Liam Byrne
MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North · Labour · United Kingdom
“The loss of 4,000 jobs at Jaguar Land Rover is a body blow for workers, families and communities across the west midlands, so I commend Richard Parker, the Mayor of the West Midlands, for moving quickly on Monday to put £500,000 on the table to help ensure that everybody gets back to work.”
“I wholeheartedly welcome this well-rounded statement from the Foreign Secretary, and put on record my thanks to the new Prime Minister for the hard yards that I know he has put in over recent days and weeks.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I offer my warmest congratulations to her on her appointment to the role; she will be a brilliant Minister.”
“Let me start with a word of thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), who is not in her place, who said quite rightly that an awful lot has changed since the Bill was first introduced to this House. Indeed, a lot has been revealed over the course of the summer.”
“The effect of new clause 34 would be to ban off-ramping, ban new forms of digital currency transactions and ban memecoins, which are exactly the kind of measures that Ministers now need to bring forward. If we want to take the crypto system out of political finance, this is what we need to do.”
“No doubt we will learn that Mr Cottrell was in fact on the electoral register when that money was passed. No doubt we will discover that his mother, Fiona Cottrell, declared and did not disguise the fact that the money had ultimately come from her son.”
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“As I have rehearsed this afternoon, we simply think that a “one cap fits all” approach is not going to work. The Minister has had to put his hand in his pocket and spend a fortune to fix the problem. He tells us that the Work programme is working well, but the rate at which people are flowing off benefits and into work speaks for itself. It is at its lowest point since 1998. That tells us, I am afraid, that the back-to-work programmes are simply not going to work.”
“I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point with such force. No one is against people having to move home or to lower-cost areas of accommodation. What people are worried about is 21,000 families being made homeless, local councils having to pick up the bill for that, and that bill having to be paid for by council tax payers such as hers. What conversations has she had with her constituents about how much their council tax bill is going to go up because there is a new bill for homelessness to pay?”
“They should be back in work, which is why we are so angry that unemployment is set to rise, rise and rise again over the course of this year.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Perhaps if Conservative Members had not tried to play politics and had thought the policy through, we might be in a better place this afternoon.”
“Absolutely right, and I shall say a few words later about the dramatic escalation in the housing benefit bill that the Department for Work and Pensions foresees. Somehow, that has not featured in this afternoon’s debate, but we will come on to those facts and figures shortly.”
“I am going to do exactly that. The Minister makes an important point about regionalisation and localisation, but the point has already been made that we have a local component to the benefit system, and we have had it for 70 years. It was such a big feature of the benefit system that in 1942 William Beveridge devoted an entire section of his report to “the problem of rents”, as he put it. I know that the Conservative party tried to block the Beveridge report back then and that Conservative Members do not want to admit this problem now, but I am afraid that it is a problem that bedevils their policy.”
“Almost half the benefits received by that family will consist of housing benefit, as opposed to only about a third of the benefits received by a family in similar circumstances living in a different part of the country. Pretty often, incidentally, that money goes to the landlord rather than the family in question. I believe that we should have a cap that is different in different parts of the country, but takes account of differences in housing benefit.”
“I shall come on to that directly, but I agree with the hon. Lady on one important point. It is important to take local factors into account. If we take out the pension system, the housing benefit bill is something like a quarter of the overall benefits spending. It has been localised for something like 70 years. Admitting a degree of localisation in the way we set a cap sounds as though it could be perfectly consistent with her proposals, although I have not read her pamphlet. Let me give the House one more illustration of why this is so important. Perhaps the problem of the five-child family in London is included in the hon. Lady’s pamphlet.”
“My hon. Friend is right, and what has been noticeable by its absence this afternoon is any argument from any Government Member relating to what we should do about private landlords.”
“Heaven knows, that is worsening enough under the present Government, and we do not want it to become worse still.”
“I promise that I will give way to the hon. Lady in a moment. A one-cap-fits-all approach will not work in London, and it will not work elsewhere. As has been pointed out by many Members representing all parts of the United Kingdom, the cap that the Government propose may not send people the signal that they are better off in work. Our argument is in our amendment, which says that the cap should reflect differences in housing benefit costs in different parts of the country. That has always been an element of our benefits system, but we would add a couple of extra safeguards. There should be a safeguard against homelessness and the kind of costs that the Minister has had to fix this afternoon, and—in my view—there should also be a safeguard against child poverty.”
“The hon. Lady will have read our amendment, so she will know that we propose to take politics out of the issue, and to establish an independent commission to set the level of the cap. As has been demonstrated this afternoon, when it is left to politicians, they make a pig’s ear of it.”
“We have indeed had discussions with our colleagues in the Welsh Government, who accept the importance of introducing different arrangements for London and other parts of the country and of a solution that recognises the need to localise the benefits system.”
“The hon. Gentleman would be wise to look to his own policy. I suspect that some people in his constituency would be better off on benefits than in work on the cap that is being suggested. Is that not true? Yes or no?”
“If the Government tried to take politics out of the issue just for a moment, and focused on the good old-fashioned business of getting the policy right, they might be in a better position to put in place a cap that does not backfire.”
“The hon. Gentleman will accept that there will be people, under the £26,000 cap, who could be better off on benefits than in work in some parts of the country, so surely he too will admit the wisdom of having a different cap in different parts of the country. That is why we suggest that principle, and why we suggest that an independent commission looks at the levels. We have seen the muddle that the Government have got into—a muddle that has cost the Exchequer £80 million this year, and will cost it £50 million in the year after that; that is the cost of sorting out the homelessness that it has, over the past year, been telling the House would not arise.”
“As we have seen, the budgets are moving around all over the place; we have just had £80 million put in this year, and £50 million will be put in next year, so it is not quite clear what the baseline is.”
“Finally, what would happen if a partner left their spouse, and that spouse, who had four children and lived in a constituency or neighbourhood across the river, automatically found themselves in receipt of benefits that were above the cap? In that tragic situation of family break-up, what happens to the parent looking after the children? Those are important transitional issues that I hope the Minister can clarify.”
“That brings me to the final point that I want to make, which is about how the policy will be implemented. We are pleased that the Government will take on half of our amendment and introduce a grace period. The Secretary of State has made it clear, from a sedentary position, that the cap is not intended to apply to those who are in work, but we are still not completely clear about how many hours a week someone will have to work to secure that exemption. I understood, in Committee, that someone needed to be working at least 24 hours a week on the minimum wage for that to happen, but the whole thrust of universal credit is to ensure, and to encourage people to take, mini-jobs. If someone is working five, six or seven hours a week, would they, too, be exempt from the benefit cap?”
“The Minister with responsibility for pensions asks what we did about it; again, in the Conservative party’s briefing for today’s debate, there are some interesting figures about the rise in housing benefit over the past few years, but of course closer inspection of the DWP forecast for the next few years shows that housing benefit is set to rise, year on year, at the same rate as in the past 13 years. That is why Labour has been right to expose the dangers of cutting investment in new housing and the lack of any policy making from the Government on what should happen to the private rental market. This afternoon, Labour has set out its proposal for a benefit cap that will work in practice. We hope to press it to a vote and that the Government will think again about giving the other place a chance to vote on it—just to reinforce that point.”
“Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us what the budget actually is because although we have heard some figures from the Minister today, he has not set out, for example, whether the grace period will cost any money?”
“Presumably, the fact that homelessness will not be created, which is what the Secretary of State has argued over the past year, is the reason why he has had to find another £80 million—to solve a problem that does not exist. In direct answer to the challenge put by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), our amendment suggests that the right place to start this debate is by having a level for London and a level for outside London. That would begin to address the problem he is highlighting.”
“I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman felt the need to add that rejoinder. There is already a very localised dimension to the benefits system: housing benefit. We have had a localised housing benefits system for about 70 years, and that is why the amendment states that, if we are to have a different solution for London, compared with the rest of the country, it is housing benefit differences that should be taken into account if an independent commission is appointed to set the cap levels. We already have that in place in this country.”
“The hon. Gentleman is very generous and I am grateful for his compliments. But he must accept that Ministers have so badly thought this policy through that they have had to face the indignity of coming to this House and promising to spend £130 million solving a problem that they have told us for the last year would never present itself.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. This has been an important debate, yet the Government have ensured that no time was available to discuss Labour’s amendment and to put it to the vote before the knife fell at 5 o’clock. They declared financial privilege on the amendment in order to stop it being debated in the House of Lords. What advice would you give me, Mr Deputy Speaker, on how to ensure that this place is able to vote on Labour’s benefit cap?”
“I hope that the Secretary of State will not mind if I sustain his attention on the benefit cap for a moment because there will be an important debate in the other place this afternoon on the cap. This is a policy we support because, like him, we believe that people should be better off in work than on benefits. However, I want him to be absolutely straight with the House about what the cap will and will not achieve. Will he tell the House how much the housing benefit bill is going to rise over this Parliament as a result of his failure to get people back to work?”
“If he dismisses that risk—if he wants to be so glib about it—why does he not accept the amendment this afternoon? If he does not, we will support the lord bishops’ amendment to safeguard against a new bill for council tax payers. That is the way that we will get this vote—”
“Perhaps I can help the Secretary of State: the truth is that over the course of this Parliament—over four years—the housing benefit bill is set to rise by an extraordinary £4 billion. We do not want, on top of that, another bill for council tax payers—a bill to clean up the cost of homelessness. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has already warned us that 20,000 people will be made homeless as a result of the way in which the cap will be introduced, and this morning, the Department for Work and Pensions published an impact statement that puts up the number of families who will be affected by the cap by a third. It is almost as if the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is making the policy up as he goes along. I hope that this afternoon he will accept Labour’s safeguards against a new risk of homelessness.”
“Last year he was boasting about how Britain had suddenly become a safe haven. Last year he was so pleased with himself that he said this country was out of the danger zone. How hollow those words ring today. The autumn statement laid bare the catastrophic failure of the Chancellor’s policy—growth flat lining for a year, borrowing up £37 billion higher than the plan drawn up by my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), welfare up by £29 billion, and debt up an extraordinary £158 billion higher than forecast, which is £6,500 more for every house in this country. Borrowing, welfare bills and national debt are all higher, but growth is nowhere to be seen.”
“Once again we have heard of families losing their jobs because of this Government’s decision to cut too far and too fast, and once again we see the consequences of this Government’s decision to stand easy while millions of people in our country are now standing idle. Not even the Minister for unemployment could spin his way through the statistics published this morning—unemployment up by 128,000, employment down, vacancies down and the public sector now losing jobs 13 times faster than the private sector is creating them. We do not have to look very far for the root cause of this unalloyed misery for families 11 days before Christmas. The Chancellor laid it out for us just a fortnight ago. Last year he was boasting about delivering cuts that were £40 billion greater than the cuts planned by Labour.”
“on home improvements, and a one-year national insurance tax break for every small firm which takes on extra workers. It is a shame that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has chosen not to be present for the third Opposition day debate on unemployment and living standards. We rely, I hope, on the Minister for unemployment to relay back the nature of today’s debate and discussion. The House meets to debate the motion after more grim news on jobs this morning. Grim news on jobs this month has followed grim news on the Budget last month. Once again we have seen this morning how the Chancellor’s decision to clobber the recovery is clobbering families all over our country.”
“I beg to move, That this House believes that the Government’s policies of cutting spending and raising taxes too far and too fast have resulted in the UK economy flat-lining for 12 months, well before the recent eurozone crisis; notes that unemployment has reached a 17-year high and over-50s unemployment has risen sharply; further notes that slower growth and higher unemployment makes it harder to get the deficit down and that the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts a further rise in unemployment to 8.7 per cent., a rise in the benefits bill of £29 billion, and an increase in projected borrowing of £158 billion; agrees with the IMF’s warning that ‘consolidating too quickly will hurt the recovery and worsen job prospects’ and that the Government should ‘have a heightened readiness to respond, particularly if it looks like the economy is headed for a prolonged period of weak growth and high unemployment’; and, in light of the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts published on 29 November 2011, calls on the Government to reconsider its refusal to adopt the Opposition’s five point plan for jobs which includes creating 100,000 jobs for young people and building 25,000 affordable homes using funds raised from a tax on bank bonuses, bringing forward long-term investment projects, temporarily reversing the January 2011 VAT rise, a one-year cut in VAT to 5 per cent.”
“If the hon. Gentleman had been listening carefully, he would have heard me answer that question. The plan that my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West and I set out entailed borrowing that was £37 billion lower than that outlined by the Chancellor in his autumn statement a couple of weeks ago. That is of grave concern to the number of people who are now out of work, especially young people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, where long-term youth unemployment has gone up by 128% this year, which must surely concern him.”
“Friend the Prime Minister to get the hell out of the EU.”
“122W.] Here we are, with unemployment going through the roof and the OBR telling us that unemployment is forecast to rise again next year, but despite the multiplicity of schemes laid out by the Secretary of State, who cannot be bothered even to come along to the debate, he cannot tell us how many people are going into work as a result of the spending his Department has in place, with the exception of one programme. The one initiative—it is buried in his answer in Hansard —run by his Department that he can claim is actually creating jobs is the programme financed by the European Union. He said: “European Social Fund support has achieved 75,671 job outcomes from July 2008 to October 2011.” —[ Official Report , 21 November 2011; Vol. 536, c. 122W.] No doubt that is why he is urging his right hon.”
“On apprenticeship offers, we were told: “Information on the number of people placed in work through apprenticeship offers… is not available.” On sector-based work academies, we were told that “there is no national requirement for districts to record and report job outcomes achieved.” On the skills offer, “information… is not available.” On Work Together, “the data requested are not available.” On the innovation fund, “no young people have been placed into work at this point.” —[ Official Report , 21 November 2011; Vol. 536, c.”
“With such sweat being worked up at the Department for unemployment, surely we could expect the country’s unemployed to be positively flowing back into jobs. Members can imagine my surprise when I saw the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast that, amid that blizzard of initiatives, unemployment is forecast to go up. How can that be? We asked the Secretary of State to tell us just how many jobs have been created by this glorious expenditure of energy at his Department. This is what we were told in a written answer in Hansard . On Work Choice, no statistics will be available until spring 2012. On mandatory work activity, no statistics will be available until February 2012. On work clubs, “the data requested are… not available.” On work experience, a link was provided to a website that says nothing about jobs actually created.”
“I will in a moment. Amid these difficulties, people in this country expect the Minister for work to do something about it, and I think that I speak for many Members of the House when I say that most right-thinking people in this country believe that the Government should be doing more to get people back to work. During Work and Pensions questions a month ago I pressed the Secretary of State to tell us what exactly he is doing to get Britain back to work. A vast constellation of initiatives was set out, including work clubs, work experience, apprenticeship offers, sector-based work academies, the innovation fund, the European social fund, the skills offer, the access to apprenticeships programme, Work Together, the Work programme, Work Choice and mandatory work activity. Listening to that list, I became slightly puzzled.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he has been a long-standing champion of the need to get young people into work and, crucially, equip them with the skills to succeed in the workplace, but I am afraid that we have a deficit of that from the Government. It is an embarrassment for the Minister that he is unable to tell the House how many people his schemes are getting into work. The Secretary of State appears to have so much confidence in the schemes that he cannot be bothered to turn up this afternoon. However, I want to make a more substantive point about the Minister’s flagship scheme.”
“No doubt he has repented for that sin and is seeking redemption, and I understand that he apologised and is certain not to repeat the offence. If the Work programme was working, surely the Department’s statistics would show that more and more people were flowing off benefits and into work. That is a simple test we can apply, but the problem is that the figures do not show that.”
“I will in a moment, but first I want to make one point about the Work programme. The Work programme is a new scheme that builds on the flexible new deal. We have said that if it works and delivers value for money we will keep it in place, but the Minister must accept that worries about the programme are growing. [ Interruption. ] I am delighted that the Secretary of State has been able to join us to hear this important point. The Minister for unemployment has repeatedly told the House that he cannot produce statistics on how well the Work programme is doing, and I completely understand his caution. I think that he is the only Minister who has been formally warned by the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, who last year said that the Minister’s use of figures was “likely to damage public trust in official statistics”.”
“Surely Government Members would accept that that is simply not good enough.”
“That is an extremely serious problem for Birmingham, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw the House’s attention to it, but there is a more widespread problem if the rate of people flowing off benefits into work is not rising. Research by the House of Commons Library for my office, which we are publishing this afternoon, shows that fewer people are flowing from benefits into work than at any point since 1998. That fall coincides with the Government’s decision last year to cancel the flexible new deal and the future jobs fund. Since January, when the future jobs fund ended, the percentage of people flowing off benefits and into work has fallen by a fifth. Between May and August last year, when the new scheme was being worked up, 86,000 fewer people came off benefits and into work than the year before.”
“Let me say as diplomatically as I can to the hon. Gentleman that since the future jobs fund closed long-term youth unemployment in his constituency has gone up by 43%. He must accept that the future jobs fund was helping to keep young people in work. We know, as Ministers accept, that keeping young people close to the labour market, close to jobs and close to the habits of work is a good thing.”
“Let me repeat that when Labour was elected in 1997, youth unemployment was about 14%. It came down to about 12% before the recession and then, yes, of course it went up during the recession, as all unemployment did. But rather than sit there doing nothing, as this Government have over the past year and a half, we chose to act. That is why youth unemployment was coming down before the election and why, since this Government were elected, it has gone up to record highs and has done so again this morning. That is surely not a record of which the hon. Gentleman can be proud.”
“We do wish that more houses had been built over the past year, and that is precisely why we have said that a sensible tax on bankers’ bonuses could create the funds to build 20,000 new homes. Why does the hon. Lady oppose that policy?”
“That is absolutely right. The construction sector has taken an absolute hammering since this Government took office, not least because of their foolhardy decision to get rid of infrastructure projects and building projects such as Building Schools for the Future that would have equipped many of our young people with the facilities needed to deliver a world-class education in the years to come.”
“I know that, like me, hon. Members will have read last year’s letter to the right hon. Gentleman from Sir Michael Scholar. The letter was very assertive about the way the right hon. Gentleman had used statistics before. I am happy to lay the letter before the House for those who have not seen it. I am also happy to show the Minister figures produced by the House of Commons Library, which show that since January long-term youth unemployment has risen by over 90%. That is a badge of shame for this Government, and the Minister should be doing more to get our young people back to work.”
“The Minister’s plan is not working unless it is getting more people off benefits and into work, unless the unemployment bill is coming down, and unless it is really making a difference—and right now, he is failing on every single count.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We were promised that this was going to be the greenest Government ever, but a wide group of green and conservation organisations now say that the Government are comprehensively failing to meet that commitment. We all know that one of the key growth sectors for the future has to be low-carbon industries. The Government should therefore be doing more to get people into work in these sectors, not least by providing some regulatory certainty about the future. Let me finish my point about the collapse in the rate of people flowing off benefits and into work. There is a very basic test.”