Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2019-10-07
Topic: Labor
Questions: I am privileged to have the universal credit processing centre for the south-west in my constituency. The staff there do an incredible job making sure the roll-out of universal credit is successful. They have done so well they have been asked to take on processing for several London boroughs, but they are currently experiencing very high case loads because of the transfer of employment and support allowance to universal credit. Will the Secretary of State make sure they get all the resources they need so that we can support these incredibly hard-working frontline staff?; Last month, I met my constituent Dr Karen Gilmore, a specialist in pain management, and several of her colleagues and members of the independent assessment service. We discussed how the personal independence payment assessments in particular do not meet the needs of people living with chronic and severe pain. Will the Minister meet Dr Gilmore and me to discuss how we can improve these assessments?; The benefits freeze has driven increased food bank usage in my constituency, as family incomes have fallen far below rising costs. The freeze is supposed to end in April. What work is the Secretary of State doing now to assess the real minimum income levels necessary to avoid destitution?; This morning, at the start of Challenge Poverty week, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation published a report entitled “Poverty in Scotland 2019”, which looks into some of the reasons why poverty levels in Scotland are not quite as bad as those in the rest of the United Kingdom. One of the major factors that it identifies is the much greater availability of affordable housing, and, in particular, the impact of nearly 20 years of council house building, and the fact that the Scottish Government have built 87,000 affordable houses since 2007. Does the Minister agree that, while he may claim that work is the best way out of poverty, unaffordable housing is a sure-fire way into poverty? Will the UK Government learn the lessons of what is happening in Scotland, and make social and council housing something to be celebrated instead of something to be demonised?; Childcare in York can cost more than £1,000 a month, and those on universal credit are being asked to pay that amount upfront. What is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that providers have the resources that they need and claimants are not having to pay?; There is literally nothing else to say about Conservative welfare policy. The truth is that anyone who has met people who work in a food bank, or people who work with the homeless, will recognise that there is a direct link between welfare policy, the sanctions regime, and the increase in homelessness and poverty. What serious work will the Government do to address that link—or will they at least have the decency and honesty to admit that that increase in homelessness and poverty is an absolutely accepted part of Government policy?; What training is in place to make jobcentre and other DWP staff properly aware of the needs of claimants with learning difficulties? A claimant in my constituency has been left with just £40 a month to support his family because of the lack of support that he received in a jobcentre.; What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the impact on DWP budgets of the failure to promise to uprate pensions for UK citizens in the EU for more than three years, and also to guarantee their healthcare for more than six months, in a no-deal scenario?
Thérèse Anne Coffey (Conservative, Centre-right): I refer the hon. Lady to the judgment that the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), has already raised. She might also wish to speak to her party leader, because she joined me in the Division Lobby when we made the changes that we did in the Pensions Act 2011. [Interruption.] Or rather, at least that the coalition Government did. I wish to make sure that we have a sensible conversation going forward, but the judgment stands. It is open for the ladies to appeal, but I can assure the House that we have made every effort, as did the Labour Government before us, to ensure that people knew about these changes.