Alison McGovern MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 11 Nov 2024 · Poverty · Hansard source

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  After 14 years of Conservative Government, 8 million adults and 4.3 million children were left in poverty. Among other things, £240 million was recently announced in the Budget to support better work so that people can get the dignity of a good job and the security of a proper wage. Details will soon be available, as the Secretary of State mentioned, in our “Get Britain Working” White Paper.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Poverty · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend mentions the new fair repayment rate, which is another crucial part of the Budget and a downpayment on the action that we will take on poverty. I am fond of an invitation to Scotland, and I will happily accept that one.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Jobcentres: Broxbourne · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his question— [ Interruption. ] Honestly, I am still getting used to being on this side of the House. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that jobcentres everywhere need to be locally responsive to employers, and that we need to provide an excellent service to local employers. If he has further thoughts on how we can make that work in his constituency, I would be very happy to discuss it with him.

• 11 Nov 2024 · Jobcentres: Broxbourne · Hansard source

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  Jobcentres serving the Broxbourne constituency and elsewhere will change following the “Get Britain Working” White Paper, which has already been mentioned. This fundamental reform will have three parts: a new public employment service to get more people into work and to help them get on in work; a joined-up work, health and skills plan; and a guarantee for young people aged 18 to 21.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Furniture Poverty · Hansard source

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  As ever, Sir Roger, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) for securing this debate and for the very important work that he has done to support the Renters’ Rights Bill, which will make a big difference to the experience of people living in privately rented homes. On behalf of us all, may I congratulate the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies) on her new appointment? She is right to say that she and I have debated these issues many times. I will miss doing so, and I know that many of my colleagues in the DWP miss her. We wish her all the very best in her new role. The current level of poverty is unacceptable: 1.3 million more people are in poverty than in 2010. Poverty damages lives in so many ways, as we have heard this afternoon. People simply cannot fulfil their potential when struggling to pay for basic essentials, or in many cases going without them. I am determined that we will take steps to put that right. Good work will always be the foundation of our approach to tackling poverty. Hon. Members will know that we had a manifesto commitment to bring forward changes in this area. We will shortly publish the “Get Britain Working” White Paper, which will announce our reforms in that area. We will have a new service to support more people to enter, remain and do better in work, and a youth guarantee, with increased join-up of employment and health, which are causing so many challenges in this area. Through our plan to make work pay, we will ensure that we create opportunities for all by tackling low pay, poor working conditions and job security. This is a truly ambitious agenda to empower working people and grow our economy. We want to protect living standards, and wages are important in doing that. The national wage introduced by the new Labour Government back in 1999 has had a transformative effect on the fortunes of working people. In last week’s Budget it was announced that the national living wage will rise to £12.21 an hour from next April, boosting the pay of 3 million workers. That is an increase of 6.7%, worth £1,400 a year for a full-time worker, helping us to make progress towards a genuine living wage. Hon. Members have mentioned the child poverty taskforce. I will take today’s debate as a submission through the child poverty taskforce process, because we have shown how interconnected many of the issues are. It is shameful that in a rich country such as the UK, 4 million children were living in relative poverty last year, and that 800,000 children have used a food bank in the past 12 months. As has been said, the End Child Poverty campaign has suggested that 1.2 million children were in furniture poverty in 2022. That is just unacceptable. It scars children’s lives now and can damage their long-term health, education and employment outcomes. It holds our country back, and we are determined to see change. I hope it is helpful to hon. Members if I give a brief update on the child poverty taskforce, which is working to publish a comprehensive and ambitious child poverty strategy in the spring. Last month, we published a framework to set out how we will develop the strategy, harnessing all available levers because, as so many Members have said, policy in one area affects another. We want to develop the strategy with exactly that in mind. We have four key themes: incomes, costs, increasing financial resilience and getting better local support. On that note, I recently visited Glasgow, where the city council is doing excellent work to join things up locally, as Members have suggested. Later this month, the taskforce will meet employers, trade unions and think-tanks to discuss options to increase incomes and financial resilience in low-income households. We want to ensure that the strategy addresses poverty in every corner of the land and that we hear and learn from families in poverty as we shape it. We will be holding engagement events across the UK—I have already visited various constituencies myself—bringing together a diverse range of voices and setting up a new forum for parents and carers to ensure that the experiences of our kids are included at the heart of the strategy. The Government believe that a wealthy country like the United Kingdom should have a social security system that meets the needs of people who are unable to fully support themselves through work. We know that for many, the system we inherited is not currently achieving that. We are determined to fix the fundamentals so that low-income families can afford the basics. We have inherited a number of policies and a challenging fiscal climate that have left us with difficult choices. In response to the shadow Minister’s point about universal credit, it is fair to say that the policy has been on a long journey. Some of the points she made about the responsiveness of social security during the pandemic are important. We must learn from that and try to address the challenges we now face. That is why we have committed to reviewing universal credit and will listen to a full range of views on potential changes to make sure that it is doing its job now. As a first step, the Chancellor announced in last week’s Budget that we will introduce a fair repayment rate. That will help households on universal credit who are having deductions made from their benefit, perhaps because they had a loan of some kind or moved into a new home and needed to buy furniture or other items. We will ensure that they can retain more of the money from their benefit to help them to budget for essentials like this. Over 1.2 million households on universal credit will benefit from the changing of the deduction cap from 25% to 15%. It will mean an average of £420 a year, which is a good down payment on a future plan. I turn to the specific issue of furniture affordability. Most of us will experience large one-off costs or unexpected expenditure at some point. As hon. Members have explained fully, these costs can be difficult to budget for, and we do not want to drive people into debt.

• 6 Nov 2024 · Furniture Poverty · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes his point very well. Let me respond briefly to questions that Members have raised. I will ask the relevant Minister to write to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire about the regulatory changes arising from the Renters’ Rights Bill, on whose Public Bill Committee he served ably. I reassure him that the DWP will work across Departments, because these areas cover different departmental responsibilities. We will include all those points in the child poverty taskforce. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is right about charities—Wirral Repair Café in my constituency does a fantastic job. My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) made an excellent speech on household support fund guidance. I encourage him to be part of that conversation. I will take away what he has said, but he might want to write to me with more detail. To other hon. Members, I say that we are looking at all the ways in which poverty is now affecting people, given the spikes in energy prices and other issues. The comments were about the construction of homes and how we can limit the cost of energy are very important. I encourage Members to keep bringing those points forward, because now is the time to address them. Hon. Members will know that the social security system has always made provision to help people on low incomes without adequate savings, and we do consider the impact of budgeting loans, advances and other measures. I mentioned the change in deductions. We know that while there will always be people who struggle to meet unexpected costs, no one wants a system in which large numbers of people are relying on crisis support to help them to feed their families or pay for heating and other day-to-day essentials. We want the system to genuinely respond to this as a crisis, not a chronic problem. To support the upcoming child poverty strategy and address the demand we face, as the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield mentioned, we are continuing to provide substantial funding for crisis support through the household support fund and discretionary housing payments. We will invest £1 billion, including the Barnett impact, to extend the household support fund in England for an additional year until 31 March 2026 and to maintain the discretionary housing payments fund for a further year. This will ensure that the current targeted support is available for the most vulnerable. In the end, we know that there is no quick fix. The issues that we have in this country are deep rooted and complicated, but that can never be an excuse for not trying to tackle them. We have taken the first steps, and there is more to come in the child poverty strategy and the “Get Britain Working” White Paper. I look forward to working with all Members here to get this right. Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That this House has considered furniture poverty.

• 4 Nov 2024 · Income Tax (Charge) · Hansard source

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  indicated dissent .

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  I apologise, Mr Speaker. You would think that after 14 years I would be able to get it right.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  Apologies, but I feel that I should keep going. Means-tested benefits can help where appropriate. Universal credit, for example, pays an extra £2,400 a year to unpaid family carers. I do not underestimate the challenges within the universal credit system, and we want to ensure that carers who need it get that support. As I was saying to the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton a moment ago, we are looking at different aspects of the system, including by reviewing universal credit to ensure that it does the job we all want it to do. We will set out the details in due course. Pension credit can also be paid to carers at a higher rate than what those without caring responsibilities receive, and over 100,000 carers receive an extra amount of pension credit because of their entitlement to carer’s allowance. However, we think that as many as 760,000 pensioners who are eligible for pension credit are not receiving it, which is why the Government have already taken action to drive up pension credit take-up. Last month, we started a national campaign to encourage eligible pensioners to check their eligibility and apply. We are asking local authorities to support that and, as the House will know, the Secretary of State and the Deputy Prime Minister wrote to them in August. Following that, we have seen a 152% increase in applications for pension credit since 29 July, with almost 75,000 applications in just eight weeks. In November we will write to around 120,000 pensioners in receipt of housing benefit who may be eligible but are not currently claiming pension credit, and I encourage all family carers to check that they are receiving all the support to which they are entitled. The gov.uk website has lots of information on carer’s allowance, and 90% of people claim online, although traditional paper forms are available for those who want to claim it that way. I know that organisations such as Carers UK and Citizens Advice are also on hand and do a fantastic job of giving advice. Financial help for carers is really important, but it is only one pillar of a proper support system. All of us need a balance in life, and that is important for carers too. Most carers of working age want to consider working in some form, and not just for financial wellbeing but to enhance their life and the life of the person for whom they care. We want to help family carers combine their caring responsibilities with paid work where they can. We will review the implementation of the Carer’s Leave Act 2023, which gave employed carers a right to time off work for the first time, and we will explore the benefits of paid leave while being mindful of the impact of any changes on small employers. Through the Employment Rights Bill, we will ensure that flexible working, which can play such an important role in helping carers to balance their work and caring responsibilities, is available to all workers, except where it is genuinely not feasible. The Government will carefully consider the findings of Lord Darzi’s independent review of the NHS, which is very clear about the need for a fresh approach to supporting family carers. Caring is a demanding role in which no one can function at their best without ever having a break, and the better care fund includes money that can be used for unpaid carer support, including short breaks and respite services for carers. As I mentioned at the beginning of my contribution, we will ensure that family carers’ voices are heard as we develop plans to create a national care service as part of our reforms to adult social care. Every day, unpaid family carers step up when loved ones need their support. Without the contribution of family carers, our country would not function. The pressure on social care in this country is already unbearable; without unpaid family carers, it would become completely untenable.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  In a moment. If the results of the pilot are positive, that will be the first step towards addressing the overpayments problem. I know that we need to do much more, and there are many other issues, but it will be a good start.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Member for his question. I went through the details of what the review will look at just a moment ago, but there are wider problems with support for carers. The right hon. Member will know that the Department is currently looking at a whole host of areas, and we need family carers to be much better supported, both in work and when they are not working, so we will look at the wider issues. The review is about doing that, as I have said, but that does not mean that we are not fully aware of all the issues that carers face. As I was saying, addressing overpayments is only part of the action we need to take to ensure that unpaid carers get the support they need and deserve.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  Obviously whistleblowing is very important. The Hillsborough law that is being introduced is not my responsibility, so the hon. Lady will understand that I cannot go over it extensively, but I will say, as someone who worked on the Hillsborough issue for many years, that it is very important to me personally. These problems are significant, and given the scale of the challenges, we will not be able to solve all of them overnight, but we have taken important first steps, including tackling the issue of overpayments of carer’s allowance related to earnings. We have all heard the stories of some of the thousands of carers who have been affected, we have all heard and know about the stress and anxiety that it has caused them, and we all want—I hope—to establish the facts. To address this problem, we must first truly understand what has gone wrong. That is why the DWP has announced today an independent review of overpayments of carer’s allowance that have exceeded the entitlement threshold. The review will investigate how the overpayments have occurred, what can best be done to support those who have accrued them, and how to reduce the risk of such problems occurring in future. We are delighted that Liz Sayce OBE has agreed to lead the review. My colleagues the Minister for Social Security and Disability, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), and the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western), have already met representatives of Carers UK, along with carers themselves, to discuss their report on overpayments, and we will consider the findings of that report alongside the independent review.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  Yes, 14 years. It just goes to show that every day in this House is a school day. Thank you, Mr Speaker; I always welcome your suggestions. I cannot pre-empt the Secretary of State’s decision, but she will shortly start her uprating review of carer’s allowance, following the release of yesterday’s earnings data and today’s inflation figures, and the outcome of that review will include the new weekly rate of carer’s allowance from April 2025.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  That is a very good point, and the hon. Gentleman’s experience as a clinician is welcome. The Secretary of State has considerable experience of working with carers, and I will alert her to his comments, because I think she would appreciate what he has said. We must never think this is not an issue that does not affect us all. Many of us will become carers—if not now, at some point in our lives. This affects all of us, and everyone’s life is different. Support for family carers needs to be tailored so that it works for the individual and takes into account the different circumstances that people face. When you are caring for someone, that is a huge part of your life, and it never stops. Even if you are working, you are still thinking about that person for whom you are caring day in, day out. It is not just a physical job; it is a mental, intellectual job, and that is why the issue of stress and how carers are treated is so important.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “society” to the end and add: “; believes it is essential that carers are provided with the support they need at the time they need it; condemns the previous Government for failing to address the scandal of demands for repayments of Carer’s Allowance; and welcomes the Government’s review into how these overpayments have occurred, what best can be done to support those who have accrued them and how to reduce the risk of these problems occurring in future.” Let me begin by paying tribute to the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey). It is excellent that he has brought this subject to the House. I heard what he said about family carers as opposed to unpaid carers, and while I do not want to get involved in a big linguistic debate, I think he made an important point that will be recognised by many carers up and down the country. When we are making policy, we should always listen to those with direct experience. I think that the right hon. Gentleman made his point on behalf of millions of people, and it is good that the House has heard it. Many people will be personally acquainted with this issue. There are 5 million carers in the UK and about 1 million people are receiving carer’s allowance, so this debate is extremely important. According to the latest census, just under one in 10 people in England and Wales provide unpaid care, but the subject of carers is not at the top of the political agenda nearly as often as it should be.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I am sure that many Members will want to provide their views to the review, which is welcome. I will come to some of the steps we have already taken to try to address the problems in a moment. It is vital to move quickly to understand exactly what has gone wrong, so that we can set out a plan to put things right. Right now, we want to make it as easy as possible for carers to tell us when something has changed that could affect their carer’s allowance. We will continue to look at improving communications, and we are now reviewing the results of a test of text alerts to claimants who may be at risk of building up overpayments. In response to the point that the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) made about the need for a review, I assure him that we are not waiting for an extensive review in order to act; we have acted already. Our pilot involved texting 3,500 claimants to alert them when we were told by HMRC that they have breached the current earnings limit. Going forward, we want to make the best use of earnings data already held by HMRC in order to reduce the burdens on busy carers, which also responds to the point made earlier.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  I will come to the review that we will be conducting, but let me make the general point that we in the Government ought to be able to understand the realities of life and take that into account. The position that I have described makes the dire situation we have inherited all the more shameful. Family carers are being pushed to breaking point. They have too often been forced to quit jobs that they want to keep and could keep with the right support, which isolates them and shrinks our workforce. With the right support, we could help carers and help our economy as well. To rub salt into the wound, we have inherited a system whereby busy carers, already struggling under a huge weight of responsibility, have been left having to repay large sums of overpaid carer’s allowance, sometimes amounting to thousands of pounds. It seems as though what is supposed to be a safety net designed to catch those in need was instead designed to catch them out.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  I will make a bit of progress. We are looking closely at how the benefits system currently works, and it is right that the Government focus on addressing overpayments of carer’s allowance. As I was just saying, we have set up an independent review, but we have heard the concerns about the broader system, including the earnings limit and the lack of taper. As Members will know, earlier this year the Work and Pensions Committee, which was then chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, raised a number of issues with carer’s allowance—not only overpayments, but the need for modernisation more generally. As the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton will know, we have given the Committee’s recommendations the detailed consideration that they deserve, and we will respond later in the autumn.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  As the hon. Member knows, the Department is not responsible for the delivery of social security benefits in Northern Ireland, but I am sure that Northern Ireland’s Department for Communities will be keeping a close eye on the debate and will want to take his points into account. This problem is one of the numerous ways in which our social security system is failing the people of this country, with 2.8 million left out of work because they are unwell and more than 4 million children growing up poor, and we have therefore moved fast to fix the foundations of the DWP. That includes our setting up a taskforce to tackle child poverty, extending the household support fund for six months, and holding the first meeting of our new Labour Market Advisory Board. The board’s expertise and fresh thinking will help us break down barriers to work, such as an inability to balance paid work with family care.

• 16 Oct 2024 · Carer’s Allowance · Hansard source

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  Our country is in a very serious financial situation indeed. As I said at the beginning of my speech, anyone who thinks that the issue of care ought not to be right at the top of the political agenda is labouring under a serious misapprehension. This is an important subject, which is why I am proud of the first steps that this Government have already taken to improve support for carers and to address the overpayment of carer’s allowance, which has caused so much distress for thousands of people. This shows our commitment to recognising and valuing the vital role that carers play in our communities. Of course there is much more to do, so it is my hope that, as we deliver the fundamental change that we need, we can work together with carer organisations and with carers themselves with a renewed sense of purpose to ensure that carers get all the support they need to carry out the incredible work of caring and to live full and fulfilled lives.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I assure my hon. Friend that we will work with the Welsh Government, Welsh local authorities and all our colleagues across the United Kingdom to get the policy right for young people, who I believe have been failed over recent years. It is about time they had the future they deserve.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is an absolute expert on this kind of inclusive change that we need to make to our employment support system so that we can help everybody, and I look forward to working with her on ideas just like that when we bring forward our White Paper in the autumn.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Access to Work Programme · Hansard source

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  I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. Disabled people have the right to work like everybody else. We have an ambition to see an 80% employment rate in this country, and we cannot do that without the contribution of people with disabilities. We are working on an employment White Paper and developing our policies, and we want everybody in this country to make their full contribution, especially disabled people.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Access to Work Programme · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her question. Labour’s manifesto said that we will tackle the backlog of Access to Work claims, and we will. We have improved the process and increased the number of staff processing claims, but there is more to do and that work is ongoing.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Jobcentre Access: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for bringing that point to the House; it is a major focus of the work that is currently going into the White Paper. We have had very worrying developments for young people since the pandemic, and we need to do much better to give them the best possible start in life. I will say it again: on this issue we welcome input from Members on all sides of the House.