PIP Changes: Impact on Carer’s Allowance
Tom Gordon Excerpts(3 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Sir Stephen Timms
I thank my hon. Friend for her work on disability employment, which has been an important contribution. I can give the reassurances she seeks.
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
As someone who lives with ulcerative colitis, I am all too acquainted with the fact that health conditions can vary wildly. We know that people with conditions such as Crohn’s and colitis and their carers already have issues accessing PIP and carer’s allowance. What consideration has the Minister given to conditions such as those in the context of these cuts?
Sir Stephen Timms
It is very important that the system properly handles fluctuating conditions. One of the benefits of the proposal in the Green Paper to record by default PIP assessments is that we will be able to provide better assurance that the assessments get these judgments right, particularly in the case of fluctuating conditions.
Child Maintenance Service
Tom Gordon Excerpts(1 month, 4 weeks ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Andrew Western)
Let me begin by congratulating the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) on securing this debate, which is incredibly important to him and his constituents. I hope that I will assure him in my contribution that it is important to the Government too.
Far too many children are growing up in poverty. A key priority for this Labour Government is to reduce that number as soon as possible. That is why child maintenance is incredibly important. It is estimated that child maintenance payments keep around 160,000 children out of poverty each year. That has involved the CMS arranging around £1.4 billion in child maintenance payments in the 12 months to September 2024.
Tackling child poverty is an urgent priority for the Government, which is why we have already announced our commitment to triple investment in breakfast clubs to over £30 million, to roll out free breakfast clubs at all primary schools, to create 3,000 additional nurseries and to increase the national living wage to £12.21 an hour from April to boost the pay of 3 million workers, many of them parents.
The ministerial child poverty taskforce, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, is working to publish a child poverty strategy later this year, which will deliver lasting change. In developing the strategy, the taskforce is exploring all available levers for reducing child poverty across four key themes: increasing incomes, reducing essential costs, increasing financial resilience and better local support, especially in the early years.
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
The Minister mentioned that the taskforce would look at all options. Would that include scrapping the two-child benefit cap?
Andrew Western
The hon. Member will have heard me say that we are looking at all available levers across those four areas. We rule nothing in and nothing out, but I understand his point.
We are aware of the challenges that the CMS faces and recognise that there is scope for improvement. The ministerial team as a whole is committed to making those improvements. On what we are doing about those issues, I will turn to the recent direct pay consultation, which the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire referred to, and offer some background to the proposed reforms. My party has long called for reforms to the direct pay service, stating that it does not work for all parents. For that reason, this Government extended the direct pay consultation launched by the previous Government, with the express purpose of gathering as much feedback from stakeholders as possible. We are looking closely at the feedback received and will publish the Government response in due course. I appreciate that the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire would ask for a more specific timeline, but I hope he will appreciate that in what is an incredibly delicate area—dealing with vulnerable children, vulnerable families and strained relationships—we want to take our time and ensure that we get the changes right.
Oral Answers to Questions
Tom Gordon Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Torsten Bell
It is important that 1.5 million pensioners will receive the winter fuel payments this winter. The statistics my hon. Friend refers to relate to previous years, before the recent take-up campaign. However, he is right to highlight that under the Conservative Government, three in 10 eligible pensioners were missing out.
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
In recent days and weeks, household bills across my constituency have gone up and up and up. Many who miss out on pension credit because they are just above the cut-off will now be wondering where they will find that extra money. Will the Government think again about the removal of the winter fuel payment and ensure that pension credit is rolled out on a taper?
Torsten Bell
It is important that we keep driving up the take-up of pension credit, but that is not the only support available to pensioners: everyone will see the state pension rise by over 4% this April; the household support fund is very important and will be extended for another year; and the warm home discount is available to the poorest pensioners.
Women’s State Pension Age Communication: PHSO Report
Tom Gordon Excerpts(4 months ago)
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Liz Kendall
I am sure the hon. Gentleman supports an increase in the minimum wage that will deliver a £1,400-a-year pay increase for someone who is working full time on the minimum wage in Leicester. I am sure he agrees with the £22 billion additional investment in the NHS this year and next, and with a boost of £420 per year on average for people on universal credit in Leicester through the fair repayment rate. Those are the changes we are delivering, but on this issue, we do not believe the ombudsman’s approach on injustice or remedy is right. When 90% of 1950s-born women knew that the state pension age was increasing, we do not believe that giving flat-rate compensation is a fair or appropriate use of taxpayers’ money.
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
The constituents I represent include thousands of WASPI women who will be disappointed by today’s statement. A number of references have been made to the campaigning that the Secretary of State has done with WASPI women. Does she feel regret that she has led them up the garden path towards believing that they might get some compensation, and while she has apologised for the Government’s part in the maladministration, will she apologise directly to the WASPI women in her constituency?
Liz Kendall
We were campaigning against the increase in the state pension age, and we had all sorts of proposals in our 2019 manifesto. We lost that election, and the courts have since decided that the increase in the state pension age was legal, so this decision is not about that. All I would say to WASPI women in my constituency—I have no doubt that they will contact me—is that I believe this is the fair and right decision. We are committed to supporting the lives of 1950s-born women, but we do not believe that the ombudsman’s approach on injustice or remedy is the right way forward, which is why we have taken this decision.