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Disabled People
6. Mr. Lindsay Hoyle (Chorley): What steps his Department is taking to help reduce the barriers to work faced by disabled people. [111834]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Bayley): For those--[Interruption.] It is nice to see warfare break out on the Opposition Benches.
For those on incapacity benefits, we have introduced a 52-week linking rule as well as removing restrictions on voluntary work. We have also introduced the disabled persons tax credit and, next week, we will make regulations that will remove barriers that might prevent disabled people from taking part in work trials or work placements while on benefits.
Mr. Hoyle:
I welcome the Minister's answer and the pilot schemes that have been introduced, but what plans
Mr. Bayley:
I welcome my hon. Friend's question. Under the previous Administration, people with long-term and intractable health problems or disabilities were simply shunted off unemployment benefit and the jobseeker's allowance and dumped on to incapacity benefits. With the pilot studies operating under the new deal for disabled people, we have shown that it is possible to get back to work many people who have spent a long time on incapacity benefits.
We also know that many people on incapacity benefits want to get back to work. Because of the success of the economy under this Government, many employers want to get hold of the skills that disabled people have to offer and want to employ them. We have created 700,000 jobs since the general election and we have the lowest rate of unemployment for 20 years and a million job vacancies. That is why employers want to employ disabled people. Therefore, we are actively considering what help could be provided on a national basis under the new deal.
7. Mr. Gordon Marsden (Blackpool, South):
What progress has been made in the last six months in persuading those of pensionable age to take up the minimum income guarantee and other age-related benefits in the north-west region of England. [111835]
The Minister of State, Department of Social Security (Mr. Jeff Rooker):
We are committed to taking action to find more effective ways of encouraging eligible pensioners to claim their entitlement to the minimum income guarantee. That is why we have been incredibly busy in recent weeks developing a programme to encourage pensioners to take up their benefit entitlement. We will announce our plans for implementation shortly.
Mr. Marsden:
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Is he aware that about 4,900 pensioners in my constituency currently claim the minimum income guarantee but, on the Department's own estimates, between 2,000 and 2,500 do not? I say "do not", but we do not have regionally broken down figures. Would it not be a good idea to provide such figures? My local newspaper, The Evening Gazette in Blackpool is running a campaign to make pensioners aware of their entitlements and Age Concern has a similar campaign coming forward. However, the original promise about entitlement was made in the middle of 1999. My right hon. Friend bows to no one in his forcefulness, so will he use some of that forcefulness to get his officials off their bottoms and on to the issues before us?
Mr. Rooker:
I take my hon. Friend's point about the figures. The numbers that we use for the individuals who are not claiming come from information in the general household survey, so it is not possible to provide the detailed figures on the regional or local authority basis that he would like.
The campaign that we shall announce shortly involves, as I have said before, a mailshot in three tranches to a targeted 2 million households, a telephone helpline and
television advertising. It will be the biggest single operation by any Government to get more money to the poorest pensioners. If we rush and get it wrong, all that we will do is build up aspirations and hopes that will be shattered. We must get it right. I sincerely regret the delay--we had hoped to have made an announcement by now--but that announcement is imminent.
Mrs. Jacqui Lait (Beckenham):
How long will it be before we get the announcement? How short is shortly? How is the right hon. Gentleman planning to persuade people on low incomes in the north-west to save under stakeholder or state second pensions when the minimum income guarantee will give them more money in their pockets with council tax and housing benefits when they come to retire?
Mr. Rooker:
I cannot go beyond the word "shortly". We are working as quickly as we can, but it is a multi-million pound Government operation. It is not a cheapskate scheme with just one press advertisement to do the job. We have got to get things right because we are dealing with hundreds of thousands of people.
I would have hoped that the hon. Lady had learned upstairs in Committee that it is wholly wrong and misleading to compare an individual's right to a pension--whether stakeholder, second or occupational pension--with a couple's right to a means-tested benefit, and that that erroneous comparison will cause people to lose their rights. The hon. Lady is wrong to make that assertion.
Mr. Bob Blizzard (Waveney):
Does my right hon. Friend accept that there are many pensioners in the north-west and elsewhere who are quite poor but who are not entitled to the minimum income guarantee and other benefits because they have a small occupational pension or a small amount of savings in the bank? Those people feel that they are missing out because they have saved. What can be done to help such pensioners?
Mr. Rooker:
The more quickly capital limits are reviewed, the better, and we are committed to doing that during this Parliament. We need to make the point that people can have up to £8,000 in savings; there is not a cut-off at £3,000, as some people think, although it is true that there is a sliding scale. The minimum income guarantee figures that we always quote are for a single person at retirement age, but the guarantee goes up at age 75 and again at 80, and can run about £6 or £7 a week ahead of the figure for the basic retirement pension. It is worth people's inquiring about the guarantee and applying for it even if they think that they may not be eligible, because they could be on the margin and hence eligible.
8. Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East):
If he will make a statement on the Government's involvement with local authorities in the detection and prevention of benefit fraud. [111838]
10. Mr. Peter Brooke (Cities of London and Westminster):
If he will report on progress in tackling housing benefit fraud. [111841]
The Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Darling):
Fraud and error in housing benefit cost £800 million a year, so I am writing to local councils today to make it abundantly clear that where investigations by the benefit fraud inspectorate identify persistent failings, I will use my statutory powers to direct standards and time scales for improved performance. Too many councils are not providing the management information that we need to assess their performance, so I intend to use my powers to compel them to do so. Councils have been warned.
Dr. Lewis:
I am puzzled by that response, because was not the key recommendation of the Scampion report into organised benefit fraud that the Government should set up a single agency to investigate it? As part of our common sense revolution, the Conservatives have accepted that recommendation, but the Government have not. Why not?
Mr. Darling:
In 18 years, the last Government did absolutely nothing to stop more and more fraud creeping into the system. This Government have made every single improvement, such as making sure that money is paid securely into people's bank accounts, introducing tighter requirements on identification and on housing benefit, cross-checking DSS records, requiring local authorities to comply with Government directives and, if necessary, taking action against them if they do not. We are saving £1 billion in this Parliament alone. The hon. Gentleman's puzzlement should be directed towards his own party, which did absolutely nothing when it was in office.
Mr. Brooke:
Despite declaring an interest in the successful prosecution for housing benefit fraud of a majority party councillor on Westminster city council after detection by the council, I ask the Government whether they are prepared to contemplate rewarding local authorities and providing as much incentive for successful prevention of fraud as for detection after the event.
Mr. Darling:
The right hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that earlier this year we agreed to reward councils for prosecuting or preparing housing benefit fraud cases for prosecution, and it is absolutely right to do that. The problem with the previous incentives system, which the Conservatives introduced, was that it rewarded councils for allowing fraud to enter the system. We are completely driving out fraud from the system, ensuring that we get payments right first time and ensuring that councils have the right incentives so that they are rewarded when they discover fraud and then prosecute.
Mr. Jim Cousins (Newcastle upon Tyne, Central):
Will my right hon. Friend acknowledge the effective wave of prosecutions that there has been in Newcastle upon Tyne via the partnership of the local authority, the police and the Benefits Agency? Will he acknowledge also that one of the main conclusions to be drawn from prosecutions over the past five years is that there is a great problem with the direct payment of housing benefit to landlords? That often means that the landlord has no incentive to manage the property properly and the tenants
Mr. Darling:
Yes, we are looking at that. My hon. Friend will be aware that the Government are publishing a Green Paper on housing later this year. One thing that we are considering is the problem that can arise when housing benefit is paid directly into the hands of landlords. He mentioned the scheme in Newcastle, where the city council, the Benefits Agency and the police are working together. That is an excellent example of cross-agency co-operation leading to a reduction in fraud or its prevention in the first place. We want more of that throughout the country.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North):
Is the Secretary of State aware that nobody is in favour of defrauding the housing benefit system? Will he ask his inspectors to look at the number of claimants who are, in effect, defrauded by the inefficiency of the housing benefit service delivered by many private contractors, who are so incompetent that thousands of people either lose out on housing benefit and consequently receive eviction or arrears notices from the local authority or, rather worse, are evicted by private landlords who cannot wait any longer for housing benefit rent to be paid? In his examination of the workings of the system, will my right hon. Friend ensure that legitimate claimants receive money quickly and on time so that they can maintain their tenancies?
Mr. Darling:
I agree with my hon. Friend that anyone claiming housing benefit ought to have it calculated and paid as quickly as possible, but I must tell him that only a handful of local authorities use contractors to make such payments. I am sorry to say that there are as many mistakes in the public sector as there are in the private sector. Mistakes are not just the province of the private sector.
I am more interested in ensuring, first, that we have a system that is far easier to administer--it is in need of overhaul and the Government are overhauling it--and secondly, that local authorities or their agents become more efficient. That is why I am writing to local authorities today to warn them that, unless they increase their effort and improve their act, they will get a direction from me requiring them to take the necessary action to run the system properly.
Mr. David Willetts (Havant):
Does the Secretary of State recall his Department's commitment on 22 February 1999 to publish the report of the housing benefit simplification and improvement project? His Department is now saying that it has no plans to publish that report. Why has he abandoned his commitment? Is it because the report would reveal the mess of housing benefit administration, and explain why there are 250,000 known cases of housing benefit fraud and 700 prosecutions?
Incidentally, I remind the Secretary of State that his Labour election manifesto stated that there was not £800 million of housing benefit fraud--the figure that he has just given--but £2 billion. That change is significant.
Mr. Darling:
The hon. Gentleman should be aware that this Government, unlike the Government of whom he was
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