Women’s State Pension Age: Ombudsman Report
Stuart C McDonald Excerpts(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
It is a pleasure, as ever, to follow another expert speech from the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). I commend my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) for securing the debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) for taking forward his Bill. Both are real WASPI champions, and they make a fierce campaigning duo on the Front Bench.
The state pension is relied upon by more than 12 million of our citizens, and certainty about when they will be able to claim it is pivotal for many more who are planning retirement and making huge decisions based on that date. We now know that when changes to pensions impacting 1950s-born women were being implemented, those changes were not communicated properly. Many received no direct communication at all. Others found out what was to happen too late, having already made major decisions that they would not have made had they known the changes that were ahead. Communicating changes to the state pension must be done well in advance, and using all means possible. That did not happen with the WASPI women. That is the nub of what the ombudsman found, and it is what the Government have to acknowledge.
As the ombudsman said, an apology is due and compensation is owed. Parliament has been asked to take the lead on this, and so the first and most important point that Members have been making unanimously is that the Government must hurry up and deliver. It has already been a long and arduous road to justice for the WASPI women. It has taken far too long, and as has been noted, tragically too many will not get to the end of that road with us. Once again, I pay tribute to my constituent June Miller, a key figure in establishing our Cumbernauld WASPI group. It was an honour to work alongside her and the local team as they were establishing their campaign group, hosting public meetings and running WASPI surgeries. June marched outside Parliament with her WASPI colleagues from across the UK in October 2018. She made the case forcefully, eloquently and patiently—typical of the WASPI campaign.
It is heartbreaking that June is one of more than 280,000 WASPI women to have died during the lifetime of the campaign. That is why the most important message that we are conveying today is that the Government must move swiftly. The Work and Pensions Committee is absolutely right: let us have proposals before the summer, and as has been said a couple of times, those proposals must be amenable to amendment by MPs. It is Parliament specifically that has been tasked with this, not just Government Ministers. As others have said, there is no excuse. The Government should have seen this coming months and years ago.
The big point of contention is clearly the level of compensation. While the ombudsman spoke of level 4 compensation, most of us know that that reflects only the handful of cases that the PHSO looked at, and almost certainly not the range of experiences faced by the WASPI women as a whole. My view is that such a level of compensation feels significantly understated, and is not a fair reflection of the impact that the maladministration had on many of my constituents. I know that lots of hon. Members feel the same way. I therefore join others in commending the work of the all-party parliamentary group, which has argued that fair compensation means level 6 compensation, because of the
“profound, devastating or irreversible impacts”
that the changes had. The point that that went way beyond a financial impact, and caused
“extraordinary emotional, physical and psychological distress”
is consistent with the experience of WASPI women in Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East.
I also think that there is considerable merit in a system that allows for higher payments for those who suffered the shortest notice and faced the longest delays until their state pension age. There will be WASPI cases that have not been examined by the ombudsman where compensation for direct financial loss is absolutely appropriate, but again, speed is important. A general payment for lack of notice should not be delayed, but thereafter I do not see why claims for additional awards for direct loss could not also be proceeded with and considered. In that, there would be a parallel with the Windrush scheme, where concerns about the slowness of decision making led to pressure from the Home Affairs Committee for provisional or interim payments to claimants, which thankfully were implemented. It is possible to have speedy payments for all and thereafter to go on and have detailed consideration of individual claimants.
Another, perhaps even more important, lesson from Windrush that I do not think has been mentioned in this debate is that surely it would be wise for the compensation scheme to be run independently of the DWP, and preferably independently of Government altogether. That is surely sensible if people are to have faith in it, particularly when the Department is proving so reluctant even to recognise that it has done anything wrong. The perception of a lack of independence certainly hindered the Windrush compensation scheme and undermined people’s confidence in coming forward to claim from it. We should learn a lesson from that.
Finally, on another day we will need to come back to the question of why it has taken so long to get here. I do not mean any of this as a criticism of the ombudsman or its staff; it is more to do with the resources available to them and the parameters within which they have to work. However, whether with WASPI, Windrush, Horizon, infected blood or any other recent scandal, time and again the mechanisms for putting right injustice and Government maladministration seem to have been slow, and sometimes even more of a hindrance than a help. We need to revisit and overhaul how such failings are examined and remedied. As we have heard, justice delayed is justice denied, and that has certainly been the case for too many WASPI women.
In conclusion, our constituents are not asking for the earth—they never have been. They are quite realistic about what can and cannot be done, and now they have the backing of the ombudsman. The Government need to recognise, to apologise and to compensate, and more than anything they need to do so urgently.
Women’s State Pension Age
Stuart C McDonald Excerpts(9 months ago)
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Mel Stride
What I am not really clear about is why the hon. Gentleman is urging me and the Government to draw a premature conclusion on the basis of— [Interruption.] No, it would be premature. As he points out, the report arrived on Thursday. It is now Monday, very early evening. It is complicated, so it is absolutely right and proper that we look at it very carefully and in great detail. It is only right and proper that we do that for the people who are concerned with this matter. That is precisely what we will do. We will act without undue delay. We will make sure that we engage with this House in an appropriate fashion, as we did with the ombudsman himself.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
The expression “Justice delayed is justice denied” has never seemed more appropriate, with so many thousands of WASPI women waiting for justice to be delivered and dying in the process. It is not just the five years waiting for the ombudsman’s report, but the years before that jumping through the hoops of the DWP complaints process and the independent case examiner. As well as delivering swift compensation, will the Secretary of State’s Government look at fixing the system that has delayed, for the best part of a decade, the delivery of justice for WASPI women?
Mel Stride
We will look closely at the report and we will, no doubt, draw many conclusions as a result of that process of careful examination of the findings and the points made within the report. My commitment to the House is that we will do that without undue delay and that we will also engage appropriately with Parliament as part of that approach.
Oral Answers to Questions
Stuart C McDonald Excerpts(9 months, 1 week ago)
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Mims Davies
Claimants’ satisfaction has remained above the service level of 90% or higher as of the three-month average that began in September 2016. The end- to-end clearance time from registration to a decision being made is currently 15 weeks, which has been reduced from 26 weeks in August 2021. [Interruption.] The hon. Lady asked very gently what we are doing. We have multi-channel assessments and I am engaging regularly with my officials twice a month to ensure that we are assessing the queues and the delays and, as I said at the start of this question, that we are treating everybody individually and in a tailored and suitable way.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)
We are reducing child poverty through the use of a large number of measures, not least ensuring that work pays, hence our increase in the national living wage in April and the reduction in the national insurance tax that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced recently.
Stuart C. McDonald
A total of 100,000 children will be kept clear of poverty this year thanks to the Scottish Government’s policies—primarily the Scottish child payment. Surely the Secretary of State must now look to rolling out some of our policies in other parts of the UK and, at the very least, ditch the two-child limit, which deliberately forces children into poverty.
Mel Stride
The limit to which the hon. Gentleman refers is there for a very good reason, which is that people in those circumstances should face the same basic decisions as those not on benefits. That is an important matter of fairness across those who receive benefits as well as the many who are paying tax. As for the number of children in poverty, that has fallen by 400,000 since 2010.
State Pension Changes: Women
Stuart C McDonald Excerpts(9 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
I start by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for his persistent and powerful advocacy of the WASPI cause.
I am here to speak up for the WASPI women of Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, who I have had the honour of working with these past nine years. Their campaign has been dignified yet determined, but, while it has been an honour to work with them, it is appalling, as other Members have already said, that they and their brilliant colleagues from across the UK have had to keep fighting for so long.
Along the way we have lost some brilliant campaigners. I pay particular tribute to my constituent June Miller, a key figure in the Cumbernauld WASPI group who marched just outside this Chamber in support of WASPI women in October 2018. Tragically, she is one of about 260,000 WASPI women to have died during the lifetime of this campaign.
It is surely beyond any doubt now that WASPI women have suffered injustice as a result of DWP maladministration, for all the reasons that the hon. Member for Strangford set out. The key point is that the PHSO stage 1 report recognises precisely that, so now the DWP must recognise that stage 1 report and the stage 1 findings.
The recommendations from the PHSO should be the starting point, or the bare minimum, for the DWP. To go further would be absolutely welcome, but coming up short most certainly will not be. The PHSO has encouraged the DWP to be proactive. Instead, Ministers continue to bury their heads in the sand. Many billions of pounds have been saved by the Treasury through pension reforms; some of that must be used to put right the wrongs that have been suffered.
The other relevant context here is the ongoing cost of living crisis, 14 years of austerity and decades of entrenched wage and pension inequality. All those factors have impacted WASPI women more than anyone else, so fair compensation is not just due, but absolutely urgent.
Strong arguments have been made that “fair compensation” should mean level 6 compensation, because of the profound, devastating or irreversible impacts that the pension changes have had on WASPI women. The women in my local WASPI groups have undoubtedly endured a reduced quality of life for considerable periods thanks to DWP maladministration and they will continue to suffer in that way until their losses are recognised and compensation is paid.
The time taken to get to this stage is clearly unacceptable. The Government need to look at making PHSO and other ombudsmen better able to deal with cases of that scale. More immediately, when recommendations on compensation are finalised, every effort must be made to get it paid urgently. Those steps must start now, so that there is no more unnecessary waiting. The WASPI women are not going to go away, and neither will MPs in this Chamber today—not until justice is done.
Draft Child Support (Management of Payments and arrears and fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2023
Stuart C McDonald Excerpts(11 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
It is good to see you in the Chair, Mrs Latham. I want to briefly put on record the Scottish National party’s support for these draft regulations, and particularly for the scrapping of the £20 fee, which makes perfect sense. The Minister’s arguments for reprioritising resources, so that we chase not very small amounts of money but larger sums, also make sense, but obviously we need to monitor that very carefully. We would, of course, encourage the Government to go further on issues such as collecting pay fees, the 4% in particular. Some of the arguments that the Minister has used today for scrapping the fee could equally apply to that charge. Like Members from across the Committee Room, we want the overall performance of the service improved, but that is for another day. Perhaps it is for the Backbench Business debate that we hope is coming. In the meantime, we support these regulations.
Draft Cessation of EU Law Relating to Prohibitions on Grounds of Nationality and Free Movement of Persons Regulations 2022
Stuart C McDonald Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Bone. As the Minister knows from his previous roles, my party fully regrets the end of free movement for a variety of reasons, but we have had that debate—and will probably have it again another day. If we do, regrettably, bring it to an end, we should be careful in how we go about it.
The measure is framed as being technical, but it has significant implications for those impacted by it. Even the title of the regulations is slightly misleading. What the regulations will cease is not prohibitions on grounds of nationality, but the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of nationality. The regulations will entitle the Government to discriminate against EU nationals.
Furthermore, the Minister’s statement that equalities legislation is untouched by the regulations is questionable. Discrimination on the grounds of nationality is, of course, prohibited under the Equality Act 2010, section 9(1)(b) of which makes it clear that race includes nationality. Of course, there are exceptions relating to immigration status, but paragraph 17 of schedule 3 of that Act was amended by the Equality (Amendment and Revocation) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018, so that it now refers to
“anything which forms part of retained EU law by virtue of”
sections 2 to 4
“of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018”.
Basically, all I am saying is that despite ministerial assertions to the contrary, equalities legislation is impacted by the regulations, so Ministers should be a little more careful about their assertions on that subject.
My second and probably slightly more important point is on what the regulations say nothing about: the position of people who are within scope of the withdrawal agreement. The Minister touched on that in his description of the regulations. Currently, people who are protected by that agreement are left to rely on it, and on international law. The question is, why do we not have an equivalent set of domestic protections for them, along the lines of the 2019 regulations to which I have just referred? Currently, those people are left to rely directly on just the international treaty. Imagine how difficult it is to walk into a social security office or anywhere else and say, “Never mind these regulations that your Government are producing at an incredible rate; here is an international treaty, and I have rights under it.” We need an equivalent domestic protection for those people, so they can say, “Here the Government set out that I have those rights, as someone protected by the withdrawal treaty.” That is what I would like to see in the draft regulations, but they are silent on that point. By endlessly passing such regulations, we make life more difficult for people who should be protected.
Finally, I will mention another set of regulations to illustrate my conclusion. A lot of exceptions were set out in a piece of legislation called the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 (Consequential, Saving, Transitional and Transitory Provisions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020. In schedule 4 of those regulations, all sorts of exceptions are set out—rights that continue, notwithstanding other measures that brought free movement to an end. Again, the draft regulations are silent about that, and it is not absolutely clear to me how the sets of regulations relate to each other.
That brings me to my concluding point. It is becoming incredibly and hellishly difficult to work out where we are at. The Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 was introduced a couple of years back; a lot of the provisions we are debating should have been in primary legislation, so that we could debate and scrutinise them properly, but instead we are trying to follow five, six, seven or eight pieces of delegated legislation at a time. It is becoming really hard to understand what is going on. On that note, I will listen carefully to what the Minister will say, but I am not attracted by the draft regulations.
Stuart C. McDonald
First, will we ever see something in domestic law that is designed to protect the rights of those who are protected by treaty? Secondly, on the list of exceptions in schedule 4 to the Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Act 2020 (Consequential, Saving, Transitional and Transitory Provisions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020—quite a mouthful—a huge list of rights are retained under that SI. Are they affected by the draft regulations? Will the Minister answer that, now or later?
Tom Pursglove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. It reminds me of times gone by, when we regularly debated immigration-related matters in the House, and probably at times in this Committee Room. My clear understanding is that, given the protections in the withdrawal agreement, no rights are being taken away. However, I am happy to take away his substantive question, and to come back to him on it in writing. With that, I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Stuart C McDonald Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Mims Davies
I thank the hon. Lady for giving me one last chance at the Dispatch Box—that sounded rather ominous. In-work progression is absolutely vital; from April we will, as was just mentioned, have more work coaches supporting people who have got stuck, as some people have—there might be things going on in their lives which mean they need more skills or confidence. The Secretary of State and I are working on this response and will be bringing it forward very shortly.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Dr Thérèse Coffey)
Yes, I have.
Stuart C. McDonald
I thank the Secretary of State for that illuminating answer. Jack Monroe was right that this cost of living crisis could be fatal for some, and that is not a term to be used lightly. Has the Secretary of State urged the Chancellor to reverse the £20 universal credit cut and rule it out to legacy claimants, or has she asked to replicate the Scottish Government’s £20 per week child payment? Where is her comprehensive plan to stop our constituents suffering—and by “plan” I do not mean more loans?
Dr Coffey
There is a cross-Government effort to tackle the cost of living; that has been ongoing for some time, and was most recently revealed by the Chancellor’s announcement on council tax rebates, but also—[Interruption.] Council tax rebate is not a loan; the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) is misinformed. There is also a phasing of energy bills. [Interruption.] I am afraid the hon. Lady is yet again wrong in her assertion about the council tax rebate. However, moving on, the Chancellor really listened when he moved to make sure that the taper rate was reduced to 55% in the autumn Budget; that is ongoing, and it recognises the principle of universal credit that people will be better off working than not working. It is already delivering that, and I welcome the fact that the Chancellor did that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Stuart C McDonald Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Mims Davies
I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting the daily work that is going on in our jobcentres through Plan for Jobs, Way to Work, and our new additional jobcentres—150 more have opened, and 160 youth hubs. They are absolutely changing people’s lives, and we are committed to helping people to progress.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
Dr Coffey
As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, it is for the Home Office to make that decision, and of course, people who are in that situation can apply to the Home Office for it to be changed. It is a fundamental principle that if people are coming into the country, we want people to be able to support themselves, rather than rely on extra support to which they knew they would not be entitled.
Oral Answers to Questions
Stuart C McDonald Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mims Davies)
Work coaches are vital in delivering our £30 billion plan for jobs. They have done an amazing job already this year, with an additional almost 5,000 work coaches already recruited, another 1,700 agreed starts in the pipeline and recruitment open again. We will be advertising for 3,000 more posts between now and the end of January, in addition to the posts currently advertised. Search “work coach” on gov.uk to apply.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
Dr Coffey
We want to make sure that all eligible pensioners claim the pension credit to which they are rightly entitled, and we want to encourage people to either call the free claim line—0800 999 1234—or go online to gov.uk/pension-credit. We did a considerable amount of advertising earlier in the year to encourage that, and of course the BBC has, in effect, done some free advertising, recognising that those people who have pension credit will also get a free TV licence.
Oral Answers to Questions
Stuart C McDonald Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Mims Davies
My hon. Friend is exactly right, and we are rolling out youth hubs across the country so that our young people can access that important wider support. Those hubs will be co-located and co-delivered with our network of external partners, including members of the youth employment group. Our jobcentres are already delivering activities at local level to support our young people, including mentoring circles, virtual job fairs and sector-based work academy programmes.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Will Quince)
The Government introduced a package of welfare measures worth more than £9.3 billion this year, to help those facing the most financial disruption during the pandemic. We introduced a series of measures to support people, including an increase in the universal credit standard allowance for 12 months, worth up to £1,040. Increased local housing allowance rates have put an average of £600 into people’s pockets, and we made statutory sick pay available to employees from day one.
Stuart C. McDonald
I thank the Minister for his answer, but ending the £20 universal credit uplift could see food bank use increase by 10%, according to the Trussell Trust, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has warned that 16 million people could lose £1,000 a year overnight, plunging 700,000 more people into poverty. Will the Government remove that cliff edge and make the £20 uplift to universal credit permanent?