Sir Stephen Timms
MP for East Ham · Labour · United Kingdom
“I agree with the hon. Gentleman. If he would like to send me details of that particular case, I will happily look into it. On the subject of people with hearing impairments, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities and I will be meeting the British Sign Language Advisory Board this afternoon.”
“Better outcomes require early identification and support for girls and young women with special educational needs, including dyslexia. That is the aim of the SEND reforms and the development of national inclusion standards.”
“Autistic people and people with ADHD have been struggling to get the right support at the right time. Recommendations from Professor Karen Guldberg’s neurodivergence task and finish group directly informed the SEND reforms that were published earlier this year.”
“The Equality Act 2010 places a duty on public bodies to make reasonable adjustments, so that disabled people are not put at a disadvantage by accessibility challenges.”
“The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. This benefit is there to contribute to the additional costs of disability. Too often, what has happened—my hon.”
“I think we can take the hon. Member’s question as a tacit recognition that in 14 years the previous Government should have done something to fix these problems. The steering group is clear that the provision of cash to meet the additional costs of disability is vital.”
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“It is important because it ensures a sound foundation for pension saving, so that people auto-enrolled into pension saving through that successful initiative, which we have all celebrated, are not being encouraged by the state into a bad deal. If the value of the state pension will no longer at least keep track over time with earnings, some people will be better off spending their money now, rather than saving into the pension pot that they are being auto-enrolled into, and later relying on the means-tested safety net of pension credit.”
“Will there be a catch-up initiative at some point? It looks and sounds as though there will not. Keeping the value of the state pension going up in line with earnings was a key pillar of the new pensions framework set out in the report by Adair Turner and his fellow commissioners John Hills and Jeannie Drake, published in 2005 and 2006. The settlement’s key elements were that the state pension should keep track with the increase in earnings over time, and auto-enrolment. It was accepted by the Government then and by every Government since. The importance of that needs to be spelled out. It is not just about being more generous to pensioners and helpful to older people.”
“It looks as though we will get an increase of around 3%, in line with CPI. The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), who spoke for the SNP, talked about the likely rates of inflation, and, depending on increases in prices and earnings next year, it is quite likely that the state pension will never catch up with earnings unless there is a catch-up initiative of some kind. The Lords amendments would provide such a mechanism. If there is not a catch-up at some point, that would be contrary to the Government’s long-held intention that the state pension should at least keep track with earnings. The fact that—as the Minister has now told the House twice—it will get back in line with the triple lock next year does not solve the problem, because there is a significant backwards move this year.”
“The Minister did indeed say that in response to my intervention, but that does not answer the question. The question was: do the Government intend the value of the state pension, over time, at least to keep track with earnings? I was hoping that he would reaffirm that. I do not think that is controversial—it is a policy long held by the Labour Government, the coalition Government and this Government—and I hoped that he would say that that was still their intention, even though in the current year, for reasons that we all understand, the value of the state pension will fall significantly behind the increase in earnings. As I hope I made clear in my intervention, I think it is entirely reasonable not to increase the state pension by 8% this year; I completely understand the case for not doing that.”
“Unemployment support is now at the lowest level in real terms for more than 30 years, even though the economy has grown by more than 50% in real terms over that period. As a proportion of average earnings, it is the lowest ever—lower than when Lloyd George introduced unemployment benefit 110 years ago. Why has unemployment support been set at this historically extremely low level?”
“Is the Minister keeping under consideration the possibility of imposing a requirement for social tariffs on all providers? There is clearly a great deal more to be done on this front. After the pandemic, there can be little dispute about the central place of digital inclusion in any programme for levelling up. The pandemic has rapidly accelerated take-up, but it has also deepened the disadvantage experienced by those who do not yet have digital access. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure the House that the Government recognise the crucial importance of this issue and that she will prioritise making progress on it in the spending review period ahead.”
“TalkTalk’s partnership with the Department for Work and Pensions provides eligible jobseekers with an uncapped broadband service for six months to help them search for jobs, with the DWP paying the fixed cost of the connection and TalkTalk offering the service on a not-for-profit basis. I welcome that imaginative approach and the partnership that has been established. Vodafone has a buy one, give one scheme in partnership with the Trussell Trust, which I also welcome. BT, Community Fibre, Hyperoptic, KCOM, Virgin Media and VOXI each offer at least one targeted tariff with unlimited internet access, priced with varying degrees of affordability. Some are priced at £10 per month, which is very good, and some at rather more than that.”
“I commend the work of the Broadband Stakeholder Group, which has set out a range of ideas for steps that the Government can take to increase access in the hardest-to-reach areas, and I hope Ministers will take those ideas forward. The price to users is a major issue. Households with the lowest incomes spend nearly four times more as a proportion of their disposable income on fixed broadband than the average. Ofcom reports that at least 100,000 households, and possibly many more, are unlikely to gain internet access in the next year because of the price they would have to pay to get it. Ofcom research also found that 4% of families with school-age children relied solely on mobile devices during the pandemic. I welcome the efforts of telcos and others with innovative partnerships and new social tariffs.”
“Will the Minister update us on its progress and on whether there are prospects for more such projects in the near future? The universal service obligation, launched by the Government in March, which I welcome, allows rural households to demand connectivity from BT, but some of that connectivity might have a very high price indeed, with reports of 60,000 households being charged up to £100,000 each in order to gain the access being provided. Will the Minister give us some reassurance that the access that the USO ensures will be affordable, and will she give an indication of the extent to which the USO has been effective in extending access in the first six months or so of its operation?”
“Some £5 billion has been provided, but I understand that only a fraction of that will now be invested by 2025; the rest will not be invested until later. Openreach has estimated that a nationwide full-fibre deployment could add £59 billion to the UK economy by 2025. With growth so elusive in the economy and the Chancellor forecasting that it will be down to 1.3% by the end of his forecast period, that sort of growth is a prize that we cannot afford to forgo. The Government’s shared rural network scheme aims to provide 4G coverage to 95% of the UK by 2025. I think Vodafone has announced coverage of two Welsh villages under the scheme, but I do not know of any other announcements on increasing coverage that have been made by UK mobile operators as part of this initiative.”
“Skills Enterprise is an example of exactly the kind of place that the Good Things Foundation rightly says we need across the country. It is having a positive local impact, but there are not enough centres like that around. Funding from central Government is needed urgently to deploy digital champions around the country and to support grassroots organisations to address the divide. The third area is affordable internet. The scaling back of the Government’s ambitions for connectivity has been a big disappointment. The Government started with a target of 100% fibre by 2025. That was downgraded to 100% gigabit by 2025, and then down again to 85% gigabit by 2025. We are now falling further behind the rest of Europe, and we really should be doing better.”
“Skills Enterprise has helped people with online shopping and banking, and it has helped a large number of people to apply for universal credit, as applications became online-only during the pandemic. It found that virtual form-filling sessions typically lasted around three hours over the telephone for applicants who were not digitally confident and who needed to be talked through the process of applying for universal credit. I am pleased to say that Skills Enterprise has worked with Jobcentre Plus as well. Two people were able to save £300 a year after Skills Enterprise helped them to switch energy providers online, and 23 people it has worked with have found jobs during the pandemic thanks to the acquisition of new digital skills.”
“The Good Things Foundation helped by providing devices that Skills Enterprise could distribute through its DevicesDotNow partnership with FutureDotNow, which raised over £1.5 million nationally to supply devices and data. Skills Enterprise used those devices to ensure that people who would not otherwise have been able to get online could do so during the pandemic. The number of service users Skills Enterprise supported increased by 50% during the pandemic, and it is now supporting 160 people. I presented certificates to a number of them on a visit last month. It has helped people who were setting up businesses, who were home-schooling, or who were simply having to self-isolate—showing them how to download and use things such as Zoom.”
“That brings us to the second area, community support. Helen Milner, the chief executive of the Good Things Foundation, has called for support to develop “a national network of at least 10,000 trusted places where people can get community help with digital inclusion—reaching into villages, towns and cities, and supporting COVID-19 recovery.” A very good example of such a place is Skills Enterprise, a charity based in Bonny Downs Baptist Church in my constituency and founded in 2006 by the energetic social entrepreneur Malathy Muthu. It is a small but very effective training provider, which quickly reorganised for the pandemic to stop people who were already digitally excluded being further isolated.”
“Over a fifth of the respondents to a survey quoted in a Vodafone report on the UK’s digital divide last month did not have the software in their household to complete their work, education or leisure pursuits. We also need to reflect on the digital skills that more and more people in work are going to have to acquire, and the Government’s lifetime skills guarantee needs to address that issue directly. techUK has highlighted the gap between, on the one hand, the upsurge in demand for digitally skilled workers in areas such as coding and, on the other, the limited opportunities to retrain in those fields, with a need for immediate action to close that growing digital skills gap. By 2030, it is estimated that nine out of 10 workers are going to need to learn new skills to do their job, at a cost of well over £1 billion a year.”
“Age is the biggest determinant, with older people less likely to have digital skills. Age UK reports that in the first quarter of this calendar year 40% of over-75s and 12% of 65 to 74-year-olds had not used the internet in the previous three months. However, there is also a big group of younger people who need help. Ofcom’s 2021 technology tracker research found that among school-aged children—those aged between four and 18—eight in 10 had access to an appropriate device at home all of the time, enabling them to connect to the internet for online schoolwork or learning as needed. Of the remainder, 13% had access some of the time, but 2% rarely had access and 2% never had access, meaning that a significant group of school-age children are fully excluded.”
“I hope that digital inclusion and the development of digital skills will be supported by the UK shared prosperity fund, and that the Government will support local initiatives to tackle the problem, such as Andy Street’s digital catch-up programme in the west midlands to help those who cannot use the internet to learn digital skills, and Andy Burnham’s ambition for Greater Manchester, which is to help all people who are 25 and under, over 75 or disabled to get online. The Government’s entitlement for people to get full funding for essential digital skills qualifications is welcome, but we need to go further. Level 1 qualifications are not meeting the needs of local employers, while those who stand to gain the most are least likely to engage if they do not first get informal, community-based help.”
“Whereas, according to Ofcom, fewer than 21% of people in London are limited internet users, that proportion is almost twice as high—38%—in the north-east, the region represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), who is the shadow Front Bencher for this afternoon’s debate. The other nations and regions fall between those two figures, and within regions levels of engagement are much lower among benefit claimants than among other people.”
“The Good Things Foundation focuses its impressive range of programmes on the digital divide. Its document “A blueprint to fix the digital divide”, published in September, identifies three requirements. No.1 is digital skills, No. 2 is community support and No. 3 is affordable internet, and I will use those three headings in my remarks. First, on digital skills, progress is very important for levelling up. The Lloyds Bank report pointed out that people using digital services are “more likely to build their savings reserves, find new ways to save money and can more easily find and access new information, plus manage their well-being”. We might add that they can also more readily look for a job, apply for universal credit and manage their universal credit account online. There is a real levelling-up challenge here.”
“But 2.6 million people still are not online. Ofcom reported in July that 2 million households struggle with the cost of broadband or smartphone services, with some staying offline as a result of those cost barriers. Ten million people also lack basic digital skills. I am sorry to say that the Government’s digital inclusion strategy has not been updated since 2014. It is high time that it was. The topic has not had the priority in Government that I hope it will have in the period ahead. I warmly welcome the Minister to her post, which she took up relatively recently. I hope that in winding up the debate she will be able to hold out the prospect of new priority being given to digital inclusion and of policies enabling real progress on it in the period ahead.”
“She is not able to lead on it, given her current position, but I am pleased to have the opportunity to do so as a rather poor substitute. As we all know, there has been dramatic progress in getting people online since March of last year. Lloyds Bank’s UK consumer digital index, published in May, reported: “In the last 12 months, 1.5 million more people have started using the Internet, resulting in 95% now being online… We have made five years’ worth of progress in one”. It has been a pretty dramatic change. The report makes the point that it is “well evidenced that people using digital tools and services have a real advantage”. It also points out that digital skills have moved from being an advantage to being a necessity during the pandemic. The fact that so many have come newly online is an opportunity for us to build on.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the matter of tackling the digital divide. I am delighted to be serving under your chairmanship this afternoon, Ms Ali. It strikes me, and I am pleased to see, that with you, me and the Minister, we have strong east London representation in the Chamber today. I am also pleased that the Work and Pensions Committee is strongly represented in the debate. I think there is a significant crossover between the digital divide and the concerns the Committee has been engaged with. Let me begin with a tribute to the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), who is chair of the all-party parliamentary group for broadband and digital communication—I am the vice-chair of that group. Before her recent well-deserved promotion, she was the sponsor—the initiator—of this debate.”
“I am listening with great interest to what the Minister is saying. She has explained a little about why the target was downgraded from, I think, initially 100% fibre by 2025 to 85% now. Surely it would be possible to do better if more of the funding was available earlier, rather than much of the £5 billion being postponed until after 2025. Could it not be brought forward again?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again. I want to make sure I have understood the point she is making. Is she saying that the constraint is the industry’s capacity to deliver the infrastructure?”
“If the industry comes forward with proposals with capacity to deliver this more quickly than achieving 85% coverage by 2025—and the funding could be brought forward, as the Minister said—would she be open to looking at possibilities along those lines?”
“I hope as well that the Minister will be updating the digital inclusion strategy, which we last saw in 2014. I welcome a number of the points that she made towards the end of her speech about that, and I particularly welcome the work that she described the Department undertaking with the Good Things Foundation. However, if that was all set out as a strategy, that would be encouraging and would help achieve the goals that we have all agreed are so important. I am very grateful for the opportunity we have had to air the matter of tackling the digital divide this afternoon. I hope that we shall be able to review it regularly over the months ahead, given its importance to the inclusion of all our constituents. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the matter of tackling the digital divide.”
“Thank you for the opportunity to say a few remarks by way of concluding, Ms Ali. I am grateful to the Minister and to all hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. I particularly welcome the Minister’s offer that if the industry proposed to extend the fibre and gigabit infrastructure at a faster rate than is projected to meet the current target of 85% by 2025, it would be possible for some of the £5 billion that has been earmarked for that to be brought forward before 2025, and hopefully to get a higher level of penetration than the current 85% target. If that is possible—and I want to pass on a message to the industry to look at what they could achieve if additional funding was available—I would hope that that would really help in Orkney and Shetland, North Devon and elsewhere around the UK.”
“One doctor, a British national based in Birmingham, told me about the impact on him. He came from India to train as a GP in 2004. The UK is now his home. He studied here, he is working here, he is bringing up his children here. Sadly, he lost his father to covid in India earlier this year. Now, his 70-year-old mother wants to join her son and his family in the UK, but she is not allowed to do so, because of these rules. He tells me that “no matter how much I earn and pay in taxes, my inability to look after my mother makes me feel incomplete and unfulfilled.” He also feels his children are being denied a proper relationship with their grandmother. He says that “my children should not be penalised for a decision I took 17 years back to move to the UK.””
“The existing immigration health surcharge could be incorporated into adult dependent relative applications—Canada, Australia and New Zealand have that sort of model in their schemes for elderly migration—or applicants could be required to have private medical insurance. Instead, we have made it virtually impossible for elderly relatives to come. Over the past two years, we have all been reminded just how important the national health service is. I know I speak for all of us when I say how grateful we are for the extraordinary efforts of doctors, nurses and other NHS staff to protect and care for all of us throughout the pandemic. They should be rewarded for their hard work and dedication. Instead, many are being punished with these hostile immigration policies.”
“Home Office data shows that in the four years from 2017 to 2020 inclusive, 908 visa applications were made under the adult dependant rule. Only 35 were approved at the first attempt. Over 96% of them were refused. Some were subsequently granted after the difficulty and expense of an appeal. In 2017, I understand the Home Office did not issue a single adult dependent relative visa. Before the rule changes, thousands were approved. What is the justification for the change? Ministers have argued that the rules are to stop adult dependent relatives from entering the UK and burdening taxpayers. Other ways to avoid any burden on the NHS and local authorities do not appear to have been considered.”
“Paragraph E-ECDR.2.4 states: “The applicant or, if the applicant and their partner are the sponsor’s parents or grandparents, the applicant’s partner, must as a result of age, illness or disability require long-term personal care to perform everyday tasks.” Paragraph E-ECDR.2.5 states: “The applicant or, if the applicant and their partner are the sponsor’s parents or grandparents, the applicant’s partner, must be unable, even with the practical and financial help of the sponsor, to obtain the required level of care in the country where they are living, because (a) it is not available and there is no person in that country who can reasonably provide it; or (b) it is not affordable.” In practice, those conditions are extremely hard to meet.”
“Under one of the changes, elderly parents or grandparents of British citizens are permitted to join them in the UK only if they can demonstrate that they require a level of long-term personal care that their home country cannot provide. Before 2012, a dependent relative needed to show only that they were living alone “in the most exceptional compassionate circumstances”. Now, the rules state that doctors are prohibited from bringing their elderly relatives to the UK from overseas unless they meet a very strict set of conditions. The problematic rules are set out in paragraphs E-ECDR.2.4 and 2.5, and I will read them.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered adult dependent relative visas. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. I want to talk about an important topic that deserves more attention than it has had, and I want to urge the Minister to change the current hostile environment policy on adult dependent relative visas, which is undermining the national health service. The immigration system should treat overseas nationals working in the UK and their families abroad more fairly than it does at the moment. I want to focus particularly on the impact on people working in the NHS. Nine years ago, in 2012, the Government changed the immigration rules to establish their hostile environment policy.”
“Those with vulnerable relatives abroad often have to take leave, sometimes extended leave, and travel overseas often to arrange care for their elderly parents, at a time when the NHS needs them here, and we need them here more than ever. Some doctors have been forced to leave the UK altogether. In the survey I referenced a moment ago, eight in 10 respondents were looking at leaving due to these rules.”
“The rules also have a severe impact on children in the families affected, not least through making it very difficult for them to have a relationship with grandparents. Equally, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants sampled a group of professionals in the UK. Of the 121 children affected, 20% came from families living in lower-income households, more likely single-earner households. It points out that having a grandparent who can help with childcare will enable parents to work in cases where childcare costs would rule that out. The Government have said that the rules on adult dependent relatives are in place to protect the NHS. They are actually undermining it. Medical professionals have busy, stressful lives, even more so in the pandemic.”
“We should be bending over backwards to keep doctors here. Instead, we are forcing them to leave the country. Many doctors feel very strongly, as the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) has just reminded the House, that they are being denied a family life. The emotional toll increases the risk of burnout. In August this year, the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin and the Association of Pakistani Physicians of Northern Europe carried out a survey of nearly 1,000 doctors in the UK, and 90% reported feelings of anxiety, stress and helplessness because of this issue. Is that really how the UK should treat doctors who have risked their lives to care for us throughout the pandemic?”
“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We are putting these dedicated public servants in an impossible position. I received an email yesterday referring to “yet another consultant who has left the NHS (to live in Oman so that his mother could be with the family again).” Six thousand doctors left the NHS to go overseas in the five years from 2015 to 2020. We do not know the reasons why they all went, but a significant number went for this reason. The Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt)—a former Secretary of State, of course—pointed out to the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions today that “there are now severe shortages in nearly every specialty.” The policy we are debating this afternoon is part of the problem.”
“Why have so few applicants been successful in the past nine years? Why are Ministers weakening the NHS in order to prevent elderly relatives from joining their key worker families here in the UK?”
“I am certain the Minister will have received representations from the Health Secretary about this issue, and I hope they will undertake a review. The BMA has consistently raised concerns about the potential impact on patient care and on the wider NHS if doctors have to move because of these rules. Ministers do not seem to take much notice of the urgent concerns of those working on the frontline of our health service, but it is time to start taking notice before serious harm is inflicted on the NHS. Doctors must not be kept waiting any longer. There is no justification for forcing committed, dedicated NHS doctors to choose between their work and their home in the UK, and their deeply felt duty to their elderly parents to support and care for them in difficulty and old age. Will the Minister commit today to review this unfair policy?”
“The British Medical Association represents and negotiates on behalf of all doctors and medical students in the UK. In January, together with other leading medical bodies, it wrote to the Home Secretary asking her to remove this restrictive adult dependant rule for doctors. Soon after its letter, I wrote to the then Immigration Minister asking him to meet to discuss the issue. He declined my request to meet and simply told me, “those most in need of care remain the most likely to qualify.” The problem is that enormous numbers are not able to come. According to the Home Office, just 70 adult dependent relative visas were issued in 2020. The Government need, at least, to review their application process to determine just why so few applicants succeed.”
“Of course, these rules will apply to EU citizens arriving to live in the UK post Brexit. They will deter skilled doctors from European countries from working here, as they are forced to opt instead for countries with a less hostile and more accommodating policy. I remind the House that adult dependent relative entry clearance applications to the UK are among the most expensive type of visas that there are. The cost of a visa application for an adult who requires care from their relative here is £3,250. The Government say these rules are to avoid burdening the NHS; I wonder whether the Minister can put a figure on the cost of a more accommodating policy. What is the estimate that we are talking about? What will be the cost of losing all these highly trained staff who are forced to leave to fulfil their family responsibilities?”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Having invested so much in their training, we need to keep those experts here, not force them to leave the country. There are more than 96,000 non-UK graduates on the General Medical Council register. The evidence of the potential loss to the NHS if these restrictions stay in place is enormous. We simply cannot afford that loss. The investment made in their training is a very important point; I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising it. This is a real threat, not a theoretical worry. The Association of Pakistani Physicians of Northern Europe said that “in many cases, highly trained and competent” members of staff are leaving the UK to return to their home country or go somewhere else where the rules are more accommodating in order to care for their elderly family members.”
“The Minister makes the point that there is no evidence of doctors leaving the UK for this reason. We do know that 6,000 doctors left to go overseas in the five years between 2015 to 2020. She is right that we do not know the reason why they all left, but it is clear that at least hundreds went for this reason, and possibly more of those 6,000. Is she not concerned about that loss of skilled, committed doctors from the health service, at a time when—as the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey, pointed out at lunchtime today—there is a shortage in nearly every speciality?”
“The Minister is being very generous with her time. She has made much of the cost issue; I think she indicated that for somebody elderly arriving in the UK, we would expect health and care costs of something like £175,000, but a GP has had £500,000 invested in them. I wonder whether an assessment has been made somewhere of the value for taxpayers—the straightforward financial cost—of forcing somebody who is highly trained out of the country, versus the cost of care for their elderly relative.”
“Can I take the Leader of the House back to what he was saying a couple of minutes ago about the whistleblowing exemption? Does he recognise the grave danger that, if the interpretation of that exemption that he appeared to be commending was accepted by the House, there would in effect be no ban at all on paid advocacy?”
“Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the business part of his speech, will he update the House on the latest provision of support for energy-intensive industries?”
“I note from the Budget document that the Government are planning for the universal credit roll-out, which we were initially told would be complete by October 2017, but which we are now told will be complete by March 2025. The OBR has always and rightly been sceptical about the Department’s forecasts on this and expects it to take 18 months longer. I think that it is likely to be proved right. I warmly welcome the case that the shadow Chancellor and her team have set out in response to the Budget. The heart of the problem has been this weak economic growth over the past 11 years. I hope that, between us, we can come forward with some compelling proposals for how that failure can be reversed in the years ahead.”
“I do hope that the very modest increase in the Department’s running-cost budget will allow some modernisation of the very old computer systems on which the state pension benefit and some other benefits are run. There has been a meeting this morning of the Public Accounts Committee with the permanent secretary, in which questions were asked about how things have gone so badly wrong with the state pension, particularly in these past few months. By contrast, the universal credit system, which is modern, did a very good job during the pandemic in getting support to a large number of people efficiently and well in a short period of time, but too many of the Department’s other systems, such as the state pension system, need urgent investment.”
“The analysis published yesterday by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that the running cost budget for the Department for Work and Pensions has been one of the most deeply reduced in Whitehall since 2010. That is no doubt one of the reasons for the serious problems in the state pension service at the moment. Very large numbers of people—well over 100,000 people now, according to the Department—have not received the correct amount of pension over a period of 30 years or more, with older women particularly hard hit. Just in the past few months, there have been very large numbers of people having to wait a long time to get their pension after applying for it. The reduction of the running cost budget for the DWP must be one of the reasons why those things have gone wrong.”
“People cannot focus on getting a job if they are worrying about whether they can pay for their children’s next meal. We have just had 18 months in which people who were unable to work—unable to do their jobs—have had to live not on £75 a week but on 80% of their in-work earnings, up to a maximum of £30,000 per year. That is an approach to supporting people who are not in work that is very different from the one provided by social security in the UK. Perhaps we can learn lessons for the future from the success of that most recent approach. The Work and Pensions Committee is going to conduct an inquiry on this subject over the coming year, to look at what the level of support for unemployed people should be and to consider the approaches being taken elsewhere and the evidence on the effectiveness of those different approaches.”