Under-Occupancy Penalty

Debate between Sheila Gilmore and Julie Hilling

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sheila Gilmore]

The reality is that people are not taking on lodgers. The rhetoric on lodgers has quietened down, presumably because the impracticality of that idea has revealed itself. If the measure was about making better use of property, it was not the best way of going about that. It would be far better to encourage people to move in some circumstances, but that is neither a quick nor an easy process. It has to be planned for, and that comes back to looking at the nature of the local housing market and how those moves can be dealt with.

Older tenants in larger homes might want to downsize—if they are over retirement age, they will not be affected by the bedroom tax—but the bedroom tax will not whip them into wanting to move. Over the years, I have had many constituents say to me, “Yes, I would move. The stairs are getting too much for me. The garden is getting too much for me”, but they want control over where they go, and want to keep some of the things they like about their present home. Often that means the area, and that does not necessarily only go for those who live in what is perceived as a “good area”. Their area is where they have their social circle, and their family might not be too far away. There will be many reciprocal family arrangements, whether that is daughters helping mothers, or mothers helping their grown-up children with child care and picking kids up from school. All those sorts of things cannot be done if they are moved to the other end of town. Okay, they are fussy, but they are fussy because they want the move to be one that will last them the rest of their lives. They do not want to rush into something that is unsuitable.

All authorities might want to build new build housing that is geared to older people. If authorities do their homework properly, they will know in advance that that will release larger houses. The homework, however, has to be done, and investment is needed. If the investment is not there, it becomes very difficult. New build numbers are dropping, not only in England and Wales, which the Minister is concerned with, but in Scotland, too. In the whole of Scotland, new starts have dropped from the high point in 2007-08 of 6,214 to just 2,781 in 2012-13. That is a substantial drop. We want to have new build available to help people move around, but it is just not there.

There are many things that we should be looking at. We should be considering building new homes. Councils might want to consider—I have suggested this to my local council—buying some properties at comparable prices. They should not pay more for a property than it would cost to build, but that would help deal with some of the biggest chronic housing shortages. When homeless families, even those with children, are waiting in temporary accommodation for up to a year to get anything, we have a crisis, not just a slight shortage.

There is a further win-win in all this, which perhaps brings us back to the stated purpose of the bedroom tax. If more affordable housing is built, we can reduce the total housing benefit spend. It is true that the spend has gone up in recent years—the Government are not wrong to point that out—but their predictions and forecasts for the next few years are that the spend will continue to rise until at least 2016-17, when it will reach £23.38 billion.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the major increase in housing benefit has come from the increase in benefit paid to people in private accommodation, not to those in social housing?

[Sheila Gilmore]

Indeed. I have some figures, although they take us only to 2010-11. In 2000-01, the spend on private rented sector housing benefit was £3.6 billion. By 2010-11, that had risen to £8.9 billion, and it has risen again since then. The number of recipients of housing benefit rose under this Government by 326,597 people or households between May 2010 and February 2013. More than twice as many of those—some 218,209—were in the private rented sector than were in council and housing association housing. All the time that the Government have been in power, wringing their hands about the rising housing benefit bill and saying that measures such as the bedroom tax are the way to tackle it, the number of recipients has gone up, and the amount of money we are spending has gone up.

We are not tackling the issue from the right end. If we had a proper housing investment programme for affordable housing, that would bring down the housing benefit bill. That is what we should be aiming to do. It would give many individuals a real incentive and help in getting back to work, because having people in expensive private sector rented accommodation, whether it is temporary, permanent or semi-permanent, is a disincentive to employment.

I have a constituent who has been living in a private sector property that was provided to him when he was homeless, because we do not have enough council and housing association homes. His rent payments are £815 a month, which probably does not sound much in London terms, although it is high in Edinburgh terms. When he was working, he still had to pay half of that rent from his earnings. In the end, he gave up his job, partly because of the financial pressures that he was then under. If he had a council or housing association rented property, he could have afforded much more easily to get back into work. There are all sorts of reasons why housing investment is a win-win-win. It is a win because we would get the houses; because we would begin to reduce the total housing benefit bill; and because we would be doing something serious—not just haranguing people about getting back to work, but putting in place practical measures—to help people get back to work.

We need to look at the fact that the bedroom tax has done the opposite of that. It has created a situation where both councils and housing associations are anxious about the loss of income. It matters to all tenants, because all tenants are being impacted on, not just those affected by the bedroom tax. I made that point to a Government Minister recently, and pointed out that even pensioners and tenants who are not on housing benefit are being affected by the bedroom tax. The response I got—they had half-heard the question—was, “But pensioners are not affected.” That was not my point. My point was that if the landlord, be it the council or the housing association, has less income coming in, that will affect all the other tenants, because that organisation will have only a few choices. It could cut back on its modernisation programme, and that would affect pensioners who have been waiting for many years, as many of my constituents have, for their kitchens and bathrooms to be modernised. They would have to wait even more years.

Pensions and Social Security

Debate between Sheila Gilmore and Julie Hilling

Wednesday 13th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. I was about to say that many of the jobs are exactly of that nature, which ratchets up the support payments. People on low earnings or who work very part-time hours are the very people who depend on housing benefit and, in many cases, tax credits. When we look at that situation, we see that the wonderful recovery in jobs is really not so wonderful. Indeed, some of the jobs are so part-time as to be almost invisible.

Life is very difficult for people who work in those kinds of jobs. They often have to start work at very difficult hours. A constituent who came to see me was desperate to work, and she found a job, but it meant that she had to get from Edinburgh to Livingston, which is about 20 miles. Without a car, it is quite a long way—it may be 18 miles; my figures might not be quite right. She had to get there for 7 o’clock in the morning. How can someone do that when they do not have a car and public transport is either non-existent or very expensive? That job did not last long, because she could not keep it up.

Another constituent was told by a large department store, for which she had worked for a number of years in a job that fitted with her children’s school hours, that that option was no longer available to her. She now had to work for just 12 hours—she had previously managed to work for 20 hours—or she had to go on a flexible contract so that she could be called in whenever the shop wanted her. That was difficult—in fact, virtually impossible—for her because of things such as child care arrangements. She could not just suddenly come in on a Saturday or come in of an evening. The job had suited her needs, and it had brought a reasonable income that enabled her to support her children. Now she was told, “Well, if you don’t like it, there are plenty of people looking for these jobs and we can fill them very easily. If you do not want the new contract you can simply leave.”

That is the kind of job offer that many people are getting. If, on top of that, tax credits, which have been frozen for the past couple of years, go up by only 1%, and housing benefit payments are limited, those people will indeed suffer.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Has my hon. Friend made an estimate of the number of people who have to juggle two, three or more part-time jobs? How many of the new posts that have been created are occupied by just one person who is trying to juggle different jobs and doing just a few hours in each one every day?

[Sheila Gilmore]

That is a good question. We need to know far more detail about those figures. We know from the people who come to see us, the people we talk to and the people we meet when we go around our constituencies exactly what is happening: if people can get more than one part-time job they will do so in order to make up their income, but it can be difficult for them.

That is the backdrop to these provisions. That is the bigger picture that the public will want to understand, as they realise that this will actually happen over the next few years. It has begun to hit many people hard, and it can only get worse. We must make it clear that if we are to be part of a society that is truly one in which we are all in it together, we should not go down that road.

Work Capability Reassessments

Debate between Sheila Gilmore and Julie Hilling

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Sheila Gilmore]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. There is evidence that people who are represented are more likely to be successful than those who are unable to get representation.

That is the context for the issue of reassessment: the high volume of appeals means that people must wait long periods for a hearing and a decision. In answer to a written question last month, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) said:

“During the period 1 April to 30 June 2012 (the latest period for which data has been published) the average time taken from receipt of an ESA appeal by the SSCS Tribunal to disposal was 19 weeks”.—[Official Report, 19 November 2012; Vol. 553, c. 307W.]

However, that 19 weeks is not the average waiting time for an individual making an appeal but merely the average time it takes the Tribunals Service to process the appeal after it receives the papers. Before it even receives the papers, an appeal must be lodged with the DWP, the relevant decision maker has to perform a series of checks and the Department must prepare and submit its response.

There is no time limit for DWP to prepare its response to an appeal. In a written answer to a question from me in February this year, the then Justice Minister, the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), indicated that between June 2010 and May 2011, the average time it took from the submission of an appeal to DWP to receipt of the papers by the Tribunals Service was 8.1 weeks. If we add that to the average of 19 weeks, we are looking at about 27 weeks. Over and above that, individuals will have submitted an application and undergone an assessment. In 2011, they had to wait seven weeks for the result of that assessment, although I know from talking to my colleagues that many people encounter much longer waits.

What does all that mean in practice? I raised an example during Prime Minister’s questions on 2 March last year. A constituent of mine had a young adult son who was severely autistic but had been found fit for work, and who appealed successfully. The process took 10 months, and he was told that he would have to be reassessed in six months. I do not think that the Prime Minister understood the question that I was asking; he gave me an answer about disability living allowance rather than employment and support allowance.

Before the Minister says, “That was then; that was 2011, and we have made so many improvements that it isn’t happening any more,” only two weeks ago, I visited a constituent whom I had not met before who told me a similar story of having applied, being refused and appealing, and who within a relatively short time had to go through another assessment.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is being generous with her time. Does she agree that it seems to be utter nonsense? There is a lack of understanding. If people have progressive illnesses or permanent conditions, they will not be any more fit for work in a few months’ time. It seems to be one of the absolute immoralities of the system that people who cannot ever work continue to be called back for reassessments.

[Sheila Gilmore]

That leads me neatly into my next point. I followed up with a written question, and the then Minister of State for the Department of Work and Pensions—now Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice—set out the official line, which is that the period between assessments is known as a prognosis time and is determined by the decision maker at the time when they decide whether someone is fit for work or should be given ESA. The clock starts ticking on the date of the original decision.

My immediate question is why someone found fit for work would be given a prognosis time in the first place. Hon. Members might think that that would not be necessary, because the assumption is that the person will be moving on to jobseeker’s allowance. The only reason that I can envisage for that is that prognosis times are, in effect, a precautionary measure in the event that if a claimant successfully appeals, as so many do, and is awarded ESA, a prognosis time is ready. But if the decision maker’s original determination that the claimant was fit for work is overturned, why should we put any faith in the corresponding determination on what the prognosis time should be? If the decision on a claimant’s being fit for work was wrong, surely one imagines that the decision on the prognosis time would be wrong.

It would make much more sense for those who are declared fit for work to be given no prognosis time and, in the event of a successful appeal, for the judges to be given a responsibility for settling the matter when making their new decision. If that is not thought possible, the prognosis times should only kick in after a successful appeal and should not start from the time of the original decision, because that is putting people on a rapid roundabout.

During the summer, my hopes were raised that the Government might have seen the contradictions in the current arrangements. In an interview for the BBC “Panorama” documentary in July 2011, the then Minister—now Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice—said,

“It’s been apparent to me in the last few months that we were calling people back too regularly and I’ve instructed the officials that operate the system to actually make sure that we leave a much more sensible gap in between the two.”

Adult Social Care

Debate between Sheila Gilmore and Julie Hilling

Monday 16th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling]

Yes. The cuts faced by northern local authorities in particular are dire. Bolton will have to find £100 million worth of cuts during the current Parliament.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it simply is not good enough to express—as the White Paper does—concerns about matters such as short periods of care time, or the fact that some carers are not even earning the minimum wage, if there is no way of making things work financially? I do not believe that councils have chosen 15-minute slots deliberately; I believe that they have done it in order to save costs and make efficiencies. Similarly, there are carers who have to pay for their own travel.

[Julie Hilling]

We have to realise that we are facing a crisis now, not a crisis in the future. People in our constituencies are suffering daily. A young man in my constituency who has learning difficulties and has relied on carers to help him with his everyday life will now see his carer only once a week. Contact with a carer is the only contact that many such people ever have with another human being, and that contact is now going. It is truly a false economy. This low level of care for people with moderate needs is what keeps them in their homes, keeps them healthy, and stops them ending up in residential care prematurely. Bolton is managing to maintain substantial and critical care, but it will have to find £34 million in cuts over the next two years, and it is worried that it will have to join other councils in only providing critical care.

Paying for home care is a huge worry. The average cost is £13.61 an hour, but it can be a great deal more; in Brighton and Hove, carers cost £21.50. It is not unusual for people paying for care to have to find more than £10,000 a year to cover that cost. That spending needs to be taken into account if we are to have caps over the whole amount. Many Members will know that my mother has been in and out of care over the past 12 months. We have spent £20,000 since October on her care.

The cuts to local authority budgets are affecting other support services, and the consequent cuts to the voluntary sector are having dire consequences. The voluntary sector provides luncheon clubs, social activities and carers groups, all of which are under pressure or at risk.

Horwich visiting service in my constituency has lost funding and can no longer employ its part-time co-ordinator. That was the person who recruited volunteers, sorted out the police clearance, provided training, ascertained the needs of clients and supported the volunteers. The volunteers will continue to visit the elderly and disabled people with whom they are currently in contact, but it will not be possible to recruit new volunteers or take on new clients.

The fees local authorities pay to care homes is also an issue. There has been a significant real-terms cut over the last two years. That inevitably impacts on care. It also means self-funders are charged more in order to subsidise the costs of council-funded residents.

The choice of home is another huge concern. The other day, I was speaking to one of the police officers on the parliamentary estate. He told me his mother was in a care home. He and the family had chosen a home that suited her needs and they had sold her house to pay for the care, but now the money is running out and he does not know whether the local authority will pay the care home fees, whether his mum will have to move or whether the family will somehow have to pay the additional costs. If the cap is ever introduced, that will be too late for him, but he still needs to know that the care costs will be met in future.

The needs of the elderly and disabled do not move in a straight line. Some people may need to go into care for a period of time, such as when recovering from an illness or an accident, but, with support, they may be able to return home. However, we were told that after six months my mum would have to sell her flat to pay for her care. In fact, after eight months in a care home, she has returned to her own flat. That shows that people do not move in a straight line through the system. Decisions should not be taken on the basis of cost alone; they should be taken on the basis of needs, too.

Let me conclude by reading out a comment from a constituent of mine called Amy:

“Alongside the funding crisis there is also a huge injustice in the way we pay for care. This includes the dementia tax, where tens of thousands of families are left to pay all their care costs whilst other terminal conditions are paid for by the NHS.

The significant cost of care means many carers face financial hardship and are often forced to give up work.

We need reform to build a fair and sustainable care system which delivers dignity, independence and peace of mind.”

Amy is right. We need to get on with this. We need to find a solution where people’s needs are taken into account, and where people do not live in fear for both themselves and their families. We need to find a solution to this problem that all of us can live with, and that cares for people who are in need in our society.

Finance Bill

Debate between Sheila Gilmore and Julie Hilling

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore]

Of course the stress and anxiety affected confidence and well-being. Indeed, it may have led to a further plunge in demand as people anticipated the impending redundancy which, thankfully, did not come about in many cases. That is an important consideration at a time when the economy is struggling so much.

I think that a great deal of time was wasted because the Government included measures in the Budget rather than dealing with the position earlier. If they believed that there were anomalies in the VAT system, why did they not consult? As I have suggested before, they could have said “We are minded to look at these things” at the time of the autumn statement, rather than at a time when they were putting together a Budget that, apparently, they wanted to balance. We heard a lot about that at the time.

Why did the Government not say “We want to look at these anomalies and review them in a general context”? One of our amendments proposes that that should happen in future. If there is to be consultation, it should be proper consultation. Saying, as the Chancellor did in March, “This is what we have to do and this is why we have to do it, but we will have a bit of consultation afterwards” is putting the cart before the horse. I hope that that lesson will be learned for the future.

[Julie Hilling]

One theory being put about is that the Chancellor was hijacked by civil servants whose pet projects had been turned down by the Labour Government, who had said “Don’t be silly”, and the Treasury was suckered into proposing a load of nonsensical changes.

Finance Bill

Debate between Sheila Gilmore and Julie Hilling

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. When the raw product goes up in price, the pump price goes up very quickly, but a downward turn seems to take a great deal longer to reach the consumer. We have made similar arguments about other energy price rises.

The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) suggested that it was all right for the Government to make U-turns such as this, because they had found savings elsewhere. That is nice to know, but if such savings could be found so easily, maybe the Government could have avoided some of the other things they have done. After all, we spent a lot of time in the Budget debate and before talking about the plight of couples who were losing tax credits because they were deemed not to be working enough hours. That change affects a small number of people—from memory, I believe it is about 500,000. We were told that if it were not implemented, it would cost the Treasury £500 million. We were told that it was impossible to go back on that decision, because money was so tight.

Like all Governments, the current Government are making choices. In the past two years, they have said that certain things have to be done and are not choices. They have said that they have been forced into them. However, all Governments make choices—that is part of governing.

[Julie Hilling]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that the Government have chosen not to do a U-turn on the granny tax, which is aimed at the people who are least able to pay, but continue to reduce the top rate of tax?

[Sheila Gilmore]

Indeed, and a lot of people would be glad to see the Government make U-turns in other areas, and in fact in their entire economic policy. It has been misguided, and the Opposition were clear from the start that it was the wrong way to reduce the deficit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sheila Gilmore]

I do not dissent from my hon. Friend’s view. The new President’s general intention is indeed to break away from the fixation with austerity measures. That is not the same as saying that we do not want to deal with the deficit. The question is how to do that successfully and ultimately reduce borrowing.

The last Government have been misrepresented as having constantly increased the national debt. That is simply wrong. It was substantially reduced under the Labour Government, but what caused that process to go into reverse—I am not going to say it did not—was the recession and the economic stimulus that was put in to get us out of it. Our view remains that had the policies that were in force between 2008 and 2010 been continued, rather than going into a double-dip recession we would have begun to climb out of the recession.

[Julie Hilling]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we had growth in the British economy at the time of the general election, but we now have a recession made totally in Downing street? If the Government have such a big underspend, why on earth do we face a double-dip recession, and why are ordinary people suffering so much at their hands?

[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—