Women’s State Pension Age

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Mel Stride

Monday 25th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I can assure my hon. Friend that we will continue to engage closely with Parliament, as we have done to date and with the ombudsman. She quite reasonably raises gender pension gaps. This Government have brought in and encouraged automatic enrolment—we have consulted on further changes that we are considering —which has led to a narrowing of that gap as it relates to private pensions. There is always more to do, but we are definitely serious about making further progress.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

The WASPI women in Slough and across our country have been campaigning courageously and consistently for their rights for years. It is the Government’s duty to set out exactly how they will help those women and deliver justice. Given that someone’s entitlement to the state pension depends on how many years they have paid national insurance contributions, what will happen, under the Chancellor’s plans to abolish NICs, to those who are yet to retire? Will they still receive the state pension to which they have been contributing, or will their entitlements change?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Mel Stride

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

23. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of children experiencing destitution.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)]

Child poverty and its reduction is absolutely core to the mission of my Department, which is why we have focused on cost of living payments, why we have put up benefits across the board by 10.1% and why the Chancellor announced £3.5 billion in the spring statement to support our back to work programmes to raise people out of poverty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mel Stride]

Heaven forbid that we do have another Labour Government, Mr Speaker, because I have just set out the case against the last one and their appalling record on poverty. When it comes to cost of living payments, those went to 8 million low-income households and to 6 million people with disabilities. There will be further payments of £300 for pensioners alongside the winter fuel payment in the coming months.

[Mr Dhesi]

I wish to draw your attention, Mr Speaker, to a very distressing case in my Slough constituency. A single mother, a victim of domestic violence, is struggling to pay her rent and meet basic needs due to cuts in her universal credit after being compelled to find part-time work. Her living conditions, including mould in her home, are very badly affecting the health of her children. Will the Secretary of State explain how current policies are helping to support such vulnerable families, and what immediate measures will he put in place to ensure that we do not have such dire situations of destitution?

[Mel Stride]

I cannot comment on the specific case that the hon. Gentleman has put forward, other than to say that what he has described is of concern to me and I will want us to look into that extremely carefully. I will be happy to make sure that he has the appropriate time with the appropriate Minister—I think the Minister for Employment—to look into those matters.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Mel Stride

Thursday 16th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I have made it very clear that thousands upon thousands will be affected. The right hon. Lady is adopting a completely perverse policy in view of the position taken by the shadow Health Secretary until quite recently, when political opportunism around this Budget reared its head. I say that we should stand up for the national health service and the millions of people who depend on it, and we should do what is right for them. That is the right thing to do.

This is also a Budget for parents, with a multibillion-pound extension to childcare support. I note and appreciate the right hon. Lady’s welcome for those proposals. They formed a major centrepiece of the Budget, and I am pleased that she has personally welcomed them.

[Mr Dhesi]

I am so glad that the Secretary of State is talking about pension reforms, but the Resolution Foundation noted that the beneficiaries of these reforms will predominantly gain large amounts of money, and they will be concentrated among the very rich. Does he agree with the Resolution Foundation’s conclusion:

“The more you think about this policy, the worse it is”?

Budget Resolutions

Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Mel Stride

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

On where the investment is going, I have yet to pore over the granular detail, as the hon. Lady suggests, in the Red Book. What I do know, with regard to looking after the less advantaged and the lowest paid in our society, is that important reference was made by the Chancellor to the increase in the national living wage, worth £1,000 a year. Of course, this is a Government who increased the personal allowance, taking millions of people, particularly the lowest paid, out of tax altogether. The changes to the threshold of national insurance contributions to £9,500 will also serve that particular purpose.

Turning to the support that the Chancellor has identified for small and medium-sized enterprises, this is absolutely vital and lies at the core of how we will cope, or otherwise, with what is to follow over the coming weeks and months. We face both a supply and demand-side effect for SMEs. The Bank of England dropped the base rate by 0.5% today, which was clearly co-ordinated with the Budget, and made changes to the counter-cyclical buffers that banks have to hold. That is all well and good and will help banks to put more money into those businesses, but the real issue will be around the fiscal measures that the Chancellor has announced, particularly relating to business rates, time-to-pay arrangements and the deferral of taxation.

I will just say to the Chancellor that the Committee will look at three particular aspects, the first of which is how quickly help can be got out there and whether HMRC is spring-loaded to ensure that businesses are aware of what is available and how to take advantage of it as quickly as possible. I am encouraged by his comments about the helpline. Secondly, is it enough support? That needs to be monitored very carefully. Finally, there is the targeting aspect. Businesses in particular sectors are hurting more than others. We need to make sure that additional help is provided for them, just as we did in similar circumstances in the 2001 foot and mouth crisis, when the agricultural sector needed support. We need to recognise that there are particular types of businesses in that situation.

I am conscious of the time that I have taken and the fact that other Members will want to come in, so I will end by touching on a specific measure that the Chancellor raised: entrepreneurs’ relief. He has taken a brave step, and the right step, in that respect. He is absolutely right that making the changes that he suggested—a reduction from £10 million to £1 million—is not about beating up on the self-employed or entrepreneurs; it is about making sure that tax reliefs are fit for purpose. The changes that he has made, including the increase in R&D tax credits, the more generous treatment in the structures and building allowance and the changes in the employment allowance, will be much more meaningful and powerful in supporting small businesses than entrepreneurs’ relief ever was.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concerns that the Chancellor is not doing enough to tackle the problem of the quality of social care, given that he barely mentioned it in the Budget statement and that 87 people a day die waiting for the care that they need?

[Mel Stride]

The Prime Minister has been consistently clear that we will engage with other parties over the issue of social care, and those discussions will occur. My plea to the House is that people do not seek to take political advantage of the situation and that they engage in a constructive manner.

Finally, the fundamental review of business rates is most welcome. We know why business rates have generally been there—they are easy to collect and it is difficult for tax avoidance and so on to occur—but they are a huge burden on many small and medium-sized enterprises up and down the country. There was no mention in the Chancellor’s remarks of the digital services tax, and I hope I can take that to mean that we are going ahead with that—he is nodding—in the matter of a short few weeks. It is right that we do that.

Google, Facebook and Amazon—those kinds of businesses—need to pay fair taxes in our country. It is not a case of tax avoidance, but of the international tax regime being unfit for the 21st century. We have to get away from attributing tax rights simply to where the bricks and mortar, the people and the intellectual property are, and where management decisions are taken, and look more at where value is created. In the case of those businesses, a huge amount of that value is created here and we must tax it appropriately. I know the Americans will apply quite a lot of pressure and have done so already, but I urge him to stand up to that. We have engaged multilaterally with the OECD and the European Union for the preferred outcome of a multilateral approach, which will avoid double taxation problems and issues associated with going unilaterally, but we have waited too long. We must not, like other countries, step back under pressure. We must go forward with that tax as of the start of the next tax year.

I say to the Chancellor that we in the Committee are his candid friends and we look forward to working with him. Given the kind of pressures and difficulties for our economy and our country at the moment, we are, right across the House, all in this together, and we look forward to him appearing before our Committee on Wednesday next week.