Disabled People

Debate between William Bain and Mark Hoban

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

I want to move on. I have been very generous in giving way to the right hon. Gentleman, as he acknowledged.

We all know that some disabled people face extra costs as a result of the impact of their disability. The main source of financial support, disability living allowance, has not been fundamentally reformed since 1992. Our welfare reforms presented an opportunity to start afresh, keeping the best elements of DLA that people value, but bringing the benefit up to date to make it fit for the 21st century. The personal independence payment—PIP—is easy to understand and administer. It is financially sustainable and more objective. It will be better targeted on those in most need. Throughout the whole development, we have consulted widely with disabled people and have used their views to inform policy design. We have continued to listen and consult, ensuring that these reforms continue to be shaped by the views of disabled people themselves. In other words, reform is not static and this Government are committed to listening and acting where change is required.

Instead of simply cutting money from everyone, we chose the more difficult but principled option of modernising the benefit and focusing support where it is most needed. PIP will be awarded on the basis of a fair, consistent and objective assessment which will enable us to target support on those who face the greatest barriers to independent living. More than one fifth of PIP recipients will get both of the highest rates, worth £134.40 each week, compared with only 16% on DLA. That demonstrates that we are focusing support on those in most need.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept the figure in the Demos and Scope study which indicates that 3,000 households could be affected by six individual welfare changes and lose as much as £4,500 a year? Does not that cumulative effect on living standards create the need for a cumulative assessment of what welfare reform is doing?

[Mr Hoban]

The hon. Gentleman illustrates in that question the impossibility of the task suggested in the motion. He has focused on one area. He has not taken into account tax changes, changes in fuel duty, the additional money that we are spending on improving access, the pupil premium or the changes that we are making to social care. To do an assessment properly—to look at that level of detail—as the motion suggests, involves looking across the whole of Government in a way that no Government have done before. It is the complexity of the issue that defeats specialist bodies trying to assess the full impact.

We did hear two bits of policy from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill. He backtracked on the spare room subsidy but he also talked about care. We are constantly looking at ways of joining up and simplifying care. We have made fundamental reforms to improve systems and bring spending under control. The Care Bill goes much further than ever before in giving disabled people real control. We are taking practical and far-reaching steps—for example, extending personal budgets for health and care, introducing a new duty on local authorities to co-operate, and introducing education, health and care plans for our children and young people. We will bring forward proposals in the autumn to improve employment support for disabled people.

The right hon. Gentleman spoke about a new single personal budget, but as usual there is no detail. He said nothing about how it will be funded—a point proved by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard)—nothing about whether it will be means-tested, and nothing about whether local and national systems will be integrated. Will the right hon. Gentleman abolish PIP, for example? He told us nothing about how such an assessment would work, and nothing about the data-sharing issues that clearly arise. It is very clear that that is yet another kite flown by him with no information, no detail, no substance—again, three years in opposition completely wasted, with no fresh ideas.

We are clear that this Government always inform their decisions with equality analysis of policy changes, as required by the Equality Act 2010. All major welfare reform changes have been accompanied by a published equality impact assessment and these are updated if impacts change. I reiterate that a cumulative impact assessment would be so complex and subject to so many variables that it would be meaningless, helping neither individuals nor policy makers, and it would soon be incorrect and out of date. This may be something that the right hon. Gentleman wants to push, but it has not been done by any Government.

The Treasury does publish a broad-brush cumulative analysis of all tax, benefit and public service reforms at every fiscal event. This is a coalition initiative and something that the previous Government did not do. It is by its nature broad-brush, aimed at checking the broad distributional impacts of Government policy. It is not possible to do a meaningful breakdown for the disabled population. That is exactly why the previous Government did not do it. That is why I encourage my hon. Friends to vote against the motion. They know that it cannot be delivered. I urge them to support the amendment, which sets out what the coalition Government have done in office. We have acted to build a modern system of financial support for disabled people, acted to strengthen employment support and acted to provide better care for disabled people. We are delivering real reform for disabled people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between William Bain and Mark Hoban

Monday 1st July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

There is no 16-hour-a-week limit on voluntary work, so let me slay that myth first. The important thing is that the jobseeker is actively seeking work, and advisers have some flexibility on that, but volunteering should not get in the way of trying to find a job.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

The bedroom tax is causing councils enormous financial strain, as it is for hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people across the country. On 11 June the pensions Minister told me that the Government are not making monthly checks on how much discretionary housing payment money councils are spending. What will happen to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people when the money runs out?

Banking Reform

Debate between William Bain and Mark Hoban

Thursday 14th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

I think it is very clear that the emerging debate about a banking union flows from the problems we are seeing in the eurozone. It is important that the banking union helps resolve some of the problems in the eurozone, but it is a consequence of having a single currency, not a consequence of having a single market. It is important for the eurozone to move ahead in dealing with its problems and strengthening the banking regime within it. It is also important for the future of the City to ensure that there are proper safeguards over the functioning of the single market.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

With a double-dip recession made in Downing street, bank lending having fallen for five consecutive quarters and businesses facing a shortfall of £190 billion in finance over the next decade, why are there no further proposals in the White Paper to diversify the range of banking institutions to make sure that finance gets into the real economy?

[Mr Hoban]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has yet read the White Paper. If he had, he would have seen a section on competition that deals with encouraging diversity, making it easier for new entrants to come into the market and promoting switching. When the hon. Gentleman has read the White Paper, he might like to come back to me.

Northern Rock

Debate between William Bain and Mark Hoban

Monday 21st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am not sure I would ever want to turn to those on the Opposition Benches for advice on when to sell assets.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

Northern Rock demutualised in 1997 yet collapsed 10 years later. Does the Financial Secretary recognise that if it did so again, the cost to the taxpayer could rise to £10 billion? Why, then, did he not more rigorously pursue a mutualisation option that would have restored a safer building society mode of finance to the British high street?

[Mr Hoban]

We should think about those dates very carefully. It was demutualised in 1997 and failed in 2007. The hon. Gentleman needs to remember that the regulatory architecture put in place by the previous Government meant that Northern Rock could act as an outlier and become over-dependent on wholesale funding. Nobody did anything about that at a time when there was an asset price bubble in the UK economy. Those factors in the regulatory architecture led to some of the financial problems in the economy in 2007, 2008 and 2009. We are acting to strengthen the regulatory architecture, to tackle those problems and to ensure that the Bank of England has the powers it needs to supervise the banks properly and look at systemic threats to financial stability. We have also set up the Independent Commission on Banking, which is looking at ways of making the banking system in the UK safer while remaining competitive at an international level.

Eurozone (Contingency Plans)

Debate between William Bain and Mark Hoban

Monday 20th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hoban]

I cannot speak for Her Majesty on this occasion, but I would say to my hon. Friend that we did not come forward with a statement today because no decisions have been taken. A statement was put out by the Eurogroup last night which recognised that work was in progress, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has continually sought to keep the House informed of the outcome of such discussions. Once ECOFIN has met today, there will be an opportunity for him to lay a statement on the outcome of that meeting.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

Despite the European lenders having cut their exposure to risk in Greece by 30% in the past year, the risk of contagion in the eurozone has become the paramount concern. Will the Minister acknowledge that, with about $2 trillion exposure to Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain by lenders in the eurozone, any Greek default would have the potential to devastate the European banking system and jeopardise the economic recovery in the eurozone?

[Mr Hoban]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. In the event of a default, there would be consequences for the strength of bank balance sheets across Europe. That is why we are going through a stress-testing process across Europe at the moment to determine the consequences of various scenarios on the strength of bank balance sheets. UK banks have strengthened their balance sheets significantly and they hold high levels of capital. That will give them some insulation against the impact of a default.