Welfare

Tristram Hunt Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

The commitment and promises that we made in our manifesto were clear, and the Government are absolutely focused on delivering those promises and keeping our commitments to the British people, including pensioners.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

The Budget’s cuts to capital gains tax and support for the wealthiest in the country were paid for by spending cuts for the most disadvantaged in our society, which was immoral. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) said that he could not “watch passively” while such divisive policies targeted non-Tory voters. Why is the Secretary of State so craven and so keen to introduce such unfair policies?

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Gentleman is another one with a good line in theatre. Even with the changes that we are making, capital gains tax will still be 2% higher than it was left by the previous Labour Government.

Rent Officers (Housing Benefit and Universal Credit Functions) (Local Housing Allowance Amendments) Order 2015

Tristram Hunt Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People (Justin Tomlinson)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. The order puts in place the changes needed to freeze local housing allowance rates for four years from April 2016. Between 2000 and 2010, housing benefit expenditure doubled in cash terms, reaching £21 billion. Left unreformed, housing benefit would have cost £26 billion by 2014-15. Our reforms are now saving about £2 billion a year, and the summer Budget measures will add to that. Crucially, we ended the presumption that housing benefit would always pick up the bill.

Since reforms to the LHA were introduced by the coalition Government from April 2011 the number of housing benefit claimants living in the private rented sector is down by about 1% nationally and 3% in London. More claimants are moving into work as people make sensible decisions about what they can reasonably afford. The case load numbers show that claimants continue to live in all areas, including central London. The current case load for those renting privately in the capital stands at 258,000.

The Government made clear their intention to make significant savings to welfare expenditure before the general election. This measure is part of that commitment and was announced in the summer Budget. The Budget statement was followed by several days of debate, which provided an opportunity for this and other Budget measures to be discussed, particularly on the first day of debate, 9 July, when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions responded on behalf of the Government.

This measure is not included in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, as the Secretary of State already has the powers in primary legislation to change the way in which LHA rates are set. In response to hon. Members’ comments, however, it might help if I clarify how the freezing of LHA rates will work during the four-year period. The rates will still be reviewed each year by rent officers, who will continue to calculate, as they have previously, the 30th percentile of a list of rents for each property size in each area. In line with the amendments to the rent officers order, they will then set the new LHA rates at either the April 2015 rate or the 30th percentile of listed rents if that is lower.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

Will the Minister clarify the means by which the area is codified? I ask that because in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire there is a broader area for housing benefit that does not actually take account of some of the narrower economic circumstances of a specific area.

[Justin Tomlinson]

It is done on a regional basis. Discretionary housing payments can help to alleviate that situation, but I will come back to that, if the hon. Gentleman can be patient.

[Tristram Hunt]

My concern is that we are ending up with areas in which it is much easier for landlords to make quite a high profit on housing benefit, relative to other areas. Essentially, the rate is too generous. Streets are being turned into areas with fly-by-night populations, as well all the problems we see with certain landlords. The order needs to be more specific about how the benefit is adjudicated.

[Justin Tomlinson]

Let me ponder that question and come back to it.

The Government recognise that some places will see high increases in rents, so we have made provision to help those areas. Over this Parliament, 30% of the savings generated from the measure will be recycled and used to create more targeted affordability funding, which will be used to reduce the gap between frozen LHA rates and the 30th percentile reference rent in areas of the greatest rental growth, building on the £140 million already distributed since 2014.

Hon. Members may be aware that in 2015-16 we have increased 191 LHA rates by 4%, instead of the uprating limit of 1%, using the targeted affordability funding. More than half of the LHA rates in London—41 out of 70—received the extra increase. The funding has also benefited other parts of the country such as Manchester and Aberdeen.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Tristram Hunt Excerpts

Friday 22nd March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander). I can only apologise for breaking the gender/London cabal by heading to north Staffordshire and being a male Member of Parliament.

It would be nothing less than churlish not to begin with the keynote policy of this week’s Budget: the climate change levy exemption for the ceramics industry in my constituency and also the steel industry. There is satisfaction at the highest level in the city and among our industrialists for this welcome tax break. Only last night, at the opening of Hanley’s wonderful new bus station, designed by Grimshaw Associates, which is like the inside of a whale—[Interruption]—from Victorian prints—grizzled Labour councillors and old potters were full of admiration for this welcome policy. It will make a genuine difference to the bottom line of companies. They will now be able to hire more people, invest in kit, innovate and design.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

My hon. Friend is being modest by not paying credit to his campaign for this move. Does he think the people of Stoke-on-Trent should perhaps think of erecting a statute or making a memorial mug to mark his valiant efforts?

[Tristram Hunt]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s interjection. I would also pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello), for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) and for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly).

[Mr Jones]

Three more mugs.

[Tristram Hunt]

I hope the kilns are firing up as we speak.

I hope this change is part of a broader shift on energy-intensive industries. I think we have realised that we can no longer tax such businesses out of production in the UK. It does no good for our economy or our manufacturing base if we export these jobs. The production then goes abroad, where environmental controls are less rigorous and pollution is often greater, so we increase global carbon emissions and also lose worthwhile jobs. We have already lost the aluminium industry in this country thanks to cumulative taxation and we do not want to see the glass, paper, steel or ceramics industries go the same way.

I also welcomed the new tax regime for shale gas in the Budget. I regard shale as a potentially important new energy source that we need to see exploited in an environmentally sound manner. We are seeing it exploited right around the world. The technology behind it is improving at every stage. People have rightly expressed fears about contamination of water supplies, which are beginning to be addressed, but shale has a potentially paradigm-shifting capacity. What we have seen in America will not necessarily occur in the UK. It is absolutely right that we begin to explore shale—just as the Chinese and other European countries are—both onshore and, potentially, offshore. We need the technology and innovation to do that and we need a suitable taxation system.

Those involved in shale gas production need to take the communities with them and to have a social licence to produce it, but I urge Ministers to think more creatively. The great loss from North sea oil was that unlike Norway we did not create a sovereign wealth fund out of our oil riches. If we gain riches from shale, should we not consider a sovereign wealth fund? I will leave Ministers to mull on that idea.

While I am focused on industry and energy, let me highlight a contemporary crisis affecting industry here and now. As we speak, gas storage in this country is under 10% and this morning the Bacton gas connection to Belgium broke down. The price of gas hit £1.25 per therm when it is usually about 60p per therm. There is a real danger that kilns will have to close in north Staffordshire and that brickworks will close down, and I do not think that there is the necessary urgency from Ministers in Department of Energy and Climate Change or the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills about what is happening with the gas supply. That points towards a broader issue about gas storage: if we want rebalancing and want our industries to improve, we must ensure that we have a much greater system of gas storage in this country.

I am proud to represent an industrial constituency and I welcome some of the pre-Budget announcements on an industrial strategy, particularly that about the aerospace technology institute. I also welcome the adoption of 81 out of 89 of Lord Heseltine’s recommendations, particularly those on a single local growth fund. That is exactly the devolution of funding we want to see and a rightful acknowledgement that those in town halls often know a great deal more than those in Whitehall. As the Financial Secretary is on the Front Bench, let me say that we look forward to the upcoming announcements on city deals. I know that Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire have been working very hard to ensure that the Treasury is happy with what they are doing. It is quite right that the Government have allocated an extra £3 billion for infrastructure.

Behind all that must lie the acknowledgement that it is all too little, too late. The spending on infrastructure should have happened at the beginning of the Parliament, not more than halfway through it. As the Deputy Prime Minister has said, the Government should have not come to power and unleashed such capital spending cuts. The local growth fund could have been managed by regional development agencies, but the Government came in and abolished them. They are now realising that local enterprise partnerships often do not have the capacity and co-ordination to deliver the resources we are asking of them.

We should not have had to wait until the second half of a Parliament for an industrial strategy. In 2007-08, when we were in government, we were beginning to develop a credible industrial strategy that the Government should have continued rather than ripping it up in that terrible June Budget and beginning again. Over the past few years, we have seen a textbook example of how not to manage a recession, which will be taught in universities across the world. This is a catch-up Budget that is trying to undo the mistakes embedded in our economy three years ago.

The austerity agenda has spectacularly failed. Growth has collapsed, debt has mushroomed and the deficit at the end of the Parliament is expected to be £96 billion, five times more than the £20 billion the Chancellor expected at the beginning. As my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) suggested, any board member who came to a board with such figures would be sent packing. As the shadow Chancellor warned in his celebrated Bloomberg lecture, that is the product of slashing spending, sucking demand out of the economy, the rhetoric of doom and gloom and the undermining of confidence. That is being borne witness to by the remarkable collapse in sterling, which is a sign of weakness, not strength, and by the collapse and loss of our credit rating. The austerity is not working, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) said, it is just hurting.

As the IMF chief economist suggests, we need a plan B. We need a VAT cut, a house building strategy and concentration on vocational skills and infrastructure. We need a different model, because this one simply is not working. Although I am happy to welcome the micro-element of this Budget in the context of the climate change levy, the macro-element fails spectacularly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tristram Hunt Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend rightly highlights the importance of local events, and I urge all hon. Members to examine the connection between their area and the first world war. It is by bringing it to life in this very local and personal way that we can give this commemoration the importance it needs. The Government are investing more than £50 million in projects such as the refurbishment of the Imperial War museum, but we will also be doing an awful lot more at a community level.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

4. What assessment she has made of access to the arts in each region.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

My Department’s Taking Part survey shows high levels of access to the arts in all regions of England; the figures are 78.9% in England overall and 74.5% in the west midlands.

[Tristram Hunt]

First, may I pay tribute to the great work the Minister is doing on the Wedgwood museum? However, as a result of the extraordinary and disproportionate cuts to local authority budgets, great museums such as the Potteries museum and art gallery in Stoke-on-Trent face a funding and scholarship crisis. In a recent letter to The Guardian, the chair of Arts Council England, Liz Forgan, said that bodies such as hers cannot fill the vacuum. What talks is the Minister having with that great aesthete and lover of the arts the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to make sure that our great cities and regions continue to have access to great art?

[Mr Vaizey]

I met the great lover of the arts’ junior Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster), only yesterday, and my Department has regular communications with the Department for Communities and Local Government. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we managed to keep the cuts to national portfolio organisations down to 15% or less, and we have massively increased the national lottery share for the arts. However, we do, of course, take concerns about local authority funding seriously.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tristram Hunt Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We have a whole series of measures. We recently introduced a new fraud and error strategy, which is already having some success. Future fraud will be reduced now, and agreed by the Office for Budget Responsibility in a sense, but we will reduce future fraud right now by £237 million. The plan and target is for us to reduce it by about £1.4 billion by March 2015. These are major measures over and above what we were left by the Opposition, who seemed quite content to watch fraud and error spiral out of control.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

T3. As you know, Mr Speaker, the Wedgwood museum in Stoke-on-Trent is one of the greatest museums in the world and is facing the liquidation of its collection due to faulty pension legislation. The problem lies with the 2008 occupational pension schemes regulation and the last man standing principle, which leaves a solvent employer liable for the whole of the deficit in a multi-employer scheme. That was never meant to apply to charitable collections. Will the Minister review that legislation before we sacrifice more of our national heritage to the lawyers?

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

When any charity or other organisation joins a last man standing pension scheme, it is important that it take proper advice about the liabilities it is taking on. Obviously, that is a general observation. On this specific case, the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey), has spoken to the chairman of the Pension Protection Fund about the Wedgwood museum, has explained the importance of the collection for the nation and has asked her whether she can find a way of preventing the collection from being broken up. That is something we all want to see.

Youth Unemployment

Tristram Hunt Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I think that the right hon. Gentleman should listen to his right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead, who said in 2006 that youth unemployment was worse than when Labour took power, and it carried on getting worse after that. By the time of last year’s general election, youth unemployment was still 270,000 higher than it had been in 1997, and still they remained in denial—they remain in denial to this day. The greatest brass neck of all was that two months ago the previous Prime Minister had the effrontery to claim:

“Tragically Britain is entering yet another decade of youth unemployment.”

Just what does the Labour party think had been happening for the past 10 years when it was in government?

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman also does not remember that during the last disastrous years of the Labour Government he was Chief Secretary to the Treasury. For those who do not know, that is the person in Government responsible for keeping spending under control. It was not we who built up the biggest peacetime deficit this country has ever known, but him. What did he do to stop his Prime Minister promising to spend money he did not have and making promises to the unemployed that he could not keep? Of course, there was the notorious letter to his successor:

“Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid to tell you there is no money. Kind regards and good luck!”

What characterised the period that he and his colleagues have so conveniently forgotten is that the Labour party spent more and more money and made less and less difference. It is no wonder amnesia has set in.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

Will the Minister explain why the Conservative party committed itself to the previous Government’s spending plans when in opposition?

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

I do not have such doubts. I cannot comment in detail on Nottingham’s figures over the past few years, but as we have been examining in this debate, the problem of youth unemployment has not started in the past few months: it has been with us for a long time and we have a structural issue.

I was talking about the buoyancy that is needed in the private sector. That starts with investment because when there is investment, businesses grow and take on workers, including young workers. To encourage investment, we need to keep interest rates low. To keep interest rates low, we need a Government who take the nation’s finances seriously. We also need to ensure that lending is happening, and I am pleased that the Government are taking a very robust approach with the banks on that. Something that we need to work on more, but which will take some time, is ensuring that British firms are not bogged down in regulation, dead-weight administration and an enormously complicated tax system.

As well as a buoyant private sector, we need to make sure that we have the right skills to take advantage of the opportunities in the market, both generally and targeted at specific sectors. When we talk about productivity, we tend to focus on manufacturing, but the service sector now accounts for two thirds of the private sector and for much of the productivity gap that we have in relation to other leading nations. Services will continue to be important in future and we need to build up the skills base of our young people—not just their craft skills but their interpersonal and communication skills.

It is also right to have a targeted approach—a strategy for Great Britain plc. Our record on picking winners is not unblemished, but we do need a strategy. We will never again make T-shirts cheaper than China, but there are sectors in which we can excel. The trick is to find sectors in which there is the coincidence of a high-value, attractive growth market and something that Britain is uniquely well-placed to take advantage of, such as advanced manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, the creative industries, financial services, higher education and tourism.

Let me say a word on tourism, because my background is in the hospitality, leisure and tourism sector. [Hon. Members: “Ah!”] I do not know why people are saying “Ah.” That market is in long-term growth and remains a great export opportunity for this country. We are well-placed to take advantage of that market because of our great heritage, our vibrant cities and our beautiful countryside. In that regard, I must say, on a local level, that I am delighted that the South Downs national park will be opening its doors in a few weeks’ time.

When it comes to tourism at Great Britain plc, the marketing department is very good but I am afraid that the human resources department still needs some work.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

This is about the future jobs fund.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

This is a very important debate, and it is a shame to see the Government Benches so empty, not least because the number of unemployment claimants in Stoke-on-Trent Central was more than 250 higher in January 2011 than in December 2010. The good work done by the Labour Government in stopping unemployment, preventing youth unemployment and preventing the worst of the recession is being steadily undone. That was the Labour vision—helping the least well-off through the toughest times. Now we face the morass of a noblesse oblige, laissez-faire big society model that will do little for my constituents.

Part of the Labour approach was the future jobs fund, which secured training and work for young people and slashed long-term ingrained unemployment. Many of my colleagues have spoken very effectively of how well the scheme has worked in their constituencies, and I can say the same of my constituency and the broader north Staffordshire area. The north Staffordshire future jobs fund put hundreds of people into work across Stoke-on-Trent, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Staffordshire Moorlands.

A good example was to be found at Epic Housing, a housing association in Bentilee in my constituency, a tough part of Stoke-on-Trent with ingrained problems of worklessness. Epic looks after 900 homes in the Bentilee area and put 26 people through the scheme, 10 of whom now have permanent jobs—six with Bentilee Environmental Services and Training and four with the parent firm, Epic. Malcolm Burdon, the social enterprise team leader—something that I believe the Government are in favour of—said:

“In six months, the lads go from sitting at home watching Jeremy Kyle to getting up in the morning and coming into work. It makes them disciplined.”

I have nothing against Jeremy Kyle personally, but I am in favour of work and the discipline and pride that come with it, which I used to think the Conservative party believed in.

The future jobs fund has worked not just in Bentilee but in Abbey Green, and it has attacked a culture of worklessness in some tough communities in the city. It is important for my city because Stoke-on-Trent is now on an economic journey, which the Labour Government were helping. It lost its traditional industries, the pits and the pots. Mrs Thatcher did for the mining industry, globalisation did for the steel industry and mechanisation put tens of thousands out of work in the ceramics trade. We are now on a journey of retraining, reskilling, education and attacking worklessness. The collapse of those industries ingrained a culture of worklessness in many communities. People still had the idea that they could go to work in those traditional sectors without needing education and training, and when those jobs went, so too did a culture of workfulness. That filtered down the generations and there was a problem with getting people to work.

The current generation cannot go into the jobs of their fathers and forefathers. As the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) said, we cannot make T-shirts cheaper than China, nor can we make ceramics cheaper than China in many instances, or steel. We therefore need to train people and give them skills, but we also need to get them back into a culture of work, and that was partly what the future jobs fund was about. My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) explained very well how the fund got into communities and got people back into the culture that they needed.

The real problem with the attack on the future jobs fund is that it forms part of a triple whammy attack by the Government on young people. We had the withdrawal of the education maintenance allowance, which had allowed many people to make the transition to education and learning, which is very important in a city such as mine. We then had the rank stupidity of the teaching budget for universities being slashed by 80%, thereby imposing a £9,000 charge on tuition fees. We should not think for a minute that not all the good universities in the UK will seek to charge £9,000. That leaves many of us wondering what on earth the Government have against young people.

When those moves are combined with an economic policy of cutting too far and too fast, we see that the Government do not have a policy for growth. They have a policy that looks after the banks and supermarkets but slashes business investment.

[Mr Edward Timpson (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tristram Hunt]

I would be delighted to give way to a fellow north Staffordshire Member.

[Mr Timpson]

Cheshire, actually, but I know we are fairly close to each other. You’ll get to know the geography fairly soon.

Will the hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to enlighten us on his party’s policy for growth?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tristram Hunt]

My party’s policy for growth is to rebalance the British economy, and to invest in industry, manufacturing and engineering, which are vital to the north Staffordshire economy. This Government give corporation tax cuts to the banks and the supermarkets, and end initiatives that help investment in science, manufacturing and engineering.

Welfare bills and jobseeker’s allowance accounts are being added to by the undermining of the economic recovery and the scrapping of the future jobs fund, which itself imperils the Government’s hopes of paying down the deficit. The argument about the extraneous cost of the future jobs fund is economic nonsense. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who is no longer in the Chamber, mentioned the great success of the scheme. Government Members like to pray my right hon. Friend in aid at every single opportunity, but on that point they would do well to listen to him.

Many of my colleagues wish to explain the success of the future jobs fund in their constituencies, but it would be unfair to leave my speech without a good old-fashioned example of Liberal Democrat hypocrisy. In a letter dated 21 April 2010, the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), wrote:

“We have no plans to change or reduce existing commitments to the Future Jobs Fund. We believe that more help is needed for young people, not less.”

We now know how far those commitments go.

Liberal Democrats say that they did not know what the books looked like or what the conditions were, but the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills spent his life writing about the storm and the catastrophe and the crash and all the rest of it, so the situation was not exactly unacknowledged. That talk was either over-egging or dissimulation.

The youth unemployment crisis and the future jobs fund policy points to three things: first, a series of broken promises, denials and U-turns by this shoddy Tory-led Government; secondly, the fact that they have no policy for growth or job creation, eggs benedict and all; and thirdly, the perils of the Government’s vision of the big society. Labour believes in civil society working with the state, but the Government believe in the withdrawal of the state, which will have terrible results in the communities that we represent.

Welfare Reform

Tristram Hunt Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am glad that my hon. Friend sees it like that, because that is exactly how I see it. Of course, the devil will be in the detail, but we want a process that is easy to understand for those who are trying to get back to work, so that they do not need a maths degree to figure out exactly how much money they will retain if they do seven, eight, nine, 15 or 20 hours’ work a week. We want it to be easy for them to understand that there is an incentive for every hour that they work, and for those in jobcentres to figure it out, so that they can give proper advice. We want incentives, not disincentives, to go back to work.

[Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give us some assurance about the future of the independent living fund? The Government trickled out the information that it was one of the quangos to be abolished. That report has caused my constituent, Mrs Seckerson, and her husband and carer, Barry Seckerson, real concern because if they lose that fund, her chance of living a meaningful life will be severely inhibited. Rather than leaving them fearful of the future, can the Secretary of State give them some sense of security today?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The ILF, which we inherited, had been underfunded and was consequently overspent—literally on the day we walked through the door of government. The hon. Gentleman might therefore want to take up the reasons for such bad mismanagement with his Front-Bench colleagues. However, we want to ensure that we deal with people in those circumstances fairly and reasonably. We are reviewing the whole process now and, as and when we complete the review, I shall ensure that the hon. Gentleman hears the details of it.