Mel Stride MP: speeches

Speeches

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

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  I stand by our record when I was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, particularly on the support that the Department gave to the disabled, not least the results that we achieved in encouraging and helping them into work, which is the best possible outcome. When there has been such a perpetration of deceit, there must be the alibi—the smokescreen—which is, of course, the fictitious, confected black hole of £22 billion. Labour Members rubbed their hands in glee when the OBR said it would be looking into the matter. It reported back, on the day of the Budget, and what did it find? It found that it was not able to legitimise that black hole of £22 billion, and came up with a figure for in-year fiscal pressure that was below half that. It observed that if it had been focused on that figure at the time of the spring Budget, conversations would have been held, and it is conceivable that the number would have been smaller still. From our experience in government, we know that it is quite normal practice to manage in-year fiscal pressures, and to net off the underspends against the overspends. In reality, this black hole is “a dead parrot”. It has ceased to be. If it was not nailed to its perch, it would be “pushing up the daisies”. Far from being just “shagged out” after a prolonged squark, Madam Deputy Speaker, it is dead: the black hole is “an ex-parrot”.

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

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  My right hon. Friend is right that this is another broken promise. At the general election, the now Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs gave an unequivocal guarantee to farmers across the country that there was no question of farms being brought into inheritance tax. There is a good reason for the exemptions and relief, because if inheritance tax is levied on family farms that are passed down to another generation, those farms will have to be broken up, with parts sold off to pay the tax. I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) mentioned this, because the OBR has said that, by 2030, this measure will raise the princely sum of £520 million, which is enough to run the national health service for just one day. Has a more modest sum ever raised so much misery? I think not. The Chancellor assured us that she will not fiddle the figures by changing the fiscal targets, yet we have seen the fiscal targets changed to allow this Government to borrow an additional £140 billion. This is not a good time for the Secretary of State to talk about pensioners, but she mentioned them at the end of her speech. They were so badly let down by the means-testing of the winter fuel payment, and they were not told in advance to expect anything like it. Ten million pensioners across the country will lose up to £300 as a consequence of this measure. The Government claim that only the wealthiest, only the millionaires, will be affected, but two thirds of pensioners below the poverty line will have this benefit removed.

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

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  The Minister for Employment shakes her head, but my understanding is that while the Government may say they will make some changes, they are quite happy to take the savings that are baked into the OBR’s forecast. The Secretary of State is right to clamp down on fraud, but it is important that she does not misrepresent the fact that the approach she is taking is exactly the same as the approach we were bringing forward to do that. The reality is that some DWP budgets are growing to an extent that they need to be arrested in order for us to have a successful economy. If we were able to hold the number of people of working age with a health or disability component to their benefit at the level it is now for the next five years, there would be a saving of about £14 billion; if we were able to get it back to where it was before the pandemic, over £30 billion would be saved. When the Conservative party was in government, we had a clear plan to begin to address that issue. We have heard nothing from the Government about how they will tackle that fundamental fact. What we have had from the Government on welfare expenditure is the announcement that the welfare cap will be set, at the end of the scorecard period, at 5% above the OBR’s forecast for spending on those benefits. That is not a restraint; that is permission—an invitation—to spend ever more on welfare without hitting the cap. The Government have no plan and the taxpayer will continue to pay for it. So what do we have to show for this Budget? Compared with the spring: lower growth, lower living standards, lower wages, higher taxes, higher borrowing, and increased interest rates and mortgages. This is a Budget of broken promises, and when the dust has finally settled and this lot have gone, as we step over the fallen—the former farmers, the pensioners, the one-time businesspeople, the poor and the vulnerable—there we will find the shattered remains of the working people of this country, betrayed by a party that lied to them, and they will never forget it.

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

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  My right hon. Friend is a sensible man to give way to, and I will do so in a moment. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury recently admitted on Sky that putting up national insurance for employers will directly impact working people—of course it will. The Office for Budget Responsibility lays out in black and white that the consequence will be over 50,000 fewer jobs, with about 70% of the cost of this increase in taxation ultimately being borne by those who work, through lower wages. Are these not working people? The Secretary of State mentioned her youth guarantee and the importance of youth. I simply observe that youth unemployment fell by over 40% under the previous Government, whereas it rose by over 40% under the last Labour Government. That is how successful the Labour party is. Of course, because both the rate and the threshold have been increased, the national insurance increase will disproportionately impact those on lower wages, including the youngest workers.

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

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  How can I finally resist the hon. Gentleman, who is just itching to make some point about integrity? The Floor is his.

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

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  We fought for the “triple lock plus” in our manifesto, which would have spared millions of pensioners from being dragged into income tax, many for the first time, under this Government’s arrangements. There were, as the hon. Gentleman knows, particular circumstances in October 2022, including inflation surging above 11%. What are the broad effects of this Budget? The tax burden will rise to the highest level in the history of our country—higher than in 1948, when we first started to collect the data. We will be borrowing a staggering £140 billion over the next five years. What are the consequences of that, apart from passing on debt to future generations, who will have to pay it by way of higher taxation in the future? It is the crowding-out of private business investment, which this Government say they are eager to drive up. If we look at OBR’s forecast from the spring Budget last year and for inflation in every year under this Budget, it is higher in every single year. Why? Because there has been a huge fiscal splurge, particularly in the first two years of the forecast, that will require a monetary response, so interest rates will stay higher for longer. That will mean, the OBR estimates, an extra 0.25% on mortgages—or over £400 extra for the average family, up and down the country. According to the OBR’s forecast, wages will stagnate across the period, with lower real household disposable income than under the spring forecast, when the Conservative party was in government. I am surprised that the Secretary of State raised the subject of living standards. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates: “The average family will be £770 worse off in real terms by October 2029 compared with today.” I am also surprised that she raised the issue of poverty. When we were in government, we faced so many lectures from Labour Members, while we were bringing poverty down—the number of pensioners in absolute poverty fell by 200,000.

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

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  I think the right hon. Gentleman will find that that measure was supported by our Government— [ Laughter. ] No, no—most private Members’ Bills are not supported by the Government of the day and therefore make no progress. We were happy, whatever legislative vehicle was available, to ensure that that important measure came into effect on our watch. Let me speak for a moment about the complexities of carer’s allowance, because this is really important. It goes to the heart of many of the assertions that have been made in the Chamber today. This is how it works. It is £81.90 per week. We expect somebody who is in receipt of that benefit to be providing care for 35 hours or more to one or more individuals. There is an element of trust in the way the benefit works, because the Department for Work and Pensions cannot establish exactly what individuals are doing up and down the country, and therefore there is an earnings limit, which is a proxy for the amount of paid work that somebody is doing, rather than the amount of time they are spending looking after a loved one. That is the purpose of the limit. A complication, which has not yet been raised in this debate, is that someone’s income has to be adjusted in order to determine whether they are above or below that limit. There are adjustments. For example, they can reduce their declared income in this respect by 50% of any pension contributions they may make. They can adjust the amount of income that they compare to the limit for any equipment that they purchase in respect of their caring obligations. There are also travel costs. If someone is self-employed, various business costs can also see a reduction in the level of income. This lies at the heart of why there is a challenge in notifying people of whether they are above or below the earnings limit, because it is impossible, at the centre, to determine the answer to that question, for the reasons that I have given.

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

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  It is difficult to give a precise answer; what does the right hon. Gentleman mean by “a small amount over the earnings limit”? We know that, for the vast majority of the thousands of people in this situation, it will almost certainly be small amounts, including some very small amounts. None the less, fraud and error are a significant challenge across the benefits system, and need to be addressed. Any responsible Government will take that approach. Simply to say, “We have a problem, so we should take off the brakes and have no limit. We should let people claim what they like, whatever it might be, even if it is fraud”, as suggested by the leader of the Liberal Democrats, is not viable.

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

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  The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and of course the motion states that there should be an increase—an unspecified amount, but it is there none the less. I think the answer to his question is that it is a balance, because the higher we put up the earnings limit and the more generous we are to carers, which of course is something we all want to do, the more people can earn and the longer they can work. Potentially, therefore, if this is acting as a proxy for the amount that people are working, they might not have the real time to spend 35 hours a week caring for a loved one. So it is inevitably a balance. I certainly accept that this is worth reviewing, and I note that the Minister for Social Security and Disability, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), when he chaired the Work and Pensions Committee, called forcefully for a significant increase in the level of carer’s allowance.

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

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  No, I would not. I am not ruling out the possibility that it may yet become a mess, but certainly on our watch it was never a mess. In fact, it dispenses about £280 billion-worth of transfer payments both to pensioners and through the benefits system, and by and large it does a remarkable job in doing that efficiently. I want to pay tribute to all the officials and civil servants that work in that Department. They work incredibly hard and, for the vast majority of their time, produce outstanding results. None the less, of course, we can always point to elements of the system where things break down, and we must always strive to get better. That is why I welcome the Government’s review. The suggestion that the Government should not seek the repayment of overpayments is absurd. We cannot go that far. If someone goes over a threshold, we cannot say, “Do not worry about it.” We might as well not have the threshold in the first place. By all means, change the threshold—that may be a perfectly legitimate thing to do. Otherwise, the threshold should be removed altogether. Some Members will perfectly legitimately raise failings in the system, but when I was Secretary of State there were examples of fraud. For instance, one individual was working 100 hours a week as a taxi driver while apparently still having the time to spend 35 hours a week looking after a loved one. To my mind, that is clearly fraud, so we cannot write off absolutely everything. The Department does the right thing by looking at this issue on a case-by-case basis.

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

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  I welcome this debate on this important matter. There is unanimity across the House that carers up and down this country do an extraordinary job, often in very difficult circumstances. We owe them a huge amount, and not only for the compassion and social value that their work brings, but for the financial and fiscal benefits, as Carers UK has identified, because of the costs that the taxpayer is not required to pick up. I recognise the experience that the leader of the Liberal Democrats has in this area, through his campaigning and his personal experience. I think he said that it was good that the Liberal Democrats had brought forward a motion today that was devoid of any politics, but I am not sure that I entirely agree with him. The motion of course contains much that we can all agree on, but the relevant poisonous pills within it will ensure that when we divide later—I confidently predict that the motion will fall—only the Liberal Democrats, and perhaps a few other minority parties, will go through the Aye Lobby. They will then be able to crank up the Risographs so that their leaflets can say that only they care about this particular matter. That is far from the truth. My party, the official Opposition, cares very deeply. When we were in Government, we brought forward a number of measures to ensure that we supported those carers. The level of carer’s allowance has increased by £1,500 since 2010. In 2023 it was my party that brought in the statutory entitlement to one week per year of carer’s leave. It was only last year that we, through the better care fund, provided £327 million to those in desperate need of respite from their caring duties. The care Act of this year increased the rights of carers and also the duties placed upon local authorities. I am also pleased to tell the House that, even more recently, my hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), the shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, attended an event here hosted by Carers UK so that we could continue that really important dialogue.

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

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  Regardless of what the right hon. Gentleman may or may not have said in his opening remarks, the text of the motion cannot be disputed. On the point of whether anyone should be expected to repay, the motion says that this House “believes that carers should not be forced to face the stress, humiliation and fear caused by demands for repayments of Carer’s Allowance”. To me, that suggests everyone. The motion goes on to say that the Government should “write-off existing overpayments immediately”. It is clear and obvious that that would include any fraudulent payments. It may be that the earnings limit could be increased, but there would be a fiscal cost. Indeed, the Liberal Democrat manifesto reforms would cost about £1.5 billion, which is significant. We would have to take account of the balance between being more generous to carers and respecting the 35-hour rule, if that remains. Finally, whenever there is a cliff edge, it is suggested that tapering will solve the problem, but that neglects the fact that it introduces complexity, which is the very thing that universal credit, for example, was designed to iron out. The system was like spaghetti, and nobody could quite understand how it worked. In the tax system, for example, the personal allowance tapers away after £100,000. Many people just stop working further when they reach that level of earnings, because it is not worth their while, given the marginal tax rate. There is an interplay between universal credit and carer’s allowance, because people who earn more will end up having their carer’s allowance withdrawn. There is already a taper within carer’s allowance to make sure that work pays, so that as people earn more, their benefit is reduced but not sufficiently to make them worse off. Under the system advocated by the Liberal Democrats, there will be two tapers in two interacting benefits, which I do not think would best serve anybody, least of all carers. Madam Deputy Speaker is seeking my conclusion. I welcome this motion, and like other parties in this House, we stand four-square behind our carers, who do an extraordinary job. I wish the Government well with their review, which we will consider seriously and objectively, as we are all on the side of carers. I stand by our record in office, of which I am proud.

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

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  Indeed. What we want, ideally, is a system that is as simple as possible. The motion suggests that we bring in a taper, but that would be a complication of the system. I will come to why there are problems with that. It is easy to suggest these things, but the detail often makes them really quite complicated. The last Government made it clear, when someone applied for this particular benefit, exactly what the arrangements were. When uprating occurred every year, we wrote to everybody to explain the uprating and to inquire as to whether any changes in their circumstances or earnings might impact their entitlement to benefits. And it was we, not this Government, who in our May update to our fraud plan brought in the pilots for texting to alert those on carer’s allowance that they may—I say “may” because the Department will not know—be close to exceeding the earnings limit. I am pleased that the Minister has indicated that the Government will continue with our fine work, but let us be very clear who it was that started those particular measures.

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

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  Quite possibly not, which is why the Department operates on a case-by-case basis. That is the correct approach, rather than a blanket approach that says it does not matter if someone goes over the threshold. As I said, if there is never going to be a requirement for repayment, we might as well not have a threshold at all. In some cases, going over the threshold is egregious. The Government know this, and they will have to take it into account.

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

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  I will give way, but I invite the right hon. Gentleman to explain how he would deal with fraud when he is pushing for none of the overpayments to be returned.

• 7 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  On 10 September, two days before recess, I led a debate in this Chamber, secured by the Conservative party, on the winter fuel allowance. The right hon. Lady spoke just now about transparency, but there was no equality impact assessment made available for that debate. Indeed, on 30 August, by way of a written question, my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) established that the Government had no intention of publishing that particular report. Yet on 13 September—two days after the debate and the vote, and one day after Parliament had risen—the report was made available. It was clearly, in my opinion, deliberately withheld. Does the right hon. Lady agree?

• 7 Oct 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  In the general election, the Labour party promised that it had no plans to means-test the winter fuel allowance, yet we learn that millions of pensioners are to be affected. Indeed, in 2017 the right hon. Lady’s party produced an analysis suggesting that around 4,000 pensioners would die prematurely were this policy to be brought into effect. Does she stand by that figure of around 4,000? If not, how many premature deaths does she believe will occur as a result of this policy?

• 7 Oct 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I think I need to correct the right hon. Lady: there were actually 200,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty under the previous Conservative Government. She quite rightly is pressing the uptake of pension credit, but if all those who are eligible for it take it up, that will cost £3.8 billion, which is substantially more than the saving that is scored at £1.4 billion. If she is successful in her aspiration, the costs will substantially outweigh the savings; if she is not successful, potentially millions of pensioners will be plunged further into poverty. May I ask her which it is?

• 10 Sept 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. It has been suggested that the Government are examining ways of ameliorating some of the harshest effects of this policy, and that might be one of the things they consider. On that particular point, we cannot escape the fact that, whatever age people are, over two thirds of those who are currently pensioners below the poverty line will lose their winter fuel payments under the current arrangements.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point. This is a very serious step that the Government are taking. Of all the steps that should be properly scrutinised, surely this is one of them. I remember when I was sitting on the other side of the Chamber, I could barely breathe without the cry going out that an impact assessment should be held. It is extraordinary that on such an important measure as this, affecting millions of the most vulnerable, the Labour party should be utterly silent on this issue.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House regrets that the Government approved the use of the urgency exemption in section 173 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 to make and lay the Social Fund Winter Fuel Payment Regulations 2024 before the Secretary of State had referred the Regulations to the Social Security Advisory Committee; further regrets that the Government decided it was not necessary to publish an impact assessment for the Regulations, despite, for example, the evidence which shows that living in a cold home increases the risk of serious illness for vulnerable people and those with disabilities and so restricting eligibility for the Winter Fuel Payment is likely to lead to increased burdens on the National Health Service; regrets that the Government made time to debate the prayer motion from the Official Opposition without the Social Security Advisory Committee’s Report, and Government response; and calls on the Government to lay those papers before Parliament without delay, and to publish a full regulatory and equality impact assessment for these Regulations. The decision to remove winter fuel payments has come as a complete shock to millions of pensioners—pensioners on as little as £11,500 a year. We have had no adequate explanation as to why this measure is so urgent. We have had no explanation as to why the Government had to invoke the special emergency provisions that allow them to bypass the scrutiny of the Social Security Advisory Committee. We have had no explanation as to why no impact assessments were provided. This is a major policy change that will remove the entitlement for up to 10 million pensioners, including many who are already in poverty. It is a cut worth £7.5 billion over the course of this Parliament. Rushing such a policy through—without taking time to consider the impacts, ensure effective and fair implementation, and allow possible scrutiny—is impossible to justify. This is not the way to make good policy, and this is not good government. It is worth considering the conclusions of one of the few bodies that have been afforded the opportunity to scrutinise these regulations. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in the Lords has been damning in its criticism of the Government’s approach, and I refer the House to my remarks in the previous debate, when I quoted the Committee at some length. As the Committee points out, such measures would normally be subject to the SSAC’s consideration. That is an important part of the process for any legislation of this nature, as I know well from my time as Work and Pensions Secretary. Conveniently, Ministers have claimed that the measure is too urgent to wait for the SSAC’s scrutiny. We understand that the SSAC is due to consider the measure tomorrow. Can the Minister commit to the House today that the SSAC’s report, and the Government statement responding to any recommendations, will be laid before Parliament before the regulations come into force next week? As the Lords Committee has pointed out, it would seem wholly inappropriate for the SSAC’s views to be taken into account only once the regulations are already in force. In the words of the Committee, “It remains unclear what the practical impact of any statement might be on regulations which will have already come into effect.” If the Government do not intend to provide us with the SSAC’s observations before the House rises on Thursday, why were Members asked to consider and vote on the prayer motion against the regulations today, before the SSAC has met? The lack of any impact assessment means that we are severely hampered in our ability to scrutinise this measure. We were told in the explanatory memorandum that: “A full Impact Assessment has not been prepared for this instrument because there is no significant new impact on business, charities or voluntary bodies.” This seems a bold claim to make about a measure that removes hundreds of pounds of support from some of the most vulnerable elderly households in our country. The guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is clear: “For a vulnerable person, living in a cold home increases their chance of serious illness or death.” It also notes that “being housebound increases both the exposure to an underheated home and the cost of heating it.” So can I ask the Minister on what basis it was concluded that there would be no significant impact from this policy on those charities and organisations that support elderly people or on the wider health and social care system? Will he now commit to the publication of a proper impact assessment? The only basis for the urgency seems to be a claim that this measure is vital for public finances. We have even been subjected to the Leader of the House claiming that it was needed to avoid a run on the pound. I might ask the Minister to comment on that when he appears at the Dispatch Box. The only real relevance of a measure of this kind to the public finances is its impact on the Government’s fiscal rules. Those fiscal rules are based on levels of debt and borrowing at the end of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s fiscal forecast period in five years’ time. The rules that the Chancellor has claimed she will sign up to were already being met when the Government came into office, according to the OBR’s own forecasts. The Government could have opted to bring this measure in next year, with greater time for scrutiny, better notice for pensioners, more time to drive up pension credit uptakes and perhaps time to consider whether there were much better ways of going about it. It would still have been a broken promise, and we on this side of the House would still have opposed it, but it would have been a much better way to make policy and it would still have delivered exactly the same savings at the end of the forecast period. Ministers will claim that they needed to make immediate in-year savings, but that is based entirely on a black hole that they have confected themselves. The real reason this is being rushed is pure politics. The Government want to rush this measure through while they can try to blame it on their predecessors in order to avoid proper scrutiny. There is no need whatsoever for the haste with which this is being done.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Winter Fuel Payment · Hansard source

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  I am sure that those on the Government Front Bench will have heard the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. The reality is that the Government want to rush this through so that they can blame it on their predecessor and avoid proper scrutiny. There is no need whatsoever for the haste with which this is being done, other than to meet the political ends of the Labour party. They are ripping the plaster off and hoping that the country will have forgotten by the time of the next general election. That is at the heart of it, but we will not forget. We would not have been given the opportunity to debate and vote on this measure without significant pressure from the Opposition and the wider public. This is nothing to do with fiscal responsibility and everything to do with political expediency—no scrutiny, no impact assessment, no notice. This is an appalling way to govern.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Social Security · Hansard source

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  I will come to the hon. Gentleman. In fact, the only authority to comment thus far on these measures is the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which said: “We are unconvinced by the reasons given for the urgency attached to laying these Regulations and are particularly concerned that this both precludes appropriate scrutiny and creates issues with the practicalities of bringing in the change at short notice.” That, I think, says it all.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Social Security · Hansard source

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  I will in a moment. We do not know what the impact will be across the income distribution. No Member of this House knows what the impact will be within their own constituency. We do not know what the recommendation of the Social Security Advisory Committee will be. Why? Because it will not be given the information until tomorrow, we are told. And of course, the measure does not form part of what it should: a major fiscal event with the Office for Budget Responsibility scoring it and an economic and fiscal outlook accompanying it.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Social Security · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong. We went into the election promising the triple lock plus. Unlike his party, under which millions of pensioners are going to be dragged into income tax spend, many of them for the first time, we were prepared to stand up and say that we would not do that.