Personal Independence Payments

Tom Clarke Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I welcome this debate.

The measure of a Government’s compassion is their treatment of the most vulnerable members of society. Although we all recognise the unfortunate reality that we must deal with our nation’s deficit, that should never be done on the backs of that section of our society. I requested this debate in response to the dreadful experiences of some of my constituents with personal independence payments. Many of them require the state’s support in order to enjoy a life that those of us fortunate enough to enjoy good health often take for granted. For them, a fair measure of support makes the difference between spending their lives at home, isolated, alone and cut off from the rest of society, and enjoying as active a life as possible and participating in their communities.

Colleagues will know that in the past I have raised the deficiencies of the former disability living allowance. When a constituent of mine endured the difficulties associated with a laryngectomy—the removal of the voicebox, which is almost always carried out as a means of treating cancer—I spoke in the House. The benefits process was so convoluted that it resulted in an individual having to fill out an application form of massive proportions. That would be difficult for many of us, let alone for an individual with a profound physical or mental disability. In this individual’s case, using a telephone was just not possible. Enable, the charity supporting people with learning disabilities in Scotland, has said:

“Whilst it may be possible for many claimants to make this initial call without support, it is our experience that people with a learning disability are often unable to do this and require the physical support of advice services. This is especially true when no family or other support is available to assist.”

Citizens Advice Scotland agrees.

I sought this debate today not least to congratulate Citizens Advice Scotland, which runs the Scottish citizens advice bureaux, on its 75th anniversary. I warmly commend its excellent staff and many volunteers. Crucially, it released a report recently that shows that the rollout of PIP to replace DLA is in an utterly shambolic state. I commend that report to the House for its consideration, and I intend to make a number of references to it. For example, for some rural residents in the north of Scotland the nearest assessment centre is in Inverness, which requires an 80-mile round trip. In some cases, people have to go even further, travelling distances of up to 100 miles, and even in urban areas there are serious problems.

I will give another example of a person who was contacted by Atos for a home visit, so that they could receive a medical assessment for PIP. The individual was receiving in-patient care in hospital on the arranged date and informed Atos, which told her that non-attendance at the meeting would affect any award of PIP. Therefore, the patient had to arrange for an early discharge from hospital and pay for a taxi back to her home. Using a walking frame and with a nasogastric tube in place, she was told by the health care professional who arrived to see her that the assessment could not be carried out because she was too ill. Of course, that left the patient very upset and the health care professional informed her manager of this. Consequently, the health care professional was told that she could carry out the assessment if the patient agreed that it could go ahead. Afterwards, the patient had to get another taxi back to the hospital, at a cost of another £12.

Numerous cases involve what is at best a very sceptical line of questioning and at worst an outright interrogation of a claimant’s circumstances, and I know that many of my colleagues know of similar experiences.

Another decision involved an individual with heart failure who was initially refused any component of PIP, because she had walked from the car park to the assessment centre, albeit with enormous difficulty.

Time and again, the main reasons why people are asking for PIP decisions to be reviewed are, first, the failure to consider fully the impact of a client’s condition during the medical assessment, and, secondly, inconsistencies in the information provided by the Department for Work and Pensions following a decision.

Decisions about the refusal of the mobility component also cause problems. In its comprehensive report, Citizens Advice Scotland states that it has found selective use of evidence in order to make a decision not to award the benefit. Clients feel that not all of their circumstances have been considered, or that they have been over-simplified.

Another awful example is that of a client who had just been awarded a PIP daily living standard rate. He was told that he could drop dead at any time due to a heart condition, and he had a specialist cardiologist’s report from the beginning of last year stating that. The person is so traumatised by the wait and the hardship that have been caused that he cannot face the appeal; he has been told to avoid stressful circumstances at all costs. All that, and much more of what is in the report, is totally unacceptable.

Four in five advisors say that delays are causing worsening health, and in nine out of 10 cases are causing additional stress and anxiety, not to mention financial strain, while claims are being assessed.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this debate, and I am sure that we will continue to discuss this issue during the course of the day.

What can double or treble delays is the delay upon delay in the appeal procedure. I know of the case of someone who first applied for PIP back in September 2013. She was refused it in the first instance. She was then successful at the first-tier appeal, but the Department has not yet decided whether or not to appeal to the next tier up; because of various delays and errors, that decision has not yet been reached. So, 13 months after first applying, she is still facing nobody knows how many months of delay, and that kind of thing is causing people much tension and pressure, is it not?

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions must be brief.

[Mr Clarke]

I know why my hon. Friend feels so passionate, and the experience that he has shared with us is reflected in the views expressed in the report that I am asking the House to consider.

Another example I can give is of an individual who has serious health issues and who last year was diagnosed with throat cancer. He has been waiting for an appointment with Atos to be assessed for PIP. Due to the length of time that his processing is taking, he is now in a great deal of financial difficulty, with rent and council tax arrears of almost £2,600, despite his wife working full-time.

As we all know, PIP is an important passport to many other benefits, such as carer’s allowance, disability premiums, the mobility scheme, concessionary travel schemes, etc. It is indeed a lifeline for people who could not afford to leave the house otherwise and it is a vital part of their personal finances. It cannot be right that many of them face ruin and destitution while they are waiting for their claim to be processed.

This extreme financial hardship has caused a number of individuals to rely on handouts from friends and food banks, and on the accumulation of debt to an unsustainable degree. I know of an individual who has been waiting for an assessment since November 2013, but now his income has been so reduced that he cannot travel to appointments; if he pays for transport, he cannot top up his electricity meter. He has post-traumatic stress disorder and his current situation is resulting in his becoming more withdrawn and reluctant to request help. His mental health is deteriorating as a result. He has worked his entire life and in his 50s is a first-time claimant.

In Coatbridge, which is in my constituency, on 1 April there were 82 PIP applications for daily living claims and 160 mobility claims. I checked with Coatbridge CAB this morning and discovered that all these claims are lying in the in-tray of Atos or DWP and not being brought to a conclusion. I also clarified the position of the CAB in Bellshill, which is also in my constituency. It is handling a PIP claim that has been pending for 10 months.

My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) tells me that there are similar problems in his city, and on that point I will give way.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way and I congratulate him on securing a welcome and—in many ways—a well-timed debate. He has just described what we are experiencing in Coventry, including sloppy paperwork and long delays in receiving benefits, especially the earnings supplement, which is claimed by 25% of the claimants in Coventry. CAB time is taken up with that.

We see the same if we look at matters nationally. About 75,000 people are affected nationally, so what is happening in Scotland is also happening in Coventry and the rest of England. I do not want to repeat what my hon. Friend has said. Despite that, we should congratulate the city of Coventry, because it is trying to get on top of what is, quite frankly, an overwhelming problem. This whole facility—the entire benefits system—must be looked at now, because it seems to be a shambles.

[Mr Clarke]

I am glad that my hon. Friend intervened to underline my assertion that problems exist throughout the whole United Kingdom.

The truth is that the picture is depressing, and it is not as if the Department for Work and Pensions has not been warned. The National Audit Office, which published a report in February 2014 entitled “Personal Independence Payment: early progress”, investigated the performance of the DWP as it introduced PIP. It found that

“the Department did not allow enough time to test whether the assessment process could handle large numbers of claims. As a result of this poor early operational performance, claimants face long and uncertain delays and the Department has had to delay the wider roll-out of the programme.”

The Department anticipated that it would take 74 days to decide on a claim, but the actual average wait is 107 days. For terminally ill claimants—I underline “terminally ill”—the process was taking 28 days on average against a departmental assumption of 10 days. That represents a wholly unrealistic assumption of the capacities of both the Department for Work and Pensions and Atos in Scotland. The end result is a system that would not work on paper, clearly does not work in practice and is further straining claimants’ finances and health.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, said in response to the NAO report:

“The Department need to understand the causes of this backlog to develop a clear plan on how they are going to work with contractors to clear it, and ensure there are suitable processes in place to make sure this does not happen again.”

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

I have experience in my constituency, as I am sure my right hon. Friend does in his, of people winning an appeal after a considerable amount of time. The person will receive their PIP allowance some six months after, but their housing benefit is not backdated to the point at which they lost their disability allowance. When the benefit is lost, the person also loses their passport to housing benefit, but local authorities do not backdate to the day when the person lost their disability or other benefit. People are therefore left with substantial debts in their housing account that no one will pay for.

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. If I may say so, I am pleased that we have here so many Coatbridge-born Members of Parliament, including my hon. Friends the Members for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) and for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham). Not least you, Mr Gray, have close associations with Coatbridge—

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. The right hon. Gentleman knows well that my father was born and brought up in Coatbridge and that my grandfather was a butcher in Coatbridge, but that need not imply any sort of sympathy with his case.

[Mr Clarke]

Mr Gray, I do not think that anybody would confuse your neutrality in this debate with the opinions that you rightly express when you have the opportunity.

Mencap, when giving evidence to the Public Accounts Committee, asked that the reassessments of people currently claiming disability living allowance be stopped until the huge delays in assessing people’s PIP applications were dealt with. The Select Committee on Work and Pensions, chaired admirably by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), released a report in March 2014 entitled “Monitoring the performance of the Department for Work and Pensions in 2012-13”. It found that the current level of service offered to PIP claimants and the length of time that disabled people had to wait to find out whether they were eligible was “unacceptable”. Statistics published by the DWP on 11 February 2014 showed that 229,700 new claims had been submitted up to the end of December 2013, but that only 43,800 decisions had been made. Noting that some claims were taking six months or more to process, the Committee called for “urgent action” on the current “unacceptable service” provided to PIP claimants. While some of the reports were published several months ago, the situation has hardly changed. Statistics released by the DWP in September show that, of the 529,400 cases registered for PIP between April 2013 and the end of July 2014, just over 206,000 had been processed and awarded, declined or withdrawn. That means that just under 40% of cases registered for PIP have been cleared in 16 months, which is a wholly avoidable disaster for claimants.

The problem is not exclusively Scottish. The Government, through the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, are gambling that the British public are suffering from austerity measures and that they have little interest in how people with disabilities are being treated. The Government are wrong, and their standing in the eyes of the public is suffering. People with disabilities have families and friends, and the British people are profoundly fair. In any event, it is morally repugnant for the coalition Government to mistreat vulnerable people as a result of a bureaucratic logjam that they have created and for which they must accept responsibility. In other words, it is a United Kingdom Government problem.

I have congratulated Citizens Advice on its report, but it would be remiss of me not to highlight and promote the outstanding work of local government and their partners, which engage closely with vulnerable people. In my constituency, for example, North Lanarkshire council has recognised the plight of vulnerable people and has impressively put substantial additional resources into tackling their welfare issues, providing even more welfare rights officers. No praise is too high for the marvellous work that they do.

[Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Clarke]

If my hon. Friend allows me, I will not, so as to give the Minister time to reply.

In conclusion, the Secretary of State should have the humility to offer a profuse apology for the stress, hardship and financial inconvenience that the roll-out of PIP has caused to so many people. He should publicly apologise on behalf of his Government. There should be a clear timetable for dealing with the transition to PIP, and it should be agreed in consultation with local government, Citizens Advice, MPs and interested charities. There should be no further roll-out of PIP until all the problems and backlogs have been sorted. There should be a further independent inquiry to identify how the Department for Work and Pensions got into this hopeless mess and how it will respond.

Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Reform (Disabled People)

Tom Clarke Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

I am delighted to be called, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I am not going to shut up. The hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) and I serve on the Public Accounts Committee, so she knows that neither of us are prone to shutting up when the issues are important.

I agree with the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), who has just left, that a bipartisan approach has been the best way to move the agenda forward for disabled people. We have to be careful, however, not to rewrite history. The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 was actually a hard-fought campaign. My right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) was one of the champions of that debate. I give credit, as I have on more than one occasion, to the Leader of the House, who, in the teeth of opposition from the Conservative party and with the support of the then Prime Minister, John Major, helped to manage this House to a position where it accepted the claims and the campaigns of disabled people, including the campaign conducted by my right hon. Friend. So we should not rewrite history, but there has previously been a bipartisan approach.

The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), was part of that when he was my shadow and accepted the basic tenets of the 2005 report published by the Prime Minister’s strategy unit on improving the lives of disabled people. That report challenged us all to examine how we accepted our responsibilities to break down the barriers preventing disabled people from fulfilling their potential in education and employment, and to encourage them to make an active contribution to their local community. Work was the cornerstone of that new agenda. But a statement of a right to work does not in itself deliver the right to work, and we need to be clear that the right to work for disabled people has been further undermined by the failure of this Government’s employment programmes to deliver the necessary support for disabled people. They can brush it off, but the Work programme is seen by many disabled people as inflexible, baffling and little more than going through the motions.

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her kind remarks. Is she aware that only a few weeks ago Citizens Advice Scotland published a compelling document detailing case study after case study on the issues she is raising? Does she agree that that is important to this debate?

[Mrs McGuire]

Let me hark back to the comments made by the hon. Member for Thurrock and say that it is not some weird conspiracy of charities, Labour politicians and disabled people that is creating the environment where people are suffering because of the ways in which the Government have carried forward their employment programme.

I congratulate our two Labour Front Benchers today, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), because they have recently put on the record how the Labour party would devolve responsibility for some of the support for disabled people, taking a new approach and ensuring that it is more locally based within the employment market. We need to ensure that the new approach of our party is not top-down; if we do not involve disabled people in the planning and development of programmes that have an impact on their lives, we will have lost our way. I am sure that we will take forward that particular model of involvement of disabled people.

The Minister made great play of the talk about cynicism. May I say that disabled people have for the past four years been the subject of the most cynical campaign in modern social political history? They have been subject to a campaign that vilified them from the beginning. It started with a premise that disability benefits were the subject of widespread fraud and that, by definition, disabled people were cheating the system. It progressed by plucking an arbitrary figure—some 600,000—out of the air and saying those people would lose their benefits. It ended with a mess, where disabled people no longer know what benefits they will get, how long it will take to get a decision and whether they can apply in the first place. The Minister is a nice person but it takes some brass neck to come to this House, acknowledge there is a problem, forget that the Government created the backlog and then try to take the credit for reducing the very backlog that their policies have made happen. I hope that he will reflect on what he said.

Let me deal briefly with Lord Freud’s comments, because they show just how much we have lost in the past four years. The fact that the Government’s Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Reform thought that some disabled people could work for £2 an hour was not just a “mis-speak” but was more attributable to a mindset. No amount of apology from the noble Lord could disguise the fact that not only did he “mis-speak”, but his comments challenged a vision that disabled people thought they had agreed with us: that they can work where possible and they should be treated equally in that regard. If we start to finesse the payment for work, where will this stop? A minimum wage is a minimum wage is a minimum wage; the Government cannot start to segment it.

I felt desperately sad when I read Lord Freud’s comments. I want to say to him that rights cannot be traded. They are not given but are intrinsic to us all as members of a democratic society. Lord Freud showed by his crass “mis-speaking” that he has failed to understand that, and, as such, he should have had the integrity to resign. As he failed to do that, the Prime Minister definitely should dismiss him.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) on an excellent maiden speech, and very much welcome the tribute that she paid to our dear friend, Jim Dobbin.

The House will know that, for many years, I have been involved in disability activities. I have worked with Members from both sides of the House—John Hammond, Nick Scott, Jack Ashley, Alf Morris and Sir John Major. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire) said, I shadowed the present Leader of the House when the 1995 Act was going through the House. There was, at that time, a genuine spirit of consensus from which we are now departing.

I have listened with great respect to the speeches of Government Members, including that of the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler), and I have to say that the issue is much, much deeper than simply a conflict between two political parties. I do not want to spend too much time on Lord Freud, except to say that given what he said, I do not believe that Clement Attlee or Harold Macmillan would have kept him in government for more than 10 minutes. The issues here are profound. They include a perception of this House, which is reflected in the support for the main political parties in every part of the United Kingdom, and in the understanding of people with disabilities and disabled organisations of the change we mean to deliver at a time of enormous poverty.

I am not alone in that view. When I was preparing for a very important debate that I initiated in Westminster Hall this morning—I was delighted that the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) was able to be there—I came across two articles, which helped me to make my point. This issue is at the core of people’s perception of this Parliament. In the Evening Standard, Armando Iannucci wrote an article entitled, “Why politicians of all parties are kicking the poor.” Its sub-heading said:

“Demonising genuine welfare claimants as skivers and benefit cheats is simply creating a more divided society.”

Some people might think that that is over the top, but there was also an article on the same subject in The Guardian this morning. It asked this question: why, in addressing poverty, were we hounding a woman because she did not turn up for a disability examination and she stole from a food bank? She was faced with all the abuse that a court could provide.

[Mike Kane]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Poverty is high on the agenda when we face our constituents day in, day out. My constituent Matt Hopkins has faced real hardship. He applied for his PIP assessment in June 2013—he approached Paul Goggins, my predecessor, about the matter—and he did not receive a payment until June 2014.

[Mr Clarke]

I accept my hon. Friend’s serious point.

In this morning’s debate on whether we really understand the hardship that is being inflicted on people with disabilities and on whether it was the right way for a Minister to express his views, I gave some examples of what was happening in my constituency. I also repeated the views of Citizens Advice Scotland. Let me give a couple of examples of the points that I made. I mentioned that four out of five advisers at Citizens Advice Scotland said that the delays are causing worsening health and, in nine out of 10 cases, additional stress and anxiety, not to mention the financial strain that people live under while their claims are assessed.

I also gave figures from my constituency. Over a long period, applications for what is now PIP, formerly disability living allowance, have been lying for months and months without being dealt with. Citizens Advice seems powerless in this situation. I gave examples of case after case of real hardship. The people whom I represent and the people with disabilities are looking to this Parliament, and what is our response? The Minister of State, for whom I have great respect, helped me make my case when he sought to persuade the House by saying that Lord Freud had also advised Lord Hutton. But that is the point—a huge number of people simply do not trust this establishment. A huge number of people are experiencing poverty, and a huge number of people with disabilities are seeing themselves as victims, not as recipients of the compassion that this House should provide. People are waiting for many, many months for money that they desperately need and for other passported benefits. They are worried, as am I. I do not think that Lord Freud was the best person to speak for this House or for this Parliament at such a dangerous time.

Jobs and Work

Tom Clarke Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I accept the point that there are regional differences in the pace at which the recovery is happening. As it happens, of the four nations in the UK, Scotland and Wales are growing more rapidly than the UK average. However, Northern Ireland is not. I know that there is a debate about corporation tax. I do not think that is the central issue. The problem in Northern Ireland, as the hon. Gentleman well knows, is that two major banks are bad banks and are seriously contracting lending to small business. I am trying to work with the Northern Ireland authorities to assist with that.

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman has not so far given the figures on zero-hours contracts. He will know that the Office for National Statistics has said that 1.4 million people are on those contracts, but the Government say that only 250,000 are. What is the reason for the difference?

[Vince Cable]

I was going to talk about zero-hours contracts later, but since the right hon. Gentleman has asked me the question, I will try to explain. There are very different estimates of zero-hours contracts. The ONS gives very different figures from other surveys. They range from roughly 2% to 4% of all jobs. It is worth mentioning this in passing. The shadow Secretary of State has been quite modest about his own contribution. He has been in correspondence with the statistical authority, which rebuked him for being misleading in terms of the trend in zero-hours contracts. It is a significant problem, and in a few moments, I will come to how we want to address it.

Let me move on to the underlying question in relation to zero-hours contracts and to what the Opposition are trying to say about living standards. What has always surprised me in these debates is that people are surprised that living standards fell in the wake of the financial crisis. Let me rehearse some basic facts. In the 2008-09 crisis, the British economy contracted by over 7%—more than any other major economy. It was the worst shock to our country—worse than in the 1930s. It was only after the first world war that we had a comparable hit to our economy. It was an enormous disruption, with massive implications for people’s jobs and living standards. It did happen under the last Government. It was not entirely their mistake, but it was on their watch and they had a substantial responsibility for it.

That contraction of output inevitably translated into people’s living standards, and median wages in real terms contracted by about 7% as a result of the crisis. That has been the impact on living standards. It is clear. What is different from previous recessions is that the people at the bottom end of the scale have been protected by two things: first, the minimum wage—there is cross-party consensus on that, which I welcome—and, secondly, tax policies that led us to lift large numbers of low earners out of tax altogether.

Let us look at what the combination of those factors has meant and the work of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. It makes the point that the contraction in real take-home pay for people in the bottom 10% was 2.5%. For the people in the middle, it was 6% and for the people in the top 10%, it was 8.7%. That was an essentially progressive response to a major economic crisis. Of course there are still major inequalities of income and wealth. We acknowledge that, but that relates to the top 1%, rather than the top 10%.

How do we strengthen the minimum wage system, which my colleagues and I fully buy into? We decided earlier this year to increase the minimum wage faster than inflation—a 3% increase, the biggest cash increase since before the recession. The Low Pay Commission has issued guidance to secure improvements to the real minimum wage. We accept that one of the main challenges—which the last Government did absolutely nothing about—was enforcement. We inherited a system in which the maximum fine per company was £5,000. Under this legislation, we will strengthen it to £20,000 per worker—a big step up in taking seriously sanctions in respect of the minimum wage. We now have a naming and shaming regime in place, and 30 companies have been named since it was initiated a few months ago, and as a result of much more active intervention by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, we have increased by a factor of 38% the amount of arrears identified and paid to employees. All the things that the shadow Secretary of State is calling for are now being done.

Let me address the specific issue of zero-hours contacts. It is a problem, but let us get it into perspective. Although there are wide variations in the estimated number of zero-hours contracts, we are talking probably about between 2% and 4% of jobs. Of course we do not want people in that type of employment to be disadvantaged, but many take up such employment voluntarily, and particularly for students and older workers, it is an attractive system. For some, however, it is exploitative and as a result of our consultation—one of the biggest that the Government have undertaken, with over 36,000 people responding—it was very clear that there were some points on which action needed to be taken, and we are going to take action on exclusivity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

In March 2014, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that

“while unemployment has come down, there are still over 2 million looking for a job. It will take time to fix that. But we will not rest while we still have so much wasted potential in some parts of our country.”

I could not agree more, but in the fifth year of this Government I would offer an alternative recipe to the one that has so far been provided.

The fact is that there is greater insecurity in the workplace, not as a consequence of the Government’s economy strategy but because it is at the heart of that strategy. As we have heard today, competition on low wages and low-skilled jobs will not lead individuals or families out of impoverishment. People face the insecurity of zero-hours contracts, which we have rightly discussed, with the Office for National Statistics estimating that 1.4 million are involved. It is shameful that nobody can say with any certainty the precise number of people who are forced to work on these contracts. I welcome the Secretary of State’s saying in response to my intervention that this is “a significant problem”—it is indeed, and I hope he will accept that now is the time to lift the lid on what is going on, to remove the veil of secrecy and to provide some transparency so that we can be told exactly what is going on.

Earlier this year, I asked the Chancellor a question about unemployment in my constituency, but his reply skated over the reality. Setting aside part-time, zero-hours and low-paid jobs, I will tell the House the reality. Since the global crisis, the unemployment figures for my constituency have rocketed from 2,800 in 2008 to 5,300 in 2014—that is a staggering increase of 89.3%. What about the future? Youth unemployment has increased by 53.5% in the same period. And all this has happened as the rich have become wealthier while under this Government millions of people—many of them in my constituency—have barely had an increase in pay.

Is it any wonder that these policies are leading to extremes? “Get us out of Britain”, says the Scottish National party in Scotland. “Get us out of Europe”, screams the United Kingdom Independence party. “Let’s become inward-looking and introspective in response to global challenges”, it says, while 3.1 million jobs are at risk over Europe. The media would have us believe that in the recent European elections, people voted principally against Europe and against immigration. Neither I nor the polls agree. As Nye Bevan once said:

“Such a naive belief in the rational conduct of human beings would wipe out the whole of modern psychology.”

Is it any wonder that, out of frustration, people looking for jobs can be duped or beguiled into believing the propaganda from both UKIP and the SNP? They are responding to their own experiences of declining standards of living and austerity. Therein lies my deepest worry, which is reflected in what is going on in France. I am talking about the challenge to freedom itself.

As we emerged from the second world war, we had to deal with greater economic challenges and a far bigger deficit problem than we have now. Sir William Beveridge in his book “Full Employment in a Free Society,” wrote:

“If full employment is not won and kept, no liberties are secure, for to many they will not seem worthwhile.”

There is an immense responsibility on this House, at this period in our history, to respond to the real concerns of ordinary people, who know, despite the statistics and propaganda, that life for them is very difficult. There are difficulties in dealing with the cost of living; difficulties in dealing with energy prices; and difficulties in finding jobs and in keeping them. In the interests of all our people throughout the United Kingdom, we should ensure that there are real, well-paid jobs and a good future for our young people based on proper apprenticeship and training. We should seize the opportunity, even in the short time between now and the election, to respond to the British people and ensure that we aim to help the many and not just the few.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

amendment of the law

Tom Clarke Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Darling]

Absolutely, and the argument that has been with us throughout this Parliament has been about how to ensure that we generate growth to pay down the debt. Part of the problem that the Government have at the moment is that the plan that they started out with did not achieve significant results—it is not the same plan as they are operating now, by the way, because it is running some four years late and is significantly different from the one set out in 2010—because we simply did not have the economic growth that people expected.

One of the most worrying points in the OBR’s report is that it expects our economy to be at full capacity in just four years’ time. Normally, when growth recovers after a recession, as it did in the ’80s and ’90s, it peaks at 3% or perhaps 4%, because spare capacity is being used up. The OBR says that there simply is not spare capacity in the economy at the moment. That should worry us, because if our economy is operating at capacity in four years’ time and inflationary pressures start kicking in, how on earth will we meet the future bills of a mature economy with an ageing society?

I understand that some Government Members are more ideological than others about public expenditure, and understandably, many of them expressed concern about the flooding in the west country earlier this year.

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

Before my right hon. Friend finishes his interesting speech, will he respond to the concerns among Labour supporters about how the Conservative party keeps reminding us of what it claims was the mess that Labour left behind? Are we therefore to believe that the international recession, which had an impact on Ireland, Iceland, Japan, America and so on, did not have an impact on Britain? Was that his experience?

[Mr Darling]

Having been around at the time, I rather got the impression that it was having an impact on everybody, from communist China to the republican United States and throughout Europe and the whole world. If there is a banking crash, it is not surprising that it has consequences.

To return to my point about the west country, we have to recognise that there are some things that the private sector will never do, and flood defence is one of them, so there will always be a role for the public sector in the economy. I firmly believe in a mixed economy and I am enthusiastic about anything that we can do to help the private sector innovate and invest, but it has to be complemented with investment in science, innovation and so on. The Government have a role in such things.

The Chancellor talks seriously about reducing public expenditure to levels last seen in 1948, but I say to the House and the country that the world in which we lived in 1948 was hugely different from the world that we live in today. Expectations are different and the population is getting older—many Members, not just me, may be grateful in a few years for what the state is willing to do as opposed to what we can do as individuals. That issue affects all parties that will be standing at the 2015 election, and we need to address it, because we cannot allow ourselves to drift into a situation in which it is almost inevitable that our economy will stall and hardly grow. That would lock us into unpalatable and difficult consequences. It is dead easy to sign up to cuts in a debate such as this, but living with the consequences of them—60% of them are still to come—will cause a great deal of pain to constituents of Members on both sides of the House.

Of course we have to deal with the immediate consequences and fall-out of what has happened over the past five years. Some sensible reforms have been announced in relation to savings, but we need to get pensions right, because we have got them wrong in the past. We need to get our economics right in the long-term interests of this country and of future employment and jobs, and I am not sure we are doing that yet.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

Listening to the Chancellor, I could not help but conclude that my constituents simply do not inhabit his world. Indeed, very few people share his world, and therein lies the problem. For example, unemployment in my constituency has risen dramatically. Ten years ago, the figure was 1,500 in total, and that included youth unemployment. Under this Government, it peaked at 3,341, so it more than doubled under the coalition. It is now almost 2,600, but that is well above any acceptable level, especially when it includes over 700 young people without a job.

This is a Chancellor for the wealthy, and, apart from a few gimmicks, this was a Budget for the wealthy. That is what brings me into conflict with him. I acknowledge that the economy of Britain as a nation is far more complex than that of each household. Furthermore, I accept that there will be a disparity in household budgets depending on income and expenditure. However, each household has basic needs that must be fulfilled. My assertion is that the Chancellor is out of touch with hard-working people. He does not get what is obvious to everyone: that families are struggling, especially in my constituency.

We have what I can best describe as a cost of living crisis. Wages are down by £1,600 a year. To many households throughout Britain, that amount of money could be the difference between living in poverty and living reasonably comfortably. I know that the Chancellor does not get it—after all, how could he, when we know that the Bullingdon club uniform costs about £3,500? What is even more a matter for despair is the confirmation by the Office for Budget Responsibility that people will be worse off in 2015 than they were in 2010. We have had the slowest recovery for 100 years, with the Government forecast to borrow over £190 billion more than planned. Ordinary, decent hard-working people are doing all the heavy lifting as regards who is actually bearing the brunt of the austerity measures introduced by this Government.

Businesses in my constituency constantly complain to me that banks have withdrawn their overdraft facility, making it even tougher for them to survive. Bank bonuses are rising again, even though businesses cannot get the financing they need. Just before Christmas, I was most grateful to secure a meeting, with representatives of such a business in my constituency, with the Business Secretary. Although I thank him sincerely, I am puzzled that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for International Development are taking so long to respond.

Another business in my constituency, and in several other Members’ constituencies, Verve car showrooms, went bust. The problem was that many consumers who had paid money for cars or signed up with finance agreements still had not received their cars at the point of administration. With the Sunday Mail, we jointly did our best to expose the poor consumer protection in those unique circumstances. I also wrote to the consumer affairs Minister. The owner of the company, for whom I have no brief, claimed that his company had been stitched up by the banks. Had he been a constituent of mine, I would most certainly have called for an inquiry into the behaviour of the banks.

The Government know full well that energy bills have risen by almost £300 since their election. The most powerful and effective speech on the subject of energy bills was delivered not during the Budget statement, but by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition during the party conference season. Central to his theme was a freeze on energy bills until 2017 and reform of a broken energy market, which would give consumers a welcome break from huge increases. I have always argued that, in effect, a cartel is operating in the energy market. The energy companies were terrified by the resonance of and public support for that policy. By contrast, the Government appeared incapable and unwilling to stand up for consumers.

This is one subject that unites the entire country. Everyone knows that the energy companies are ripping off households. If I may say so, I was making that point under the previous Government—my assertion is not new, but the Budget is a missed opportunity. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition set out a coherent strategic plan to introduce transparency and fairness for consumers. Cabinet Ministers sought to undermine that excellent solution to the problem.

That proved conclusively to me, yet again, that this is a Cabinet of millionaires running the Government in favour of the wealthy. [Interruption.] I speak for my constituents. Such selfishness and unfairness will ultimately lead to this Government’s downfall. Until then, I shall continue to expose the less than even-handed treatment dished out to the vast bulk of households—those on medium and modest incomes—while this Government favour the wealthy. This is a Government for the few and what we need is a Government for the many.

Food Banks

Tom Clarke Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

For the people of the UK, I find that deeply saddening. For me, it is not something to be chanting and cheering about. The Opposition need to reflect—for about the next 20 years—on what they did to UK plc, while we get it right. For those reasons, and many, many more—mainly its inaccuracy—I reject the Opposition day motion. Instead, I welcome the promising signs that we are delivering for jobs and growth: the fastest growth in the G7 this quarter, more people in work, more businesses going, more exports, more work for everybody. That is why we object to the motion and welcome what we are doing on this side of the House.

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Given the huge interest in this debate, not least among our constituents, is it within your power to extend the time for the debate?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I fully appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s point. Another way to phrase it would be: if Members had behaved with decorum during the Front-Bench speeches, would there be more time for Back Benchers? He is right that there is a lot of interest in the debate, but sadly it is not within my power to extend the time available. I am glad he made his point of order, however, because it gives me the opportunity to ask hon. Members to be courteous to other hon. Members and keep their speeches as brief as possible.

Housing Benefit

Tom Clarke Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr McDonnell]

Yes, I do, and I am deeply concerned about that. However, we do not need any more research to tell us that this tax is wrong and that it will inflict an inordinate degree of hardship that shames us all, and the Government in particular. Those who are suffering from the impact of this tax—they are some of the very weakest in our society—do not want research on how it will affect them; they want these cruel deductions in housing benefit stopped, and stopped now.

I represent a constituency in Northern Ireland where the bedroom tax has not yet been introduced, and my colleagues in the Northern Ireland Assembly and I are fighting tooth and nail to prevent it from happening. That is because more than 32,500 households in Northern Ireland are bracing themselves for the pain and suffering this tax would cause. They look at what is happening on this side of the Irish sea and they are deeply fearful. A couple of aspects of this bedroom tax make it an even crazier proposition for us in Northern Ireland: we quite simply do not have the required housing stock for people to downsize, and the stock we do have is, sadly, segregated.

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I welcome everything that the hon. Gentleman has said. Does he agree that there are times in this House when things are so profoundly wrong that those on both sides of the House recognise it, but the trouble is that some cannot get around to admitting simply that they were wrong? Will he urge those who have not yet been convinced to say exactly that?

Disabled People

Tom Clarke Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I have great respect for the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), and although I do not agree with everything he said, like my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex), he brought some reality to a debate that so far—I am referring to contributions from the Government Benches—does not seem to relate to the world in which I live, the people I meet, or the families I represent.

The Minister read out what seemed to be a civil service briefing, but disabled people watching that are too accustomed to being asked to fill in large forms and all sorts of bureaucracy to be impressed by such an approach. We did not hear from Government Members of organisations such as Save the Children, Mencap, Radar, Enable and so on, which have proof of the cuts the Government are making, and particularly the disproportionate impact of those cuts on disabled people.

Let us return—it is right to do so, Madam Deputy Speaker—to the bedroom tax. The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr Hoban), who has now left the Chamber, basically defended what the Government are proposing, as did the Prime Minister right from the beginning. The Minister did not say, however, that the Government have since done two U-turns.

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

What is the policy of the Labour Front Benchers? Their position regarding the bedroom tax seems to be all over the place. We have heard that the Leader of the Opposition has said that Labour would not repeal it, yet in this debate the Labour Front Benchers have suggested that they would.

[Mr Clarke]

There was a time when I was on the Front Bench and I might have been happy to respond to that point. I am satisfied that the Labour party will present to the British people at the election a manifesto that they will endorse. I will fight and fight again, whatever Government are in power, to ensure that this monstrosity of legislation does not remain on the statute book.

Let us examine what the bedroom tax means to ordinary people in our constituencies. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) said, two thirds of those affected by the bedroom tax have a disability. That is absolutely outrageous. How can the Government have seriously considered putting in place such a proposal? According to an estimate by the National Housing Federation, 2,128 households will be affected in my constituency, and according to the Government’s own estimates 1,419 of them—along with 83,000 in Scotland and more than 400,000 throughout the country—are occupied by someone with a disability.

The Government claim that they are putting the housing market in a more appealing position. However, when we look at statistics—indeed, before we even do so—we know that there are simply not enough houses with the right facilities to which to remove disabled people if they have an extra bedroom. I have thought during the debate about several disabled people in my constituency and others I have met throughout the country. Two or three years ago, a young woman in my constituency was dying of variant CJD. She needed her bedroom, and she also needed another bedroom to accommodate the equipment that she desperately needed, including her supply of oxygen. How can we allow the Government to remove disabled people to smaller houses, when we know that those houses are simply not there?

[Barbara Keeley]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Has he encountered in his surgeries a family like I have in mine? They are a disabled couple in their 50s who need to move out of an upstairs flat because it is not accessible. They are being denied homes that would be accessible for them, such as those that already have a stairlift, because of the bedroom tax. The tax means that people have to move, and it restricts future choice too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Even if there were sufficient accommodation for this huge change to take place, the trauma that people with disabilities, and in many cases their carers, will be asked to go through is simply unacceptable.

Each of the people I have described stands to lose a minimum of £401 a year. At a time of rising fuel costs and rising prices in the shops, that £401 can be the difference between having electricity or not, having a warm home or not, or having three meals a day or not. The bedroom tax is creating fear and despair among the most vulnerable in my constituency and the country.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Is it not the point that, according to the Government’s forward budgets, they expect to make a saving from the bedroom tax, but if the people affected moved there would not be a saving? That is how cynical the policy is.

[Mr Clarke]

Again, that is a good point. I think of a constituent whose case I raised with the Prime Minister. I visited her the day after our exchange. Her house has been adapted because she is in a wheelchair, which she has to use upstairs as well as downstairs, so she needed a lift. That lift was provided in one of the rooms of her house. Are we to believe that it would help society for that woman to move to a smaller house, which would also have to be adapted? Where is the sanity of that, far less the decency?

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that heavily adapted homes are excluded from the spare room subsidy?

[Mr Clarke]

They are not. If the hon. Gentleman reads the regulations, the two U-turns to which I referred to do not include heavily adapted homes, but we will continue to fight for that.

Briefly on local government, we are told that the Government have increased funding for discretionary housing payments through local authority funds and that that will be enough, but we have seen a 338% increase in people applying for discretionary housing payments. Local authorities—I say this as a former president of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities—simply cannot find the money. The Government cannot keep cutting, cutting and cutting again and then say the responsibility lies with local authorities when every single pressure has been put on them.

Personal independence payments are replacing disability living allowance. They will be paid at a different rate and the Government estimate that 600,000 fewer people will be eligible, all because the Government wish to reduce costs by 20%. Balancing the books, as they see it, is being done on the backs of disabled people, and that cannot be right.

On the Work programme, we have been told that the Government want to get people with disabilities into work. That is an admirable objective, and one that I have supported for a very long time, but the Government must know that there are simply not enough jobs available, not only for people with disabilities but for others on benefits too.

In 1986, I had the privilege of introducing what I hoped was a progressive Act relating to disability. I think of the people who supported it: Jack Ashley, Alf Morris and others on both sides of the House. It went through under a Thatcher Government. I say to Government Members to read what the Whips have told them to say and read what the civil servants have prepared, but to think and think again about how this policy affects ordinary people who are already disadvantaged, and, in all morality, to reject what the Government are seeking to do.

Disability Benefits and Social Care

Tom Clarke Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

Actually, Mr Harrington was appointed by the previous Government. The reform of ESA is right, but the point about reform is that we need to adapt and show flexibility. What the House needs to know this afternoon is that charities such as Mind have so little confidence in the Government’s ability to get it right that they are resigning from the process. I put it to the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) that that is not a vote of confidence.

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my view that the interventions of Conservative Members so far, in seeking to make cheap political points, do not represent at all the view of organisations for disabled people? Sense, for example, which speaks for deafblind people, said:

“We still remain very concerned by the overall aim of reducing the future DLA spend by over £1 billion.”

Are those not the worries that the House should be addressing?

[Mr Byrne]

Those are precisely the kinds of worries that the House should reflect on because this is a very difficult and sensitive area of policy. The Government are not attempting to prosecute reform with any kind of consensus at all. That is why charities are resigning and resiling from their administration.

To the picture of ESA reform, I am afraid we have to add the Work programme. Once billed as the greatest back-to-work programme designed by human hand it is now missing its target for disabled people by 60%. Charity after charity says that the number of people referred to them for specialist help to get back to work is minuscule and tiny. St Mungo’s and now the Single Homeless Project have even gone to the lengths of resigning from the programme altogether.

This Government’s contempt is not reserved for disabled people without a job. There is plenty of it to go around for people with a job, including those Remploy workers in factories to whom the Secretary of State said, “You don’t produce very much at all. They are not doing any work at all. They are just making cups of coffee.” I hope that, in the course of this debate, the Secretary of State will take the opportunity to resign—I mean apologise. [Interruption.] I may not give way to calls on that point, but I congratulate the Sunday Express on its campaign, highlighting the disgraceful treatment of Remploy workers. We all know that Remploy has to change—that is the point I would make to Conservative Members—but this Government have decided to press ahead, closing these factories at breakneck speed. These factories are in constituencies where twice as many people as the national average are chasing every single job. How can it be right to say to these factories that they have until Monday to complete a business plan that, if it is not successful, will see the closure of factories in communities that need jobs and cannot afford to lose them?

--- Later in debate ---

[Maria Miller]

I commend my hon. Friend for his work in this area. I hope to visit his constituency to see the work he has been doing, ensuring that the disabled people he represents have the job opportunities I know they want.

Shamefully, much of what we have heard today has been scaremongering. Nothing illustrates that better than the claim by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, as stated in the motion,

“that the Department for Work and Pensions has dropped the aim of achieving disability equality”.

That is an outrageous and unfounded claim, intended to frighten some of the most vulnerable people in society.

This Government enacted the Equality Act 2010, which applies to disabled people. Our approach is set out in our equality strategy, which states that

“equality will be a fundamental part of the Government’s programmes across the UK”,

and the DWP business plan explicitly states that we will

“enable disabled people to fulfil their potential”.

That is a clear and practical expression of how we have made equality a reality, rather than merely the warm words offered by the right hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Tom Clarke]

I mean no disrespect to the hon. Lady in pointing out that I expected the Secretary of State to speak for the Government. If he had, I was going to put the following point to him. Was he reported correctly when he was quoted as saying:

“In other words, do you need care, do you need support to get around. Those are the two things that are measured. Not, you have lost a limb…”?

Does the hon. Lady not accept that such language and insensitivity is doing untold damage to any attempt at reform?

[Maria Miller]

The right hon. Gentleman does a huge amount of work in this area, and I would not want to fall out with him. I know that we both believe that disabled people should be looked at as individuals, and that he does a lot of work to make that a reality. I do not want to categorise people simply because of a condition they have. People deal with their conditions in different ways. That is what the personal independence payment is all about. I hope we can continue to work on this matter with the right hon. Gentleman, and with many outside organisations, because we need to put right the previous Government’s failure to introduce any reforms.

Let me dispel some of the other myths we have heard, starting with those about Remploy. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill knows full well that the programme Labour put in place was unsustainable, with more than £250 million in factory losses since its modernisation programme began. Labour set the unachievable target of a 130% increase in Remploy’s public sector sales in 2008, when the right hon. Gentleman, as Chief Secretary to the Treasury at around that time, must have known public sector spending was set to fall. Under Labour, very few additional contracts were won, and what is particularly shameful is that all this did nothing more than give people false hope. The modernisation plan was designed to turn factories around through a £550 million investment, yet it now still costs more than £20,000 to employ an individual in a Remploy factory and losses last year alone amounted to £65 million.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Clarke Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is very much part of what we are trying to do and we will certainly recognise such roles. After all, we recognise fully that the effort given beyond the state multiplies many times the amount given by the state. Without that support—that voluntary and family work with people with difficulties—it would be almost impossible for the state to operate.

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman join me in paying tribute to Lord Ashley, who was passionately committed to people with disabilities and pursued that work both in this House and in the other place? As a further tribute, will he ensure that, in his Department, the needs of people with hearing impairments are met as they should be able to expect?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Indeed I will. The right hon. Gentleman reminds us that we should all pay tribute to a brilliant campaigner, if I dare say, and supporter of people with disabilities. All of us in this House and the other place know the effectiveness of his campaigns and stand in awe of someone who dedicated his life as he did to supporting vulnerable people.

Women’s Aid

Tom Clarke Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I am grateful to have secured this debate on women’s aid and safety and access to benefits, and to speak under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea. I am also pleased to welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller), who has a great interest in the subject that we are debating, and of course my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire).

The theme of the debate is, unmistakably, women’s aid and safety and access to benefits, but it is also predicated on an enlightened understanding of the scourge of domestic abuse, which is the root cause of the problem. I believe that there is a moral duty not to just pay lip service to an endemic problem visited on far too many women. Domestic abuse was succinctly articulated by the psychologist and author Susan Forward, PhD, who described it as

“any behaviour that is intended to control and subjugate another human being through the use of fear, humiliation, and verbal or physical assaults…it is the systematic persecution of one partner by another”.

Having assimilated and carefully studied the erudite view expressed by Dr Forward, I wish to proceed. The consequences of domestic abuse are simply horrific and lead women into a very dark place. They live a life in the most sinister, corrosive and destructive environment, which is as near to hell as it is possible to get on earth. Living under a reign of constant fear and terror of mental and physical torture damages the self-esteem of the victims, but what incalculable damage does it inflict on innocent children? We can ponder that. They, too, are often scarred for the rest of their lives.

One of the foremost international diplomats, renowned for resolving conflict around the world, the former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, once said that domestic abuse

“denies women their most basic human rights, such as the right to health, and undermines the social and economic development of communities and whole countries…Domestic Abuse is widespread and cuts across class, age, religion and ethnic group…it has long been established that there can be no justification for any form of Domestic Abuse.”

He concluded:

“Domestic Abuse is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation, and it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth.”

Monklands Women’s Aid provides a first-class service to women and children in my constituency. Before institutions such as Women’s Aid existed, many women were forced to suffer in a chilling silence for the sake of their children. When we think back to previous generations, we can only wonder with incredulity at how many women lived in hell. We will never know how many were driven to such a level of despair that they took their own lives.

Clearly, most women did not have a way out of their oppressive environment. I am sure we all agree, irrespective of our political differences, that we do not want a return to those days. We have to understand that many of the partners have not only a physical hold over those women, but a mental hold, an iron grip, which is extremely difficult for many women to break free from. Women’s Aid is now inculcated in our society. Thankfully, women of this generation are not alone and they realise that they have a place of refuge.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing this important debate; I know that that sentiment will be echoed across the Chamber. Like him, I pay tribute to my local Women’s Aid and I also pay tribute to Trafford rape crisis centre. There are some excellent organisations, as he says. Does he agree that in addition to the physical and mental abuse that he describes, there is financial abuse? As has been shown, when women are under financial pressure, it is more difficult for them to flee an abusive relationship, so at times of rising female unemployment and reduced access to financial benefits, more women might be trapped in the home in exactly the circumstances that he describes.

[Mr Clarke]

I agree and I hope to deal with some of the issues that my hon. Friend raises. That was an excellent intervention.

As an organisation, Women’s Aid has supported women from all social and financial backgrounds and continues to do so. One in four women will experience domestic abuse at some point in their life. Two women a week are murdered by a partner or ex-partner. Women living with domestic abuse are five times more likely to suffer from depression. In 90% of domestic abuse incidents where children are present in the home, they will be in the same or the next room.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is citing horrific statistics that are all too familiar. In some areas of my constituency, there are spikes in the occurrence of domestic violence that are way out of kilter with the national or local average. I ask that Ministers look at the areas where there are spikes and find out why they are happening.

[Mr Clarke]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making an extremely significant point. On average, a woman will be assaulted 35 times before reporting it to the police. It is the case that 30% of domestic abuse either starts or escalates during pregnancy. Domestic abuse can account for up to 25% of all recorded crime.

Let me outline current practices and why they should be cherished. What is the present position in terms of access to benefits? The present position permits organisations such as Women’s Aid to go through proper procedures to ensure the safety and health of women who come to them. Here, as they recognise, is the tragedy: many women who are experiencing domestic abuse blame themselves for what is happening to them. Clearly, it is not their fault. The only person to blame is the perpetrator carrying out the abuse.

Monklands Women’s Aid, in its last annual report, shone a light on the scale of the problem. The contact made with Monklands Women’s Aid involved 4,310 women, 1,202 children—from birth to 12 years—and 1,056 young people aged from 13 to 19. If such an organisation did not exist, we would need to invent one.

As I have discovered, if a woman requests refuge, a risk assessment is carried out to ensure that the service and refuge will meet her needs. A home application and benefit check is completed for the user. A doctor is then put in place to assess the health of the woman. If necessary, women are taken to hospital immediately. Social workers, community psychiatric nurses or various support networks are contacted, with the woman’s permission, for continued support. If the woman wishes, the police are called. Throughout the process, workers from Women’s Aid offer continued support. If children are involved, relevant schools and nurseries are contacted and provision put in place to make the transition for the woman as seamless as possible. A children’s service is put in place as part of the outreach programme. When women are leaving the refuge, support workers help them to move to their new tenancy and offer much needed help and support.

Institutions such as the NHS and police services can do only so much in providing support to women who are in desperate need of help and protection. The refuge is the foundation for all services provided by this organisation, and it signifies the basis of a new life for many women. It is still desperately needed by many women in emergency situations—when their lives or their children’s lives are at risk. A refuge is a haven that, on multiple occasions, has saved lives.

In all candour, the proposed reforms by the Government are worrying. All the services that I have described will effectively be wiped out, thus leaving Women’s Aid with the sole service of signposting women to other support services—if they still exist.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

Before my right hon. Friend moves on to what may lie ahead for women in the future, may I remind him that when a woman seeks a Women’s Aid refuge, it may be the first time in their lives when they, as the partner of someone who has abused them, find themselves without money? The first port of call will be the Department for Work and Pensions. All too often the delay in securing money through the benefit system is bad, so much so that some 30% or 40% of women find themselves, out of sheer frustration, going back to the marital home and to the abuser, which is no answer to their problems. The system is already far too slow to respond to the needs of women.

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend bases his contribution on experience, and he is absolutely right. He has outlined the problem that many have faced and sadly might face again, so we must take it seriously.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Its importance for me stems from the fact that the very first refuge in this country was created in my constituency. Does he agree that housing is an issue and that pressure needs to be put on councils to put women who are in a refuge, especially those with children, higher up the priority list for permanent housing? Temporary housing is not good enough. Bed and breakfast accommodation is not appropriate for children because they need some stability in their lives.

[Mr Clarke]

Housing is at the heart of everything that we are discussing and I welcome what the hon. Lady said. Perhaps this is an opportune moment to assess what is likely to happen, including in housing, post April 2013. Essentially, the key change is that housing benefit will be paid directly to the claimant through universal credit, which will adversely affect Women’s Aid.

I recognise the imposition of a system in which people are always better off in work than they are on benefits. However, the so-called simplification of merging income-related jobseeker’s allowance, housing benefit, child tax credit, working tax credit, income support and income-related employment support allowance into a single universal payment is not without problems. Although it may be desirable on paper, it will undoubtedly bring with it chaos for individuals and other charitable organisations.

Please be assured that the proposed changes would have a serious detrimental effect on Women’s Aid centres throughout the United Kingdom, and certainly in my constituency.

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

Like many Members here, I supported trying to get individuals responsible for their housing benefit. The fact that 75% now have to pay out of their own housing benefit is a positive step forward for individuals. However, I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we must ensure that women in refuges or in Women’s Aid are allowed to have their housing benefit paid not directly to them, but to the supportive housing. I understand that the Department is still considering the matter, and I share his concerns that we need to ensure that the most vulnerable do not have to deal with their own finances and housing benefit in this way.

[Mr Clarke]

That is an important point and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for drawing our attention to the fact that the Department is now considering the matter. I hope that her points and those made by other hon. Members in this debate will be taken on board by the Department.

The changes under discussion would force women who go to Women’s Aid in moments of crisis to pay up front for refuge. That is money they simply do not have. The majority of women who seek help from Women’s Aid have few clothes and belongings, let alone the money to pay for refuge. Nevertheless, at present, Women’s Aid can provide refuge to any woman who turns up at its centres because it can claim a share of management costs through housing benefit. That crucial point was underlined by the hon. Lady, and will no doubt be underlined by others. The last thing that distressed women should be worried about is paying for refuge. Of all 4,000 women who were assisted by Monklands Women’s Aid group in 2011, not one of them turned up with enough money to cover the cost of the refuge.

There is an unshakeable belief, held by those who manage this service and by me, that existing resources will simply not be available. The private sector manager in North Lanarkshire council has confirmed that Women’s Aid received local housing allowance of £895.16 every four weeks for service users. Under the new rules, it may get £456.92 for four weeks. That is a terrifying prospect, which the Minister will have to address sooner rather than later.

I am now at the very heart of my argument. I have to pose the question: do the Government want women with small children walking the streets or, worse still, being forced to live in perpetuity under a reign of terror from an abusive partner? In 2013, is that the best we can do for abused women and children? I think not. Although I have political differences with the coalition Government on a range of issues, I simply do not believe that they want to make life any more unbearable for vulnerable women and children.

Let me now address my remarks to correspondence that I recently received from my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), Labour’s shadow Home Secretary and shadow Minister for Women and Equalities. She has launched a consultation on women’s safety, which will examine the impact of the Government’s decisions on women’s safety and consider how to protect and enhance it. The consultation is being chaired by Vera Baird QC, who will be supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), the shadow Minister for Equalities, and my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), the shadow Home Office Minister. I intend to contribute to this new commission.

I genuinely wish to report that I have made representations to the Government and that they have listened and acted in a manner that does not put women’s personal safety in jeopardy. For the record, I plan to invite Labour’s commission to visit and meet the management of Monklands Women’s Aid as well as the victims. In a spirit of fairness and even-handedness, I extend a similar open invitation to the Minister and her team.

On one unique occasion, I visited Women’s Aid to meet four women from different backgrounds and with different experiences of domestic abuse. Listening to each woman describe their lives was quite depressing; to think that so many have to live their lives in such fear and anxiety is truly distressing. Listening carefully to numerous examples of abuse, and sitting alongside the victims explaining their plight, was emotionally draining. There is a world of difference between reading about such stories in a book or newspaper and hearing first hand such dreadful experiences. The bottom line is that an abused household is no place for women and certainly no place for an innocent child.

I was shown a work of art that a victim’s young daughter had drawn. It had originally been on her bedroom wall in the abused household where she had lived. It was a self-portrait, showing a tear racing down her cheek. Yet, after a few days in the refuge, the girl took down the drawing from the wall. We all very much welcome that first step towards the happiness that that child was entitled to enjoy.

Women often come to the charity having had their family broken into pieces, yet there is a real sense of togetherness at the centres that allows them to feel as if they are joining a new family. The four women I met had differing stories of abuse, but there was one common feature—all of them felt trapped in their lives, as if there was no way of escape. They would never have been released from that stranglehold of entrapment and suffering had it not been for the help of Women’s Aid. The tremendous sadness that I felt initially turned to delight as I witnessed how these women had managed to turn their lives around, not only for themselves but, most importantly, for their children and for their loved ones.

[Kate Green]

My right hon. Friend is very powerfully evoking the experiences of women and their children who have suffered abuse. Does he agree that one of the things that those women particularly value when they go to a Women’s Aid refuge is that it is a service designed for, run by and informed by an ethos that is led by women’s experiences? If so, does he share my concern that increasingly services are being contracted out to organisations other than Women’s Aid—non-specialist organisations that do not have that necessary empathy with the women, however well-meaning they may be, and, indeed, can sometimes make quite crass decisions? For example, we heard just the other day of a provider that had advertised for new staff to work in its service and had actually put the address of the local refuge in a newspaper.

[Mr Clarke]

Again, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Certainly, the sheer dedication of the women working at the centres, which I have seen at Monklands Women’s Aid and elsewhere, is awesome, and I do not think that it can be replaced by commercial considerations. I therefore welcome what she has said.

[Amber Rudd]

May I just make the observation that men can also be very helpful and sympathetic on issues of domestic violence? I, too, congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate.

[Mr Clarke]

I am again very grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention. Although it was not going to be a theme of my speech—given the title of my speech, it should not be a theme—I am aware that a minority of men are also abused and I know that that is something that we would want to consider.

The women I met at Women’s Aid said that they feared for what their life would have been like if it had not been for Women’s Aid. Meeting those women first hand showed just how vital organisations such as Women’s Aid are to our country. In many cases they can literally transform an individual’s life for the better. I was given an opportunity by my local Women’s Aid office to meet some of the women they serve. Most people would never get that close and my abiding memory is of the warmth and friendliness that the organisation sends out in abundance, which colleagues have rightly acknowledged today.

We need to appreciate that women can be mentally and physically tortured by their partner and that they often turn up at Women’s Aid penniless, with nothing other than what they are wearing and with traumatised children who are in desperate need of urgent help. Women’s Aid is the last resort for victims who are in a state of anxiety and who—emotionally speaking—are standing on the edge of a cliff. In that situation, the last thing that women should be worried about is paying for refuge.

When women are provided with refuge, there is a full range of follow-on services to ensure that they and their children are safe. Along with support workers, the women plan their future and one of the most important factors taken into account is their safety and that of their children. Refuge is the foundation for all the services provided by Women’s Aid and for many women it signifies the basis of a new life.

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

As patron of the Wirral Women and Children’s Aid refuge, I know only too well the harrowing stories of women when they arrive in refuge, having suffered terrible abuse. Obviously, the imperative is that they are looked after straight away. However, time and again, we talk about how to break that cycle of violence and that continuation of abuse. Should that not be one of the main imperatives in future, because the figures on abuse have gone up year after year? We must break that cycle of violence immediately.

[Mr Clarke]

I agree absolutely with the hon. Lady, but if—as I saw at Monklands Women’s Aid—staff at centres are compelled to contemplate the financial circumstances that they are facing as an organisation, that might take away some of the time that they would like to allocate to the wider objectives that she quite properly identifies.

For many women, the fact remains that refuge is desperately needed in emergency situations when their lives and their children’s lives are at risk. I hope that I have convinced the Minster that Women’s Aid is indeed a special case.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Just 10 days ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Women’s Aid centre in Bangor; it is in North Down, but it is also responsible for Strangford, which is my constituency. The staff there very clearly indicated the financial squeeze that faces them. They illustrated it by talking about the future not only of the centre in Bangor, which is responsible for a large catchment area, but of the staff. If the Government do not address those issues, I fear that the future of Women’s Aid will have a question mark over it, not only in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency but in mine.

[Mr Clarke]

Again, the hon. Gentleman speaks from experience and I passionately believe that we should not ignore such experience. He is dealing with what he sees in his constituency, day after day, and also reflecting our experiences in our own constituencies elsewhere.

Frankly, life and death issues are at stake here, and children can be victims of abuse too. We need to ensure the provision of free and safe refuge, which is crucial to the safety of women and children who are suffering abuse. That is an inviolate principle. At a time of desperation, people in Monklands, across Scotland and—as we have heard—throughout the United Kingdom must be afforded the opportunity to seek refuge. Most regrettably, domestic abuse is a considerable problem across our country.

Women’s Aid also performs a major role in the continued development of the children who are affected by abuse. In many families, children are often caught in the centre of a storm, and thus Women’s Aid focuses its attention on providing continuity for such children.

I urge the Minister to reconsider the current proposals on housing benefit. My plea today is that she reflects upon the comments that I and others make. Later, other hon. Members will undoubtedly make valuable contributions to the debate, and it is more than likely that they will be based on the kind of experiences that we have already heard about from hard-working, conscientious constituency MPs.

This subject and the real people who suffer domestic violence are too important for there to be a partisan Government. I am leaving an escape route for the Government when I refer to the unintended consequences of their proposals. If the Government ignore my representations, that could have a devastating impact on women across the country, leading to more women and children walking the streets.

We need the continuation of the marvellous back-up services that are provided by Women’s Aid and—lest we forget—managed by outstanding, caring people. Today I want not only to convince the Minister but to gain support from all parties. We cannot and we must not abandon women who are seeking refuge. In the words of the late Mother Teresa of Calcutta:

“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody…is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty, than the person who has nothing to eat.”