Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

And Mrs Bone as well, as he rightly says.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

I am pleased to announce today the publication of the Löfstedt report on health and safety legislation. We have accepted its findings, including the recommendation to move about 1 million self-employed people out of health and safety regulation altogether where their work activity poses no potential risk or harm to others. I believe that the report is good for everybody and will help us put some much-needed common sense back into health and safety.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

At a recent meeting of the Basildon and Thurrock branch of Epilepsy Action, concerns were expressed that the work capability assessment does not fully take account of the debilitating effect that a condition such as epilepsy can have on a person’s ability to work. Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that those conducting the work capability assessment do understand the complexities and intermittent nature of neurological conditions such as epilepsy, and that those are taken into account when making the assessment?

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

I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. We are expecting further work from Professor Harrington about fluctuating conditions shortly, but I have also extended an invitation to voluntary sector groups that specialise in particular conditions to come into Jobcentre Plus and give briefings and training sessions about those conditions to our decision makers, so that we do everything we can to ensure that we get this right.

Pensions Bill [Lords]

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Willott]

I am really sorry, but I cannot tell the hon. Lady where the Minister has found the money. I am sure that if she asks him the same question later, he will respond.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

I am sure we all have great sympathy with the women who have been most adversely affected by the changes, but do you not agree that the Labour party’s argument would be far more credible if it were able to tell us where it would make up the difference? Then we would be able to decide on the matter, as opposed to being told, “It is only £11 billion, we should find it from somewhere else.”

[Jenny Willott]

I completely agree. There is strong feeling throughout the House that in an ideal world, none of us would want to see the problem exist. We all accept that the state pension age will have to increase, because we are living longer and there is a black hole in the finances. I have said that in an ideal world, I would like to see the increase capped at 12 months, but we are not in an ideal world and we have to find a compromise that is workable and affordable. I appreciate that there are women who will be negatively affected by today’s proposals, and I am sure that we all have huge sympathy for them. However, I am glad that the Government have found the resources needed to mitigate the difficulties faced by those who are most severely affected.

--- Later in debate ---

One assumption is that, broadly, everyone in society is benefiting from improved longevity and will live well into their late 70s and 80s, regardless of their social class and location. Where we live in our cities, towns and rural areas is closely related to socio-economic status.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Malcolm Wicks]

Not at the moment, because I want to set out the three assumptions before I deal with the hon. Gentleman’s false—or possibly accurate—assumptions.

The second assumption is that British people live and work in similar ways. It is assumed that we start work and retire at more or less the same. The third assumption is that if we increase—as it appears we will—the pension age and the age of retirement, work will somehow be available. If people do not retire until 66 or 67, it is suggested that this Government’s extraordinarily brilliant economic and employment policies will deliver labour for the people. It is those three assumptions that I wish to question.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Longevity and extended life expectancy are key to this argument. You point out that longevity is not necessarily equally spread across society. Are you saying that certain sectors of society have benefited from improved longevity more than others, and that for some, life expectancy has not risen at all?

[Malcolm Wicks]

Certainly for some people it has not, but broadly speaking it is my understanding that it has risen for all socio-economic groups. My assumption is that it will continue to increase, but it is the differences by social class that the hon. Gentleman’s question enables me to tease out—

[Stephen Metcalfe]

Will you give way on that point?

[Malcolm Wicks]

With respect, I think that what I have to say will be helpful to the hon. Gentleman, and I am sure that he will tell me where I get it wrong, if I do.

I want to analyse mortality by social class. I shall talk about men in particular, although there is a class difference among women too. People in social class 7 tend to be in routine occupations. For example, they might be labourers, van drivers, packers or cleaners; many women would be cleaners. We hear a lot about longevity and how we will all live to 100: the Minister keeps telling us—he issues a press notice every few months—that one fifth or one sixth of us will live to 100. It might surprise the House, therefore, that 19%—almost one fifth—of men from social class 7 die before the age of 65. Almost one fifth of these hard-working working-class people in tough jobs—no doubt they have had tough lives too—die before 65.

I put that point to the Minister and the House because, before glibly raising the pension age to 66 or 67, we need to recognise that many of our fellow citizens do not live to 65. Furthermore, 10% of women in social class 7 die before the age of 60, while among the professional classes, that figure is only 4%. I should have said earlier that, in contrast to the 19% figure, the proportion of men in the professional classes who die before the age of 65 is 7%. So there is a huge social class differential, and if we are not careful—we need to do the arithmetic very carefully—and if we glibly increase the pension age, we might rule out more and more people from ever getting their old age pension.

[Malcolm Wicks]

I recognised the logic of demography and longevity and the need to raise pension ages, but since ceasing to be a Minister of any kind, I have had more opportunity to think about this and to study it—[Laughter.] The Minister might try thinking independently. It is not a bad idea. I would not giggle at the idea that we rethink our positions from time to time. I have rethought my position on this, not least because the Government are going helter-skelter towards raising the pension age in ways that the Labour Government never foresaw.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I am grateful to you for giving way for a second time. You said that 19% of men in social class 7 die before they reach 65. Of those, how many were in work at the time? Is this a social problem relating to health, or is it caused by the nature of the work that they have done? I ask because I am concerned that we are saying that we cannot raise the pension age because of this particular group, when in fact everyone’s life expectancy, regardless of how tough a life you have, has increased over the past 20 or 50 years.

[Malcolm Wicks]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Malcolm Wicks]

Yes, but I hope that the hon. Lady will consider my point about CPI and RPI, because we are talking about billions of pounds that could be lost to British pensioners when that change is implemented over coming decades.

Let me reach my conclusion. We suffer from over-generalisations in this field. I am fed up with macho commentators, often from the political, professional and business class, who somehow assume that everyone will live to a ripe old age and that those in their 60s will have portfolios full of all sorts of opportunities—a directorship here, writing a book or doing a television programme there. Many people, not least those on the Government Benches, talk about a world of that kind—I do not want to get the hon. Lady over-excited: she has had many chances to respond, but she knows who I am talking about. Given the typical life cycles for the late 20th and early 21st centuries, more and more of our children and grandchildren will effectively not get started in their careers until their early 20s or even their mid-20s. With the rise of university education, the pattern of many people’s working lives will be like that.

However, that pattern is not at all typical of everyone in our society. When we recall the question that the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe) asked about the mortality of those people, let us remember that there are still many working people coming up to retirement who started their working lives as 15 or 16-year-olds. They are the packers, the cleaners, the van drivers, the heavy manual workers and the care workers. By the time they reach retirement they are worn out. They are physically knackered, if I am allowed to use those words. They are tired, they are exhausted and what they need, in an old-fashioned sense, is a rest. They need to retire. They are not people like the hon. Gentleman, who I suspect will still be sprightly in his late 60s and 70s, with his portfolios and all the rest of it; they are physically worn out. They have been working since they were children, and they need a rest.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is making a powerful argument and some interesting points, but they relate to increasing the state pension age, full stop. This is not an argument about the escalation of that process; it is an argument about whether we should change the age at which people can claim their state pensions, which is separate from the debate that we are currently having.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

As a former union official, the hon. Gentleman will know that the biggest challenge we face is employers who cut corners and break the rules. I would have thought that he would welcome a change in policy that focuses health and safety inspections not on low-risk, good employer sites, which have taken up so much resource in the past, but on employers who are not playing by the book and who endanger their employees and the public. That is where I want our regulatory effort to focus.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend has said, we all agree that health and safety legislation, when applied correctly, is very useful and important, but does he also agree that when it is applied inappropriately and gold-plated, it can cost jobs and damage the economy?

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely agree. Let me be clear that I believe it is extremely important to get health and safety right. As the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) suggested, we need to protect people against real dangers in the workplace. However, we have to understand that if the system is over-bureaucratic, it will lead to the closure of businesses and cost jobs, and that does nobody any favours. The job of Government is to find the right balance, and that is what we seek to do.

Amendment of the Law

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important and wide-ranging debate. As many people know, I come from a small business background, and so I take an active interest in the health of our economy and companies of all sizes. I was absolutely delighted to hear last week’s statement by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, who put growth very much at the heart of his agenda to support businesses. He has very little wriggle room—we recognise that—but the creative approach that he adopted to try to demonstrate his support for businesses, large and small, and to help companies start on the path of creating jobs again, was welcome up and down the country.

We have to contrast that with the landscape that we inherited from our Labour colleagues. I do not quite know how to put it—whether it was neighbours at war or a family in crisis—but the situation was very much that they had maxed out the credit card and ceased to open the post. Time and again, I hear a degree of denial from Labour Members saying that we do not face a real problem, but we know that we do, because when we got round to opening the post, what did we find? A message stating that all the money had gone. That is what we have to deal with.

When I talk to people in businesses around my constituency and the south-east of England, all I hear is that they understand the need for the measures that we are taking, but they want us to remind them, the public, again and again of why we are having to do this—the fact that we are paying £120 million a day in interest alone and having to borrow £400 million a day to keep the country afloat. It is against that background that we have to find a way of balancing the books. I believe that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor started that process last week. Many organisations, such as the Institute of Directors, the Federation of Small Businesses and the British Chambers of Commerce, agree. They all welcomed the measures, in part, because they understand the problems.

I want to focus on three areas. First, there is the support for business. The cut in regulation is welcome as a stated aim, as is the focus on better skills for our young people so that we can have a well-trained work force. Secondly, I welcome the support for entrepreneurs, because it is they who will take a small business and grow it into a big business so that it pays its tax and employs, we hope, many thousands of people. Thirdly, there is the simplification of the tax system.

However, the people to whom I speak also express some concerns. At a recent meeting of influential businesses in south Essex, they were worried that a degree of gold-plating still goes on with regulation. We all accept that some regulation is needed, but please let us make it fair, even and easy to understand. They also express concern—I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has looked into this—about the scrapping of the default retirement age. They have used it, rightly or wrongly, to manage their work forces, and are concerned that raising it will create greater problems for them in the future and stop new openings being created in their organisations.

I also ask that we look at how we classify truly small businesses. This Budget uses the number 10, but businesses with 20 and perhaps even 50 employees are small businesses as well. They need a greater degree of support than the previous Government gave them and than we are currently proposing to give them.

Finally on the business side, we know that we need to grow our exports. We need to reach out and trade across the world. I heard the statistic recently that there are now 350 million people in India who describe themselves as middle class—people who have disposable income. We need to reach out and show them that British companies and products can address their needs and wants. However, we need to provide some security for those companies. I have a constituent who has been trading in north Africa. He is concerned about whether he will be paid for work that he has undertaken. He is a small business man. Perhaps we should consider how the Government can support businesses that are trading abroad in places where there is not total confidence and security that they will be paid. I welcome the support that we showed for science and technology, because it is companies with innovative and technology-based ideas that will drive growth in our economy.

Of course, I also welcome the help that was announced for families, such as the raising of the tax threshold, the council tax freeze and the 1p cut in fuel duty. Although that 1p on its own may not be significant, the scrapping of the 5p escalator is significant. It means that petrol will be 6p cheaper next month than it would have been under the previous Administration.

Above all, that tax cut and the other measures announced in the Budget demonstrate that this Government are willing to listen and to adapt to the changing landscape. I hope that we will continue to do that, and that we will continue to listen to our residents, individuals and companies, and work with them to create growth.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question—I think. I would reiterate the point that I made earlier, which is that the changes to disability living allowance finances that we are talking about would mean keeping expenditure the same as it was last year, after eight years of a 30% increase. Overall, she has to keep that in mind. What we will do is ensure that we remove any expenditure overlaps, as she would expect us to do, and as I had hoped the previous Government would do.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

14. How many new businesses he expects to be created as a result of the new enterprise allowance in the first 12 months of its operation.

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

Over the first two years of its operation, the new enterprise allowance is due to support the start of around 40,000 new businesses. In its second year, we expect the majority of those start-ups to take place in the first few months, when the new enterprise allowance is being rolled out in those parts of the country that are particularly affected by unemployment.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

The best way to deal with unemployment in my constituency is to build businesses, and I therefore welcome the introduction of the new enterprise allowance. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the allowance will provide unemployed people with mentoring, as well as financial support, to enable them to start their own businesses?

[Chris Grayling]

I can indeed confirm that. What makes the new enterprise allowance different from all its predecessor schemes is that it will offer people who are seeking to start new businesses specialist support from people who have been there and experienced enterprise. We want to see voluntary sector groups that already offer mentoring become part of the scheme, and we want experienced business people to come forward and become mentors, perhaps through their chambers of commerce. This could make a huge difference to getting people off benefits and into self-employment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

I share the hon. Lady’s concern. The fact that 600,000 people who left school and college under the last Administration have yet to find work is a huge problem that we must address. We are providing specialist back-to-work support through the Work programme, earlier than has been the case under previous programmes, and after three months for some young people with the most challenged backgrounds. I can assure the hon. Lady that that will remain a priority for the present Administration.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

As I did not do so earlier, let me now welcome my shadow, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), to his post. I hope that we shall have engagements in the future, and I am sure that he will adopt a positive approach to measures that he believes will benefit the estate.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Indeed. I am glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman models himself very much on me, which is also very helpful.

I have had meetings today, and I have more meetings to come. I should also mention that we are getting rid of the default retirement age, which we consider to be a positive move overall for older people which should also help to boost the economy.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

What advice or consideration has been given to small and medium-sized enterprises on how they should handle the removal of the statutory retirement age, and what advice can the Secretary of State give businesses on managing employees with physically demanding jobs?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The default retirement age is unlikely to have been used by many small and medium-sized enterprises; it tended to be used by larger businesses. Once it has been removed, employers should be able to dismiss staff, while obviously using the ordinary fair dismissal rules under the Employment Rights Act 1996. When employers can demonstrate that a retirement age is objectively justified, they can make a case for setting one. The key point, however, is that many large and many small companies have never used the default retirement age. They will argue that working with employees to secure a proper programme as they head towards their general retirement age is a positive move, and that employees should not be left lying there until the employer has to get rid of them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Metcalfe Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman knows from the recent spending review settlement that Remploy’s modernisation plan and funding are in place, and we will continue to monitor its performance against that. I have already met trade union officials about Remploy’s future, and I will continue to do so as we move forward with the modernisation plan.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

I, like many other hon. Members, have been contacted by a number of constituents whose pension provision has been seriously affected by the collapse of the former Ford UK parts manufacturer, Visteon. Will the Secretary of State meet me to explore how we might best help those who have been most adversely affected?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I will, indeed, and my hon. Friend must give me a date.