Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

As I have said before, I am really delighted with the review and to have received its findings. We have accepted all the findings in the review. At the moment, those reports are available, so that everyone can request them. We do not think it is a good use of taxpayers’ money to provide them to people who are happy with the result, who will not be going on to make any further appeal and who are actually getting on with receiving their benefit.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

9. What estimate his Department has made of the number of sanctions that will be applied each month as universal credit is rolled out.

[The Minister for Employment (Damian Hinds)]

The Department does not forecast numbers of sanctions that will be applied. We do not want sanctions to be incurred, but they do play an important part in reasonable conditionality.

[Stephen Pound]

Well, what an answer! Never would I accuse the Minister of dedolence, but I must say that that sort of Panglossian response shows an absence of empathy or understanding, particularly of the empirical evidence that we have had to date. My constituents see universal credit as a rock rolling down a hill next April. However, as this is Christmas and we are in the spirit of giving and generosity, will the Minister join me in my impetration to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority for additional secretarial support during those dark days when this awful universal credit is rolled out and over our constituents?

[Mr Speaker]

I think the hon. Gentleman is going to the west end to perform on the stage. He would feel so fulfilled. In fact, I think that he has already done so—perhaps just now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

But I am sure that it is a personal ambition of the hon. Lady to go to her hon. Friend’s constituency. We look forward to getting an update in due course.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

May I address my question to the Minister who speaks for a party that has been in power for more than seven years? This morning my constituent, Debbie A, came to tell me that she had failed her ESA assessment, first because she had been told that she could hear her name being called from the waiting room, when in fact she had been told that it was being called by her son, who was sitting next to her; and, secondly, because the report had said that she had been hit by a bus, when in fact she had been hit on a bus. Does not the Minister accept that there are profound systemic problems in the assessment process?

[Penny Mordaunt]

There are things that we can do to improve the assessment process dramatically and also, more critically, to prevent people from having to go through those assessments. The thrust of the health and work consultation paper that we issued this year is to bring about early intervention in healthcare and to use healthcare information to populate the welfare system, and that is what we are trying to do.

State Pension Age: Women

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

All Members from Northern Ireland have had a chance to meet the pensioners’ parliament, which has lobbied us on this issue. We are here today to speak on their behalf.

We all know the background to this debate. The Government changed the timetable because of the increase in life expectancy, but as we have illustrated, the numbers do not equal the human cost or the health implications. Even for women who have a job in an office and are expected to continue working for another six years, the repetitive strain of typing, and so on, has not been taken into consideration and has been ignored.

Women born in the 1950s are justified in their argument that they have been hit particularly hard by the significant changes to their state pension age, which was imposed without appropriate notification. They have not been looking to the future and thinking, “I’ll take a high-tech job at night-time and do a course to get a qualification. I can’t do this hard-labour job for the next 30 years.” The fact is that these women have been subject to the whim of Government, with no notice for them to change their future potential.

I understand how the world works. If the Government continue to borrow, the debt continues to rise. We all know the story. Changes must be made, but how we make those changes is a problem. I fully support the Women Against State Pension Inequality campaign in calling for a fair transitional state pension arrangement that translates into a bridging pension between the age of 60 and the increased state pension age.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that most people accept that there has to be some change because of the increase in life expectancy? The problem is the utter confusion, the lack of clarity and the complete absence of proper, coherent information. Does he agree that one small thing the Government could do today is to be completely upfront, honest and transparent and say exactly where we are? My constituents and his constituents are in the dark on this issue.

[Jim Shannon]

Some 4.5 million people in Great Britain will have their SPA increased by less than a year, and 500,000 born between October 1953 and 5 April 1955 will have their SPA increased by more than a year. In Northern Ireland, 76,000 people face a further one-and-a-half-year wait on top of previous rises, which is simply not acceptable. Something must be done to bridge the gap, especially for those who physically cannot keep working. Is there an argument for opening the door to the personal independence payment just a little further to enable these women to have an income without working? That is unlikely, as the Government have made it clear that they are determined, by hook or by crook, to lessen the number of claimants, despite what people’s doctors say—that is a debate for another day.

Jobseeker’s allowance is restricted, and the employment and support allowance criteria ask, for example, whether a person can lift a cardboard box or move a £1 coin. If only that was all it took for a woman to work again, but it takes more than that. I am sorry to say that the Government have not understood the real issue.

We do not have a benefits system that allows us to bridge the gap, so who will help these women? They do not seek to have something for which they have not worked. They are not asking for a handout, like so many people do; they are asking for a return on their hard work over 45 years or more. Why have we let these people down? What will be done today to help those whose hard work means their bodies can no longer continue at this pace?

Individual cases do not necessarily make good law, but I have not recounted an individual case. There are many such women in my constituency and across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is time that the Government acknowledged the effect that the acceleration has had and is having. They should seek to do the right thing for this generation, who have worked hard in all areas to build this country and who deserve the same respect and attention that they have given to this country all their lives.

Supported Housing: Benefit

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Grahame M. Morris]

I am grateful to the Minister—[Interruption.] I am sure it is just a matter of time. This is a terribly confusing time.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He is absolutely right that there is a plethora of housing providers. I have met and received evidence from Mencap, Golden Lane Housing, Rethink Mental Illness and Changing Lives, as well as various housing associations, such as North Star and the Durham Aged Mineworkers Homes Association, and the National Housing Federation itself, all of which have raised concerns about supported housing in particular sectors. I have not listed those supporting members of the forces, but there is a similar thread and strand bringing this all together.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

Before my hon. Friend finishes his long list, which could possibly be even longer, may I remind him that the YMCA is desperately concerned about these proposals? We should place that concern on the record. I cannot believe anyone in this House wishes to destroy all the good work that the YMCA has undertaken.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing out what an important role the YMCA plays in providing supported accommodation for young people, particularly those leaving care and those in the younger age bracket.

It is important that we look at the evidence. I do not think that the sums add up. Ministers seem to be drawn to an evidence-free policy, but surely it should be obvious to them that a local discretionary scheme will not work. Ministers have previously said that discretionary schemes can assist in mitigation, but that does not alleviate the uncertainty. Providers of supported housing need certainty in the rental stream to fund the cost of managing these schemes and to service the loan charges incurred in developing them in the first place. Any reasonable person—let alone a Minister—will know that people cannot rely on a fluctuating income stream to service the cost of a loan. If Ministers persist with this ham-fisted plan—let me call it that—existing supported housing schemes will close, new supported housing schemes will be cancelled and some of the most vulnerable people will be left to fend for themselves.

The new Prime Minister once talked about the Conservative party as the “nasty party”. When she spoke on the steps of No. 10, she said she wanted

“a country that works for everyone”.

The Government have an opportunity today to prove that the Prime Minister meant what she said just seven days ago, but if the newly appointed Ministers refuse to listen to reason and proceed with these callous cuts, they will be demonstrating that the Conservatives have not really changed and truly deserve their label as the “nasty party”. I commend the motion to the House.

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[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend makes a profound point, not just about this specific issue but about, in essence, a huge amount of the work of my Department. Enabling people who are not in work to get back to work in some form is not only the best thing for the public purse but—absolutely and most importantly—almost always the best thing for them as well. For many of the people in the vulnerable groups we are talking about it will be especially valuable. Making sure that we come to a solution that contributes to that is absolutely vital.

[Stephen Pound]

I add my voice to the chorus of welcome to the right hon. Gentleman. He mentioned consultation with Cardiff and Edinburgh. Northern Ireland tends to get forgotten from time to time. Does this proposal have any relevance for Northern Ireland, and if so what consultation is taking place? I can speak slowly if he wishes to consult his colleague.

[Damian Green]

My understanding is that the matter is completely devolved to Northern Ireland, but if I have misled the House and so the hon. Gentleman I will write to him to correct myself. It is also conceivable that when the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), winds up the debate she may be wiser and better informed than me on that issue. It has been known for junior Ministers at the end of debates to be much better informed than their Secretary of State was at the start—we have all been there.

As has been said, my Department has commissioned an evidence review to look at the shape, scale and cost of the sector. Reform of the funding model was already being considered as worth doing in its own right, on its own merits, long before the LHA cap policy was announced in the last autumn statement. The point has been well made by several hon. Members that this is the first full review of the provision for 20 years, so getting it right is quite important. As I have said, the review is in its final stages, and has already provided some valuable insights that I look forward to sharing with the House once the findings have been confirmed and tested.

The evidence review, discussions with the sector and the policy review undertaken by Government have all made it clear to me that, to fulfil our obligations to those people who rely on such accommodation and support, we must ensure four things. First, there must be appropriate funding to continue to support vulnerable people and sustain this vital sector. Secondly, the accommodation must deliver value for money for both the taxpayer and the individual being supported. Thirdly, those living in supported housing must receive high-quality outcomes and focused care and support. Fourthly, costs must be controlled. We cannot let the welfare bill get out of control. It is important that only those individuals who truly require the provision are able to access it, and that that provision matches genuine local need.

It is clear from the work undertaken so far that although the sector is delivering exemplary services and support in many places, the current system does not deliver on all those objectives. There are genuine problems that need to be addressed. The reformed model that we will produce later this year needs to do more to ensure that value for money is sought by service commissioners and demonstrated by providers. Vitally, I want more focus on the quality of provision and individual outcomes for those who obtain the provision. That is an important next step for the sector.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

The establishment of a taskforce is occasionally a mechanism for kicking the can down the road, but in this case I give the Minister credit for his good intentions. Will he consider adding the Royal British Legion to the list of consultees, because there is a real issue of disabled ex-servicemen and women having a great deal of difficulty getting into work?

[Justin Tomlinson]

That is an important point, and something we are already doing work on. I would be happy to discuss that further.

Compulsory Jobs Guarantee

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

Those figures, in my constituency and in his, are far too high. A great deal more needs to be done to enable young people in particular, but long-term unemployed over-25s as well, to share in the benefit of the recovery that is, at last, under way.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

I am a little distressed at the rather mean-spirited response from some Government Members. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the most salient features of the proposal is giving people the experience of work and letting them see what 8 o’clock in the morning looks like and get the idea of being in a job? If the job that they move into in the future is not the same job, so what? The important thing is to get people into the world of work.

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is right. I have spoken to many people, including those who went through the future jobs fund, who say exactly that: having the break of getting six months in a job, becoming familiar with the habits and routines of work, and putting that on their CV enabled them to thrive.

This policy is not just an immediate intervention to limit youth and long-term unemployment; it is an investment in the skills and employability of the British work force, underpinning our productivity, growth potential and fiscal sustainability into the future, but we have been clear that there will be no commitments in our manifesto that require more borrowing. Therefore, we have set out clear plans to fund the policy fairly and prudently.

In the first year, to provide for the large number of long-term claimants left by this Government’s policies, we would pay for the policy with a repeat of the successful bank bonus tax, which was levied in 2010. That could raise £2 billion. In future years, the costs would be covered by restricting pensions tax relief for the highest paid—those earning more than £150,000 a year—to 20%. The House of Commons Library has estimated that that could raise between £900 million and £1.3 billion a year. That is a fair and prudent way to fund jobs for young people and the long-term unemployed, and to fund the guarantee throughout the next Parliament.

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[Mr Duncan Smith]

Youth unemployment is now lower than it was under the previous Government, and it has been falling consistently. I will wait for the figures for the next few quarters, and when they show that youth unemployment has continued to fall, I expect the right hon. Gentleman to write me a note saying, “Sorry about that; that’s another thing we got wrong.”

[Stephen Pound]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I will give way in a moment, but I just want to spend a little more time on the future jobs fund, because it is such a rich seam. I continue to ask the right hon. Member for East Ham to give us the list of private sector companies that are signed up to his new scheme, but he has not come up with it. The interesting point is that councils from Merthyr Tydfil to Norfolk and from Tyneside to Wakefield have all complained about how difficult it is to get businesses to deliver the future jobs fund. None of them could find anyone to deliver it. In Barnsley only 7% of the jobs found were in the private sector, and in Birmingham the figure was only 2%.

I was a little intrigued by that, because I know that the right hon. Gentleman is an intelligent man—I have huge respect for him and thought that he was a very competent Minister—and it was unlike him, given how accurate he normally is, to come to the Dispatch Box and, when pressed on how many private sector jobs would come from the scheme, answer, “It is most likely to be in the private sector.” That is it. That is the calculation that the Opposition have made for this incredible programme. He believes that it is “most likely” that those jobs will be in the private sector, yet not a single private sector employer is interested in it.

It is small wonder that the shadow Leader of the House also failed to name a single business that had signed up to the jobs guarantee. When pressed about the vast number of jobs there would be in the private sector, the shadow Chancellor, in a forerunner to his problem with “Bill Somebody”, said:

“But if not, you can do it through the voluntary sector. If not, you have to have a final backstop: a public work scheme.”

That is what they have. He let the cat out of the bag. The reality is that high streets and businesses have now made their views clear about Labour’s “destructive anti-business mood”. The Institute of Directors has stated that

“wage subsidies for employers are not the source of sustainable jobs”.

That is what this ridiculous programme would mean.

[Stephen Pound]

I was initially reluctant to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman while the compliments were flowing from the Treasury Bench, but normal service has now been resumed. The major difference between the scheme that he is promulgating and that which we are proposing—I reiterate this for the avoidance of any doubt—is that while the Government are proposing work experience, we are talking about real jobs. The advantage of work experience cannot be denied, but the aim of our proposal is proper, permanent jobs. If they turn out not to be permanent jobs that people start with it, so be it, but the difference is between permanence and work experience.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The hon. Gentleman, for whom I have a huge amount of time, is right about work experience, and he must not let anyone on his side push him off that, but what he has just said is slightly wrong. He said that we are promulgating work experience and the Opposition are talking about a jobs guarantee, but we are not promulgating it; a quarter of a million young people have already gone on our work experience programme, and over 50% of them have gone into work. He is quite right that not all of them went into the businesses they did the work experience with, but many of them have gone into other jobs almost immediately. What is really exciting is that although many businesses said, “We’ll do the work experience, but we can’t guarantee a job,” a significant number of them, once they had seen the young person for a few weeks, came back and said, “I tell you what: we’re going to create a job around this individual, because we think they’re going to help our company.” That is what work experience has done. I simply say to Opposition Members that they should embrace that, not oppose it, because their Front Benchers have opposed work experience, and that is a big problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

I am chagrined to hear that the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) will not vote with the Opposition this afternoon. However, when I think of his demonstrable lack of numeracy when he referred to the number of people in the Chamber and his apparent willingness—naive or foolish, I know not—to draw to the attention of the nation the fact that there are more people on the Opposition Benches than on the Government Benches, I wonder whether we would have found space for him over here had he chosen to support us.

[Nigel Adams]

It is always a pleasure to listen to the hon. Gentleman, but I think he will find that when I made my speech there were more people on the Government Benches than on the Opposition Benches.

[Stephen Pound]

Madam Deputy Speaker, there are matters of greater moment before us today. The point has been made.

In all seriousness, the comments of the Secretary of State at the end of his speech were very well made and measured. He drew our attention to the single most important fact: this debate is not about cold statistics, but about real experience, real people, real lives, real hopes, real dreams and, in some cases, the dashing of those real dreams. However, when he referred to the marvellous blizzard of feel-good statistics it was almost as if Dr Pangloss had ridden out of the pages of “Candide” and tethered his horse to the Treasury Bench to tell us that this is the best of all possible worlds and that everything is well. I, like most people, respect the Secretary of State, but this is not the best of all possible worlds.

May I pray in aid, as I seldom do, the Office for National Statistics? The labour market statistics from 21 January—not last year, not 2010, but 2015—show that youth unemployment stands at 764,000, which is an increase of 30,000 on the previous quarter, and that long-term unemployment for 18 to 25-year-olds stands at 188,000.

[Alok Sharma]

It was higher in May 2010.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Pound]

I hear a sedentary intervention from down the Thames valley. The figure for long-term unemployment, which is made up of those who have been on JSA for more than two years, has increased since May 2010 by—I pause to let the number sink in—224%. Let us not try to fool ourselves that everything is wonderful out there. Let us accept, however, that there is good will on both sides. We all want to see people in work; it is the mechanism by which we achieve it that divides us. In some ways, the quintessence of the major political argument is being expressed here today—it is about the role of the state and the duty of the individual.

The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) rightly referred to the sanctions regime. One of the important things about a realistic, modern, pragmatic Labour party is that we are not in the position of saying that there will be no sanctions. We are maintaining the present level, just as Beveridge—a great man, if a deluded Liberal at the time—envisaged when he proposed the blueprint for what, in effect, became our modern welfare state. We are talking about a combined approach. We are saying to long-term unemployed young people in particular, “We have not forgotten you.” We will not simply place them in a temporary job and expect them to use it to access the labour market, although some may do so, but we will find them a real job.

Over the years, we have tried over and over again to achieve that. The Manpower Services Commission schemes of the 1980s were initially quite successful, but were ultimately affected by the major economic picture. I hope that, as part of the new scheme, the Labour party will be talking about placements in football and sports clubs, because those were one of the successes.

The Labour party—the party to which I have dedicated myself all my adult life—has done many marvellous things, but seldom have I heard an example of it riding to the rescue of the reputation of bankers. Bankers have been having a difficult time lately. Hedge fund operators are salving their consciences by shovelling great barrowloads of cash to Black and White balls, and leasing out their estates to shoot peasants—I mean pheasants—and partridge. If bankers pay an impost of a bank bonus, they will do something to reclaim their battered reputation. How good it will be for those with silk hats, swaggering down Threadneedle street and throwing their cigars over their shoulders, to realise that they are part of the solution. They have been part of the problem for far too long.

We are currently in an extraordinary period in which bankers are about to fill their boots when it comes to bonuses. A famous recruitment firm, Phaidon International, estimates that this year bankers’ bonuses could be up by 25% or 35%. Bankers’ bonuses are on the increase, but I think those bankers want to help the country more and to help the unemployed; I think there is good even in bankers. Let us support the Labour motion this afternoon, not just for the unemployed or the youth unemployed, but for the battered, tattered, shattered reputation of Britain’s bankers. Let them come back from their offshore tax havens and from Davos, and let them say, “We are part of society; we are prepared to pay.” This modest tax on bankers’ bonuses will go a long way to make this country a better, more decent and productive place for all of us, and hopefully a place in which we will talk about unemployment in the past tense.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am happy to pay tribute to organisations such as the one my hon. Friend has just mentioned. The important thing is to have a proper partnership with Jobcentre Plus, voluntary and third-sector organisations, the NHS and employers working together to ensure that we stop people from falling out of work if they develop a mental health problem, and that they can get back into work if they do so.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

I cannot be the only person in the House today who finds it utterly heartbreaking when people come to their surgery unable to find work. Those people are often more than capable of working but, because of a fear of stigmatisation and an absence of support, they are unable to find that work. I praise the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) for setting an example in this area. Following on from the good work of Waitrose and Tesco, can we not do more in this House to set an example, because we are after all a major employer?

Affordable Homes Bill

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Friday 5th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

It is always a genuine pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford). We have both been Housing Ministers in our time, and I concede that he was always a genuine expert on housing and local government policy.

I will start by focusing on the cost of today’s Bill. Listening to the right hon. Gentleman’s speech and some of the interventions from Labour Members, I reminded myself—I thought I might have forgotten—that there was an agreement earlier this year to introduce a welfare cap. Such are the wonders of modern technology, that even I can now google “welfare cap” on my BlackBerry, and I am reminded by the BBC that on 26 March this year—

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

He’s reading!

[Sir Tony Baldry]

I am. I am quoting from the BBC. I can read. It states:

“MPs approve annual welfare cap in Commons vote.”

[Interruption.] Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would rather I did not read this and remind the House of the reality, but I think we ought to share it:

“MPs have overwhelmingly backed plans to introduce an overall cap on the amount the UK spends on welfare each year. Welfare spending, excluding the state pension and some unemployment benefits, will be capped next year at £119.5 billion. The idea, put forward by Chancellor George Osborne in last week’s Budget, would in future see limits set at the beginning of each Parliament. With Labour supporting the idea, the measure was approved in the House of Commons by 520 to 22 votes…The cap will include spending on the vast majority of benefits, including pension credits, severe disablement allowance, incapacity benefits, child benefit, both maternity and paternity pay, universal credit and housing benefit…Under the proposed system, if a government wanted to spend more on one area of the welfare state it would have to compensate by making cuts elsewhere, to stay within the overall cap.”

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[Dame Angela Watkinson]

rose—

[Stephen Pound]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I cannot remember whether I gave way to the hon. Lady earlier, but she is so appealing—

[Stephen Pound]

I am right behind you, Chris.

[Chris Bryant]

I am not asking you! I give way to the hon. Lady.

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[Sheryll Murray]

rose—

[Stephen Pound]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady because I hope to get to the end of my speech very soon. Notwithstanding that, I feel that I must give way to my hon. Friend.

[Stephen Pound]

I am overcome by my hon. Friend’s generosity and tolerance. The previous intervention referred to handrails. My brother’s case is very different. He has a separate room that has been supplied with a different water supply for his dialysis. Does my hon. Friend not agree that the real cruelty of the discretionary regime is that it is precisely that—discretionary. It is not good enough to say that money has been allocated for the next financial year, because the principle remains in place. The anxiety of those people who live in adapted properties and who can only see that sword of Damocles hanging over their heads is one of the cruellest and most brutal aspects of this incompetent legislation.

[Chris Bryant]

I should have trusted my hon. Friend all along. He is absolutely right. I visited a man in Birmingham who was in a situation similar to that described by my hon. Friend. In my constituency, I have had several people who have required a second room for dialysis equipment. There is a wide range of situations out there. For example, one partner in a couple may have a disability which means that they are not able to sleep in the same bed and the same room. Those people on an annual basis have to go through the whole business of explaining again to their local authority, civil servants and council officials why they are not sleeping in the same room. That is degrading and unfair. It makes it seem as if this is an act of charity by Government, whereas in fact the way in which this legislation has been drafted is exactly the opposite of charity. As my hon. Friend said, the word “discretionary” is one of the cruellest elements of the whole thing.

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[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

We have been educated today, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) for bringing this extraordinarily interesting Bill before the House, but if there is one thing that has run through our discussions for the past three hours—it seems longer—it is not so much a golden thread as a string of tarnished brass: that it is all very well to have a theoretical construct that encourages people to leave their homes, but there has to be somewhere for them to go. It is so flipping obvious to anyone who lives in the real world and who knows the experiences of ordinary human beings who do not consider this a spare ballroom tax—

[Mark Hunter (Cheadle) (LD)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

The House divided: Ayes 304, Noes 237.

Universal Credit

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore]

That is a very good analogy for how we have arrived in this position. The trouble is that it is not some sort of blunder: my hon. Friends have referred to some of the other big changes going through the DWP, and the same pattern has been seen with disability living allowance and the personal independence payment. First, a straw man was erected: there was a statement about certain things in the previous system, some of which were not entirely accurate, being really bad and having to be changed. There was then a brief initial consultation period before the Department went ahead with the change, which was not properly piloted. As a result, every new PIP applicant since June 2013 is part of the testing process. That is not a pilot, unless it is a pilot on a gigantic scale. Many people who are anxious and worried while they wait for their PIP payments to come through, are being treated as guinea pigs, after a failure to analyse the problem, implement the scheme or test the proposals. The pattern is not unique to universal credit.

Had we been told from the outset that there would be a slow roll-out because of the need for testing, we might not be standing here now debating whether the glass is half full, but we have been told so often that the glass is full and everything is going well. When the Select Committee prepared a report in November 2012, we concentrated on vulnerable claimants. At that time we were told that all the implementation plans were on track for 2013, which was not the case. By February 2013, the Major Projects Authority told the DWP to reset the entire project—that was an internal, private report of which Members had no knowledge at the time. That information did not come out clearly until July 2013, when the Secretary of State told the Select Committee that there were major changes to the roll-out. The NAO reported in September 2013, and the Secretary of State’s response was, “Oh, I knew about all those problems all along.” Perhaps he did know about the problems all along, but he did not tell many people about them. There were further changes in December 2013.

Some speakers, in trying to support universal credit, suggested that at least we have some people on it. There are 6,000 people on universal credit, and it will be rolled out to more jobcentres, but those are the very simplest cases. In essence, for those claimants universal credit is little different from jobseeker’s allowance. There is little to say that universal credit is a big breakthrough to a different form of benefit, because until now claimants have been single people. Apparently, we are now able to roll out universal credit to some couples, but the claimants so far have been single people. Some 70% of claimants are relatively young. They are new benefit claimants who do not have complications, basically. If universal credit is to bring together various benefits successfully, the difficult cases will be the real test, not the straightforward ones.

One bit of universal credit thinking that has been rolled out is the claimant commitment, which has been rolled out to JSA claimants, not merely those who are technically in receipt of JSA-style universal credit. The Government have rolled out the stick without rolling out the carrot. One of the problems with the claimant commitment is not necessarily getting people to agree what they will do to find work but that minor breaches of that agreement can lead to loss of benefits. The carrot—the bit that is meant to help people not only to find work but to make work pay—has not yet been introduced because the vast majority of people are nowhere near being on universal credit.

Since our original debates on the Welfare Reform Act 2012, we have experienced obfuscation through the use of computerese. MPs, like many lay people, are not IT experts. Initially, concerns were raised about the size of the IT project—various Governments have run into trouble with IT in the past—and people asked, “How do we know this will be different?” Any concerns were simply brushed aside because the Government had a new “agile” way of doing things that meant everything was going to be fine. About 18 months later we learned that that way of doing things had been abandoned, so clearly everything was not fine, but that is what we were told.

Other things that were “fine” included security, establishing people’s identity and the difficulties with online transactions. Those concerns were raised from the outset. I recall an informal briefing at which the Minister, Lord Freud, was asked questions by people who were expert, such as people who had served on housing associations. They asked, “What about the verification of people’s housing claims? How is that actually going to be done?” At the moment, those claims are done fairly intensively with people having to produce information, although housing associations have been allowed to verify that information because they have seen the lease, and so on. Lord Freud simply ignored all that and said, “No, universal credit will have far less fraud and error, and it will all be fine.” But of course it has not been fine, and it is now recognised that the notion that everything could be done online has not only been delayed but will never happen. One reason why that will not happen is that security has been recognised as a major issue. The same Ministers who told us that security was not a problem have now told us that it is a problem. When a Department is paying out substantial sums of money to millions of individuals, doing it fully online is not practical. After Ministers initially enthused about how everything would be straightforward, and after having been told different things at different times—even when the reality was that something else was going on—we are somewhat sceptical.

As other speakers have said, we were told that a certain type of IT is being used for the very small number of current claimants but that, at the same time, the Department was working on what in February 2014 was called the end-state, open-source, web-based solution. [Laughter.] Exactly. I know the meaning of each individual word, but I have never been clear about what the phrase means. We were told that it was a digital solution—it therefore seems to be an important aspect of the whole programme—and that it would be ready to be tested on 100 claimants by November 2014. As the Select Committee report found, the system is still a long way from being viable. There is a huge difference between operating something like that for a small group of 100 claimants and operating it for far more people.

The Select Committee thought that what we were being told about was a different and digital way of doing things, and we specifically asked for more detail. The Government’s response to the Select Committee report evaded the question, and it is all there. First, the response talked about the claimant commitment, which I have already mentioned and did not have anything to do with the digital solution. Secondly, the response talked about a

“more challenging and supportive relationship between claimants and coaches.”

“Coaches” is the new name for jobcentre advisers. Again, that does not really tell us anything about the digital solution. There are concerns about how scalable those intensive relationships will be. Thirdly, we were told that there will be more online services, but many JSA claims are already made online, so again it is unclear whether that has anything to do with the end-state or digital solution.

Therefore, having gone around the houses about the claimant commitment, the things that are already happening online and the more supportive relationship, all that we have been told is that the digital solution is

“a multi-channel service that makes greater use of modern technology”—

I am glad that it makes use of modern technology, rather than ancient technology—

“to ensure the system is as effective, simple and transparent as possible.”

Those are all worthy aims, but they tell us nothing about what the end-state solution actually is, what it does, how much progress has been made towards it, how many people are working on it, what it will cost or what the interface will be between claimants and the system. It is nothing more than an aspiration.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend, who is making some extremely pertinent points, but many of my constituents who are in work receive varying pay packets. For example, one week they will work overtime but the next week they will not. Some of them, such as school meal supervisory assistants, are employed only in term time. Does she have any confidence at all from what we have heard so far that the system could be sufficiently sophisticated and robust to take into account natural human activity, which does not consist of people earning exactly the same wage for 52 weeks of the year and with exactly the same family circumstances?

[Sheila Gilmore]

Again, there is the theory and then there is what happens in practice. If in all cases the information from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs works, it should be reasonably accurate, but when people have very variable earnings there will be considerable problems, particularly with monthly payments, because it will take a long time to adjust for somebody whose earnings vary a great deal. That will leave some people in considerable hardship.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Pound Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I greatly respect the hon. Gentleman, but the conclusions of the Court of Appeal were nothing to do with consultation. It was a process issue, in that the Court felt that the Minister had not been given enough information, based on the information that was put in writing. The Court went on to say that there was evidence that the Minister

“consulted personally with many affected groups”

and it had

“no doubt that evidence of hard cases would have been forcefully drawn to her attention.”

That is what the Court ruled. It had nothing to do with consultation.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

The Department for Work and Pensions annual report was due to be published in April this year. When will we finally see it?

[Mike Penning]

With due respect, the Court ruling did not have an awful lot to do with that so I cannot answer the question. The annual report will come out in due course.