| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Sir Donald Thompson (Calder Valley): My hon. Friend may say that I have only just entered the Chamber. Thanks to the wonders of information technology, however, I have been watching both him and thehon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Wicks)--who made a thoughtful speech--on the box in my office.
Will the housing costs to which my hon. Friend referred include mortgage costs? We hear endless stories of one partner claiming that the mortgage is now higher, while the other--the former spouse--retorts that the aim in taking out such a large mortgage is merely to twist him or her, and diddle the children.
Mr. Mitchell:
The point made by my hon. Friend--with which I am very familiar, as he has brought two of his constituents to discuss it with me--is dealt with in the departures that I mentioned a moment ago, which we are piloting from today.
Achieving major improvements in a large organisation that is performing a complicated task in difficult circumstances is not easy; but, although I realise that improvements will take time, no one should doubt my determination to ensure that the CSA achieves the standards that its customers have the right to expect.We are setting challenging targets for further progress, and I am determined to ensure that they are met.
The hon. Member for Croydon, North-West asked about a number of those challenges. First, he asked about accuracy. That has improved significantly. Accuracy within 1p--that is the way in which we measure it--was set a 75 per cent. target this year; in the last month,77 per cent. was achieved. A target of 85 per cent. will be set for next year. As the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead will realise, that is a significant improvement in comparison with accuracy in regard to income support.
The hon. Member for Croydon, North-West also asked about collections. The agency hopes to reach its target for the current financial year of £300 million collected and
arranged--a steep increase on last year's figure--and will set a target of between £380 million and £400 million for next year. Substantial progress has already been made, and I expect more to be made next year.
The hon. Gentleman spoke of the public face of the CSA. Far more emphasis has been placed on the training of staff, to ensure that they respond to a number of criticisms made by clients. In particular, thehon. Gentleman mentioned the CAST system. Following a change in CSA policy, clients who used to negotiate with people who specialised in only one function will be able to deal with a "table" of people who are fully conversant with all aspects of their case.
The hon. Gentleman paid tribute to the system that is now up and running in Hastings. Over the next year, it will spread to all six child support assessment centres.He also spoke of the importance of seeing a friendly face. The fact that assessments are now increasingly dealt with in the field rather than at one of the six centres will help tremendously in achieving that.
These changes, along with the continuing improvements in the administration of the scheme, will speed the process of public acceptance of the principles behind the Child Support Act 1991. The changes introduced by the regulations are part of the process of civilising the scheme that we began last year. We have already ensured that maintenance should not exceed30 per cent. of an absent parent's income, and the new arrangements will give us the flexibility that we need to provide further help for parents on whom the formula bears hardest.
A point was made about the description "absent parent" or "parent with care": I await a letter promised to me by the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Miss Hoey), who wishes to advance specific ideas of behalf of the Select Committee. We shall give serious consideration to what she says.
In a most interesting speech, the hon. Member for Birkenhead took us to task for the extent to which we have borne down on fraud. I am sorry if I am misquoting him; I think that he wanted to ensure that our work in countering fraudulent activity was up to the mark. We pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, who is almost alone among Opposition Members in taking a serious interest in the subject, and we shall take careful note of what he said.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned landlord fraud. Let me point out that about a third of rents are reduced--in respect of the eligibility rent level--as a result of examination. We are opposed to all fraud. I suspect that landlord fraud is impossible without a real or imagined claimant, but we take the hon. Gentleman's points seriously, and will examine them all in detail.
I believe that today's debate and, indeed, our last two major debates on social security show that the Government are succeeding in containing the growth of social security spending, while ensuring that we have a system that helps those who need it. Long-term control has not, however, been achieved at the expense of the most needy. We shall maintain the value of benefits this year by uprating in line with inflation, at a cost of more than £2.5 billion.
A number of the changes that have been announced will enable people to become more self-reliant--easing the transition from benefit dependency to independence, allowing those people to return to work and encouraging them to stay there. Reforms are making people think about providing for their own future, and encouraging them to join insurance schemes to cater for contingencies such as unemployment, illness and retirement. At the same time, the state will always provide a safety net for those who cannot afford to help themselves.
Social security spending has been declining as a proportion of gross domestic product, a downward trend that is set to continue. We are the envy of our European neighbours in that regard. Controlling growth is important for both the taxpayer and the economy, and, as a result of the reforms, a reduction of £8 billion in expenditure is expected by the end of the century--the equivalent of around 3p on the basic rate of income tax.
Mr. Frank Field:
By leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall reply to the debate.
Although our debate has been marred by the Trappist vows embraced by--largely--Conservative Members, it has featured some undoubted pleasures. I do not think that this is the first time that the Minister has spoken at the Dispatch Box, but it is the first time that I have faced him, and I hope that he will not take it amiss if I say that his confidence was matched by his enthusiasm: his ministerial career will clearly be limited by the date of the general election rather than by the extent of his ability.
It was a particular pleasure to listen to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Wicks). I come from a shipbuilding town, where we still talk about launches. My hon. Friend's shadow ministerial career was launched today, and no one who heard his speech will be in any doubt about how fine that liner is.
I want to comment on three aspects of the debate.In an important speech, the Conservative non-Trappist, the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith), spoke of one of the gains from agency status--the higher status that it will give individual workers. I hope that that is something to which the Treasury Bench will pay attention.
When I first visited the Child Support Agency building in Birkenhead, I was informed by staff--not the management--that more than half of the new clerical assistants were graduates and that their pay was £6,900 a year. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West spoke about supporting the family. I imagine that it is difficult to support a family successfully if one of the breadwinners, or the only breadwinner, is earning £6,900 a year. We need to think about family wages. Status is not something just to be talked about: it must be reflected in the workplace and in wages. I hope that the agency will bear that in mind.
The Minister showed his skill in talking up the Government's record in cutting down the social security budget. If one did not pay too much attention to what the Government said, one might almost think that they were successful in this respect. If we took ourselves back to 1979 and asked an unsuspecting public whether a Government who were spending what is now being spent on social security, and who had a record of increases such as that which we have witnessed since 1979, were Labour or Tory, they would say that the Government must be Labour because only Labour would spend so much money on social security. This is not the time to argue about how the money has been spent and how it has been skewed towards means testing; I simply want to leave the Minister with one message to take back to the Secretary of State.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |