Universal Credit Fraud

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is being constructive with his two suggestions. I recognise the point about people engaging with the formal process, which is one reason why I was so passionately supportive of the roll-out of the Help to Claim scheme, putting in a level of independent support across the jobcentre network, particularly for vulnerable claimants, delivered by Citizens Advice. I think that will make a significant difference.

On the broader point about learning lessons within the banking sector—at times, I am afraid, the banking sector had to be dragged and cajoled into doing the right thing —we continue to look at what more can be done. If there are vital lessons that can be taken from that, those are things that we should give serious consideration to.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

This whole situation is immensely concerning. Can the Minister tell us the average and maximum amounts that victims of these scams have lost?

[Justin Tomlinson]

I cannot at this stage, but we are looking at this as we work through the cases referred. Regardless of the amounts, for each and every victim it is incredibly serious, which is why I reiterate our commitment to do everything in our power to use the full force of the law to target the criminal gangs targeting some of the most vulnerable people in society.

Universal Credit

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words. Again, he raises the issue of pre-population. In our response to the Social Security Advisory Committee, we have set out what we plan to do, but the key thing is that we need to make sure that we get all the information so that we can pay people the full amount they are due.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

Last year, several newspapers carried harrowing accounts of women who were forced to seek abortions simply because of the two-child limit policy. I hear what the Minister says about retrospective changes, but how will the proposal help women who wish to go ahead with an unplanned pregnancy?

Independent Living Fund

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Ian C. Lucas]

Absolutely. It is about those difficult decisions that local authorities have to make to balance their budgets. If they are given a budget, the temptation is to do the best they can with their money but to trim, which can have a real and adverse impact on the individuals concerned.

My own efforts to get to the bottom of the financial position of disabled people who previously received money from the independent living fund have, I am afraid, met with little success to date. I tabled some parliamentary questions and the Department for Work and Pensions blandly said in response that there was no central record of the amounts received by individuals following the closure of the fund in England. If one was cynical, one could say that that was convenient but anyway, frankly, it is just not good enough.

My concern, to pick up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), is that we are in an era of declining local government budgets and are dealing with some of the most vulnerable people in our society, who were previously in receipt of funding from the independent living fund that enabled them to live their lives in the community. In many cases, however, they now receive less money than they did previously.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend and parliamentary neighbour agree that two debates are happening? One is about devolution, localism and the like—a lot of which is very creative—and the other about everything happening in the background with an agenda for cuts. That is where the problem lies and that is how people with grave disabilities could be greatly affected.

[Ian C. Lucas]

That is absolutely the case, and I want to talk about one of the people affected: the constituent I mentioned earlier, Nathan Davies.

Nathan is a proud resident of Wrexham and 40 years old. Aged 15, he was diagnosed with a degenerative condition, Friedreich’s ataxia, which I had never heard of until Nathan told me about it. In broad terms, it is a rare, progressive genetic condition and, in most cases, a person with the disease will be confined to a wheelchair, as Nathan is, within 10 to 20 years of diagnosis. It causes people to tire easily.

Despite his diagnosis, Nathan worked as a journalist for many years until his medical condition meant that he could no longer continue to do so, although that did not mean he stopped being active. Since 2010 he has received funding from the independent living fund, enabling him to live independently with the help of his family and carers. He continues to write and has published an authoritative study of football grounds in Wales—available from all good book stores—and he now campaigns on disability issues. He is not a man to be trifled with, he campaigns hard in elections and he is known as an important local character in the Wrexham area. He is also a big supporter of Wrexham association football club, which will of course return to its rightful place in the Football League next year—promotion permitting.

Last year Nathan’s contribution was recognised by his local Wrexham Glyndŵr University with the award of a richly deserved honorary degree. Today, pretty typically, Nathan is on the front page of The Leader local newspaper in Wrexham, campaigning against a council proposal to charge disabled people for car parking. His resilience and determination are admirable qualities, in particular in the face of the condition he suffers from. We should be helping, not hindering, people like Nathan.

Nathan has pointed out to me that in the past he received specialist advice from the independent living fund, the staff of which he found very helpful in discussion and for assessments. That is something I have heard from other recipients when I have attended recent consultation events on the ILF. As a result of support from the fund, Nathan has been able not only to live in the community but, as the independent living fund intended, to contribute in a really positive way to the community in which he lives, notwithstanding his disability and the challenges that he faces.

The difficulty is that doubt about the future of the fund in Wales is now causing Nathan great worry. Devolution of funding to local councils when their budgets are under great pressure means that there is no guarantee that the levels of funding will be maintained, even if an individual recipient’s condition deteriorates—for example, I mentioned Wrexham County Borough Council’s proposal to introduce car parking charges, which will be an additional expense for someone such as Nathan. The limited research available from England indicates that, as a result of the changes following 2015, more recipients have seen their income fall than increase and 22% of recipients have said that their income has “decreased a lot”; 19% of recipients have said that their day-to-day support has got “a lot worse”; and, in addition, local councils have informed 34% of the recipients of extra restrictions on how they may use their money for support.

In October 2016 the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities reported on the fund:

“The Committee finds that former Fund claimants have seen the support they received from local authorities substantially reduced, to the extent that their essential needs in areas such as daily personal care are not sufficiently covered.”

My own experience is that local authorities are under great financial pressure, and their staff are subject to increasing stress as they make the budgeting decisions.

The UK-wide consistency that characterised the independent living fund funding is no more. Different national systems, as well as devolved budgets within some of those systems, mean that there is likely to be an increasing disparity in provision for individuals in different parts of the country. I struggle to understand the rationale for that approach. It seems to diminish the support given by the previous administration of the independent living fund and to create great uncertainty in the minds of recipients of the fund.

In our constituency surgeries, we all see the great complexity of payments made to disabled people—direct payments, the independent living fund and personal independence payments—and it is difficult for professional advisers to find their way around the system, let alone individual claimants. My key plea to the Minister, who I am very pleased to hear was confirmed in her post earlier this afternoon—that is hot news for everyone—is that, at the very least, the Government should be collecting the detail of the impact of the ILF changes on previous recipients.

We should know and be obtaining from local authorities details of the financial impact of the closure of the fund on individuals. The suspicion is that the transfer of the funds to local authorities is a way of shifting difficult decisions on assessments to councils with diminishing funds, and that the failure to ring-fence budgets will reduce payments. This is the worry in the minds of disabled recipients. If the Government want to assuage those worries, they need to produce real evidence that that is not happening.

In Wales, there is real concern about the Welsh Government’s intention to devolve ILF budgets to local councils. Nathan Davies has arranged an exhibition, characteristically, at Theatr Clwyd in Mold, to highlight his concerns and to put his campaign out there. I will raise those concerns directly with the Welsh Government and I will rely on the evidence from the all too limited research in England to show the adverse impact of the changes in ILF on the income of previous recipients. The lives and experiences of some of those vulnerable individuals have been adversely affected by the changes in recent years. In order to address those concerns, we need more information from all the local authorities in England, to find out the real impact on the individuals concerned, and to take action to improve the situation for those people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas) on securing this important debate and I thank everybody for their valid contributions and interventions this afternoon. My hon. Friend makes a really good point in that this issue has probably not been discussed. Given it has been nearly two and a half years since the fund was closed, it is worth our revisiting it today. He points out that this is a technical issue. Also, he made the really important point that we need to know the quantitative impact of the devolving of funds on existing claimants. He rightly set out the importance of the fund and the part it has played in many disabled people’s lives to enable them to live an independent life and able to fully participate in society.

My hon. Friend set out how the fund made a contribution and how it was devolved to local authorities, particularly in England. That is a good example of the impact it could have when the scheme is changed in Wales. As it stands, it will potentially be devolved to local Welsh authorities, as has happened here in England. He made the point that local authorities’ budgets have been put under great strain, given the funding cuts they have had to endure over the past seven years. We need to take a fresh look at the way funding is given to support disabled people.

I pay tribute to Nathan Davies, a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham and a recipient of the fund. He is a disability rights campaigner and I thank him for all that he does. We need to hear the voices of disabled people so that we fully understand the impact that decisions made here have on disabled people outside.

[Susan Elan Jones]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the fears that my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham, I and others have is that, because there are such pressures on council budgets, there will be great campaigns on locally based issues—the closure of a library or the like—but individuals with disabilities will not have that same sort of voice and could therefore be left unheard and with financial problems as a result of the changes?

[Marsha De Cordova]

My hon. Friend makes a really valid point. She is right. We need to ensure that the voices of disabled people are heard. I can refer back to my own experience here in London in a particular local authority when the campaign on the closure of the independent living fund began. A lot of campaigning took place. It is important that we encourage and empower disabled people to ensure their voices are heard. I totally take her point that we need to ensure disabled people’s voices are not lost in any of the debates. As a disabled woman myself, my role is to ensure disabled people are empowered and their voices always heard.

From the outset it is fundamental that any support for severely disabled people is adequately funded so that we can ensure people with disabilities can live independently. We know that disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty compared with non-disabled people, in part due to the extra costs associated with living with a disability. I cannot carry on further without talking about the Government’s past record in terms of the disproportionate impact that their cuts have had on disabled people. There are 4.2 million disabled people living in poverty and over the past seven years many disabled people feel they have been scapegoated by the Government. A 2016 inquiry by the UN’s Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities found that since 2010 the UK Government have been responsible for “grave or systematic violations”.

The independent living fund—I will refer to it as the ILF—closed in June 2015. The funding was devolved to English local authorities and the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Governments. Devolved Governments adopted their own different policies. We have already heard about the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish policies. The ILF was originally set up in 1988 to help cover the extra costs of being severely disabled. It was also to ensure that disabled people could lead a full and active independent life in their community, rather than living in institutions or in residential care. At the time of the fund’s closure, more than 16,000 disabled people in Britain were receiving an average of around £350 a week towards the costs of living independently.

The ILF was a vital financial resource for many severely disabled people that enabled them to live independently. It helped to cover the everyday tasks that many of us take for granted such as cleaning, washing, cooking, going out and being able to participate fully. At the time of the closure the coalition Government stated that all existing recipients would continue to be funded by their local authorities. In reality, that has not always been the case. It was suggested that many local authorities would not ring-fence funding and the grant would simply be absorbed into a general pot.

For example, Disability Rights UK research suggested that only 29 councils in England would ensure non-ring-fenced funding would be allocated. Indeed, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,

“observed that social care packages have been reduced in the context of...budgetary constraints at the local level.”

As I have alluded to, we know that since 2010 local authorities have come under extreme pressures and have seen their budgets cut. They will continue to have to make cuts and it is unsure how much support disabled people will receive. For example, when an individual who received 27 hours of support a week through the ILF was reassessed under the local authority arrangement, he was to be given just nine hours’ support. Potentially he would have to make contributions as well, and naturally that would have been unaffordable.

The extensive cuts to local government funding have ensured that in many cases some disabled people have been restricted or limited in the lives they could lead. As has been pointed out, there were local campaigns; I was not in this place at the time but I am led to believe that there was a protest here, by disabled people who wanted to change Government’s decision to end the independent living fund in its current form without devolving it to a local level. Despite assurances from the Government of the day, support has been removed from some disabled people, and reduced for those with the highest support needs. In England in particular, there is pretty much a postcode lottery; the level of support that people get is almost dependent on the local authority area they live in. We would all agree that it is fundamental that disabled people’s independence should not be dependent on the level of funding or eligibility criteria set by an individual local authority. Distribution of funding should also be based on need; therefore there should be some sort of universal policy for how that is done.

I want to speak briefly about eligibility. That is determined by the local authority, and we do not see, in many cases, whether recipients’ support has decreased or increased. A decrease would undoubtedly have an impact on someone’s ability to live independently. I share the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham and hope that the Minister can respond on the important issue of what the impact of the changes to the independent living fund has been. How many recipients’ support packages have been reduced, and how many have remained the same? Are there any instances, among so many disabled people, of the support being enhanced? It is also important that we should know that disabled people’s voices will be included in the future when decisions are made about them. That is something that I believe and take a stand on, as does the Labour party. Since 2013 disabled people have experienced £27 billion in welfare cuts, affecting social security and social care support.

As I said at the start of my speech, we believe that it is fundamental that adequate funding is provided to enable severely disabled people to live independently. The Government must ensure that local authorities and devolved Governments are adequately funded. I urge the Minister to touch in her response on how we will deal with working-age disabled people.

Supported Housing

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

Optimism and positivity: I really hope that is what we get from the Government next week. I really hope they commit to dealing with the funding gap and the details of this proposal. I welcome the metaphorical rabbit that was pulled out of the Prime Minister’s metaphorical hat this morning, but I have to say it is a great shame that it took almost two years for it to happen. There has been a great deal of concern on the part of pretty much everyone.

In Wales there are, at a conservative estimate, at least 38,500 supported housing units. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (David Hanson) mentioned earlier, there are real concerns about how any changes relate to Wales and the block grant. I hope the Government will answer that fully next week. In Wales, as in all the other nations and regions of Great Britain, a huge range of projects comes under the banner of supported housing. They include hostels for homeless people, domestic abuse refuges, and a range of supported accommodation projects aimed at supporting people to move on to independent tenancies. In my own area, there is an excellent women’s refuge run by Welsh Women’s Aid. There are projects run by Hafan Cymru that support people as they move on in their lives, and Tŷ Nos hostel in Wrexham can house 16 roofless people on a short-term basis.

Homelessness should be a concern for all of us. Last summer, I met concerned local residents from my constituency who formed a group called Help Wrexham Homeless. They are rightly calling for more night shelter places, which requires more security of funding. It is vital that that comes to our area. I pay tribute to Wrexham Council’s Association of Voluntary Organisations in Wrexham—AVOW—for its work in this area.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) mentioned the recent excellent report, “The Salvation Army’s Supported Housing: Analysis of the Costs of Provision”. The Salvation Army is a huge provider of supported accommodation right across the UK. The report made the startling point that had the Government continued with the system they originally wanted for local housing allowance, the rates would have borne no relation to the cost of providing supported housing. It also made the point—I hope the Government will take great notice of this—that long-term funding security needs to be offered.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady mentions the Salvation Army, which does excellent work and helps 6,000 individual tenants. Does she agree that direct Government contact with the Salvation Army might be helpful, if the Minister has not already done it, to gauge its opinion on supported housing?

[Susan Elan Jones]

Very much so. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I recommend the Salvation Army report and I believe the Government should answer fully all the points made in it.

Many Members will remember eight years ago a gentleman by the name of David Cameron—he subsequently became Prime Minister—giving the Hugo Young memorial lecture. In his speech, he committed to greater support for voluntary groups and charities, expressing the view that they should play a key role in helping people escape poverty. That was called the big society. I listened to the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), but this is not about charities carrying on regardless of how useless the Government are at listening to them; it is about us working together, and I really hope that next week, when the Government come to the House, they will come with new heart, a new vision and new security on this issue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I think that our Disability Confident campaign has contributed to the fact that more than a quarter of a million extra disabled people have started work over the last year. I am also considering improvements that we can make to the Access to Work service, which plays an important role in helping people either to stay in work or to return to it.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

T9. The Secretary of State said that by the start of this year no one would wait more than 16 weeks for a personal independence payment assessment. Will he tell us whether that is the case—yes or no?

[Mr Harper]

As the hon. Lady will know, this Wednesday I shall publish some properly verified statistics. I shall also engage in a lengthy session before the Work and Pensions Committee, when I shall set out the facts in full, as I have been requested to do.

Personal Independence Payments (Wales)

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

Diolch yn fawr, Mr Owen. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I am pleased to have secured this debate on personal independence payments in Wales. It is an important debate for many of our constituents, including many of the most vulnerable, who are being failed by the system. I hope that hon. Members here today will share cases from their constituencies and that we will get some action from the Government.

I could, like other hon. Members, share with the House many accounts given to me by constituents of their experiences. I will begin with one told to me by a lady from Gwynfryn in my constituency, who was diagnosed with breast cancer on 22 August. After fighting through two rounds of surgery, and showing continued strength through chemotherapy, she approached me in January to see if there was any help that my staff and I could offer her. My constituent had applied for personal independence payments soon after her diagnosis. She knew she would be unfit to work and that she would need financial support through a difficult time. She received a response from Capita and waited her turn, hoping that the backlog would clear. My constituent is still not receiving PIP—or any financial support; and she is still undergoing chemotherapy.

Capita’s own information pack, given to applicants, states that assessments should be made within “approximately 28 days.” I think we can all agree that my constituent—like many other people in a similar position—has waited long enough. The Government have instituted a system in Wales that is meant to offer advice and assessment, and to provide support, but it is failing woefully. The absurd situation in my constituency is that Department for Work and Pensions staff are advising local people to get in touch with me to see whether I can help the process along with Capita. Government employees are advising my constituents to contact me, as their elected official, to put pressure on a body that was instituted by the Government and is paid for by taxpayers the length and breadth of the country.

Capita, of course, is an external body—a registered company that is independent in how it chooses to run itself. However, it is clearly failing to adhere to guidelines on processing dates and fulfilling contractual duties, and it is letting down those who desperately need support. That is not good enough. Dim digon da. The Tory-led Government decided to place Capita in charge of PIP assessments in Wales and allowed that system to be put in place without any serious pilot scheme. That cannot be right.

Last week, at our request, a senior representative of Capita met some Welsh Labour MPs. To our horror, in answer to our questions we were told that the company originally thought that assessments would take “around an hour”; in reality they take between two and two and a half hours. In the same meeting, again in answer to our questions, Members were told that Capita estimated it would need to assess 70% of applicants face to face. We were told that that figure is closer to 99%. How could those figures be so wrong? Where was that clarification from the Department for Work and Pensions before the contract—paid for by public money, I remind the House—was granted?

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Like many other hon. Members I could cite cases to reinforce the point about MPs being used by the company to solve issues. Does my hon. Friend hope that the Minister will tear up the parts of his speech that may have been provided by officials about the general background to personal independence payments policy, and that he will focus instead on the failure of the past year, and the suffering that constituents have gone through because of that incompetence? He should explain what has happened and what will be done in future, and apologise to those constituents—who are often the most vulnerable—for the suffering inflicted on them.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend.

The Minister may be heartened to hear me mention a previous Prime Minister, Baroness Thatcher, who used to say she believed we should run the national budget like a household budget. Leaving aside our views on the politics of the late Baroness, perhaps we can use that analogy here, to look at the scandal of the joint DWP and Capita mess that has been made with our money. We might imagine Capita as a firm of builders hired for a two-week job at an agreed daily rate, but which has already taken a month and is still nowhere near finishing. If I or many of my constituents had hired those builders, they would be out on their ear. What if Capita were a local charity, such as the type I used to manage before I became an MP: the local organisation that has to negotiate with a local authority or other body for a service level agreement? We can imagine the conversation: “We are not seeing the agreed number of clients; we are not getting things done on time,” and so on. If a small or medium-sized voluntary or community group, dealing with the council or another external body, was in that position, the agreement would be terminated.

Yet we are not talking about one household and an incompetent builder, or a small or medium-sized charity working with a council. We are talking about a failure, paid for by the tax-paying public and being subsidised massively on a multi-million pound basis. It is time that someone, somehow, somewhere—preferably the Government—carried the can for what has happened as the result of a deal between a private company and the Government, which is not working. Capita has not delivered on its contract with the Department for Work and Pensions. It has time and again displayed the fact that it is letting people down. At what point will the Government stand up, take notice of the constituents who are asking for help, and take action on an issue that is becoming more serious with every passing day?

In Penycae, another village in my constituency, a constituent suffers from terrible arthritis throughout her body, and is on lifelong medication as a result. Until last year, my constituent held a responsible, white-collar job. In June, her contract was terminated for reasons of medical capability. One would think that at that point she would receive support, but since she left her job in June she has been waiting on PIP. She has been waiting for Capita. She is completely unable to work and that has been confirmed by her GP and by hospital consultants. My constituent can provide personal reports, X-rays and supporting documents that make it crystal clear that she is entitled, in need and completely genuine; there is no doubt about it.

Why, then, is the system failing my constituent and so many others like her across Wales? The Government’s fact sheet on personal independence payments says:

“PIP is to help towards some of the extra costs arising from a health condition or disability.”

PIP, the replacement for disability living allowance put in place by the current Government, can be anything from £21 to £134 a week. It can be used to cover transport, care and all sorts of other costs that can be vital to those who are disabled or sick. By the Government’s own admission, PIP is support for people when they are unable to work because of a health condition or disability and need financial help. That is what the Government say PIP is, and that is what they claim Capita is providing.

The constituent I mentioned is still waiting for any kind of financial help. She is receiving no level of care from Capita or any other Government body. Since being forced to leave her job in June, she has been completely outside the system and is without any financial support. As a result, my constituent has lost her bank account and is experiencing the attention of debt recovery services. For Capita to tell someone like my constituent from Penycae that her case is in the queue, that a backlog is being experienced and that someone will “get to her when they can”—I believe those were the exact words—is absolutely not good enough. My constituent cannot wait another few months for money to come in. She needs it now. In fact, she has needed it since June, when she first applied. How many people can seriously be expected to live for nine or 10 months without any income? Yet that is what is happening in her case.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mike Penning)]

It is right and proper that this debate is taking place, but PIP is not the only form of benefit; it is a benefit on top of other benefits. No income at all, which is what the hon. Lady said, is ever so slightly—I respectfully say—misleading. I accept that there is an issue, which I will come on to in my response, but the lady to whom she referred would have been able to get other benefits.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I would be delighted to put the Minister in contact with my constituent or, indeed, with all the current cases I have, and they could rightfully have that debate. PIP is a huge issue. I am sure that he is rather sorry that there are absolutely no Government Members here to defend him, so he has to do a little of his own work on that score this morning.

[Mike Penning]

I really hope that the debate this morning does not deteriorate. I am not that sort of Minister. I genuinely want to help. I do not really mind who is in the Chamber; it is a question of whether we can get PIP right. Of course I will take up any cases that are raised here today, as I do on a regular basis when constituents write to me; the hon. Lady has also written to me many times.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I assure the Minister that I want this issue sorted, and I am only sorry that it has not been sorted sooner.

I am of course aware that assessments are complicated. I am under no illusions that such systems are easy to run, and they are not simple to understand. I am clear, however, that Capita is being given public money to provide a service. I called for the debate today because my constituents are being left without any information about their cases; they are waiting on calls that are not returned; and they have no way of highlighting their situation, complaining or seeking help. That is why they are coming to me and to other Members of Parliament.

I was also shocked to learn that Capita has not even set up an official hotline for MPs. When constituents come to me about problems with other public bodies, I am able to contact someone quickly. That is part of our job as Members of Parliament, and the hotlines provided to MPs are an important part of the contact system. Capita, the company providing PIP assessments for the entirety of Wales, does not provide such a service. When it was pushed, I was given a number, but it was made clear to me that it was not an official hotline. I am loth to bring up Atos in this debate. The Government recently scrapped the contract with Atos because it was not delivering, but even Atos had an official hotline set up and working.

The debate is not simply about backlogged services and Capita not estimating correctly or preparing adequately. It is clear from Capita’s entire handling of PIP assessments that it was not the right company for the job. How much public money is being spent every single day by the Government on the service? How much public money is being spent on this company that is not returning calls? How much public money is being spent on this company that is forcing cancer sufferers to cross their fingers through massive delays? How much public money is being spent on this company while it forces those too sick to work into debt?

To return to our analogy with household economics, Capita is not the slow or dodgy builder, or the little charity worrying how it will see all the people it needs to see because it has two people off sick one month; Capita is supplying all the contracts for PIP assessment in Wales, which is a multi-million pound contract. Capita is the middleman, the company between the doctor and financial support—in many ways, it is the company between the hospital and the debt collector. At the moment, we are not seeing it provide such a bridge or, in many cases, any bridge at all.

Over and over again, the Government have said that they need to save money, and yet they are spending millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on a company that is not delivering on its contract. At what point do the Government step in to ensure that the service is being provided?

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

One of my disabled constituents was given a two-week assessment slot that had already elapsed. According to the media, civil servants are now helping Capita to deal with the backlog. Does my hon. Friend agree that this botched benefit is causing nothing but distress throughout the country, and that the implementation of PIP has been a total shambles?

[Susan Elan Jones]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. Indeed, when the Prime Minister announced that the system would change to migrate those on disability living allowance to a personal independence payment, surely that was not part of the promises he made. When PIP was first introduced last year, surely the waiting times, the missed calls and the assessments for which staff have failed even to turn up were not part of the deal. In the debate today and whenever we discuss PIP in Wales, we are talking about real people—people with serious health conditions and real individuals with real families, who are desperately struggling.

I am certain that it is hard enough to fight cancer without having to fight Capita and, by extension, the Department for Work and Pensions. Capita is letting down people in real need. The Government are letting struggling people down by not stepping in and getting the mess sorted out. Waiting times for assessment have been so long that, in some cases, people with terminal conditions have died before receiving a penny—and yet Capita remains in place and the Department for Work and Pensions has not even imposed a fine. This is a scandal of national proportions.

Some of the most vulnerable people in Wales are being let down—and yet every single taxpayer throughout our land is being asked to foot the bill for a totally inadequate service. For the sake of my constituents in Gwynfryn and Penycae, and people everywhere in Wales, I urge the Government to take action now. It is time that the Department for Work and Pensions did its job. And it is time that the relationship with Capita was sorted out, or for that company to be given the boot.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hywel Williams]

I am glad to hear that that is the rate. Of course, with people who are terminally ill, we want to see a rate of 100%. I also had a look at the figures from the PIP reassessment and impact report from December 2012, which gives a forecast for March 2014 of 87,000 reassessments, with 180,000 reassessments in the March 2012 strategy. Perhaps the Minister can give us further information.

A particular issue in Wales is assessment through the medium of Welsh. I put a question to the Department some time ago, and was told that the assessments would follow the Department’s Welsh language scheme.

[Susan Elan Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Does he agree that one of the ways in which Government and officialdom get it a bit wrong on the Welsh language is by assuming that the only people who need any sort of Welsh language provision are those who complete the forms in Welsh? As many of us know, there are people who are vastly more comfortable speaking Welsh but not necessarily writing it.

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[Mike Penning]

I completely taken on board what the hon. Gentleman says. Indeed, what is just as important is that people with mental disabilities often have other disabilities as well and they need to be treated as an individual case, with all their disabilities considered in their entirety.

We are working very closely with Capita. The Capita model is different from the Atos model. As was alluded to by the shadow Minister, Capita is doing 60% of its work within the home and 40% in other assessments. It is completely unacceptable if someone is being asked to travel the distances that we have heard about today. The maximum time someone should travel is 90 minutes. In rural communities, which were referred to in the debate, even that length of time is really difficult, because travelling for 90 minutes in a big capital city is completely different from travelling for the same time in a rural community. I have asked my officials to begin a review today about the access issues that people are having. They will review not only the time that it takes for people to go to an assessment centre but the time it takes for Capita to come to a person’s home, because travelling time is not considered as part of the time for the assessment. I will come on to that in a moment.

[Susan Elan Jones]

Can the Minister tell us how bad Capita has to get before, in his estimation, any fine would be imposed upon it by the Government?

amendment of the law

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Guto Bebb]

The hon. Lady makes comments from a sedentary position, but—

[Susan Elan Jones]

No, I want the hon. Gentleman to give way.

[Guto Bebb]

I will happily give way after I have made this point.

My comments about the Welsh Government’s failure to support the Work programme are endorsed not just by Conservative Members but by the Welsh Affairs Committee, on which the majority of those voting were Labour Members.

[Susan Elan Jones]

The hon. Gentleman has returned from Patagonia as partisan as ever. Why does he not commend the fact that 80% of traineeships under Jobs Growth Wales are in the private sector? Surely, as a former small business man, he welcomes that.

[Guto Bebb]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point about Jobs Growth Wales. When I wrote to local businesses in my constituency, I mentioned the possibility of young people getting on to the Work programme, but I also mentioned the possibility of using Jobs Growth Wales. I find it odd, however, that because somebody who is about to leave a youth detention centre in England, for example, is automatically enrolled on to the Work programme, they cannot access Jobs Growth Wales owing to the policies of the hon. Lady’s party. It would be well worth her while to read the criticisms that the Welsh Affairs Committee made, with cross-party consensus, of the Welsh Government’s actions on programmes that are there to support and train young people and to give them skills to take up opportunities that exist in their communities. She should raise that issue with members of her own party.

We have a success story on jobs. We are seeing a fall in unemployment in my constituency, with positive measures to support small businesses. We depend entirely on the small business community for the growth and development of jobs, and one key thing that we are doing is reducing the burden of employers’ national insurance contributions on small businesses. The reduction of £2,000 in the next financial year will be a great boost to small businesses that are looking to employ members of staff, and that is crucial.

The hon. Member for Wigan mentioned the need to ensure that we deal fairly with small businesses. Again, we can compare and contrast the efforts of the UK Government under difficult financial circumstances with what is being done in Cardiff. For example, there have been calls, demands and cries for help from small businesses in the retail sector, which have stated clearly that they need help with business rates. The Chancellor has responded so that, for example, any small business in England that has a rateable value of less than £50,000 will not only have a cap on their business rates this year but get a £1,000 rebate. That might not sound like a lot of money to some Members, but for a small retail business in my constituency that is struggling to survive, £1,000 could make the difference between success and failure. Again, though, what is happening to that £1,000 rebate in Wales? It is not getting through to small businesses. The Welsh Government are retaining it in Cardiff to support another of their pet projects.

We hear from Opposition Front Benchers—we heard it from the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions today—that people in this country face a cost of living crisis. I invite them to look at the situation in Wales. In my constituency, a Labour-Plaid Cymru council has increased council tax not by 5% or 10% but by 23% since 2010. That increase could have been avoided if the money made available by the UK Government had been passed down to local authorities in Wales, so that they could try to support hard-working families at this difficult time by freezing council tax. It is a fact that only one council in Wales has managed to freeze council tax for two years. Conservative-controlled Monmouthshire has done so for two successive years, despite the lack of financial support from the Welsh Labour Government.

In my own authority of Conwy, we have had increases of 5% and 4.8%, with a total increase of more than 25% since I was elected, simply because the Labour party in Cardiff and in my constituency is happy to place further burdens on hard-working families at a time when they need support. The situation is unacceptable, because money has been made available under difficult circumstances by the Chancellor but the Welsh Government have decided that they would rather keep it than to support hard-working families in north Wales. That is clearly a disgrace.

This is a solid Budget that will allow us to look to the future with confidence. I would be delighted if some of the changes in England were also to be implemented in Wales. Unfortunately, that is not the case, but I hope that the people of Wales will be wise enough to identify the failures of the Welsh Government in that respect.

The other key thing that has been welcomed with open arms by my constituents is the change to pensions. We have heard some reservations from Opposition Members, but not perhaps from Front Benchers, who seem to be aware of the popularity of the change. The change is popular, because it is right to tell people that they need to take more responsibility for their own lives. We have seen that in relation to the changes in personal taxation, on which the coalition have said, “Let’s increase the personal tax allowance and allow people to keep more of the money they earn.” The Labour version is to say, “Give us the tax, and we’ll put it through a bureaucratic system and then we’ll give you something back, which you must be grateful for.” I must say that when it comes to a general election, it was very handy for people to be able to phone up and say that the Conservatives are getting rid of tax credits.

The key point is that we believe in increasing the personal allowance because we trust the people. In the same way, we are making the change to pensions simply because we trust people to make the right decision about their own money. What is key is that if people are willing to save and invest for their own pensions, surely they have the right to make their own decision about how they best make use of their pension pot on retirement. The change will be welcome in my constituency, in which the average age is among the highest of all constituencies in Wales; indeed, my postbag tells me that it is being welcomed now. The key thing is that we are making the change not because we have a party political agenda, but for the simple reason that we trust the people to make the right decision about their own money.

--- Later in debate ---

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

It is a huge privilege and pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), who speaks with such knowledge, expertise and passion in this most important area.

At a time when there seem to be days for celebrating pretty much everything in this country, I do not think that there will ever be a national Department for Work and Pensions day. That is a bit of a pity, because the areas it covers represent some of the major challenges that any Department faces. For instance, how do we deal with the issue—I prefer to see it as a good thing—of people living longer lives? How do we incentivise work? Critically, how do we empower and enable people whose lives often seem to be blighted from the very start, if not from before they were even born?

I want to start on a note of consensus. Several years ago, the centre-right Centre for Social Justice had a point in relation to some of its arguments in the debate about broken Britain. Some of the arguments went over the top, but it pointed out that bits of our social fabric were not working as well as they could or should have done, and some of the questions it asked then are just as valid today.

How are we helping and enabling people who are battling to make a decent livelihood for themselves and who are often hampered by the system? How is family stability supposed to be enhanced by the burgeoning practice of zero-hours contracts? Most of us would contend that it will not be, and there is also the whole issue of the pension provision or the lack of it for people on those contracts. Can it be right that a family with a severely disabled child—so disabled that they require large medical equipment—should be penalised for essential space in their home? What about the taxes of ordinary people the length and breadth of our country subsidising ever-growing housing benefit payments to buy-to-let landlords? Why have we turned food banks from charitable outlets for emergency use, primarily for rough sleepers and certain immigrant groups who have fallen on hard times, into what they have now become—monuments of a failure to tackle systemic poverty? This Government will still not listen to the Trussell Trust and call an in-depth public inquiry on food poverty in Britain. That is broken Britain Cameron-style.

There can be no serious debate about welfare that does not speak the language of jobs and job opportunities. That is the one issue of greatest concern in my constituency. I welcome the fact that youth unemployment fell in January, although not that it rose again in February. This Government all too often have the approach of a bad post-Christmas dieter: gaining half a stone in weight at Christmas, but back on the scales at the end of January thinking it has been a great triumph to lose 3 lb.

It is a disgrace that the number of young people stuck on jobseeker’s allowance has almost doubled under the current Government. More than 900,000 young people are out of work, at a time when bank bonuses are rising and the wealthiest are given tax cuts. That is why I am proud of my party’s proposal for a jobs guarantee that will give young people real job opportunities. It is right that we as the Labour party—that is what it means by Labour—want to invest in a high-quality scheme such as that, and it is important that we put the emphasis on Labour and make it clear that we will not put up with abuses from the minority, because that is not fair on everyone else.

What does that type of programme mean? In Wales we have seen it with the Labour-led Welsh Assembly, and we are seeing the benefits. We have delivered the sharpest reduction anywhere in the UK among NEETs—those not in education, employment or training—with figures falling faster in Wales than anywhere else in the UK. Let it be known that under Jobs Growth Wales, a programme for 16 to 24-year-olds, 80% of those traineeships are in the private sector, and 78% of participants secure work. That compares, I think, with 15% under the UK Government’s Work programme which, as one Government Member said earlier, had teething problems.

Job opportunities for young people matter. I recently saw that very clearly in Chirk in my constituency at what we will always think of as Cadbury’s, although now it goes under the name of Mondelez International. One thing that struck me as I spoke to the apprentices in Chirk is that they were a pretty diverse group of young people. Some had got on well in traditional school settings and some had not, but they were all enthused by their new programme of work and the prospects their new skills offered. That is why tailored apprenticeships in different fields matter, and we need to be passionate about working with different types and sizes of employers in providing them. Absolutely nothing matters more than providing job opportunities for young people, because how can we hope to develop a work ethic where there is no serious work?

Pensions Bill

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Gregg McClymont]

Of course Hansard will tell this story, but it was a short quote and I think I managed to get it down correctly. If the Minister is saying that it was not that there were 17 flaws in the amendment, I am sure the whole House is delighted to have that clarification.

Let us probe a little further into the Minister’s argument. He says that on the Government’s estimates only about 50,000 people are affected, that there should be no “rush to solutions” and that the amendment is flawed technically for many reasons—but perhaps not 17. He says that the Government need to build their evidence base on the issue. Interestingly, he said that the Office for National Statistics has urged caution about the notion of an upsurge in zero-hours contracts. His point was, and the ONS’s point is, that it might be that individuals are more aware that they are on such a contract than that the upsurge has been so great. If that is the case, it does not negate the point that there are a significant number of these sorts of contracts around, and that has significant implications for a state pension system based on contribution.

I asked the Minister about the 17 logical flaws, but his argument also was that we do not know enough to go forward with an amendment to solve the problem. However, he also said he understands that the average zero-hours contract gives an individual between 15 and 20 hours of work a week. Is that his estimate or is it based on research? In a world where we are not precisely aware of the figures involved, there is a danger of bandying around our own figures without a relevant citation.

What situation are we trying to deal with through this amendment? As I said, we have an increasingly fractured and insecure labour market, and the question is whether individuals in that labour market and the pension system relating to that market are appropriately structured and linked. The amendment, introduced effectively in the other place by Baroness Hollis, seeks to deal with what is, on any measure, a significant problem. We welcome the fact that the Bill brings 4 million self-employed individuals into the state pension without an employer’s contribution, and of course those self-employed people pay £2.70 a week. The amendment’s thrust is that we need a similar approach for short-hours workers. The Minister rightly said that this is not just about zero-hours contracts; it is about the insecurity of short-hours working in the labour market more broadly and matching that up effectively with a universal state pension—the Minister is keen on that.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

I have been listening to my hon. Friend and to the Minister, and I was alarmed by the Minister’s statement that people on zero-hours contracts “could” be okay, be that to do with their working arrangements in other areas or the fact that they may work a sufficient number of hours. That implies that they also might not be okay.

[Gregg McClymont]

As usual, my hon. Friend makes a pertinent intervention.

There is an issue to address and the question is how to do it. The Minister suggested that Baroness Hollis’s amendment, which my colleagues and I agree with, prescribes a specific solution, but of course it does not; it is a permissive amendment. As the Minister, using that fertile mind of his, started to think about different solutions, one could see the point of the amendment even more: to give him and his colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions the authority to think carefully about how to solve this problem. He gave a number of ideas as to how it might be solved, which was when we particularly saw the function of this amendment. It would bring the best minds in the DWP together to deliver a solution, and it would remove the need for subsequent primary legislation. So, by his own words, the Minister gives succour to the amendment.

The amendment has a clear purpose: it is a permissive amendment to enable the Government more finely to match the state pension reform that the Minister is introducing with the nature of the modern labour market. He talked about estimates of the number of individuals involved. As he will know, Baroness Hollis has come to a different conclusion about the number affected and is very clear that the universal credit, which he mentioned, will not help the largest group—single people—nor, usually, will it help women without younger children or households where the joint income, including the man’s income, floats them off universal credit altogether. She calculates the number of individuals affected as being 250,000, which is a very different figure from the one the Minister gives. Universal credit, which he said would ameliorate the problem, will not help single people, women without younger children or households where the joint income, including the male income, floats them off universal credit. It is important to put that on the record. If a significant number of people are affected by this and if the Minister wants to make the state pension as universal as possible, as the Opposition believe he does, it would seem sensible for him to accept a permissive amendment allowing him to go forward on the basis of his thoughts about the various ways in which this might be taken up by the Government and to get cracking on it. The fundamental point is: why should those who, through no fault of their own, are in short-hours working or zero-hours contracts—those various kinds of flexible employment contracts—be denied the benefits of a full state pension?

The Minister said that the problem is not as significant as Baroness Hollis has suggested and that someone would need only 35 of 50 years in the labour market to qualify, but the issue is that where people spend significant parts of their life on these contracts, what is meant to be a universal state pension does not necessarily become one.

Oral Answers to Questions

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

First, may I say how pleased I am to see my hon. Friend in her place? It is my personal hope that she remains there and returns to the House again, because she gets great coverage for her constituents. The issue she raises is an important one, but we need to get the right balance between what zero-hours contracts deliver and any abuses there might be. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is carrying out a consultation, and we are fully co-operating in that and will ensure that such contracts do not cause problems in the Work programme. However, it is worth remembering that those contracts also provide people with a flexible way of working and the freedom to arrange jobs around other commitments, and they allow employers to be competitive in response to market trends. I therefore think that we must get the balance right with zero-hours contracts and not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We must recognise that for many people they are positive and helpful, but we also want to end any abuses there might be for others.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

19. What plans he has to meet representatives of the Trussell Trust.

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

Although food banks are not a Department for Work and Pensions or Government responsibility, Department representatives and Ministers—myself included—have on occasion had cause to meet representatives of food banks, including the Trussell Trust.

[Susan Elan Jones]

A decade ago at Easterhouse the Secretary of State said how important small, grass-roots community organisations are. If he really believes what he said then, when he spoke the rhetoric of broken Britain, is not it time he set a date, met the representatives and listened to what they have to say about food poverty in the United Kingdom?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I have two points for the hon. Lady. First, I have just said that all of us have at some point met representatives of the Trussell Trust. Secondly, I absolutely think that those involved in food banks and in supporting those who are in difficulty or in need are very valuable members of the community, and I celebrate the work they do. I believe that it is the right thing for them to do. I think that all those involved in food banks are decent people trying to do a decent bit of work for those in need of help, and we support that in general terms as constituency MPs. However, I must say that the over-politicisation of this issue has done no help at all, as some leaders of food banks have attested over the past week.

Food Banks

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Baker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that, and indeed the One Can Trust also provides recipes which help people to get through and use that food effectively. The One Can Trust has delivered 2,859 parcels since March 2012, reaching 3,182 adults and more than 2,000 children—without the trust, poverty in Wycombe would be truly desperate. It operates five pick-up centres, has eight sessions at which people can pick up food and usually delivers within 24 hours. The trust enjoys support from the Big Yellow Self Storage Company, and has matched funding from Barclays and Santander. Warm drinks are provided to volunteers by Starbucks, and the Eden shopping centre provides parking for volunteers. This is an astonishing exercise of social power, and I am very proud of what the trust is doing, particularly because of the story of one young boy.

This is a young boy who about 33 years ago, at the age of eight or nine, bounced down the stairs because his loving father called him down for his tea. This boy bounced joyfully down the stairs but thought it was funny, in his youthfulness and his childishness, to poke the fried egg and say, “Ugh, what’s that?” At that point, his father, with his great working man’s hands, picked up that plate of food and slung it straight in the swing bin, bellowing, “All right, we will both go hungry.” That was my father, a working man who had reached the end of the money and the end of the food. I did not mean to wound my father then, nor do I mean to wound him now, because he loved me and he loves me still. My father did absolutely everything he could, but where was the welfare state? It was not there for him, because it did not know what to do for an independent, self-employed man who had run out of work.

Unfortunately, that went on and on, to and fro, in the legacy of the previous Government; it was tough for a self-employed builder. My father coped by finding further work. My mother took on two and even three tough jobs. I saw her get arthritis in her hands, ageing her early, all because there was no food. What happened eventually is, of course, that they divorced, and my mother went on to live with a man who could at least put food on the table. So I certainly know the consequences—I live with them today—of having too little food in a home.

I am therefore proud of the One Can Trust, because in times of crisis it feeds families. I like to believe that had food been available in my home when I was a child, not only would my father not have had to go hungry, but perhaps my mother would not have had to take on those jobs, perhaps they would not have divorced and perhaps a range of things that ought not to have happened but which did would never have taken place. I am very proud indeed that at this time people across our nation are stepping up where the state is falling that little short. However, I must ask: what is the cause of the crisis? The cause of this crisis—

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Steve Baker]

I will just make this point. The cause of this crisis has been pretending that there is some magic wand: that prices can be declared to be lower; that wages can be declared to be higher; and that if only Labour Members were on the Government Benches the state would be responsive and in times of crisis would quickly leap in. That is not true now, it was not true 33 years ago and it will not be true in the future. It is essential that things such as food banks step in, but I am encouraged by things such as the community store, which go further and make this kind of mutuality and co-operative approach—this charitable endeavour—much more sustainable by making inexpensive food available to the working poor.

I will leave the final word to the chairman of One Can Trust, David Rooke. He has said:

“David Cameron has got it exactly right. Society needs to be empowered to step up. That’s what The One Can Trust is all about.”

I am proud of it.