Personal Independence Payments

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

My hon. Friend has made a very good point. Satisfaction levels have risen and the number of people receiving this benefit has risen, as has the number of people receiving the highest amount—not that anyone would know that from what we are hearing from Opposition Members.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Perhaps the Secretary of State can also explain why brave service personnel suffering from chronic conditions, including PTSD, are being denied access to their PIP entitlements. I have been contacted by a litany of constituents in recent weeks and others supported by the Welsh Veterans Partnership, including my constituent Justin Smith, whose medical discharge documents have been refused by the DWP, while others have been unable to get through on phone lines or are being refused home visits, against DWP guidance. Can the Secretary of State explain what is going on in her Department?

[Ms McVey]

I want to follow up the specific instances the hon. Gentleman raises, as that does not sound right at all and I would not want that to be the case. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman to bring those cases forward so that we can look into them immediately.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I know that the hon. Lady likes to present herself as some kind of latter-day mahatma and as the only person in this House who cares about poverty, but, of course, that is not true. Many of us—as councillors, voluntary workers, social workers and so on—have spent many years fighting poverty, so it would be helpful to the general tone of debate in this House if she were not quite so accusatory. Our view, and the Office for National Statistics points this out, is that 100,000 fewer work-age lone parents are now in poverty and that their biggest problem—the biggest thing that assails them—is childcare. The 85% payment for childcare under universal credit and the increase in availability to 30 hours will give the greatest assistance to lone parents.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

8. What progress has been made on the Government’s review of personal independence payment claims; and if she will make a statement.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Sarah Newton)]

The exercise to identify claimants affected by the MH judgment will start as soon as we have made the changes to the guidance needed to implement the judgment. We are currently engaging with stakeholders to design these changes. Of course, I will continue to regularly update the House.

[Stephen Doughty]

Earlier on, the Minister said that the personal independence payment was working. Well, of course, if it was working, the Government would not have lost the High Court case in the first place. These delays are simply unacceptable. Why are so many of my constituents still telling me that they are being biased against when they have mental conditions or the degenerative conditions mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell)? Why are veterans coming to me to express serious concerns about their own employment and support allowance and PIP assessments, and what will she do about that?

[Sarah Newton]

We will implement the judgment in full, but it is really important that we continue our work with stakeholders to get this right. We are working at pace to make those changes. On the general points that the hon. Gentleman makes, we are utterly committed to making sure that, with PIP and ESA, people have a good claimant experience, and we are regularly implementing changes.

Universal Credit Roll-out

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Neil Gray]

I agree, and I think it is good for agencies to talk to each other to ensure that the system works as smoothly as possible.

In spite of the concessions and potential changes, and in the full knowledge of the evidence of the harm that universal credit is doing to our constituents, the Government are determined to press on. As the House of Commons Library briefing points out, the problems include

“financial hardship and distress caused by lengthy waits before the first payment of UC is received, compounded by the 7-day ‘waiting period’ for which no benefit is paid; some, particularly vulnerable claimants, struggling to adapt to single, monthly payments in arrears; inflexible rules governing Alternative Payment Arrangements such as direct payment of rent to landlords;”

and

“increases in rent arrears, with serious consequences not only for claimants but also for local authorities and housing providers, as a result of exposure to greater financial risk”.

That is why the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations has circulated a briefing ahead of this debate in support of a pause and fix of universal credit. In addition, homelessness claimants have been unable to get help with the full cost of emergency temporary accommodation.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The point that the hon. Gentleman makes about the impact on social landlords and housing associations is absolutely correct. We have not yet seen the full roll-out in Cardiff—it is not due until the new year—but I have been contacted already this week by social landlords who tell me that average rent arrears are as much as £500 for universal credit claimants, and that some have had to wait as long as three months to get their payments in place.

[Neil Gray]

That is one of the most baffling areas, and one of the easiest for the Government to reform. It is causing untold stress to social landlords and to our constituents, who are being made homeless as a result of a massive rise in evictions.

Housing and Social Security

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

There was a deplorable record on building social homes, but that was the record of the previous Labour Government. As the hon. Lady will hear shortly, as I rightly talk about their record, during the 13 years that Labour was last in office we saw, for example, a decline in socially rented homes of 420,000 units.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

We of course have a Labour Government in Wales who are committed to building 20,000 new homes, and who are building new social and council housing in Cardiff as I speak. Does the Secretary of State agree that lessons also need to be learned from Wales about its different approach to fire safety, including the fact that we introduced measures requiring sprinkler systems to be fitted in new high-rise buildings and converted buildings? There are a lot of lessons to be learned from Welsh Labour. Will he listen to them?

[Sajid Javid]

When it comes to fire safety, I think we should learn lessons from wherever we can—whether Wales or elsewhere. The hon. Gentleman will know that, since 2007, there has been a requirement for new buildings to have sprinklers.

State Pension Age: Women

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Ian Blackford]

The hon. Gentleman might treat pensioners in Scotland and the rest of the UK with a little bit more respect than he has shown by asking that nonsense of a question. Just in case he does not know, pensions are a reserved matter. I would very much like the Scottish Government to have responsibility for pensions. Let us be quite clear: if this Government gave us access to the national insurance fund, we would not treat pensioners in such a shabby way as the Government are doing. That is the reality.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I want to go back to the first part of the hon. Gentleman’s argument, when he described the absolute injustice that many of the women who are affected feel. I have met many from my constituency and from across Wales who feel that this is a terrible thing, which must be righted. They expected something; they are not getting it and we need to right that injustice.

[Ian Blackford]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, and he is absolutely spot on. This is about justice and fairness. It is about people who have paid into a pension and who expected to get that pension—in the case of most of these women, at age 60. The discovery that they were not given adequate notice is a clear reason why the Government must change course and act in a responsible manner.

Universal Credit (Children)

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is a shocking aspect of what has always been proposed with universal credit—the support for disabled children is being drastically reduced. I hope we will have time to discuss that.

Will the Minister publish an updated version of the impact report for universal credit that was published alongside the 2011 Welfare Reform Bill, which introduced it? I will come back to that, because what is now being introduced is certainly not what the previous Secretary of State had in mind when he launched the universal credit initiative six years ago.

Throughout the last Parliament, Ministers repeatedly said that they were committed to eliminating child poverty, and they cited the introduction of universal credit as key to helping to achieve that. The 2011 impact assessment, which I hope the Minister will update, said that universal credit would reduce child poverty by 300,000. A written answer in January 2013 gave the lower figure of 150,000, half the initial figure of 300,000. We have not had an update since the really big cuts to universal credit announced last summer. That is what I am hoping the Minister will give us.

All of us will recall the furore when the Chancellor announced swingeing tax credit cuts last summer. I pay tribute to those Government Members who, unlike the Chancellor, grasped what those cuts would mean to many hard-working families struggling to make ends meet, such as the family of an ambulance driver earning £20,000 a year, who stood to lose a full £2,000 from the cuts. Thankfully, the Chancellor was forced to abandon those plans. But the equivalent cuts to universal credit—at that time, claimed by hardly anyone in work—went ahead, so the Chancellor’s cuts to tax credits will, over time, be implemented by stealth. Working families on universal credit rather than tax credits saw a big income cut last month, as my hon. Friend the Member for Neath has already pointed out.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend is making a strong point about the value of the cuts and the wider impact of the changes. Does he agree that there is a significant challenge with the move from weekly or fortnightly payments to monthly payments? With a week’s processing time for claims, and payments in arrears, that could leave five weeks before people receive claims under universal credit. We are told that there is an advance payment system but Citizens Advice has said that six in 10 clients coming to a citizens advice bureau about universal credit have not been told about it. We could see many people out of pocket and really struggling to get by, through no fault of their own. That can have a huge impact on children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Timms]

Yes, the suggestion that people can make up those losses simply by working more hours is unrealistic in many circumstances. The Resolution Foundation also points out:

“For second earners in couples the situation may be worse still, with increasing numbers potentially deciding not to enter work at all.”

The whole point of universal credit was supposed to give people incentives to be in employment—indeed, yesterday the Secretary of State reiterated that point at questions to the DWP. The problem is that as currently proposed, those incentives will not be in place when universal credit is rolled out.

Let me draw the Minister’s attention to an article that was published last month and written by Deven Ghelani, who was one of the original architects of universal credit at the Centre for Social Justice. He describes the cuts to universal credit work allowances that were introduced on 11 April as

“undermining the original intent of Universal Credit—to make work pay…The Government should maintain support for work incentives within Universal Credit…these cuts to work allowances will not help to make work pay for low earners.”

That is a deep problem with what is now proposed.

The Minister will argue that calculations of child poverty—the reduction in child poverty of 300,000 that was announced by the Government in the original impact assessment for the legislation, and the subsequent written answer estimate of 150,000—do not allow for the dynamic effects of universal credit and of encouraging people into jobs. In his article, Deven Ghelani addresses exactly that point and states:

“Lower work allowances will limit the dynamic effect of Universal Credit and…will make it harder for households to make up their shortfall by working additional hours.”

That point was also raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Neath.

[Stephen Doughty]

I am sure that my right hon. Friend has had the experience of meeting many constituents who have to make agonising decisions when making up shortfalls in their income, particularly when it comes to children, whether for basics such as food and school clothes, or modest birthday presents. Sometimes that will force people down the route of getting into further debt, which further compounds their situation. We have seen the horrors of payday loan companies, and others, and many families will find themselves in difficult situations, particularly during that transition period, and they may end up getting further into debt.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

One hundred and forty thousand pensioners who paid into occupational pension schemes, including those of Allied Steel and Wire in my constituency, have been done a historical injustice by losing out on the full amount they paid in and are entitled to. Will the new Secretary of State meet the Pensions Action Group and representatives of those pensioners to discuss their concerns?

[Stephen Crabb]

I have met the action group on previous occasions. We continue to look at all these issues. The hon. Gentleman is aware that other very high-profile cases are currently looking for the support of the Pension Protection Fund.

Welfare

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend on both counts. First, on the empathy of my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, I can say that he was a man who spent years thinking about these problems in a very serious and considered way, and, as I said earlier, the Government should always be proud of his legacy. The second point she makes is about disabled people who experience these issues being the experts. We absolutely recognise that and want to put them at the very centre of the debate we are about to begin.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State may strike a different tone but in the end he is going to be judged by his actions. My constituents would like to know the following: will he scrap the bedroom tax? Will he scrap the cuts to ESA? And will he deal with the shameful treatment of older women and their pensions?

[Stephen Crabb]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that if this is about judging by actions, I will happily stand by the record of this Government every day of the week when marked against the record of previous Labour Governments, who allowed the benefits bill to spiral out of control but left a legacy of long-term unemployment. They left hundreds of thousands of people who had not worked a day in their life with no effective support from the state to help them make the transition back into the workplace.

Amendment of the Law

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his valedictory address this afternoon, and I hope that this will be my last speech from the Opposition Benches.

The last five years have been a tragic and terrible waste for working people in this country, and a shocking record of Tory welfare waste at the Department for Work and Pensions. What a wasted opportunity this Budget was to put in place the better plan that we need. People in my constituency—and in every constituency around the country—have been let down yet again. People are putting in the hours at work but still falling behind with the rent and the bills; they are desperate to work and earn, but are not getting the support they need to find a job. People who cannot work because they are sick or disabled are forced to turn to food banks because the safety net is being pulled away from them.

The people of our country have been put through five years of hardship by this out-of-touch Government, and they are still waiting to feel the benefits of what has been the weakest recovery in more than 100 years. Five wasted years in which working people have put in the hours, day after day, year after year, only to find themselves £1,600 a year worse off than when the Government took office. Five wasted years in which families have been hit by tax and benefit changes that cost the average household more than £1,100 a year, only to find that the Government have borrowed £200 billion more than they said they would and have totally failed to deliver on their central promise to balance the books. Five wasted years in which people have been told “We are all in this together”, while the Government prioritised tax cuts for millionaires and came back time and again to take money from the poorest. Five wasted years in which a Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has waxed lyrical about his grand scheme for welfare reform, but all he has delivered is delays, backlogs, write-offs and overspends—a record of Tory welfare waste that we cannot stand for another five years.

Let us remind ourselves of the backdrop to this Budget and of the complacent and self-congratulatory speech we have just heard from the Secretary of State. The Chancellor promised in 2010,

“we will bring down the benefits bill.”

Since then we have had five years of cruel and unfair policies: taking money from the pockets of disabled people through the bedroom tax; taking money from working families with restrictions to tax credits; driving hundreds of thousands of people to food banks to feed their families; and increasing the number of children in absolute poverty by 500,000. And yet, at the beginning of this year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies confirmed that

“Real terms benefit spending…is forecast to be almost exactly the same in 2015–16 as it was in 2010–11”.

Why is that, we may ask, after the Government have inflicted so much hardship on so many people who have the least? It is because, the IFS explains, these harsh and unfair policies have been cancelled out by upward pressure on the benefits bill resulting from

“weak wage growth and rising private rents”.

Meanwhile, it says, most of the major structural changes, such as universal credit, have run into problems and are yet to be delivered. This is the reason why, in the past five years, the Government have spent £25 billion more on social security than they said they would in 2010. It is why, yet again, the small print of the Budget reveals another £600 million overspend this year against last year’s forecasts.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making some incredibly strong points. On low wage growth, does she agree that we have seen particular challenges in very low paid sectors, such as care? Not only are carers struggling to get by on very low wages and struggling with the cost of living, we are seeing the minimum wage being undermined and some companies possibly not even paying it. Allegations have been made this week about MiHomeCare in Penarth in my constituency. The Government are failing to enforce the minimum wage.

[Rachel Reeves]

We know that still too many people are not even paid the minimum wage, and we know that the number of people paid less than the living wage has increased from 3.4 million to 4.9 million in the past few years. It is also true that we need to do more to ensure the minimum wage is always enforced, which is why we have said we would increase fines for non-payment to £50,000 and why we would give more powers to local authorities to ensure that the minimum wage is always paid.

Mental Health and Unemployment

Stephen Doughty Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jones]

I agree. The focus should be on mental well-being, rather than mental illness, in the workplace. I spoke to the managing director of BT and asked why the company adopted the approach that I described and whether it was aiming to be a good corporate citizen. The answer was no. The firm does it for hard, brass-tacks reasons—it is good for business. It sees the fragility of poor mental health among its employees as a risk to its business model. I am sure that is the case in other types of business too. BT has recognised that and put the appropriate mechanisms in place. We need a system for that to be rolled out among other companies in the UK.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful speech. I thoroughly agree with what he says about mental health in the workplace. Will he pay tribute to the work of organisations such as Mind that are producing training packages for dealing with mental health issues in the workplace? As he says, those are a huge cost to organisations and to the individuals involved. Mental health issues are the No. 1 cause of absenteeism from the workplace, and systematic training is needed across all workplaces.

[Mr Jones]

I congratulate Mind on its mental health training. I shall come on to suggest the next step for Government. Raising the issue of stigma and talking about mental health is very important.