Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Webb and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 23rd June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman raises the valuable work of foyer projects. My noble Friend Lord Freud, the Minister for welfare reform, leads on housing benefit for the Department, and I will ensure that he is aware of those projects, if he has not already held specific meetings about them. If the hon. Gentleman would like to give us further details, we will be happy to look at them.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

The under-35 shared accommodation rate is a particular problem for fathers who do not live with the mother of their children, but want their children to stay with them at weekends, when it is simply not suitable for children to be in the sort of accommodation with other young men that people get under the rate. Has the Minister examined that situation?

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Lady will be aware that, in exceptional cases, housing benefit can be topped up, but she will also know that the same issue could arise under the shared accommodation rate for under-25s. However, if two single people choose accommodation together, the combined total of their shared accommodation rates is larger than one family’s standard rate for a two-bedroom flat, so two people coming together can rent a larger property than a family requiring two bedrooms.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Webb and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

My hon. Friend raises the crucial issue that, while the largest firms have been able to negotiate very good charging levels, we cannot be certain that the smaller firms will even be offered them or, indeed, that employers will necessarily be interested in charging levels when it is the employees, rather than the employers, who pay them. Our consultation will touch on that issue and on that of active member discounts.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T5. The Government continue to disregard warnings from the likes of Oxfam and Church Action on Poverty that many of the 500,000 people being forced to use food banks are doing so because of delayed, reduced or withdrawn benefits. The Department seems not to be interested in collecting any statistics behind the reasons for that referral. Will the Secretary of State look into this to see what impact his benefit changes are having on people who simply cannot afford to feed themselves?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Webb and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 5th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

Yes. We have had 100 expressions of interest from voluntary groups and charities, and we have whittled that down to about 30. All are trying to build on existing work that enables parents, when they are separating, to deal with each other in a mature way in the interests of the children. That is the central aspect of our new strategy.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

When family breakdowns occur, grandparents, aunts, uncles or other relatives often have to step into the breach and a kinship care situation arises. Will the Minister assure me that he is talking to his colleagues in other Departments to make sure that when that situation happens, particularly in an emergency, support is given to those who step up to the plate?

[Steve Webb]

I agree that we need to support kinship carers, such as grandparents. One change that our Department has made is that, for example, where a mother is going out to work and is not using the national insurance credits that she would have gained for receiving child benefit, they can be passed to a grandparent, who may not be of pension age, to make sure that they are not financially disadvantaged. That is just one of the things we are doing to support that important group.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Webb and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 23rd April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

The Pensions Regulator communicates regularly with trustees and provides a trustee toolkit on its website that sets out their duties, but I think that auto-enrolment provides an opportunity for ethical investment. For example, the National Employment Savings Trust will specifically have an ethical fund for those who wish to invest in that way, and I hope that the schemes my hon. Friend refers to will seek to find investment through that sort of route.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

16. What recent estimate he has made of the level of unemployment in Bristol.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Webb and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

In order to give my hon. Friend a sense of scale, let me tell him that we lent a little over £200 million in crisis loans last year, and less than £500,000 was written off as unrecoverable. As I have said, the vast majority of loans are recovered, but I share my hon. Friend’s concern that the money should be lent correctly. Localising parts of the crisis loan system will lead to much closer local scrutiny of the purposes for which the money is being lent.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

24. What assessment he has made of the effect on child poverty of benefit changes in (a) 2011-12 and (b) 2012-13.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Webb and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 14th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

Yes, the hon. Gentleman is right. We want to see an end to top-down, “Whitehall knows best” government. We want to see local communities and voluntary groups empowered and enabled to provide tailored solutions for individuals and local communities.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Labour in government had planned and funded 50,000 jobs for older people in areas of high unemployment and high deprivation under the future jobs fund. Will the Minister confirm how many of those jobs will be scrapped and what, if anything, will be put in their place?

[Steve Webb]

As the hon. Lady knows, jobs that are already contractually bound will go ahead. However, she falls foul of the old new Labour fallacy—that just because the Government temporarily fund a job, that makes it into a real, lasting job. I am afraid that life is not like that; the Government’s payment of a temporary subsidy does not make a permanent job. We will be investing in long-term, sustainable employment, which will benefit older people far more.