meal for their children and tell them, “I’ll get something to eat later,” that I realised—I take no pleasure in saying this—that I witnessed that as a child in my household. I was part of a family of five and I know only too well now—perhaps I was naive when I was younger—that that was going on in my household. I witnessed my mother having nothing to eat while the rest of the family sat waiting for my father to come home from work.

[Ian Murray]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly impassioned speech. The stories from the documentary and those that we all hear in our constituency advice sessions—one family in my constituency has been living off the cheapest white bread and jam for the past few months—are happening now, before the impact of any of these changes is felt, and the inflation of energy and food prices, the bedroom tax and the 1% uprating will make the situation not just worse but much worse.

[Mr Brown]

My hon. Friend is spot on. It is very difficult for families at the moment and it is about to get worse. The Minister mentioned the housing benefit changes. Some places are under-occupied and we all have families coming to us regularly—almost weekly—saying that they need an extra bedroom. Surely the Minister and other Government Members know, however, that to marry up families who are under-occupying and those who are overcrowding is a mammoth task.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Not only is it a mammoth task, but, in fact, if it was possible to reshuffle people into the right-sized houses within a reasonable time scale, there would be no saving to the Government; and yet they have a saving in their budget.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Brown]

My hon. Friend is correct. I worry about some of the figures that the Government are working with in terms of savings. Only time will tell, two or three years down the road, whether all this has been worth it.

We need to give children a proper start in life. We really do. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) said, we are already witnessing difficult enough times for many families.

[Julie Hilling]

What does my hon. Friend have to say about the fact that we are the seventh richest country in the world and yet last year 200,000 people had to go to food banks? In that context, what does he think we should be saying to the Government?

[Mr Brown]

My hon. Friend makes the same point as my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington. We are the seventh richest nation but this is how we are treating families—treating children—in this country. Two food banks are about to start in my constituency. I hate the idea, but I recognise that it is the only way some families are going to survive. My wife volunteers and works alongside the local church providing meals for homeless families. In reality, there are very few homeless families, but there are families who are in great need of a hot meal a couple of times a week. It is right that she does that, and I suspect that if at some stage I ever retire from this place she will have me in there helping her—because it is going to that long before we throw off what we are witnessing at the moment.

I mentioned to the Minister earlier the case of the lady who has lost her disability living allowance and I told him what her GP said to me. The GP also said that his practice is now coming under real pressure because aspects of the welfare reform are starting to bite. He has patients with fluctuating conditions, mental health problems and stress-related illnesses that are leading them back in to see him. People are going back to their GPs to look for help, support, guidance, and even help with completing forms. Some GP practices are beginning to creak at the seams in having to deal with people they should not really be seeing—people whose conditions will never, in all honesty, get any better medically. It is a real worry when the professional people in our communities are beginning to see, to recognise and to understand that life is really going to get tough for some.

Let me finish by saying to the Minister that if he has not watched the documentary “Poor Kids”, I suggest that he and many others do so, because it is quite frankly heartbreaking. This is not how people should be living in the seventh richest country in the world, and things are only going to get tougher for these families.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

This has been an interesting debate. We have heard heartfelt contributions from the hon. Members for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) and for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown), the latter of whom described his own experience of childhood poverty. I would describe those two hon. Gentlemen—I am not sure the hon. Lady would accept this term—as socialists and so would clearly not be where we are, but would be taxing the rich far, far more to avoid the sorts of things we are having to do to reduce the deficit. Their Front-Bench team do not share their view, however, so although I respect their position that they would rather tax the rich, that is not the position of their Front-Bench team.

The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) was the classic personification of Labour now—a vacuum where there should be a political party. When asked what they would do now, both he and the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Gregg McClymont) said, “Well, if this had been done, we might have done that, and in some years, we will produce a manifesto, but we’re not saying.” The hard-working folk who write Hansard could have simply inserted, “Vacuous twaddle here”. The House has a right to know what the official Opposition would do, but answer came there none.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), among others, asked for a cumulative impact assessment. Occasionally, when the Government produce such figures, they are met with some scepticism. The Institute for Fiscal Studies chose to analyse the cumulative impact of all the fiscal consolidation from the start of this Parliament through to the end, and it has stated this month in its “Green Budget” that

“those on the very highest incomes have clearly been hit the hardest”.

[Mr Russell Brown]

Finish the sentence.

[Steve Webb]

I will finish the sentence. It goes on to say

“when looking at the fiscal consolidation as a whole.”

In other words, when looking at everything, which is what we were asked to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Webb]

No.

A number of people have said that we are the seventh richest country in the world, in terms of our gross national product per head, but we are of course also the country that was brought to the brink of bankruptcy by the last Labour Government. That is what we have had to deal with.

The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway mentioned people having their disability-related benefit reassessed. I would gently remind him that reassessing the millions of people on incapacity benefit, many of whom had been parked on benefit for a decade or more, was begun, rightly, by the last Labour Government. That process has been carried on. That is why people are being reassessed. We think it right not to park people on incapacity benefit for decades, only for them to retire and find that they have no pension either. So the reassessments are right. I entirely accept the point that they have to be done well, but they were begun under the last Government and they continue under this one.

[Mr Russell Brown]

Surely the Minister recognises that for people going through assessments it is almost like a revolving door. People with long-term and fluctuating conditions are losing benefits, eventually getting them reinstated, and then six months pass and they are back losing their benefits again. The system is not working for about 40% of people who have to go through a process time after time, making them even more ill.

[Steve Webb]

The Government fully accept that Labour’s work capability assessment was not working when we came into office, which is why we commissioned Professor Harrington to undertake a series of reviews. We have implemented his recommendations to make the test better, and that will continue under a new assessor.

Oral Answers to Questions

Russell Brown Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

It is our intention to try to ensure that under universal credit the loose access to benefits that has been enjoyed by far too many people coming into this country who have no right to them will actually be limited. I will be able to brief the House much better on that as and when we complete the rules on it.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

Obviously the Secretary of State has made mention of the benefits uprating being capped at a 1% increase. Has he had any discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer about what that will do to growth or about the impact that it will have on the economy over the next three years?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have lots of discussions with the Chancellor on a regular basis, all very amicable. Of course we have to discuss this in a wider context, but the hon. Gentleman and his party look at this in a very narrow context. They say, “Well, you withdraw this money from people on benefits and that immediately has an effect on the high street.” If that were all that we were doing, I would agree with him, but it is not. There is a major programme for investment in industry and a huge capital spending programme, not least as will be announced in a statement later today. These will have an even bigger effect, in a positive way, on spending in the high street.

Atos Work Capability Assessments

Russell Brown Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

I am, Mr Speaker. I am aiming to finish at 2.58 to allow the right hon. Gentleman his two minutes. I would quite happily continue for longer, but I know another debate is to follow in which hon. Members are also interested and another time limit applies.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

rose—

[Stephen Timms]

rose—