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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“A key step for jobcentres will be the introduction of universal credit. A press release from the Secretary of State in May last year claimed that “all new applications for existing benefits and credits will be entirely phased out by April 2014.” Will the Minister acknowledge that jobcentres will still be handling new applications for existing benefits long after next April?”
“On infrastructure investment, there is widespread disquiet—including in the National Audit Office, it seems—about the management of the Government’s broadband investment programme. Does the Chancellor agree that it is essential to harness competition effectively in delivering infrastructure investment?”
“The Financial Times reported last week that the National Audit Office was to deliver a very critical report on this exercise, arguing that it failed to deliver a proper bidding process, after only BT bid, saying it lacked competition and describing it as “a train crash waiting to happen”. Why did Ministers forget the importance of competition in this exercise?”
“The Secretary of State will recall that I wrote to him in November 2010 to warn that the IT system could not possibly be delivered in the time scale he was claiming—unfortunately, that has proved to be the case. In November 2011, he announced that 1 million people would be receiving universal credit by April 2014. What is his latest estimate of the number of people who will be receiving universal credit by April 2014?”
“In November 2011, 1 million people were going to be claiming by next April: now, the Secretary of State has not the faintest idea how many there will be—so much for this project being on schedule. There were supposed to be four pathfinders, but now there is only one, under which the only people who can get universal credit are those in the most straightforward circumstances. How long will it now realistically be before he has an IT system that can cope with, for example, applicants with children?”
“I agree with the Secretary of State about the value of the four-hour target. Is he disappointed, as I am, that that target has so often been missed in major A and E units over the past few months?”
“Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) responded, he accurately described the proposal as “vague”. It is not at all clear what “typical” means in this context, for example. I was in Germany with the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), last month. In the jobcentre in the town we were visiting, we were struck by the fact that young people were expected either to be on their way to university or to have an apprenticeship place arranged by the age of 15. For the 20% of youngsters who are not in that position, the jobcentre sorts it out for them. I hope that we can do something similar here.”
“As the Bill goes through the other place and then through this House, I hope that the Government will accept that many of us want to see a fair settlement for asbestos victims, rather than a scheme that simply minimises the costs to insurers. We know what a terrible disease mesothelioma is, but the other asbestos-related conditions are also very troubling. I also want to comment on the commitment in the Queen’s Speech to ensure that “it becomes typical for those leaving school to start a traineeship or an apprenticeship, or to go to university.” —[ Official Report , 8 May 2013; Vol. 563, c. 3.] I do not know what that means. I searched through the speech made by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on Friday without finding any illumination of that commitment. Indeed, when my hon.”
“I was struck by a report in The Independent on Sunday —not yesterday, but the week before—that the proposal had been so “watered down after extensive lobbying from the insurance industry” that it would help only a fraction of the victims, and that payments would be 30% lower than was standard. The report went on to say: “Department for Work and Pensions minister Lord Freud met insurers 14 times about asbestos between October 2010 and September 2012. Over the same period, he met victims’ groups twice.” It also stated that the scheme would apply only to people with mesothelioma and not to the similar number of people affected by other conditions caused by exposure to asbestos, and that one of the victims’ groups had described the Bill as an “insult”.”
“My first point is not a matter for the Ministers on the Front Bench today, although it is likely to be of some interest to them. The Mesothelioma Bill, announced last week, is the culmination of a process begun by the last Government, in which my noble Friend Lord Mackenzie played an important role. The plan was for the insurance industry collectively to compensate the victims of diseases caused by exposure to asbestos during their employment, often many years previously. Problems have arisen when the original employer’s insurance policy cannot be found. The Bill is starting in the other place.”
“It was not unusual to hear from people who had been kept waiting all night, for example, but when the target was introduced the problem was resolved completely, and remarkably quickly. After the election, this Government weakened the target from 98% to 95%. I am glad that there is still a target in place, but, as I said to the Secretary of State in an intervention earlier, there are growing signs that it is not being hit. The NHS in England has now missed the new, reduced target for major accident and emergency units for 32 weeks running. I hope, as he has reaffirmed the importance of the target today, the right hon. Gentleman will take steps to ensure that it can be delivered rather than be missed. I want to mention two other parts of the Queen’s Speech.”
“It is quite difficult to reconcile that description of what is happening in the health service—which tallies with some of the things we have heard in this debate about what is happening in hospitals—with the rather rosy picture that the Secretary of State presented to us at the beginning of the debate. When this Government were elected, they criticised the health service targets that had been set under Labour, but there is no doubt that some of the targets delivered massive and very welcome improvements. In particular, the target for 98% of accident and emergency patients to be seen within four hours was very valuable. I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State affirm its value this afternoon. Before it was introduced, I regularly saw constituents who had experienced terribly long delays in accident and emergency.”
“There is also a lot of anxiety about what is happening in the health service. That was clear from a survey of 1,700 nurses, the findings from which were published in the Sunday Mirror yesterday. Fifty-five per cent of them said things had got worse in the NHS since the election, compared with 6.5% who said they had got better. More than half the nurses surveyed said that morale in the national health service was either poor or at rock bottom. Rather startlingly, more than 40% said that there had not been enough staff to provide safe cover on their most recent shift.”
“Their root is in the global financial crisis that has engulfed us and others, but they have been compounded by the failure of the Government’s economic policy to deliver what we were promised it would. We were told—I remember the Prime Minister telling us this three years ago—that the policy would deliver steady growth and falling unemployment. Instead, we have had no significant growth since, and unemployment has stayed high. It is rising at the moment and is forecast to become higher still later this year. We will get an update on Wednesday, but the key backdrop to the rather thin Queen’s Speech that we are debating over these few days is rising unemployment, falling living standards and the inability of the Government’s economic policy to deliver what we were told it would.”
“I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr Walter). He is right: we have heard a wide variety of views about Europe from the Government Benches in this afternoon’s debate. The most compelling case was the one set out in the first Back-Bench contribution, by the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames). He made a compelling case for the UK to remain in the European Union. He was also right to make the point that what his constituents are really concerned about is the state of the economy. That is the background to the Queen’s Speech. There is wide anxiety across the country because of our economic difficulties—rising unemployment and falling living standards.”
“I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate; she makes a compelling case. Can she shed any light on the change from what we thought was clearance to be freed to clearance to go only to Saudi Arabia? I have seen it reported in the press. Does she know how that change in, presumably, the US position occurred?”
“I am grateful for that assurance about the activities of all parts of the UK Government. Can the Minister shed any light on the point that we discussed earlier about the reason for the change on the part of the US authorities from apparently clearing Mr Aamer for release, to clearing him only for release to Saudi Arabia?”
“The mobile operator 3 has a licence because the previous Government wanted competition. The Secretary of State and I were recently at a celebration of 3’s 10th anniversary. That competition has hugely benefited customers, so why has the entire rural superfast broadband fund been handed to one company—to BT? BT is now behaving like any monopolist that has everyone over a barrel, and we have heard about the consequences from all sides this morning. Why has competition been forgotten?”
“Nor do we want to be in a position in which people who were sanctioned months ago—in many cases, well over a year ago—have to be refunded because of the appalling mess that the Government have got themselves into. The way forward proposed by the Bill and the programme motion is deeply unsatisfactory, but it is less bad than the alternatives, and for that reason I shall not urge my hon. Friends to oppose it.”
“We find ourselves in a deeply unsatisfactory situation with the Bill and, indeed, the programme motion. We do not quite know what happened between the court case and the decision that prompted the measure. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) and I were told about the problem a couple of weeks ago; there was a three-week gap when we did not know what was happening. The House of Lords Constitution Committee will, I believe, opine on the measure tomorrow, but equally we do not want to risk an additional £130 million cut to benefit spending over the period ahead, particularly not on a day on which it has emerged that the Government want to cut £2.5 billion from spending across Government, some of it doubtless from the budget of the Minister and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.”
“Some of the stockpiled sanctions, which we read about in the impact assessment, relate to events of quite a long time ago—up to eight months, which could be the beginning of August. I would like to know, because it is not entirely clear to us, whether all the 63,000 people affected by stockpiled sanctions already know that they have a sanction on the way. If, for example, they enter work straight after receiving a sanction that is in the stockpile, and so receive little benefit after the sanction is imposed, presumably the amount to be reclaimed from them will be very small. I ask for clarity. Is the intention, in taking the sanction out of the stockpile and applying it, that people’s benefits will be stopped for the appropriate period, or is it— [ Interruption . ]”
“The Government have got themselves into a terrible mess. As we heard, they ignored the advice of the Social Security Advisory Committee—that appears to be a significant part of what went wrong—but I welcome the amendment, because a straightforward reading of the Bill might, and indeed does, suggest that if one is hit, perhaps in particular by one of those stockpiled sanctions, that will be it. I am grateful to the Minister and the Secretary of State for tabling the amendment, which helpfully clarifies—puts in the Bill—the fact that normal opportunities for reconsideration and appeal apply, but I want to ask the Minister about two points. I would be grateful for his comments on them during his winding-up speech for what I imagine will be a brief debate.”
“I presume, as I said, that the Minister has received contrary advice on that measure, and it would be helpful if he explained what the advice was and therefore why the Bill is before the House.”
“Section 27(3) of the Social Security Act 1998 relates to court decisions like the one reached in the case that gave rise to the Bill, and it reads as follows: “In so far as the decision relates to a person’s entitlement to a benefit in respect of a period before the date of the relevant determination”— in this case, the Appeal Court’s determination— “it shall be made as if the adjudicating authority’s decision had been found by the Commissioner or court not to have been erroneous in point of law.” A natural and straightforward reading of that paragraph could well lead to the conclusion reached by the Child Poverty Action Group, which is that anti-test case law rules prevent the Department from having to repay anything for sanctions scored before the court determination.”
“The advice that we all received from the Child Poverty Action Group made this point: “Contrary to Government claims, it is not obvious that DWP would have to repay sanctioned benefits to all claimants, so the £130 million potential loss stated is inaccurate: the Government already has anti-test case law rules which would prevent it having to repay anything for sanctions served prior to 6 August 2012.” Will the Minister clarify the advice that he has received, which I have no doubt is different? If that view had been taken, the Bill would not be necessary. I can well understand why the Child Poverty Action Group has reached its view.”
“Is it the Government’s intention to reclaim cash? Clearly, we are in a rather different situation from the one that obtains when somebody is sanctioned in the normal course of events, because the events to which the stockpile sanctions relate could have taken place a considerable time ago. How will the Department explain to those affected what is happening and what the effects will be in cases where a lengthy period has elapsed between the events that gave rise to the sanction and the application of the sanction, following the enactment of the Bill? Will the Minister give us a little more explanation about one of the points raised on Second Reading, for example by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams)?”
“As I said, I am sure that the Department’s advice is different from the advice given to us by the CPAG, but it would be helpful if the Minister provided clarification so that we know the basis on which the measure has been introduced. I would say again to the Minister that this is a helpful amendment. I do not think that it changes the position substantively, but it helps to clarify it, and to make it clear that anyone who will be presented with a stockpiled sanction will, as usual, have the opportunity to ask for a reconsideration and perhaps subsequently to appeal. That is a welcome clarification, and I am grateful to the Minister for providing it, but I would be grateful, too, if he commented on the two specific matters that I have raised.”
“My hon. Friend asks a good question, and the answer is in the impact assessment that the Government have produced, which distinguishes between the amount that would be incurred because of people who were sanctioned before 6 August 2012 and the amount incurred in respect of people sanctioned since the court case, because those sanctions have been stockpiled. The part of the impact assessment that contains those figures says that, by the look of it—to take the upper valuation—£24 million out of £130 million relates to sanctions that have been stockpiled. The CPAG view would be that of the £130 million, £106 million or £107 million would not apply, because of the Social Security Act 1998, whereas £24 million—the stockpiled sanctions—would.”
“The impact assessment tells us that the number of sanctions that has been issued under the defective—as we now know them to be—employment, skills and enterprise regulations is “between 221,000 and 259,000”; that those sanctions involved between 136,000 and 159,000 people and that their cumulative value is between £80 million and £99 million.”
“From the standpoint of anyone who is concerned about what is going on in our social security system, as very many people are, this is a valuable initiative. The scale of the sanctions that are being imposed at the moment is extraordinary. My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) made that point in the earlier debate. He correctly suggested to the House that the number of sanctions being issued trebled in the two years between the period just before the general election and subsequently to more than half a million per year, and that number is still going up.”
“I warmly welcome the new clause which, as the Minister has said, was proposed and suggested in the discussions between him and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and me and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne). It is something genuinely valuable to emerge from this debacle, which has been entirely of the Government’s own making. We do need to know what is going on with sanctions. The independent review, which is required by the new clause to be conducted over the coming year—I will comment in a moment on the further amendments proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins)—could be crucial in getting to the bottom of what is going on.”
“If it is widespread, as anecdotal evidence suggests it may well be, that is a serious difficulty with the system. The seventh question concerns the extent to which managers are promoting sanctions. In answering an intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill on Second Reading, the Minister gave a very clear assurance that there are no targets for sanctions and that Ministers and managers do not require specific targets to be fulfilled.”
“As I understand it, the initial step can be taken by either, or by another kind of provider on one of the other schemes. It would be useful to know what the split is. I appreciate that it is not going to be easy for the independent reviewer to find the answer to my sixth question—it relates to the point the hon. Member for Beckenham made a few minutes ago—but we need to know it. To what extent do people understand the reasons for the sanctions being imposed on them? As I mentioned earlier, food banks are reporting that people who turn up, having been sanctioned—who therefore do not have any money and cannot buy food for themselves and their families—commonly do not know why the sanction has been imposed. I hope that the independent reviewer can establish how widespread a problem that is.”
“It does not require much imagination on the part of Members to realise that it may well be wholly inappropriate to impose a sanction on someone who is on ESA as a result of a serious mental health problem or a fluctuating health problem of the kind we have often debated in the past couple of years, thereby removing their benefit for the potentially very long periods that are now permissible, unless they have had a proper face-to-face discussion with an appropriate Jobcentre Plus official. It would be helpful if the independent reviewer answered that question. Fifthly, it would be useful to know how many of the large number of sanctions being imposed are being initiated by a Work programme provider rather than Jobcentre Plus.”
“When people have a sanction imposed on them, do they know that they can apply for reconsideration and, if they are not happy with the outcome, submit an appeal? Is that whole process working correctly? Fourthly, how many of those being sanctioned are on employment and support allowance—and perhaps other benefits as well—rather than JSA? Ministers have given commitments during debates in this House and the other place that they will not normally issue sanctions to somebody on ESA—somebody who is out of work on health grounds, for example—other than after a face-to-face discussion with the applicant and, if necessary, a home visit. We need to know from the independent reviewer whether those assurances are being honoured in practice.”
“It would be useful to know how many people have so far been denied benefit for a full three years, which the Government’s legislative change now makes possible. Secondly, we need to know how many people on whom the sanctions are imposed request reconsiderations —the kind of people who, as the hon. Member for Beckenham suggests, might go along to the jobcentre and ask what the sanction arises from. How many people have asked for reconsideration, and when it has been refused, how many subsequently appealed? What are the outcomes when reconsiderations are requested and appeals made? Thirdly, we need the independent reviewer’s opinion on whether the reconsideration and appeal process is working correctly and properly.”
“It is not good enough for us to be told that the Department has issued between 221,000 and 259,000 sanctions. We need to know precisely how many have been imposed. We also need to know what exactly they are for. Is it that people are failing to turn up to appointments, or that they are failing to do the work-related activity they are required to do? We need to be given some clear categories of the grounds for sanction, and then to be told how many of the sanctions imposed fall into each of those categories. How tough are those sanctions? How many maximum three-year sanctions for the basic element of jobseeker’s allowance have been imposed so far? In the recent debate on JSA regulations, a colleague rightly reaffirmed our opposition to the three-year sanction introduced by the Government.”
“Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) will be very familiar with the experience that I have often come across, however, which is that people do receive a letter from Jobcentre Plus, but, frankly, making sense of it is very difficult. I hope that the written explanations people receive will make more sense than some of the other communications they bring to our surgeries, sent to them by jobcentres and the Department. I want to set out 10 questions that I think the independent review should answer. Other Members may have other questions, of course, but I consider these 10 to be important, and putting them on the record will serve to give some terms of reference from the House for the independent reviewer. First, we need to know the precise figures.”
“The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting and telling point. Why, indeed, do people not go to jobcentres to get an explanation? The reason is that it is very difficult for them to get through on the telephone, and if they do go and speak to somebody, they probably do not get a clear explanation. The Minister said in one of our recent statutory instrument Committees that Jobcentre Plus will now inform people in writing of the reason for their sanction. When the Minister responds, he will, perhaps, give us a little more information. I am not sure whether that has already started or whether it is still due to happen, but it will certainly be a welcome step. The hon.”
“I take entirely the Minister’s point about the hardship schemes, but I wonder what he thinks has driven the huge increase in the number of people referred to food banks over the past three years—a tenfold increase between the year just before the general election and the current financial year. I wonder whether he can understand why many of us think that the growth of sanctions must have been a big part of the driver.”
“The Minister is right about the hardship regime, but he is surely not trying to tell us that the number has gone up from 30,000 to 300,000 because there are some leaflets in jobcentres, is he?”
“We think that the guarantees approach is the right one, and the recent evaluation of the future jobs fund has strengthened our convictions in that respect, but we need a proper system in place to be able to introduce that arrangement quickly. Following a general election, it is our intention very quickly so to do, and for that reason I shall not urge my hon. Friends to oppose Third Reading.”
“In addition, if the correction were not made, there would be quite a fundamental breach of the jobseeking system, which was used so effectively by the previous Government to achieve—before the global crisis—the highest rate of employment in the UK since the 1970s. That is a rate of employment we are still some way short of today. That system involves sanctions. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) pointed out, the system has done so since 1911, and it is right that it should continue to do so. I shall certainly not urge my hon. Friends to oppose the Bill, but we have argued for a fundamentally different approach to supporting people into employment from that taken by the Government—one based on job guarantees—but it requires an effective system, which not passing the Bill would put at risk.”
“This Bill has been an extraordinary fiasco. It is here because the Government made basic errors in drafting regulations. The danger was highlighted by their own Social Security Advisory Committee, which Ministers ignored. They were wrong to do so, and the consequence is the necessity for this unseemly piece of legislation. The question facing the House this evening is: what do we do? The alternatives to the Government’s proposals are pretty unappealing. The danger of having to take £130 million from another part of the Department’s budget is that the cost will fall on people whose income is already very low. I was very grateful for what the Minister said a few moments ago to explain the necessity for the Bill and why the so-called test case rules do not apply in this case. The alternative is unappealing for that reason.”
“On Friday morning I met a 19-year-old autistic young women whose family home, which is rented from the council, with housing benefit, has been adapted at public expense, but now they are very worried because they are deemed to have one bedroom too many. Surely the bedroom tax should not apply when a council house has been specifically adapted for the occupants at public expense.”
“In a series of decisions, the European Commission has unbalanced the previous level playing field in the European sugar market between beet processors and cane refiners. As a result, we have very high prices for sugar, super profits for beet processors and a threat to the viability of cane refining in Europe. Will the Minister make sure that the forthcoming changes to the CAP get us back to a level playing field?”
“The hon. Lady is absolutely right: the project has been delayed. Ministers told us for a long time after the announcement of universal credit that all new applications for out-of-work benefits would be treated as universal credit applications from October this year. It is now absolutely clear that that date will not be achieved. It might be a year later, or even some time after that, but the project has certainly been delayed.”
“I am listening with great interest to the important argument the hon. Gentleman is making. Does he agree that the situation is rather worse than he says, because this involves not one great big computer system but two? The parallel real-time information, pay-as-you-earn system in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is also involved, and the two systems have to interlock perfectly for universal credit to work.”
“These crucial decisions cannot be delayed any longer. It is time now for the Minister finally to give us some answers.”
“Problems relating to digital access were highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). The hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) was right to draw attention to the problems emerging in the direct payment demonstration projects: the National Housing Federation tells us that rent arrears in the demonstration project areas are up by 60%. It is, I am afraid, universal chaos: fundamental policy decisions have not been made; obvious gaps have not been plugged; where precise answers are needed we just get vague flim-flam; key milestones have gone back by a year or more; IT contractors are reported to have been told to stop work; and the Minister blithely assures us that it is all proceeding exactly in accordance with plans. It is too late for flim-flam.”