Winter Fuel Payment
Warinder Juss Excerpts(1 week, 5 days ago)
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Torsten Bell
It is the hon. Member who is talking bilge. Growth was the highest in the G7 in the first quarter of this year, interest rates have fallen four times, and wages have risen faster in 10 months than they did in 10 years under the Conservatives. What is happening is that we are sorting out their mess and putting Britain on a better track.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that, given that ours is now the fastest growing economy in the G7 and interest rates have been cut four times, now is the time to ensure that our public services will be protected and that pensioners who do not need the winter fuel payment to heat their homes will not receive it, while those who do need it to heat their homes will receive it?
Torsten Bell
I should have got out of the way, because my hon. Friend has given a direct rebuttal to what was said by the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez). He is entirely correct in every detail of the important points that he has raised. A Labour Government investing in public services and ending austerity: that is what we will be hearing about in the House on Wednesday, and I look forward to hearing Conservative Members explain how they tried to support that spending while opposing every tax rise that was necessary to make it happen.
Oral Answers to Questions
Warinder Juss Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Sir Stephen Timms
The hon. Gentleman is right that there has been a problem over a long period with overpayments—often inadvertent—of carer’s allowance. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State appointed Liz Sayce to undertake her independent review. I know she is making good progress, and I have regularly kept in touch with her. We are looking forward to receiving her recommendations, which will cover those who have been affected, and will recommend changes for the future, too.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
What analysis has been done of how the changes proposed in the “Pathways to Work” Green Paper will affect those who rely on PIP not just for employment support, but for their daily living and mobility needs? Can my right hon. Friend please assure my constituents in Wolverhampton West who are disabled and will never be able to work that their financial support will not be restricted in a way that affects their quality of life, so that they can live with independence, and the dignity that they deserve?
Sir Stephen Timms
That is an important concern. As my hon. Friend knows, we are determined to open up opportunities for people who have been out of work, often for a long time, on health and disability grounds, and to give them the chance to get into work through much better employment support. However, we recognise that there will be people who will never be able to work. Under the proposals for claims for the new universal credit health element, from next April, a higher payment will protect those with the most severe lifelong conditions that have no prospect of improvement, and who will never be able to work. Eligibility for that will be through the work capability assessment conditions criteria.
Personal Independence Payment: Disabled People
Warinder Juss Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Ms Abbott
Far from enabling the Government to put people into work, removing PIP will actually stop people working, because they depend on PIP for the extra cost of going to work.
Perhaps the most preposterous argument for cutting disability payments is that it is the moral choice. This is obviously nonsense. In what universe is slashing benefits for the disabled moral? No one is taken in by that, not even those who think that all benefit claimants are scroungers.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
I have a constituent who has two sons suffering with cystic fibrosis. The condition means they have to be on a high-calorie, high-fat diet, so the cost of their food is much more than the ordinary shop. On top of that, my constituent has to bear the additional costs of buying medication and the loss of income as a result of having to be a carer for her two children. My right hon. Friend mentioned the need to look after our children. Does she agree that we need a system in which PIP provides for individuals such as my constituent’s two sons, so that children can also have the support to lead good-quality lives?
Ms Abbott
I entirely agree. Furthermore, it seems to me that Ministers have not really looked into the costs that PIP is covering, otherwise they would not be talking about slashing it in this way.
I wonder whether it ever occurs to the Government that voters will begin to notice that whenever they want money, they take it from the most vulnerable—old people, poor children and now the disabled. When we suggest a wealth tax, they recoil in horror, yet a 2% levy on men and women whose assets are worth more than £10 million would affect only 0.4% of the UK population and raise £24 billion a year. Politics is the language of choices, and sadly, this Government are making a conscious choice to balance their books on the back of people on welfare in general and the disabled in particular.
Community and Third Sector Organisations: Employment
Warinder Juss Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Paulette Hamilton
My hon. Friend raises the valuable point that we cannot do anything without money, so we must ensure that the funding is there to support these organisations to deliver what we need in our local communities.
The challenges that we face in Erdington and north Birmingham are not unique. The UK has long grappled with the skills shortages that holds back economic growth. According to the Department for Education, skills shortages have doubled between 2017 and 2022, to more than half a million, and now account for 36% of job vacancies. This a national crisis that demands a national response. That is why I was encouraged by the Labour Government’s announcement of Skills England last year. The initiative, which brings together stakeholders to meet the skills needs of the future, is exactly the kind of bold, collective approach we need. By creating a more integrated and responsive training system, Skills England will provide new opportunities for young people and support businesses in building a skilled workforce.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
In Wolverhampton, we have the Wolves at Work programme. It is co-ordinated by the City of Wolverhampton council, but involves partnership working with local employers and partner organisations. The programme provides one-to-one support to highly skilled professionals and those with no experience at all, so that they can get jobs or advance their careers. It also provides assistance to employers. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need collaborative working, with local authorities involved, and with that goes investment for authorities as well?
Paulette Hamilton
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need collaboration. Such programmes will not work if organisations work in isolation.
There is always room for improvement. I firmly believe that the Government should look at the success of place-based partnerships and professional support, as demonstrated by the north Birmingham economic recovery board. I urge the Minister to consider the approach as a potential model for national policy.
Women’s Changed State Pension Age: Compensation
Warinder Juss Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Sir John Hayes
I have been in this place a long time, as the hon. Lady knows, and she is here having first been endorsed by the electorate, then rejected, then re-endorsed. I have not had that difficulty myself; none the less, she will know that one learns and grows in this place. As I became more familiar with these arguments—I repeat this—I challenged the Conservative Government, my own party, on this issue, on the record, on the Floor of the House. It is not about this Minister; this is about any Minister who fails to recognise this matter.
Sir John Hayes
If I might make a little progress, then I will happily give way.
It is important to set out some of the detail. Some of the worst-affected women received just 18 months’ notice of a six-year increase in their state pension age. Just under 2 million women fall into that category. The WASPI campaigners acknowledge that some were going to retire only a matter of days, or perhaps weeks, later than expected, whereas those who were given very long notice were clearly in a rather different circumstance. The campaigners are not unrealistic about that. Having met them and discussed it, I know that they are very realistic about the difference between those two groups, and they therefore simultaneously recognise that the Government response needs to be tailored, and measured in the way it gauges the responsibility. The breach in trust is common, but the effect of that breach in trust is different in different cases.
I do not advocate a response to this problem in which every single case is dealt with individually, so that there are as many different settlements as individuals. That would be impractical and delayed, and I emphasise delay because one of these women dies every 12 minutes. There will be another WASPI woman lost during the course of my speech. That is the reality. These bald statistics mask lives—lives altered, lives damaged and lives restricted by this matter.
Sir John Hayes
That is what inspires me to speak today and, I am sure, inspires the hon. Gentleman, who is about to intervene to say just how much he supports me.
Warinder Juss
A lot of us have previously publicly supported the WASPI women, including by posting photographs on social media. The Government have acknowledged that there has been maladministration, but to have that acknowledgement without some kind of financial backing, even if minimal, not only undermines the process of the ombudsman, who so many of us rely on, but may undermine public confidence in politicians in general.
Sir John Hayes
The hon. Gentleman is right and he encourages me to turn to the ombudsman’s report, which I have before me. Members will be pleased to note that, although I have inserted many tags into my copy of this report and the previous one, I will not refer to all of them. That would take forever.
Suffice it to say that the ombudsman found
“maladministration in DWP’s communication about the 1995 Pensions Act resulted in complainants losing opportunities to make informed decisions about some things and to do some things differently, and diminished their sense of personal autonomy and financial control.”
The ombudsman’s remedy is set out at the end of the second report. Ombudsmen recommend recompense on a scale—a series of levels, from 1 to 6. The report is here for everyone who has not studied it in detail to see: the ombudsman recommended a level 4 response. That means
“a significant and/or lasting injustice that has, to some extent, affected someone’s ability to live a relatively normal life.”
It suggests that the recompense might be between £1,000 and £2,950.
International Day of Persons with Disabilities
Warinder Juss Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Debbie Abrahams
The hon. Member—a fellow member of the Work and Pensions Committee—makes a good point. I am sorry that I was unable to attend that event myself, but I will certainly give that matter some consideration, and I hope that the Government will, too.
More than 16 million people in the UK have a disability—nearly one in four of us—and nearly half of all disabilities are acquired during a person’s lifetime. In recognition of that, in 2009 the UK not only became a signatory to the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, which includes 40 articles ranging from education and work and employment to the right to life, but enshrined disability as a protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010. We should be proud that we as a country have adopted that, but now it is about how we put it into practice, because we have unfortunately gone backwards in many ways.
Despite the important moves that the then Government had undertaken, the austerity brought in by the coalition Government in 2010, and amplified by the Conservative Government in 2015, not only restricted financial and other state support for disabled people—adding further challenges to their lives—but created a culture of fear, particularly for those reliant on social security support who were unable to work. All too often, disabled people were treated as workshy, with the shirker-scrounger narrative perpetuated in policy and practice and, unfortunately, also in our media.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on International Day of Persons with Disabilities. Does she agree that a lot of the disabilities that we need to be aware of are hidden disabilities such as autism, depression and other mental conditions? We do not see those disabilities directly, but we need to be aware of them, and to deal with issues such as unconscious bias that we sometimes come across.
Debbie Abrahams
My hon. Friend makes such an important point—I absolutely agree. I talked about societal barriers and a social model of disability; we need to recognise that disabilities can also be hidden, so I thank my hon. Friend for pointing that out.
The reality is that most people, disabled or not, try to do the right thing, but as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has shown, if you are a disabled adult or a disabled child, your family is more likely to be living in poverty or destitution. Things became so bad that in 2016, the then Conservative Government were investigated for having breached the UN CRPD. Following an investigation, the UK Government were found guilty in 2017 of systemic violations. As a UN committee spokeswoman declared,
“the committee can confirm that some violations were grave, some others were systematic, and some were both: grave and systematic.”
In particular, the investigating committee found that the rights of disabled people to an adequate standard of living and social protection, to work and employment, and to independent living had been breached.
Oral Answers to Questions
Warinder Juss Excerpts(7 months, 1 week ago)
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Sir Stephen Timms
The strategy will be very clear about how we will tackle the scourge of child poverty, and the hon. Lady is absolutely right to highlight the importance of doing that. Labour voted against the two-child limit, but we will not promise change until we know how we are going to pay for it. That will be addressed in the work of the taskforce, with the results published in the spring.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Andrew Western)
No specific assessment has been made of the impact of the household support fund on low-income households in 2025-26, although we hear routinely from local authorities across the country about the impact of the fund in supporting those who are struggling. An evaluation of the fourth iteration of the scheme, running from April 2023 to March 2024, will be published shortly, exploring the benefits of the more than 19 million awards made during this period.
Warinder Juss
I agree that the payment of winter fuel allowance should be means-tested, because many pensioners who receive the winter fuel allowance simply do not need it. However, there are pensioners who are not entitled to pension credit who will struggle to heat their homes. Can the Minister please confirm the extent to which the household support fund will assist those pensioners in my Wolverhampton West constituency?
Andrew Western
The household support fund is intended to support a wide range of households in need, including pensioner households. There has been no ringfencing of funding for specific groups since October 2022, meaning that local authorities have the flexibility to support pensioners who are just above the pension credit threshold. In the 2023-24 financial year, 26% of household support funding went towards meeting energy costs.