Rachel Reeves
MP for Leeds West and Pudsey · Labour · United Kingdom
“I thank my hon. Friend for his question and his work on the Treasury Committee. On pensions reform, through the Mansion House accord and Sterling 20, we have got pension funds to commit to investing more in British businesses, both through British venture schemes and in British infrastructure.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her question. As Members will know, this Government are working on plans with our NATO allies for a multilateral defence mechanism. We have already signed a treaty agreement with Finland and the Netherlands, and we are working closely with Scandinavian, Baltic and eastern European countries.”
“At a time of great global uncertainty, it is more important than ever that we deepen ties with our closest allies and biggest trading partners, whose values we share, and whose interests are bound to ours.”
“Today the Government have responded to the covid counter-fraud commissioner’s recommendations in a report that I commissioned, which confirms that the Conservative Government left the door open to more than £10 billion of pandemic fraud.”
“As I just said, the DIP will be published before the summit. It will involve more money spent more effectively, and it will meet the scale of the challenges we face. Frankly, I will take no lectures from the Conservatives, who left our armed forces, in the words of their former Defence Secretary, “hollowed out”.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for bringing the story of Darren and Nicole to this House. I hope that they and their children will benefit from the change I made to the two-child limit for universal credit, as well as from the rolling out of free breakfast clubs to all primary schools, and the introduction of free school meals for all children wh…”
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“It is pricing people into work at the expense of their families.” He concluded: “Without a commitment to a national minimum wage, we perpetuate the conditions that manufacture poverty in our society alongside the wealth of others… The way to prevent poverty is to pay decent wages and not force families into the benefit system.” —[ Official Report , 18 May 1988; Vol. 133, c.”
“John Battle noted that, at that time, a primary cause of poverty was “the persistence, even in what is heralded by the Government as a booming economy, of low pay.” He told the House of jobs advertised in Bramley in my constituency, including a catering assistant post at £2.10 an hour, five cleaning jobs with hourly rates starting at £1.70 an hour, and a security guard job at £1.50 an hour working for 60 hours a week. He said: “To generate a low-wage economy for a large minority in our society alongside the current economic boom for the rest of us is grossly unjust.”
“Friend the Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) has said. We are proud of the part that we have always played in improving working conditions and winning for working people a fairer reward for their effort and contribution. A minimum wage was the aim of our movement for more than a century. I pay tribute to my predecessor as Member of Parliament for Leeds West, who, in 1988, laid before the House a Bill calling for a statutory minimum wage.”
“Millions of people put in the shifts and clock up the hours, sometimes in two jobs or more, often when the rest of us are still asleep in the morning or when we have already gone to bed at night, yet when they get their payslip at the end of the month, their pay is not enough to cover the bills or the rent, or to buy simple things that anyone should be able to afford for themselves and their family. Those people think that something has gone seriously wrong with our economy and our country, and they are right. That is why we need a plan to put it right. That is what the debate is about. I am proud that the Labour party has called the debate. Our party is founded on our belief in the dignity of work, born of the earliest struggles of working people against extreme exploitation, as my hon.”
“This has been a valuable and instructive debate. At a time when too many people in the country feel left behind by our economy and left out of our politics, it is important that the House of Commons devotes its attention to the issues faced by millions of people in our country who work just as hard as everyone else, doing jobs that are vital to our economy and country—as Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) have pointed out—but who are not getting a fair share of the prosperity that they help to create.”
“Two thirds of children in poverty now live in families in which somebody is working, and a record 5 million people are earning less than a living wage. In-work poverty is an injustice and an indignity to those who suffer it, but it also costs the taxpayer through the benefit system. Will the Secretary of State tell us by how much the spending on housing benefit for people in work is expected to increase between 2010 and 2018?”
“The reality is that housing benefit overall is going to go up in real terms from £23 billion at the beginning of this Parliament to £24.6 billion at the end of it. Housing benefit for people in work is forecast to rise by a staggering £12.9 billion between 2010 and 2018. Does that not show that taking action to make work pay would be a much more effective way of controlling housing benefit than the unfair and unworkable bedroom tax, which I and many of my colleagues will be voting to change this Friday, and which we need a Labour Government to repeal after the general election next year?”
“Mr Speaker, will you explain to the House the process whereby a Minister can correct the record?”
“434W.] When asked yesterday whether the Treasury had signed off the business case for universal credit, Sir Bob Kerslake told the Public Accounts Committee: “I think we should not beat about the bush. It has not been signed off.” This morning, in response to a parliamentary question asking whether the Treasury had signed off the business case, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury said: “The Treasury have approved funding for the Universal Credit programme in 2013-14 and 2014-15.”— —[ Official Report , 7 July 2014; Vol. 584, c. 124W.] In other words, the straightforward answer to the question whether Has the Treasury approved the DWP’s business case for the implementation of universal credit is no. That is the reverse of what the employment Minister said.”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The ministerial code of conduct makes it clear that Ministers must give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest possible opportunity. On 11 June, I asked whether the Department for Work and Pensions’ business case for the implementation of universal credit had been approved by the Treasury. In her reply, the employment Minister, the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) said: “The Chief Secretary to the Treasury has approved the UC Strategic Outline Business Case plans for the remainder of this Parliament (2014-15) as per the ministerial announcement (5 December 2013, Official Report, column 65WS)” —[ Official Report , 30 June 2014; Vol. 583, c.”
“Chaos is 7,000 people waiting for a work capability assessment, and the Government still not able to tell us which provider will replace Atos. Waste is more than £600 million spent on universal credit, including £131 million written down or written off, with no clear assurances about how, when or whether this important project will ever be fully operational or provide value for money. Delay is the desperate people, many of whom have been working and paying into the system for years or decades and are now struck by disability or illness, waiting six months or more for help from the Department for Work and Pensions.”
“Instead, the Government are wasting more and more taxpayers’ money on poorly planned and disastrously managed projects, and are allowing in-work benefits to spiral because of their failure to tackle the low pay and insecurity that are adding billions of pounds to the benefits bill. There is strong support in Britain for a social security system that helps people get by when they fall on hard times; secures dignity and a decent standard of living for those unable to work because of sickness or disability; and ensures that no child goes hungry, without essential clothing or without adequate housing because their parents are in low-paid or insecure work. Instead of a system that works, under this Government we have got chaos, waste and delay.”
“This debate is about how we as a country treat our fellow citizens. It is about the young woman diagnosed with a life-limiting illness who has waited six months for any help with her living costs. It is about the disabled man whose payments have been stopped because he did not attend an interview to which he was never invited. It is about the millions of working people in this country who pay their taxes and national insurance every week and who want to know that their money is ensuring a strong and efficient system of social security that will be there for them and their families, with rules applied fairly and promptly to ensure support goes to those who need it and not to those who do not.”
“I beg to move, That this House notes that after £612 million being spent, including £131 million written off or written down, the introduction of Universal Credit is now years behind schedule, with no clear plan for how, when, or whether full implementation will be achievable or represent value for money; further notes the admission of the Minister of State for Disabled People in oral evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee on 11 June 2014 that over 700,000 people are still waiting for a Work Capability Assessment, and the report of the Office for Budget Responsibility in March 2014 that found that projected spending on Employment and Support Allowance has risen by £800 million since December; recognises the finding of the Committee of Public Accounts in its First Report, HC 280, that Personal Independence Payment delays have created uncertainty, stress and financial costs for disabled people and additional budgetary pressures for Government; further recognises that the Work Programme has failed to meet its targets, the unfair bedroom tax risks costing more than it saves, and other DWP programmes are performing poorly or in disarray; and calls on the Government to publish (a) the risk register and other documentation relating to the delivery of Universal Credit as a Freedom of Information tribunal has ruled it should, (b) the time in which it will guarantee that disabled people will receive an assessment for PIP and (c) a full risk assessment showing the potential impact of delays, delivery problems, contract failures and underperformance on (i) people receiving or entitled to benefits, (ii) departmental budgets and spending plans and (iii) the Government’s welfare cap.”
“Does the hon. Gentleman feel comfortable that under this Government spending on housing benefit for people who are in work has gone up by more than 60%, reflecting the fact that more people are in low-paid or insecure work and are unable to make ends meet, even though they may be working all the hours God sends? We have a Government who are totally out of touch with the reality of life for millions of hard-working taxpayers and those in need of help. The Government are careless with the contributions that people make to the system, callous about the consequences of their incompetence for the most vulnerable, and too arrogant to admit mistakes and engage seriously with the task of sorting out their own mess.”
“Of course I welcome the fact that unemployment, including youth unemployment, is now falling, but we have to face up to the fact that too many people in work are struggling to make ends meet. The hon. Gentleman will know from his constituency that some people who are in work have to rely on housing benefit and tax credits to make ends meet because they are not paid a wage they can afford to live on, they are on zero-hours contracts, or they are among the record numbers of people who are working part time but want to work full time. We need to address those challenges as well.”
“It is all about ensuring that more people are in work through the compulsory jobs guarantee, ensuring that people have the skills to hold down a job with a basic skills test and a youth allowance, and doing more to ensure that people in work can earn enough to live on—through, for example, an increase in the minimum wage and ensuring that more people are paid the living wage. Those policies will make a huge difference to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents in Dover and Deal, which will be a Labour constituency after the next election.”
“In other words, it is hurting, but it certainly is not working.”
“Universal credit, we are told, “continues to be a significant challenge for both the Department and delivery partners”, and it goes on to say that “there continues to be an inherent level of risk contained in the plans.” On fraud and error, we are told that the rate has “worsened” with respect to housing benefit and that the chance of the Government achieving their target for reduction “remains a very substantial challenge and is unlikely to be achieved.” The report confirms that in the area of contracted-out assessments for employment and support allowance and the new personal independence payments, “the volume of assessments undertaken by providers…has fallen consistently below demand, with a detrimental impact on customer service and implications for forecast expenditure on sickness and disability benefits”.”
“It reveals the latest opinion of the DWP’s head of internal audit—that the Department has yet to take the necessary action to “address control weaknesses” and, in his words, to “provide an improved…environment from which to manage the continuing challenges and risks faced by the Department.” It lists no fewer than eight areas described as “significant challenges” where the Department still falls short.”
“What we do know is that more than 5 million people—20% of the work force—are paid less than the living wage. Furthermore, 1.5 million people are on zero-hours contracts and 1.4 million people are working part time who want to work full time. When it comes to detailing the extent of the Secretary of State’s dereliction, it is hard to know where to start. For a useful overview, we need look no further than the Department’s own annual report and accounts for 2013-14, which was released at the end of last week.”
“I totally agree with my hon. Friend. Of course, these remarks are from the Government’s own report. In our constituencies we all see people who are so desperate that they have to queue at food banks to be able to feed themselves and their families. That is not something that should be happening in 21st century Britain.”
“He applied for the personal independence payment and employment and support allowance, but a month after making the application, they were still waiting just to get their Atos assessment. She had given up work to look after her husband, but because they had not had their decision on PIP, she could not apply for carer’s allowance. They were so short of money that I referred them to one of the food banks. Both had worked for many years and paid into the system, but when they needed support, it was not there for them. In March this year, the husband died. His Atos appointment letter had never come. His wife, now a widow, had been made unwell by all the stress of this experience. She applied for ESA, but she has heard nothing.”
“My hon. Friend puts it very succinctly, and I am coming on to some of the examples we have all heard about from our constituency surgeries. What we here must take care to do and what this Government have now totally failed to do is to remember the human impact, often on people in vulnerable circumstances, of this catalogue of chaos. Behind the bureaucratic language and spreadsheets showing backlogs and overspends are people in need who are being let down and mistreated, and taxpayers who can ill afford the mismanagement and waste of their money. Let me provide just a few examples that I am sure will be familiar to Members of all parties from our constituency surgeries. In February, a woman came to my surgery in a state of desperation. Her husband had suffered a stroke the previous year, rendering him unfit for work.”
“Nursing staff at Leeds General Infirmary advised the Department for Work and Pensions that he would be unable to attend the appointment, and he was told that a home assessment would be arranged, but he then heard nothing for months. In May, I wrote to the Department on the couple’s behalf. The reply that I received said simply: “we will respond to your query as soon as possible but due to the volumes being received and the PIP system still being in its infancy there may be delays in getting back to you”. Meanwhile, we also referred that couple to a food bank when their money ran out. These people deserve better.”
“As the hon. Gentleman will have heard, the example that I gave involved personal independence payments, which were introduced by this Government, not the last one. We have made our position clear. Although we appointed Atos, we said last autumn that it should be sacked. However, it is not just a question of replacing Atos; it is a question of reforming the work capability assessment and introducing targets relating not just to the number of decisions, but to the correct decisions. Another couple came to me after applying for personal independence payments last August. The husband was asked to attend an assessment on a date when he would be in hospital for a spine operation.”
“I never knew what it would be like to be on the other side of the fence.” He added: “But now that I do, I wish that the Secretary of State would imagine what it is like being on this side of the fence—what it is like being in my position.””
“After phoning the Department nearly every day since then, he finally had his assessment for personal independence payment on 16 May. On 20 June—five weeks later—he received a letter from the Department saying that it now had all the information it needed in order to make a decision, but today, more than nine months after his application, he has yet to receive notification of what support, if any, he will receive. In the meantime, he has had to rely on help from family and friends. He has struggled to keep up with his bills, and has even been visited by a debt recovery firm. Until he was struck by cancer, Mr Graham had worked all his life. For 40 years he had paid his tax and national insurance. However, he told me today “When I needed it, the help was not there.”
“My hon. Friend has made a very important point. The PIP contract was awarded to Atos although we knew that there were problems with the work capability assessment. It was this Government’s decision to give a contract to a provider that we already knew was failing. Since this debate was announced at the end of last week, my office has been inundated by communications from people from all over the country with similar tragic and appalling stories to tell. This morning I spoke to Malcolm Graham from Romford, who last September was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus. He underwent 10 weeks of chemotherapy and a 10-hour operation. He had been unable to work, and he finds it hard to get around. He applied for a personal independence payment and employment and support allowance on 23 September last year.”
“Government Members should listen rather than heckle, because my hon. Friend has made an incredibly important point. I recently went to Ringways garage in Farnley, in my constituency, to give someone the keys to a Motability car. That person talked about the difference that Motability made, in terms of independence and family. However, as my hon. Friend has said, we also know that, as a result of some of the Government’s reforms, many people who need to be helped to obtain the car that will give them the freedom that the rest of us take for granted have had that support taken away from them. The delays and the chaos is one thing, but there is also some of the substance of those decisions.”
“I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman, so, no, I will not. I know that many hon. Members will have similar stories to tell today, and I hope the Secretary of State stays to listen, because when we write to the Department with our constituents’ problems we only ever get replies from the correspondence unit. I realise that the Secretary of State is probably deluged with letters raising problems.”
“Well, I will send the Secretary of State all the letters I have had from his correspondence unit, not one of them signed by him. [Interruption.] Well, letters that I have written to the Department about the challenges facing— [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman says he replies to these letters; he has not written a single letter to me about— [Interruption.]”
“If the Secretary of State now claims that he signs his letters “The correspondence unit”, perhaps he has replied, but I would have expected the Secretary of State to sign the letters and I will be very happy to forward all the letters to him. [Interruption.] He carries on chuntering from a sedentary position; I have not had a single letter about my casework from him. I will send them all to him, and perhaps he can write to me and my constituents explaining why they have been treated so abysmally by him and his Government.”
“Well, maybe there is one rule for Tory Back Benchers and another rule for Labour party MPs, because I have not had a single letter signed by the Secretary of State.”
“The Minister for disabled people has never replied to the letters I have sent to the Department for Work and Pensions about people in my constituency. I have given two examples today. [Interruption.] He says he has; can the right hon. Gentleman stand up and say he has ever replied to a letter from me?”
“The introduction of personal independence payments in place of disability living allowance was supposed to save £780 million in annual spending by next April, but with £200 million a year being spent on administration, including £127 million a year going to contracted-out assessment providers, this change is set to be completed not next year but, at this rate of progress, in 42 years’ time.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I hope the Secretary of State also responds to the calls we are making today for the Government to give sick and disabled people some clarity and assurance by publishing a guaranteed time limit for the assessment of claims. For example, Macmillan Cancer Support has recommended that the personal independence payment assessment process be limited to 11 weeks. I hope the Secretary of State will tell us today that he will undertake to give that guarantee—if not, why not? We are also calling for the Secretary of State to own up to the extent of the problems in his Department, particularly the mounting costs arising from problems with the personal independence payment, the work capability assessment and universal credit.”
“As a result of the disarray, we are seeing spiralling costs to the taxpayer, with the latest report from the Office for Budget Responsibility showing an £800 million increase in projected spending and leaked documents revealing that the Government now see this as one of the biggest fiscal risks, with spending on course to breach their own welfare cap.”
“Eight months is far too long for anyone to have to wait and, clearly, any further delay is totally unacceptable. On the work capability assessment, the Government spend £100 million a year on the contracted assessors, as well as tens of millions more on decisions that are appealed. Now, the process has almost reached “virtual collapse”, according to the senior judge overseeing the trials, with Atos walking away from the contract, the Government yet to identify a replacement and a backlog of more than 700,000 assessments in a queue.”
“But what we have also seen in my constituency is that average wages in Yorkshire and Humber have reduced by £26 a week since the coalition came into government and employment and support allowance claims have increased by 0.9 percentage points during the same period.”
“The rescue committee, which we appointed to advise on the future of universal credit, has recommended that the books be opened for a warts-and-all review, with the National Audit Office signing off any new business case before it goes forward. But instead of moving on from the culture of secrecy and denial, which has been identified as the biggest fatal flaw besetting universal credit, the Government are instead spending yet more taxpayers’ money fighting freedom of information requests and court cases to try to stop the publication of documents setting out the risks, milestones and state of progress of this multi-billion pound project. They are hiding behind a veil of secrecy that is making universal credit harder, not easier, to deliver.”
“Today, with more than £600 million spent on set-up costs, we should be starting to see the benefits—1 million people should be claiming universal credit now, as part of a roll-out that the Government said would be completed by 2017—but instead we find that £130 million of this expenditure has already been written down or written off and only 6,000 of the simplest cases have so far received the benefit, which is less than 1% of the level it should be at now. Most worryingly of all, we now have no reliable timetable and no Treasury-approved business case to tell us how, when or whether this project will ever be fully operational or deliver value for money. We have repeatedly called on the Government to come clean about the state of universal credit.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that there is still an awful lot to do to reduce unemployment and ensure that everybody in work is earning enough to be able to support themselves and their families. Let us now deal with universal credit, the Secretary of State’s pet project and the Prime Minister’s flagship welfare reform. Where are we with that? It was supposed to be the Government’s way of achieving £38 billion of savings over 10 years and £7 billion a year thereafter by reducing fraud and error and by encouraging more people into work.”
“What I know from my business experience—I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows it as well—is that writing off and writing down £131 million of expenditure is not good value for money. It is good to test things, but I do not see this Government doing much learning from the mistakes they are making. The evidence is now clear that the Secretary of State’s record has been a complete car crash.”
“The DWP has the highest spending of any Government Department, and the responsibility for handling some of the most sensitive situations and some of the most vulnerable people in our country. We will all be paying a price for a long time to come for this Government’s failure to get a grip, and the lives of too many people, such as Malcolm Graham who is still waiting for his personal independence payment, have been irreparably damaged. It is clear that this Government will never take their responsibilities in this area with the seriousness that is needed. Let me pledge today that a Labour Government will. They will help those thousands of families who have been let down by the system and the millions of taxpayers who are seeing their money wasted. That change cannot come soon enough.”
“To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: to fail to deliver on one policy might be considered unfortunate; to miss one’s targets on two has to be judged careless; but to make such a complete mess of every single initiative the Secretary of State has attempted requires a special gift. It is something like a Midas touch: everything he touches turns into a total shambles. Meanwhile, the Secretary of State will spew out dodgy statistics, rant and rave about Labour’s record, say “on time and on budget” until he is blue in the face and, in typical Tory style, blame the staff for everything that goes wrong. We have all long given up hope on the Secretary of State ever getting a grip on his Department. The real question today is when will the Prime Minister learn and take responsibility for the slow-motion car crash he has allowed to unfold?”
“That links in with what I was saying earlier. If the Government do not learn from their mistakes, how can they make improvements? Universal credit is widely off track; the work capability assessment has almost completely broken down; personal independence payments are a fiasco; the Work programme is not working; the Youth Contract is a flop; support for families with multiple problems are falling far short of its target; the jobmatch website is an absurd embarrassment; the unfair and vindictive bedroom tax is costing more money than it saves; and the Government cannot even agree on a definition of child poverty let alone take action to deal with it.”
“I thank the Minister for giving me a chance to reply, as I have checked the letters I have written to the Secretary of State. I have had a reply from him to a letter regarding a constituent of mine called Latimer Saunders and the reply came from Gabriella Monk. I wrote a letter to the Secretary of State regarding a constituent called Mark Norris and I have received no response at all, despite the fact that my letter was sent last year. I have never received a letter from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in response to any of the letters I have sent to him.”
“At the start of this year 3,780 people were claiming universal credit. The most recent numbers show that 5,610 people are receiving the benefit. At this rate of progress, how long will it be until the 7.7 million households that are supposed to receive this Government’s flagship benefit, as the Secretary of State originally set out, are receiving it?”
“I think that is the first time I have not heard the Secretary of State say that his project is on time and on budget, but we still hear total and utter complacency. At the present rate of progress, it will take a staggering 1,052 years before universal credit is fully rolled out. So what do we have? Universal credit delayed, personal independence payments delayed and employment and support allowance delayed. Does not the Secretary of State realise that his incompetence is not only wasting tens and hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, but causing untold pain and hardship for some of the most vulnerable people in our country?”