Tag: 2022

Kirsty Blackman – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

The speech made by Kirsty Blackman, the SNP MP for Aberdeen North, in the House of Commons on 5 July 2022.

It is a pleasure to take part in this estimates day debate. I do love estimates day; it is wonderful every time that this rolls around—I am not being sarcastic, I promise.

I will talk briefly about the shortcomings of the estimates process. We are discussing the DWP estimate today—which involves spending of £240 billion—under, I think, Standing Orders 53 and 54, which were written before I was born. We are unable to table meaningful amendments in relation to £240 billion of spending because of the way in which the Standing Orders are written. That is shocking. Has anyone here ever tried to explain the Budget process to people outside the House? Have they ever tried to explain the fact that we have to stand here and discuss hundreds of billions of pounds of expenditure without any meaningful way to amend that? It is absolutely ridiculous, flawed and deeply inadequate.

The DWP’s objectives in the main estimates book are, first,

“Maximising employment and in-work progression”;

secondly,

“Improving people’s quality of life”;

and thirdly,

“Delivering excellent services for citizens and taxpayers”.

Those are the Department’s aims for the next year. I suggest that the Government have failed and continue to fail in what they are doing. I make it clear that that is not, for a second, the fault of DWP staff, who are working incredibly hard to make the social security additional payments.

Chris Stephens

Is it not ironic that the DWP says in the main estimates book that it wants to maximise employment when it is threatening its staff with redundancy?

Kirsty Blackman

It is, and it is ironic that the DWP is asking staff to step up and deal with its creaking, unfortunate, flawed computer system. It is asking them to do all this additional work to make that happen while failing to make the investment where it should be making it, in the computer system and in the people. I am also seeing a reduction in DWP office staff in Aberdeen. I very much hope that the Government change their mind about the direction in which they are going.

We have heard from Members across these Benches about the issues affecting people’s quality of life as a result of the DWP’s failures and the failures of the Government’s policies. Loads of people have mentioned the safety net. The whole point of a safety net is that it catches people. The point is not to make the holes as big as possible so that as many people as possible fall through. I would rather have a social security system like the one that we are building in Scotland; a social security system that ensures that everybody is caught by the safety net, so that everybody gets what they are entitled to and people do not accidentally fall through. This Government’s policy seems to be to give social security payments to as few people as they possibly can and to try very hard to set the bar as high as possible so that people cannot meet the requirements.

We have heard about the Scottish social security system and its openness compared with the DWP’s system, where the report on food banks and the equalities impact assessment were buried. Audit Scotland recently audited the Scottish social security system. It said:

“The Scottish Government has continued to successfully deliver new and complex social security benefits in challenging circumstances. This is a significant achievement. There is a conscious focus on the needs of service users, building on the principles of dignity, fairness, and respect. People are positive about their experiences of engaging with Social Security Scotland.”

How different that is from the views that we are hearing down here, from what is in our inboxes, from the absolute intransigence and the issues that people face every day when simply trying to get what they are entitled to.

The social security uprating fails to get anything close to inflationary levels this year. We have seen an increase, but it is nothing close to the level of inflation. In fact, the £650 payment that the Chancellor announced does not even cover the £1,000 that was taken off people last year—never mind going any way to cover the increase in the cost of living. The Chancellor, the Minister and the Secretary of State have repeatedly said, “But people are getting more, with the £650, than they would have if we had uprated benefits”. We are asking them to do both. We are asking them to adequately uprate the benefits and backdate that to April as well as to make the additional payments. Only then can we get to a situation that is close to helping with the cost of living.

This is a tale of two Governments. We can see that another country is possible. We can see the failings, with the bedroom tax, the benefit cap and the two-child policy being carried on with. We have heard a lot about no recourse to public funds. When we discussed the Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill last week, I mentioned that children were literally starving and I was scoffed at by Government Members. If we look at reports, we see that junior doctors talk about children presenting with rickets because of the level of malnutrition, because they have no recourse to public funds, because they have been sanctioned, or because they otherwise cannot afford to eat a healthy diet. Comments have been made about the lack of variety and the lack of healthiness in the diets provided by food banks, which try incredibly hard but just cannot meet the requirements. In addition, they cannot provide food for people who cannot afford electricity. If people cannot afford electricity to boil something in a pan, it is difficult for them to cook adequately.

In the main estimates book, the Government talk about providing £5.6 billion—that is the initial spend—under the Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill. However, they mention providing £37 billion for increases in the cost of living. That £37 billion is made up of additional payments, as the Chancellor has stated, but can the Minister confirm that he is including things in it like the freeze on alcohol duty? It cannot be said that the freeze on alcohol duty relates to improving the cost of living for people who cannot afford to eat.

I am pleased to have been able to talk about the DWP estimates today. What is happening is woefully, woefully inadequate. Our constituents are coming to us and we just cannot provide them with the hope that they need and want, because the Conservatives are digging their heels in and refusing to offer adequate support.

July 6, 2022
Wendy Chamberlain – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

The speech made by Wendy Chamberlain, the Liberal Democrat MP for North East Fife, in the House of Commons on 5 July 2022.

I thank the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) and the Backbench Business Committee for granting this estimates day debate on DWP spending on cost of living measures. It is an important topic for every MP in this place, because DWP matters make up a proportion of our constituency casework, and people come to us at a time of need.

The real elephant in the room is this: the Government talk about spending to help people deal with the cost of living crisis, but we have to acknowledge that they have put some people into the positions in which they find themselves. It is all well and good providing a £650 payment to those on benefits and £300 to pensioners—I welcome that—but many of those receiving those payments have been pushed into crisis as a result of Government policies that have pulled the rug out from under them.

The Government refused to uplift legacy benefits alongside universal credit in the response to the pandemic, as the right hon. Member for East Ham pointed out. The Government told us that it was too complex to do, but given that they seem to have given it very limited consideration, we conclude that that is a political decision. We know that it affected disabled people the most because the High Court said so. Of course, disabled people and the organisations who support them did not need to be told that. They knew that disabled people were disproportionately more likely to be shielding, and as a result relying on expensive services, such as food deliveries.

The reality is that it is generally more expensive to be disabled. When I think about the cost of living crisis and, in particular, the rise in energy costs, I think about disabled people in my constituency and elsewhere who are running electrical equipment, and who need to have the heating on at times of the day when people who do not have a disability and who are mobile do not. As a result, this crisis is hitting them more acutely than others.

Kirsty Blackman

On the additional costs faced by disabled people, does the hon. Lady share my concern about the additional costs associated with specialist diets? For those with a gluten-free diet, for example, prices have increased significantly in excess of inflation.

Wendy Chamberlain

Yes, I entirely agree. I recommend to anybody who has not read it last Sunday’s article in The Sunday Times about food banks. The journalist took the time to eat a diet of what is provided in the emergency packages. It is not particularly healthy, but it is food, and I am hugely grateful that it is there. I co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on ending the need for food banks, and I am hugely grateful for the work that food banks do, but trying to meet specialist needs and requirements is very difficult for a charity run by volunteers. We should ensure that people have what they need to meet their medical requirements.

I am sure that many Members will refer to this, but the refusal to keep the universal credit uplift has taken away £20 a week from people who were already struggling. No taper, and no additional grants, will make up for that. When the Chancellor introduced the uplift, he said it was to reinforce the safety net. To some extent, that worked. In research by the Trussell Trust, the secretariat for the APPG, 70% of people said the increase in universal credit made it easier for them to afford essentials. Very quickly—this is my last point on the APPG—our call for evidence on the different responses to the need for food closes on 8 July, so if anybody would like to contribute evidence, we would love to hear from them.

The decision to remove the universal credit uplift at the end of lockdown restrictions, when the economy reopened and there was an expectation that people could take on more work, revealed the Government’s true thinking. It was an implicit acknowledgement that it is impossible to live on the current rate of universal credit, and that that would become abundantly clear to voters who started claiming benefits for the first time during the pandemic. The Government’s taking away the uplift clearly shows that they think that poverty payments are acceptable for those who rely on universal credit in the long term, either because they do low-paid but vital work such as caring, or because they cannot work full time for any other reason—there are many other reasons, as we all know from our case loads. I would like to know why the Government think that a reinforced safety net is needed for some people in our society, but not others.

I want to mention, as others have, unpaid carers, who are another left-behind group. Carer’s allowance is £69.70 per week. We do not accept jobs that pay less than £2 per hour, so why do we think it is acceptable to ask unpaid carers to accept that? Earlier, when my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) spoke in support of her ten-minute rule Bill on kinship care, she talked about the instinct to want to help a family member in need. No matter how much we love our family, anyone who has ever been a carer will tell you that it is work. As a society, we rely on that good will, so we must support our unpaid carers. They are the backbone of our society. Where people can and want to work, they should be supported to do so. Members have mentioned no recourse to public funds, but the other side of the coin is that we do not allow people claiming asylum to work and contribute. We give them neither support nor the opportunity to support themselves.

With its earnings cap of £132, the carer’s allowance policy seems designed to keep carers in poverty. We have been waiting for two years for a report from the Government on the effect that carer’s allowance has on people’s ability to work. I hope the Minister can update the House on when we will receive that report, and will explain how Members are supposed to scrutinise Government policy properly when we do not receive the reports that would enable us to scrutinise them. I am pleased that while we are waiting for the report, there are practical steps we can take to support our unpaid carers with work and into work, and with managing their caring responsibilities. I am delighted to be bringing forward a private Member’s Bill this Session to give unpaid carers the right to take additional leave, which would help them to balance their caring and working commitments. It does not go as far as I would like, but I believe it would be the first stand-alone piece of legislation giving employment rights to carers. It would help millions of people. One thing that the Government have been trumpeting is the current low rates of unemployment, but they are not talking about the increasing numbers of economically inactive people. I argue that some of those will be carers who are unable to combine work with caring responsibilities. I hope that my Bill will give them the opportunity to do that, but—this is a big but—it is only part of the picture of supporting unpaid carers into work. I hope that the DWP will do other things to play its part.

I will briefly turn to two pensions issues, the first of which is a specific constituency matter. My constituent is being denied her full state pension because of a gap in her national insurance record. The gap exists because she worked in intelligence for the armed forces a number of years ago. When she became pregnant, she was immediately discharged from the Army, but she could not return home to Scotland because of the sensitive nature of her work. The gap is purely caused by the pregnancy discrimination that she experienced at the hands of the state. She is being told that, rather than paying her the small extra amount that she would be entitled to each year, the Government would arguably rather give it to lawyers and have us go to court. I really hope that the Government can recognise that she has experienced an injustice. I urge the Minister to meet me so that we can find a way forward for my constituent, who was serving her country.

On a much broader injustice, the WASPI—Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign—women are still waiting to receive the money that has been denied them. As time ticks by, many will die before they receive what they deserve. Do the Government want that legacy—3.8 million women left to die, with far too many of them in poverty exacerbated by the cost of living? The ombudsman might still be reaching its conclusions on compensation, but it would be a huge comfort for the WASPI women to know that the Government plan to follow its recommendations. Will the Minister join me today in pledging to follow the ombudsman’s recommendations, when they are made, and to provide compensation to women who missed out because of Government error?

We could talk about lots in this estimates debate and Members have referred to other issues that I would want to raise. In conclusion, however, we are feeling the impact of the cost of living crisis more acutely in the UK. It is incumbent on the Government to stand up and help constituents, including those claiming benefits or who interact with the DWP, however they do so.

July 6, 2022
Debbie Abrahams – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

The speech made by Debbie Abrahams, the Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, in the House of Commons on 5 July 2022.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), and I agree with all the points he made, as I did with those raised by the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms). I want to focus on a few key things and pick up on the point that my right hon. Friend made about the context of the revised estimates for the Department for Work and Pensions.

We need to recognise—many Opposition Members certainly do—that the cuts associated with the two major reforms to the social security system in the last 12 years have shrunk the contributions that are being made, particularly to working-age people. We know from the Resolution Foundation’s work that by 2022, the spending cuts in the Department for Work and Pensions had reduced support to working-age people by up to 17%, compared with 2010. That is the equivalent of £33 billion.

We know from the data that by 2018, UK social security spending as a percentage of GDP was below both the EU27 and OECD averages. I think my right hon. Friend mentioned that out-of-work support in 1948 was about 25% of average earnings; it is currently less than half that. Even during the pandemic, with the £20-a-week uplift to universal credit, our support was the least generous in the OECD. We like to think that we are a generous country that looks after those who need support, but our support has been the least generous, and that shames us all. The amount of support available to somebody who is out of work is only slightly more than what is recognised as destitution.

In other analysis, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed that social security and tax changes mean that the poorest 10% of households have lost 11% of their income, equivalent to £1,200 a year. For families with children, it is even worse, with a 20% loss of income amounting to £4,000 a year. The Equality and Human Rights Commission confirmed the IFS’s analysis and exposed the impact of the reforms and cuts on disabled people. For households with at least one disabled adult and a disabled child, average annual cash losses since 2010 are just over £6,500, which is more than 13% of average net income. Disabled lone parents with at least one disabled child have fared even worse, losing almost £3 out of every £10 of income. In cash terms, their average losses are almost £10,000 a year.

The all-party parliamentary group on health in all policies, which I chair, looked at the impact of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 on children and disabled people and found strong evidence of an association with poverty, inequality, homelessness, food security, poor health and premature death directly as a consequence of those welfare reforms and cuts.

David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)

The hon. Lady hits the nail on the head. She has rightly put the scale of the cuts into context, and there is a point for the Government to reflect on here. They will think, after making cuts, “Well, that’s no longer a problem for DWP,” but in many respects local authorities such as Glasgow City Council have to pick up the burden of the resulting destitution. My local social work office in Easterhouse has to deal with the homelessness, the debt, and all the other issues that ensue from Government policies.

Debbie Abrahams

I recognise what the hon. Member says. I visited Glasgow last week—the constituency of my friend the hon. Member for Glasgow South West is there—and it was interesting to see the reforms being introduced there, particularly those for disabled people.

Many hon. Members will not be aware of yesterday’s report from Deaths by Welfare, which provided even more evidence of the impact of the so-called reforms on premature deaths and suicides. It had a timeline that showed when there had been reforms and further cuts, and what they meant in terms of deaths of vulnerable social security claimants. Another recent report shows a detrimental impact on social cohesion. The University of Newcastle quantified that, between 2013 and 2015, for every £100 lost in income per working age adult, motivated hate crimes increased by about 6%. The effects are much wider than the Government recognise.

My second point is about the pandemic. We know that people on the lowest incomes, and particularly those reliant on social security support, were disproportionately and negatively affected by covid. They were more likely to be exposed to the virus and to be infected, and they were more likely to be seriously ill and die. Within that group are disabled people. After adjusting for a range of factors including health, the Office for National Statistics has estimated that disabled people were between 1.3 and 1.6 times more at risk of death from covid. The reasons for those disproportionate deaths must be investigated in the covid public inquiry, but given the context that I have just described—the inadequacy of our social security system—the contribution of the cuts in social security support cannot be ignored.

On the cost of living package and its impact on the DWP spending estimates, of course I welcome the package, but I have just spent the past few minutes describing the context and, much though the Government congratulate themselves on what they are doing, it just about scratches the surface of the cuts that they have made. I must, as others have done, highlight some of the gaps in the package. As support is on a household basis, larger families will not get the same support as smaller families. As the Resolution Foundation suggested, in the light of inflation, a 9.5% uplift to all social security support would have been more progressive than the 3.1% awarded at the beginning of the year, and would have taken us beyond the Chancellor’s stop-start, ad hoc approach.

My concern is that the cost of living will not just be an issue this year; it will carry on—and what will the Government do then? We need principles that ensure that all social security support is uplifted to account for inflation.

As my friend the hon. Member for Glasgow South West mentioned, there are huge issues with deductions. We asked the Secretary of State about that last week. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, StepChange and many other charities have pointed out that 4.6 million households are in arrears on at least one bill, so what is handed out with one hand will be clawed back by another. I join those charities and hon. Members in their calls to reduce the amount that can be deducted from the universal credit standard allowance; it is now 25%. I would like it to be less than 15%. When the deductions are for debts to Government—figures indicate that the Government are the largest debt collector—it would only be reasonable to reduce it to 5%.

My final point is that given the cuts in spending and the culture in the Department, our social security system does not provide the safety net that everybody thinks it does. I really like the approach being introduced in Scotland, which is not about people proving that they are entitled to support; there is trust. We should try to make that the basis of the culture in England as well.

Chris Stephens

I thank the hon. Lady, my good friend, for giving way. She mentions culture; there is also the issue that sanctions are part of that culture. It had seemed that we were persuading the Government to introduce a system in which there were warnings before sanctions, but they seem to have rowed back on that. Does that not add to the concern that she rightly raised about the culture?

Debbie Abrahams

We have spoken many times about that. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have a system in which there is conditionality, but I believe that there are other ways of recognising that than by taking away somebody’s income and making things even harder for them.

Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, as is my friend the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens). One of my constituents immediately comes to mind: he has been sanctioned for two and a half years, with multiple sanctions building up. It is abundantly clear to me, and to anyone who looks, that the sanctions regime simply does not work, and that other methods should be tried. Does my hon. Friend agree that the system is frankly inhuman, demeaning and completely unimaginative?

Debbie Abrahams

Absolutely. In fact, I got involved in trying to shift the sanctions regime when a former soldier, David Clapson, died after he was sanctioned. He missed an appointment, and he died as a result of not being able to have electricity to keep the insulin that he relied on. It is absolutely inhuman.

The cost of living support announced will no doubt help people, as it should, but we need to do far more. The system is not fit for purpose, and needs root-and-branch reform. It needs to be dragged into the 21st century. There is a lot we can learn from the Scottish system. I have said this for a while: for me, the system should, like the NHS, be there for every single one of us in our time of need. It is not, and that must change.

July 6, 2022
Chris Stephens – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

The speech made by Chris Stephens, the SNP MP for Glasgow South West, in the House of Commons on 5 July 2022.

It is a pleasure to follow my good friend, the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), and it is a pleasure to be a member of that Committee in holding the Government to account. I of course refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, particularly my role as chair of the PCS parliamentary group, as I will have some things to say about the office closures issue.

I want to start with the Secretary of State’s appearance at the Work and Pensions Committee last week, when she said that, on Thursday, she was going to meet her officials to discuss a second remedial order on bereavement support benefits for cohabiting couples. This is a very important issue, and we have had many great campaigners, including my Glasgow South West constituent Ailsa MacKenzie, who has been in the vanguard of pushing this issue. I hope the Minister will update the House on that issue, because it affects many thousands of people. The quicker we get the remedial order laid down, the quicker people can start receiving those bereavement support payments, which will no doubt help them deal with the cost of living crisis.

Let me touch on what I think lies at the heart of the problems in the Department for Work and Pensions: the start of the claim, the five-week wait and the deductions that come with that. The Minister responded to a written question from me, and the figures are becoming increasingly alarming. Ever since, I have periodically tabled such questions, and the number of deductions and the amount deducted have increased over the past 18 months. A total of £11 million a month is now being taken off claimants as a result of deductions. In my view, that has become a poverty tax.

For example, figures show that in February this year, 189,000 households in Scotland—an increase of 9,000 in just three months—had an average of £60 deducted from their social security payments. That is mainly to pay back the loans issued by the Department to cover the five-week wait at the beginning of a new claim, but some of it is due to overpayments, which include the Department’s errors. I hope the Department will look at that issue, because there is already case law when it comes to pay. By law, if there has been a mistake and someone has been overpaid, the employer cannot take that back. I suggest that if the Department has made a genuine error, it should not be deducting payments from future claims. I hope the Government will look at that, because a number of organisations have said that a deduction should not be made if the Department for Work and Pensions is to blame.

Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)

Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the lack of reassurance regarding top-up payments, as announced by the Chancellor last week? We may end up in the same situation, because if DWP accidentally gives that money to someone, it might try to claw it back, putting people in an even worse state of poverty than they are in already.

Chris Stephens

I share that concern, and I hope the Department will respond positively to the concerns that hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), have raised.

On departmental error, taking £60 a month from people who require state support can be the difference between whether they can buy food or not, or whether they can heat their homes. I am sometimes a bit concerned about the phrase “heat or eat”, because some people will now not be able to do either. That is the desperate situation that far too many people face across these islands, particularly with the cost of living being so high.

On the one-off payments, the Department appears to have conceded the point that grants are better than loans. I welcome that, but I hope it will now look seriously at the report by the Work and Pensions Committee about the five-week wait and introduce a non-repayable grant—a starter payment, as we call it—within two weeks of the claim. That would stop people getting into debt as a result of deductions, and I suggest that it would save money on administration, compared with paying people after five weeks and then deducting £60 a month from them. It seems a false economy to insist on continuing the five-week wait, and then going back and deducting money from people’s claims.

A good friend of mine, Andrew Forsey, director of the charity Feeding Britain, which is involved with Threehills community supermarket in Glasgow South West, recently said:

“Last year, figures like these prompted the DWP to lower the cap on deductions and double the length of time people had to repay those upfront loans. What these latest figures show is that there remains a lot more work to be done, to bring these deductions down still further, if people are to have the money they need each month to put food on the table.”

The Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee mentioned no recourse to public funds, and I agree with what he said. I hope the Department will look seriously, once again, at the Committee’s report that recommends extending child benefit to all children, irrespective of their parents’ immigration status. The right hon. Gentleman laid that out well, and, as someone who represents a city that has signed up to the Home Office’s asylum seeker dispersal scheme, I know this is a very real issue. In areas where asylum seekers have become refugees, it was certainly an issue during covid. I hope the Department will go back and look at that.

We need more resources to go into ensuring that those who are entitled to pension credit receive it. It is reckoned that between 65% and 70% of people who are entitled to pension credit receive it. I would like the Department to do more work on that, and I would like more resources to go into working with pensioners’ groups and various third-sector organisations to ensure that those who are entitled to pension credit get it. It seems to be a very real issue, and some of the statistics from the independent charity Age UK about the amount of unpaid claims for pension credit suggest that the figure is far too high; it is in the millions. Frankly, that pension credit could do a lot of good for pensioners who are dealing with increasing food and fuel costs.

Finally, let me raise my concern about office closures by the Department for Work and Pensions; I know that you also have a constituency interest in this subject, Madam Deputy Speaker. We have Government offices in areas of high economic deprivation, and the Department is one of the largest employers in some constituencies, but it wants to close those offices. That will not just impact on people employed by the Department, although of course it will do that, but have a wider effect on the economy. Many small businesses round and about those offices rely on custom from people who work in the Department, and I refer the Minister to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin), who has done a survey on this issue in relation to the proposed closure of the Springburn office.

The Department seems to want to take out far too many of the 91,000 jobs that the Government want to cut. The Department responsible for employment and helping people get into work really should not be laying off its own workers and throwing people into unemployment; that would send completely the wrong message and make no sense whatsoever. I will leave it there, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I hope—indeed, I am sure—that I will get a positive response from the Minister to all the points I have raised.

July 6, 2022
Stephen Timms – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Living Crisis

The speech made by Stephen Timms, the Labour MP for East Ham, in the House of Commons on 5 July 2022.

I am grateful that we have been granted this debate to discuss the spending of the Department for Work and Pensions. We are all familiar with the facts of the cost of living crisis: price rises are accelerating and inflation in May was the highest since 1982—the highest for 40 years—at 9.1%. In France, inflation was 5.8% and in the eurozone, it was 8.1% on average, so we have a particularly acute problem in the UK. The Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee said last month that it expects inflation to rise to slightly above 11% in October.

In the light of those rapidly increasing costs, the Chancellor announced measures to support households in February, March and May. I warmly welcome that support, which is valued at £37 billion. Two of the support measures that he announced are funded by the DWP and are therefore a focus of this debate: first, the £650 payment for households receiving means-tested benefits, and secondly, the £150 payment for people receiving disability benefits.

I understand that the DWP will pay the first £326 instalment of the £650 payment in the second half of this month. The qualifying day for that—the day on which someone had to have been claiming means-tested benefits—was 25 May. The qualifying day for the second instalment has not yet been announced, but I gather that it will be no later than 31 October. Those payments will be tax free and will not affect other benefit awards. I particularly welcome the fact that, as the Secretary of State confirmed to me in the debate on the recent legislation to enable the payments, they will not be constrained by the benefit cap.

The other measures that the Chancellor announced in May, which are not legislated for by the Social Security (Additional Payments) Act 2022, include two extensions of existing programmes for which DWP is responsible. First, pensioner households will receive a one-off £300 pensioner cost of living payment as a top-up to their winter fuel payment, which will cost in total £2.5 billion. Secondly, there will be an additional £500 million for the household support fund for local authorities to make discretionary payments to people in need—some £421 million for England and £79 million for the devolved Administrations through the Barnett formula. That will cover the period from October this year to March next year.

The household support fund was originally announced in September 2021 with £500 million for local authorities for the six months from October 2021 to March 2022. It was extended with another £500 million for the following six months from April to September this year. I will say more about that later as a relatively new feature of the estimates.

It is worth pausing to reflect on the fact that, although the Chancellor’s announcements are welcome, there are still some concerns. The Resolution Foundation estimates that the

“measures announced this year to support households will in effect offset 82 per cent of the rise in households’ energy costs in 2022-23, rising to over 90 per cent for poorer households.”

It is a substantial response to a substantial problem. The Treasury says that households with incomes among the lowest 10% of all households in England will gain just under £1,200 a year on average as a result of the package, while those among the top 10% will gain around £700 a year on average—significantly less. That strikes me as a broadly appropriate distributional impact.

There are some caveats—for example, the payments are per household. As Save the Children and others have pointed out, larger families will not get any more support than smaller ones, even though children in larger families are at much greater risk of being in poverty. Nearly half—47%—of all UK children in a family with three or more children were in poverty in 2020, so that has a big impact.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation made the point that:

“One key group who has lost out are unpaid carers”.

We have just debated kinship carers. Only 59% of the 1 million people who claim carer’s allowance also claim means-tested benefits, so the other 41% will not get any additional support through the package. I applaud the Welsh Government’s initiative to provide an additional £500 payment for carers in Wales, and I think consideration should be given to comparable additional support elsewhere in the UK.

People waiting to be assessed for a personal independence payment cannot access the £150 payment. People wait on average five months to be assessed and receive a decision, and some 300,000 people are waiting at the moment. We might think that they ought to be getting some help, but they will not. People waiting for a work capability assessment will not get the payment either. The backlog for work capability assessments for universal credit is not published, so we do not know the size of it, but we know that there is one.

In April, as we all know, inflation-linked benefits were increased by 3.1% in line with the increase in the consumer prices index last September. When the uprating took effect, however, inflation was already over 7% and, as we have been reminded, it is now expected to rise to 11% this year. The Secretary of State previously told the Work and Pensions Committee that she does not favour one-off payments of the kind that the Chancellor announced in May. She is right: welcome though the Chancellor’s announcements are, I agree that it would be far better to have an uprating system that works properly, rather than having to resort to these stopgap measures to deal with the emergency.

Universal credit can be updated quickly, as we saw when lockdown hit, but the legacy benefits cannot be. The permanent secretary told the Select Committee last week that the problem is that uprating programs can only be run at weekends, when the computer systems are not doing other jobs, and that is apparently why it takes such a long time to implement the uprating of the legacy benefits. We have already called for those older systems to be improved urgently, and for the gap between assessing inflation and uprating benefits to be reduced. The need for that to happen is now even clearer, given the problems that we have run into this year.

The crisis is also exposing a much bigger and longer-term problem, which is the continued failure to keep the level of benefits in line with inflation. That is a consequence of successive policy decisions over the last 12 years. The chief executive of the Resolution Foundation said yesterday that the headline rate of benefit for someone who is unemployed is now 13% of average earnings, and that that is the lowest level it has ever been. That is lower, I think, than when Lloyd George introduced unemployment benefit for the first time in 1911.

Nobody should be surprised that so many are having such a hard time; there is no resilience in the support that is being provided, because the level is now so low. We have asked Ministers to explain the reason or thinking behind setting the benefits so low, and all we have been told is, “Well, we uprated it that year, we did not uprate it that year, and this is where we’ve ended up.” There is no rationale for the situation that we have found ourselves in where, in real terms, the level of benefits is at its lowest for more than 30 years.

Citizens Advice North Lancashire, one of the organisations that contacted the Select Committee, told us that

“one-off payments are not a solution to inadequate benefit levels.”

It is right about that. It went on:

“Our detailed research…on Universal Credit from across Lancashire…shows that Universal Credit is not enough to live on in Lancashire. Benefit payments urgently need uprating so that people who cannot work can afford to live off them.”

The Select Committee has agreed to look at the longer-term issue of benefit levels in an inquiry in the coming months, and we will be considering these issues carefully.

I want to comment today on two specific features of these estimates. The first is the household support fund. As I have said, the Chancellor’s package included an additional £500 million for the household support fund, bringing the total amount in that fund to £1.5 billion since October 2021. It is administered by local councils in England, and each council sets its own eligibility criteria.

The grant conditions set by the Government are, frankly, pretty vague. They specify that assistance can be issued by the authority itself or through a third party. One third of the grant is to support households that include a child, another third is to support households that include somebody of state pension age and the balance is for everybody else. It is for support with food, energy and other essential living needs. In a so-called exceptional circumstance, the household support fund can be used to support housing costs.

Local authorities have to submit a statement of grant usage to the Department with plans of how they are going to spend the money, and they are supposed to maintain an adequate audit trail for how they do in fact spend it. We asked the Secretary of State about that at the Select Committee last week, and she told us that local authorities have to make two returns a year to the Department about what happens to that money. I think that information is supposed to be published, but as far as I can see, no information has been published about how the household support fund has been used. The truth is that we know very little about what has happened to that £1.5 billion.

One thing that money could be used for is supporting families with no recourse to public funds, some of whom have been in a desperate situation in the last two years. When asked if the household support fund can he used for that, given that it is a public fund, Ministers—absurdly—say that local authorities should take their own legal advice to find out. At the very least, there must surely be clarity about what councils are allowed to do with this funding.

It may well be that the household support fund is playing a valuable role—I imagine it very likely is—but we just do not know, and we should. If there is to be continued use of discretionary funds such as this, instead of uprating benefits properly, the Department must at least work with councils and develop a clear reporting framework for the household support fund to provide assurance that it is being used effectively and that the support is getting to where it is most needed, because at the moment we just do not know. It would be far better to have an effective and reliable system for uprating the level of social security benefits, so that we do not have to resort to these stopgap measures in situations such as the one we are in at the moment.

The second point I want to pick out is about the benefit cap. The cap has not been changed since 2016, and in 2016 it was lowered. It continues to limit overall annual benefit support for a family to £23,000 in London and £20,000 across the rest of the UK, with comparable figures for a single person of £15,410 and £13,410 respectively. The new cost of living payments will not be constrained by the benefit cap, and I warmly welcome that. I think this sets an important and welcome precedent. It recognises that families up against the cap—and there are over 100,000 of them at the moment—are seeing their costs rising like everybody else.

Given the uprating expected next April, based on the rate of inflation expected in September, the Child Poverty Action Group has estimated that

“an additional 35,000 households will become capped overnight, resulting in a total of around 150,000 households capped in April 2023”.

The North East Child Poverty Commission also contacted the Select Committee, and it told us:

“The benefit cap impacts a relatively small number of households in the North East (fewer than 5,000)…almost all…are families with children…but they are being prevented by the cap from receiving all the support they have been assessed as needing. We urge the Government to lift the benefit cap.” The Government have a statutory duty to review the level of the benefit cap every five years. Until March this year, the obligation was to review it in every Parliament. The last published review of the benefit cap was in 2014, which was eight years ago. The cap was lowered in 2016. The Secretary of State, when we asked her about this last week, could not tell us when it was last reviewed. If it has been reviewed within the last five years, the review certainly has not been published, despite promises to the Select Committee that it would be—and of course it should be. The Government should be open about their thinking in this area.

When the benefit cap was introduced in 2013—my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), who is on the Front Bench, and I were in the Committee that debated this before it took effect—the income threshold was set at median full-time earnings, which at that time was £26,000 a year. Since then, it has been reduced, and of course median full-time earnings are very different now from what they were in 2013 anyway. The level of the cap now bears no relation at all to any particular earnings level.

I warmly welcome that the cap will not apply to the additional payments announced by the Chancellor. That is an important precedent, recognising that families at the benefit cap will be hard hit too. However, with inflation at over 10%, it is imperative that the cap is reviewed ahead of next April’s uprating. It needs at least to reflect average household incomes, as it initially did—it needs to bear some relation to them, surely—and take account of increasing rent, energy and food costs. I urge the Minister to be open with the public and to publish the outcome of that review. The Chancellor’s package means relief from the benefit cap for tens of thousands of families this year, but next year the cap will be back and presumably there will not be any further additional payments from the Chancellor. The level of the cap must be raised before next April because if it is not, the consequences will be dire.

I am very grateful for this opportunity to debate the very important estimates that the Government have provided for us. They make such a big impact on millions of our fellow citizens, and it is vital that such decisions about them are the right ones.

July 6, 2022
Munira Wilson – 2022 Speech on Kinship Care

The speech made by Munira Wilson, the Liberal Democrat MP for Twickenham, in the House of Commons on 5 July 2022.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for a statutory definition of kinship care; to make provision about allowances and parental leave for kinship carers who take on responsibility for children whose parents are unable to care for them; to make provision about education in relation to children who are looked after by a kinship carer; and for connected purposes.

April—not her real name—is a constituent of mine. When her sister, who had bladder cancer, died, she left behind five children, all boys. The youngest was aged just five. His birth father was estranged and his stepfather had left the family when his mum got the terminal cancer diagnosis, leaving April’s nephew traumatised and with developmental delays. Shortly before April’s sister passed away, she asked April and her partner if they would look after her youngest son. Of course, they said yes. They would do anything to protect him. Before social services got involved, she and her partner welcomed in a new member of their family, but this decision came at a huge financial and personal cost.

April was already contending with illness and disability in her family. She needed financial and practical support for her nephew, so she asked the council to pay for his therapy. The council officer said, “You did the right thing in taking in the child before you were asked to. This is the best place for your nephew to be, and you’ve saved us a lot of time and money. But this is a private family arrangement, so we have no legal duty to help you. There’s nothing we can do.” Had April not stepped up to look after her nephew, he would have ended up in local authority care. She has saved the taxpayer tens of thousands of pounds a year and likely ensured a more positive outlook for him. Yet because she did the right thing, she gets nothing in return for his living costs or to manage his mental ill health.

April is not the only one. Every year, thousands of grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and family friends step up to support a child whose parents are not able to care for them. Several kinship carers are watching in the Gallery today. They turn their lives upside down to provide children with a loving, stable home. For most of them, welcoming in a child is not a choice they make, but an instinctive reaction out of love to a dramatic, often overnight change in circumstances: a death in the family, domestic abuse or a similar situation. As the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne)—a kinship carer himself—described it to the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care, which he chairs, it is the “social services stork” that turns up unannounced at the door one night asking someone to take a child in.

Kinship carers do this even though their own financial situation may be unstable. Around half of kinship carers are grandparents, relying on their hard-earned pension savings. One in three kinship carers is non-white. Yet the benefits to children of living with friends and relatives they already know are immense. Compared with care leavers, they are more likely to have better mental health, to have better exam results and to hold down a job. It is why in Australia kinship care is the preferred option when a child cannot be looked after at home by their birth parents.

Kinship care is the Cinderella service of our children’s social care system—too often ignored. The Government have created a system full of unfairness and uncertainty, leaving some of the most vulnerable families without help. For carers such as Kim, another constituent of mine, who has a special guardianship order, the council has a duty to assess her financial needs. However, unlike for foster carers, any financial support is means-tested, discretionary and reviewed regularly. She told me:

“At the last review, we were told that we didn’t qualify for an allowance, even though our costs had increased and my income had reduced due to the pandemic. I challenged this and we now receive about half of what we used to get. It is a help, but it does not cover all the extra costs we need to find.”

However, others, such as April, are not legally entitled to anything. A survey published last week by the charity Kinship found that just 6% of kinship carers with an informal arrangement receive help. Those carers who do receive allowances are paid on average £40 a week less than the national minimum allowance for foster carers. That is bad enough, but the Government’s failure to tackle the cost of living crisis is only making the situation harder. Kinship’s survey this year found that 44% of kinship carers could not pay all their household bills. More than a quarter could not afford food for their families.

April’s partner, who was training to be a police officer, was told by the council that he should give up work. Studies show that between 30% and 40% of carers leave employment completely after taking on a child. Kinship carers do not get the same rights to employment leave as adoptive parents do. They must rely on the goodwill of their employers.

The unfairness is also reflected in our education system. If a child in kinship care was previously looked after by the council, their school receives pupil premium plus funding, but if a relative takes in a child to prevent them from becoming looked after in the first place, the school loses out. The relative’s generosity in stepping up at the earliest opportunity is punished by the state.

I fervently believe that every child should get the best start in life. The Bill I am introducing today includes four proposals to ensure that kinship carers get the financial and practical support their children need. First, all kinship carers should receive weekly payments equal to the national minimum weekly allowance that foster carers receive. Secondly, kinship carers should be entitled to paid employment leave when a child starts living with them, just as happens when a family adopts a child. Thirdly, children in kinship care should have the same support as looked-after children in our education system, such as pupil premium plus, virtual school heads and priority in the admissions process. Finally, those things should be underpinned by a statutory definition of kinship care that will act as a gateway for carers to access the rights I have just mentioned.

I am grateful to the Family Rights Group and to Kinship for their help with this Bill and their long-standing campaigns on these proposals. Voices from all sides of this House have recognised that the current situation is unsustainable. The Government’s own “Independent review of children’s social care” has called for change. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches will stand up for all carers in this country of all kinds. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) has spoken movingly in the past of his “amazing nana and granddad” who took him in after his mother passed away. We speak from the heart when we say that we want to be the voice of carers in this place.

I am glad to see the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince), in his place. When I raised the issue of kinship carer allowances with him in the Chamber in May, he told me that

“it can be advantageous…to invest in that family member to avoid the child going into care”.—[Official Report, 23 May 2022; Vol. 715, c. 42.]

I completely agree with him, but I know that his colleagues in the Treasury will be concerned about costs or providing a sufficiently watertight definition of who is a kinship carer. However, neither of these problems is insurmountable. On average, it costs about £72,500 a year to put a child in local authority care. If we provided every child in kinship care with a social worker and a weekly allowance, it would cost the taxpayer just over half that. We know that there are systems already in place in the Department for Work and Pensions to recognise kinship carers for the purposes of the two-child benefit cap.

For most kinship carers, welcoming in a child is an unexpected, life-changing decision, but one they would make again in a heartbeat. Ian, a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), said:

“Having my granddaughter in the house gave us a new lease of life. It’s great, we love it.”

However, he also recognised how much harder it would be for those in much more difficult circumstances. Surely we owe it to these children who have been through so much, and these carers who have sacrificed so much and have saved the taxpayer so much, to give them the financial and practical support they deserve and need to flourish. Let us step up for kinship carers and support every child to get a better start in life, no matter their background.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Munira Wilson, Ed Davey, Robert Halfon, Stella Creasy, Tim Loughton, Sarah Olney, Layla Moran, Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck, Helen Morgan and Richard Foord present the Bill.

Munira Wilson accordingly presented the Bill.

July 6, 2022
Grant Shapps – 2022 Statement on the Headquarters of Great British Railways

The statement made by Grant Shapps, the Secretary of State for Transport, in the House of Commons on 5 July 2022.

Today, 5 July 2022,1 am announcing the shortlist of the most suitable potential locations for the national headquarters of Great British Railways (GBR), which will go forward to a consultative public vote to be held online and by post.

The confirmed list of shortlisted towns and cities is:

Birmingham

Crewe

Derby

Doncaster

Newcastle upon Tyne

York

I announced on 4 October 2021 that a competition would be run to identify the headquarters for GBR, to be located outside of London. This was launched on 5 February 2022 and was overseen by the GBR Transition Team (GBRTT). Prospective local authorities were asked to submit a short Expression of Interest to GBRTT by Wednesday 16 March.

GBRTT received 42 applications and has analysed their suitability against the published set of criteria for the national headquarters. The selection criteria are:

Alignment to Levelling Up principles

Connected and easy to get to

Opportunities for GBR

Value for money

Railway heritage and links to the network

Public support

GBRTT will launch a public vote today that will give the public the opportunity to express their views. The vote is consultative and will be used to test public support for each shortlisted location, allowing the people that the railway serves the chance to have their say.

Ministers will then make a final decision on the headquarters’ location based on all information gathered and against the above criteria, with a final decision expected later in the year.

The new national GBR headquarters will be supported by a number of new regional headquarters across the country, putting decision-making and investment at the heart of communities that use those railways day to day.

The Government are committed to levelling up, delivering jobs and investment beyond the capital. The national headquarters will be at the heart of the rail network and provide strategic direction for the running of GBR. Based outside London, it will bring a number of high-skilled jobs to the winning location.

July 6, 2022
Robin Walker – 2022 Statement on Key Stage 2 Attainment

The statement made by Robin Walker, the Minister for School Standards, in the House of Commons on 5 July 2022.

The key stage 2 (KS2) national statistics released today show that the percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard in all three subjects of reading, writing and maths at age 11 was 59% in 2022. This is lower than it was before the pandemic: 65% of pupils met the standard in all three subjects in 2019. While this is disappointing, it was expected due to the impact of the pandemic. The Government recognise, and value, the work that teachers up and down the country are putting into education recovery, but also understand that there is more work to do.

We welcome the increase in reading attainment from 73% in 2019 to 74% in 2022, despite the disruption of covid, which is a tribute to the hard work and dedication of our teachers, pupils and parents. Indeed, these figures build on the research we commissioned from Renaissance Learning, published in March 2022, that showed faster recovery in English reading than in maths. Reading is, of course, fundamental: we cannot knock down barriers for children if we do not teach them to read well. Attainment in maths and in writing, however, are disappointing, but not unexpected: in 2022 71% of pupils met the expected standard in maths, compared to 79% in 2019, while in writing, 69% of pupils met the expected standard, down from 78% in 2019.

Today’s statistics summarise KS2 attainment at national level and, of course, we want to understand the detail beneath these figures. There will be a further statistical release on 6 September setting out breakdowns of the KS2 results, including by region, local authority area and pupil characteristics such as disadvantage. It is, of course, likely that some pupils, and some areas of the country, will have been impacted more than others due to the pandemic.

It is vital that we have a clear understanding of the impact of the disruption caused by covid-19 on the attainment and progress of all pupils, to support schools in their work on education recovery. That is why we decided to go ahead with primary assessments this year, without adaptations, so that we can have a consistent measure of attainment before and after the pandemic. This will enable us to be open and transparent about the impact of the pandemic on attainment at system level. As we announced in July 2021, we will not be publishing school-level KS2 data this year in performance tables because we did not make adaptations to the tests and assessments or the standards. We will share school-level data in the autumn with schools, academy trusts and local authorities to inform school improvement and support school leaders. We will ensure clear messages are placed alongside any data shared to advise caution in its interpretation.

The statistics published today underline the importance of our focus on recovery. Recovery funding is already making a difference, but we recognise that there is more still to do.

That is why we have committed nearly £5 billion to fund a comprehensive recovery package. By May 2022, 1.5 million courses had been started by children across England through the national tutoring programme; and £950 million of direct funding, through the catch-up and recovery premia, was helping schools to deliver evidence-based interventions based on pupil needs. In light of the success of this year’s school-led tutoring route through the national tutoring programme, next year we will allocate all tutoring funding directly to schools, simplifying the system and giving schools the freedom to decide how best to provide tutoring for their pupils.

As well as specific recovery investments, The schools White Paper, “Opportunity for all: strong schools with great teachers for your child”, published on 28 March sets out how our education system will deliver recovery through a wider programme of ambitious reforms that truly level up outcomes and ensure we build back better from the pandemic.

On maths in particular, we continue to support and enhance the teaching of maths through our network of 40 school-led maths hubs, which are helping local schools improve the quality of their mathematics teaching based on best practice. We have also established the £100 million Teaching for Mastery programme, which is bringing mastery teaching to 11,000 schools across England by 2023. This teaching style focuses on depth of understanding and is based on best practice from East Asian jurisdictions that perform highly in international mathematics tests. Drawing on this approach, we have also published non-statutory guidance to support teachers to prioritise and sequence the maths curriculum in a way that aims to help pupils understand and progress in mathematics.

On English, we continue to support the teaching of early reading through our network of 34 English hubs, established in 2018. The English hubs programme is dedicated to improving the teaching of early reading, with a focus on supporting children making the slowest progress. In July 2021 we also published “The reading framework: teaching the foundations of literacy”, non-statutory guidance for teachers and school leaders, aimed at improving the teaching of the foundations of reading in primary schools by defining best practice. We will build on this by publishing part 2 of the reading framework next year, to provide evidence-based non-statutory guidance on teaching reading for years 2 to 9.

The ability to read fluently is also important when developing pupils’ writing skills. We are heartened that the data released today has shown an increase in reading attainment despite the disruption of covid, but we know there is more to do to ensure this translates into an improvement in writing attainment. In September 2022, we will launch the NPQ in leading literacy, which will support school literacy leaders to have a secure understanding of the importance of literacy and recognise the influence it has on pupils’ future academic achievement, wellbeing and success in life. It will support leaders to develop expertise in the teaching of reading and writing and enable them to share their expertise effectively to improve literacy outcomes for every child.

We have also invested £10 million in core skills in English and maths for the 2021-22 academic year, as part of the accelerator fund, which included funding for the English and maths hubs programmes to help pupils secure the key knowledge and understanding they need to progress—and which may have been missed due to covid-19 disruption.

The parent pledge in the schools White Paper will also make the Government’s vision clear that any child who falls behind in English or maths will receive the right evidence-based targeted support to get them back on track.

Underpinning all of these initiatives is the need to help children and young people recover from the impact of the pandemic and to achieve their full potential. The Government remain fully committed to achieving this aim.

July 6, 2022
Ben Wallace – 2022 Statement on Continued Support for Ukraine

The statement made by Ben Wallace, the Secretary of State for Defence, in the House of Commons on 5 July 2022.

Today, I am pleased to update the House with further details on the UK-led training programme of Ukrainian armed forces announced by the Prime Minister on his recent visit to Kyiv.

In response to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, the UK Government are providing £2.3 billion of military aid to Ukraine. Included in this is a commitment to spearhead an innovative programme which aims to train up to 10,000 new Ukrainian recruits in the UK.

The first rotation of Ukrainian soldiers has recently arrived in the UK. Training will take place on military training areas across the north-east, south-west and south-east regions. The training will be conducted by elements from 11 Security Force Assistance Brigade.

These Ukrainian soldiers will undertake courses based on the UK’s basic soldier training. This includes weapons training, battlefield first aid, fieldcraft, patrol tactics and training on the law of armed conflict. Each course will last several weeks. I have informed hon. Members whose constituencies include the bases being used for this training programme about local arrangements.

Our ambition is to increase the scale and frequency of these courses, in line with Ukrainian requirements. We are also discussing with international partners options to broaden involvement in the training programme, working constructively with countries prepared to support either by contributing trainers or providing equipment.

We expect the training package to evolve over time. I will keep Parliament informed of the outcomes of these initial courses and any plans to increase the programme’s scale or scope.

This activity is a priority for the Ministry of Defence as part of the UK’s unwavering efforts to bolster the capability of the Ukrainian armed forces and demonstrates continued UK leadership in responding to Russia’s war of aggression. I can reassure the House that the Ministry of Defence has received strong support from across Government for the non-military provisions required to support such a significant training programme.

While the training activity is being made public, some details will be kept confidential for security purposes.

July 6, 2022
Kemi Badenoch – 2022 Statement on Toilet Provision in Public Buildings

The statement made by Kemi Badenoch, the Minister for Local Government, Faith and Communities, in the House of Commons on 4 July 2022.

Toilets, both in municipal and private sector locations, are an important facility for members of the public, in particular, women, those with children, older people and disabled people.

The Government have taken a number of steps recently to support the increased provision of ‘Changing Places’ toilets for disabled people for whom standard accessible toilets are not suitable. Last year, the Government introduced 100% business rates relief for public toilets in England and Wales.

In October 2020, Government published a review: Toilet provision for men and women: call for evidence. This stemmed from evidence that shows that increasing numbers of publicly accessible toilets are being converted into ‘gender neutral’ facilities, causing problems for women and older people in particular.

‘Gender neutral’ facilities mean men and women share the same space for waiting and hand wash facilities; these should be contrasted with dedicated, self-contained ‘unisex’ toilets which maintain privacy for the single user (also known as ‘universal toilets’).

Such ‘gender neutral’ toilets place women at a significant disadvantage. While men can then use both cubicles and urinals, women can only use the former. The net effect is actually to reduce toilet provision for women. Women also need safe spaces given their particular biological, health and sanitary needs (for example, women who are menstruating, pregnant or at menopause, may need to use the toilet more often). Women are also likely to feel less comfortable using mixed sex facilities.

The review also asked for views on increasing the ratio of female toilets. Male toilets typically allow for a quicker transition of customers due to the use of urinals, yet insufficient female toilets are provided for a comparative number of cubicles to allow the same number of users to be served. This is not to disadvantage any sex – but greater ratios of female cubicles would help avoid queues inside and outside toilets.

The Government are also aware of broader concerns that women’s biological differences are being ‘erased’ in public life. It is important that women’s biological needs are respected and taken into account in the provision of facilities such as toilets. A high volume of responses were received to the call for evidence, all of which have been read and analysed.

The call for evidence analysis has been carefully considered, and research has been commissioned by my Department on the design of toilet facilities. Following on from this, in autumn 2022, the Department will launch a technical consultation on formal changes to the building regulations and approved guidance, informed by the call for evidence responses.

The Government are minded to take the following approach to rules and guidance in England, subject to further consultation and assessment of equality impacts:

Policy Goal

Change to the building regulations and approved guidance

To amend building regulations and guidance to ensure separate toilets for men and women continues to be provided,

guidance to encourage the provision of a unisex toilet, where space allows

Implementing a threshold approach i.e. above a certain number of toilet cubicles, require the provision of toilets for a range of users including separate male and female toilets, unisex toilets/ universal toilets, baby change, disabled Persons toilets, and changing places toilets.

Where unisex toilets are provided, that privacy is ensured

To set out the design of a unisex self-contained/ universal toilet cubicle with a sink which is designed to maximise privacy—informed by research underway and the call for evidence analysis.

To announce the intent for greater provision of toilets to reduce queuing

We will work with the British Standards Institution to develop the evidence base with a view thereafter to them updating their relevant codes of practice.

The technical review will ensure that the specific requirements of disabled users remain salient, and that access to and provision of toilets for disabled people will not be undermined by wider improvements to toilet provision more generally. The Department will be considering already commissioned research on the design of both disabled persons’ toilets and changing places toilets as part of this review.

Better customer toilet provision in commercial environments may encourage people to visit the premises. The Government will be undertaking a full regulatory impact assessment.

Such changes to building rules will also complement existing statutory provisions in education law for schools to provide sex-specific—or self-contained unisex—toilets for children.

We would also encourage Government bodies to consider how such principles can be adopted now in its own buildings, prior to formal changes in building regulations.

The Government believe the proposals that we are minded to adopt will have positive equality outcomes for women, older people, pregnant women, those with babies, people who come under the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, and disabled people.

This common sense approach on protecting and improving toilet provision will ensure dignity, privacy, tolerance and respect for all, and further the cause of equality and inclusion by recognising the different needs of everyone in society.

July 6, 2022