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House of Commons

Monday 13 March 2006

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

The unavoidable absence of Mr. Speaker having been announced, The Chairman Of Ways And Means took the Chair as Deputy Speaker, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Oral Answers to Questions

WORK AND PENSIONS

The Secretary of State was asked—

Child Support Agency

1. Mr. David Jones (Clwyd, West) (Con): If he will make a statement on the recent performance of the Child Support Agency. [57316]

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr. John Hutton): Although there have been recent improvements in some areas, the overall performance of the agency is not acceptable. The operational improvement plan that I published in February sets out the immediate priorities for improvements in administration and enforcement. Sir David Henshaw will report his proposals to me for a new system of child support later in the summer.

Mr. Jones: The Secretary of State will recall that on 9 February he told the House that he proposed to make an additional £30 million available to enable the agency to use the services of private debt recovery agents. What progress has he made with that proposal, and will the cost of recovery by those agents be recoverable from the defaulting parent, or will it be an additional charge on the public purse?

Mr. Hutton: The £30 million is available to the agency now to use for that purpose. I understand that it is making progress in deploying the resource for the purposes that I have outlined. It is important that the agency should improve its performance in that regard. As I said on 9 February, relationships end but responsibilities do not. If we are to ensure that the CSA discharges that important aspect of its responsibilities, it will need to redouble its efforts. I am happy to keep the hon. Gentleman informed of progress in that area, and if he has any particular concerns about how those resources will be deployed in his constituency, he is welcome to raise them with me.

Mr. Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab): Does my right hon. Friend accept that there is widespread agreement on both sides of the House with the efforts that he is making to try to improve the performance of the
 
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agency? Will he share with the House the major lessons that he draws from our failure to have a more effective CSA? Might one of them be that, for good reasons, we have kept access to children separate from payment for children? While there are of course noble exceptions to the general rule, is it not the case that it is mostly men who are unwilling to pay up for their children and women who cease to allow the fathers of their children access?

Mr. Hutton: My right hon. Friend speaks with much authority on this issue. We have all known where the difficulties of the CSA have lain in the past 13 years. We should never lose sight of the fact that we are often dealing with chaotic relationships that do not fall within even a broad definition of what we understand a family to be, and that has made it difficult for the agency to make the progress that we wanted it to make. I agree with my right hon. Friend that we should keep the issue of financial support for children separate from the issue of access. Whatever the disputes between partners about access to a child, there can be no lawful reason or excuse for the non-resident parent not to meet his or her financial responsibilities to that child. I hope that as Sir David Henshaw completes his work, none of us loses sight of that important principle.

Mr. David Laws (Yeovil) (LD): Does the Secretary of State agree that the persistent poor performance of the CSA over a long period must have contributed in some way to the poor performance on the issue of child poverty? I acknowledge the progress that the Government have made in reducing child poverty in recent years, but is he disappointed by recent figures showing that they have missed the target by a third of a million? What policy action is he taking to get back on target?

Mr. Hutton: I dispute the observation that the hon. Gentleman made at the beginning of his question. When we came into government, we found that child poverty had doubled. It is now falling significantly, and falling faster here than in any other country in the European Union. We want to make further progress, and if we could ensure that child maintenance was paid more regularly and reliably to lone parents, it might act as an encouragement for more of them to take a job and return to the labour market. That in turn would allow us to make more progress in tackling our child poverty targets. They are ambitious targets, and we will need to do more over the next few years if we are to reach them. Some have said that we should not have attempted to reach that target. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman's party has not committed itself to reaching it, and that is something for him to consider. For all my right hon. and hon. Friends, it is not acceptable for any child to grow up in poverty in this country in this day and age. That is why it is right that we set ourselves the objective of eliminating child poverty, and we remain absolutely committed to it.

Vera Baird (Redcar) (Lab): Like most hon. Members, I suspect, I cannot get through a surgery without at least one or two CSA cases. It seems as if the CSA does not use sensibly the enforcement powers that it already has. I had a case a week ago in which the absent parent
 
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owned a property in the constituency, the address of which was given to the CSA by his partner. Not only did the agency fail to get any order over it that could have delivered her some cash, but the notice was served on the wrong address. What is going on?

Mr. Hutton: I do not know the details of that case, but if my hon. Friend would like to raise it with me, I shall be happy to look into it. To be fair to the Child Support Agency—someone needs to be—it is true to say that the    number of enforcement actions is increasing substantially at the moment. I said to the chief executive that I wanted to see a significant improvement in that area, and I am glad to say that we are now seeing it. For the future, that is clearly something on which Sir David Henshaw will be focusing his attention. It is crucial that the CSA should do better, and that any successor should do better still. I hope that we can all look forward to surgeries with fewer such cases.

Miss Anne McIntosh (Vale of York) (Con): The Opposition wish Sir David Henshaw well with his mission. Will he consider the background of 800,000 calls to the Child Support Agency going unanswered in one year, and the continuing delays with cases in both the old and new systems? What is the Secretary of State's reaction to the cut in training days and staff trained that is planned for the next financial year? How does he imagine that that will improve staff morale or the performance of the agency?

Mr. Hutton: On the last point, we are recruiting a significant number of additional staff for the Child Support Agency so that it can deliver on the objectives that we set out in the operational improvement plan. I hope that that will contribute to tackling the morale issues to which the hon. Lady referred. I welcome her support for the review that Sir David Henshaw is about to initiate. I understand that he is seeing her hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) tomorrow to discuss how it can be progressed.

Incapacity Benefit

2. David Wright (Telford) (Lab): What changes to benefit rules he plans to make to encourage more incapacity benefit claimants into work. [57317]

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr.   John Hutton): We set out our proposals for reforming incapacity benefit in the welfare reform Green Paper in January. These changes will help provide more support for more disabled people to return to work, while offering more financial support to those who are unable to do so.

David Wright: If there are to be significant changes in the incapacity benefit system, can we ensure that they are dealt with sensitively and that we have a speedy appeals process, so that if people are asked to move back into work and off incapacity benefit they have an opportunity to appeal against that decision and have it reviewed quickly?
 
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Mr. Hutton: Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. I agree that we need to improve all aspects of the decision-making process for incapacity benefit. The Green Paper set out proposals in two important areas where that will be possible: first, by redesigning the new personal capability assessment test, and secondly, in relation to the conduct and organisation of the appeals process.

Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con): In 1998 the Secretary of State's predecessor—the present Secretary of State for Transport, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, South-West (Mr. Darling)—said:

"1 million . . . people say that they want to get back into work but are not being given the chance".—[Official Report, 28 October 1998; Vol. 318, c. 340.]

In 2005 the Prime Minister said that there were 1 million people on incapacity benefits who wanted to get back into work and the Government were determined to get them there. Did the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, South-West fail?

Mr. Hutton: No, he did not. We have seen the number of people claiming incapacity benefit falling very substantially for the first time—it is down by a third—and the first recorded fall in the overall number of people claiming incapacity benefit. All I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that when his party last had its hands on power, the number claiming incapacity benefit doubled.

Tom Levitt (High Peak) (Lab): I am sure that my right hon. Friend will agree that a large proportion of those who might be hoping to get off incapacity benefit and back into work have mental health difficulties, and will face particular problems. Will he assure me that he will have early discussions, particularly with voluntary organisations representing the interests of people with mental problems, so that they can be reassured at an early stage and any period of uncertainty is as short as possible?

Mr. Hutton: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those comments. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform has already begun the process of dialogue with organisations representing mental health concerns, and we will continue to make them a priority in the months ahead.

Mr. Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con): A constituent came to my surgery on 4 March. Clearly disabled, and on disability living allowance and incapacity benefit, she had been encouraged to take a cleaning job with just two hours' work a week. She found it difficult, but she agreed to do it—and lost £82 disability living allowance and gained a salary of £12. Can the Secretary of State tell the House today whether the changes that he is considering will assist such people so that my constituent will not lose £82 when she gets only £12 in salary?

Mr. Hutton: If that has happened, clearly that lady received some very poor advice. I do not understand on what basis that advice was given to her. If the hon. Gentleman would like to raise that particular case with me, I will certainly look into it. The whole point of the reforms is to make work pay and to help people who are
 
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disabled to get back into work. I believe that the right to work should apply both to people who are able-bodied and to those who are disabled, and that is what underpins the Green Paper.

Mr. Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton, South-East) (Lab): What assessment has the Department made of the more personalised, one-to-one support offered by pathways to work and Jobcentre Plus, including the excellent Jobcentre Plus office in Bilston in my constituency, in helping incapacity benefit claimants back into work?

Mr. Hutton: The pathways to work scheme is the most successful back-to-work scheme that any country has developed for people who are disabled. That is not my view but that of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which praised the work that we have done. If one looks at the evidence from my hon. Friend's constituency and elsewhere, one sees the striking result of our having introduced pathways to work: in areas with the scheme we are twice as successful in getting people back to work as we were before, which is why we are now committed to extending it to every part of the United Kingdom in the next two years.

Mr. Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP): Although the pathways to work scheme has generally been recognised as fairly successful, those working with persons with mental health and learning difficulties have expressed concern that the existing schemes do not adequately deal with those problems. Will the Secretary of State give us an assurance that as pathways to work is rolled out across the country, due cognisance will be taken of that concern and the new schemes will take account of the particular difficulties of those people?

Mr. Hutton: Yes.

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