🗣️ Speeches and Debates
-
I hope the Minister will forgive me, but I was hoping to address my question to the new Secretary of State. I am interested to know what she has learned so far about the five-week wait and the damage it does. People have more debt when they come on to universal credit than they had on legacy benefits, and the advance payment is another debt that must be repaid from a meagre amount of benefit,...
-
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is deliberately dodging questions this afternoon, which suggests that he still has not got his head around the House’s scrutineering role over the Government. Perhaps he should refer again to yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling. I would have liked to have asked him a couple of difficult questions about statutory safeguards for EU citizens in the UK...
-
We all agree that any money is welcome, but it is not right to say that our schools can wait for one, two or three years. There is a school in south Cambridgeshire—admittedly not in my constituency, but that of the hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer)—that now has to close on one day a week; it cannot open its doors everyday any more. Accepting that money...
-
I suppose the question I have is: what on earth are my schools supposed to do now? Compared with, for example, a Westminster school, we get roughly £1,600 less per head per year, £400 less than the average across the UK. What on earth are we supposed to do now?
-
I sense that the Minister is genuinely trying to help. There is some irony in that we have been trying for so long to amend legislation in Northern Ireland to reflect what we have here, but now it has gone the other way—in the absence of any Executive, with the repeal of sections 58 and 59, Northern Ireland will in fact have more modernised legislation than we have. May I ask her explicitly...
-
The judgment is welcome, of course, because it will provide more support to people with mental health conditions, but it does prompt a question, regardless of who brought the case, about whether the PIP and ESA assessment processes still contain significant flaws. I was under the impression that the Government were looking at the processes, potentially bringing them back in-house, and I agree...
-
I am afraid to say to the Minister that the advance payment is missing the point. The biggest driver of people going to food banks is the five-week wait. Because of the benefit freeze, the basic amount people have to live on, particularly the very vulnerable, is not enough. We cannot then expect them to live on less by taking away their advance payment, which is a debt. There is a simple way...
-
The announcement of the scheme is brilliant news and I welcome enormously the statement, and particularly the parts on the inclusion of Government debt in the scheme. I also welcome the fact that the Government have recognised the effect that debt has on people’s lives and their ability to get out of debt. However, I urge the Minister to look into the Government’s own policies—I suspect...
More of Heidi Allen's speeches and debates
✍️ Written Questions and Answers
-
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of backdating universal credit payments to reduce the five week wait for a first payment.
-
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of establishing an independent commission to review the value of benefits to ensure they consistently match the cost of living.
-
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of universal credit payments were subject to a deduction for child maintenance arrears.
-
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the effect of the working age benefit freeze on the household incomes of people with (a) disabilities and (b) long term health conditions.
-
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent representations she has received on the level of visa fees for Commonwealth UK Armed Forces personnel applying for Indefinite Leave to Remain; and if she will (a) review and (b) undertake a public consultation on the current policy.
-
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether he has plans to end the requirement for the consent of a spouse when entering into a change of name deed to be enrolled at the Royal Courts of Justice using form LOC020.
-
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to support (a) schools and (b) local authorities in providing additional services to help young people with early signs of mental ill health.
-
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions his Department has had with the Ministry of Defence on the £400 million which is reported to be due to Iran following arrangements made between the UK and Iran in the 1970s for the purchase of Chieftain tanks; and what recent discussions he has had with his Iranian counterpart on that matter.
More of Heidi Allen's written questions
