Anne McGuire: In spite of the bluff and bluster of the Minister of State for employment, the reality is that Work programme outcomes for new ESA clients show a pathetic performance outcome of only 5.3%, three times worse than doing nothing. However, I want to turn to another employment support programme for disabled people, Access to Work, which the Under-Secretary has just mentioned. According to the...
Anne McGuire: It has gone up.
Anne McGuire: The Minister and the Secretary of State have recently been found out using figures that show a dramatic increase in the number of people receiving disability living allowance. To quote the Secretary of State, they wanted “to get in early, get ahead of it”— that is, the PIP. However, Department for Work and Pensions statistics show that there was a significant decrease in the number of...
Anne McGuire: It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), although obviously I would not necessarily agree with all his comments. I was not going to say anything about immigration, but sometimes we need to look to ourselves when we talk about that subject. I suspect that there is not one individual here who has not had at one point in their...
Anne McGuire: Very quickly because I want to get on to the main substance of my speech.
Anne McGuire: As I have said, I do not want to go down that track but, having been nursed in a UK hospital by non-indigenous British staff, I think we ought to be more balanced in our comments on immigration. The main focus of this debate—health and social care—is a vital issue for many people; even if they do not think so at present, it certainly will be in the future. As we are all aware, the...
Anne McGuire: Yes and, as I understand it, the monitoring period has been extended from three years to five years. The hon. Gentleman has identified an important aspect. We should get away from the idea that the Equality and Human Rights Commission is merely the sum of its compliance powers. It is more than that. It should be working with the wider community to establish a society that has equality and...
Anne McGuire: I want to make a few remarks about the abolition of the general duty. It is sad that we are repealing the general duty under the Equality Act 2006. It was not plucked out of mid-air and something that the then Government suddenly decided to put into an Act of Parliament. Progress towards the Act was long and conciliatory and it worked for this Parliament and organisations outside it, yet...
Anne McGuire: Will the hon. Lady explain why there is a contradiction between the EHRC’s core objectives and that aspiration?
Anne McGuire: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many disabled people in receipt of disability living allowance who have an indefinite or lifetime award have been re-assessed in each of the last 12 months for which figures are available.
Anne McGuire: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people in receipt of a disability living allowance award who have been re-assessed in the most recent 12 months for which figures are available have had their benefit payment (a) terminated, (b) reduced and (c) increased.
Anne McGuire: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many disabled people have a fixed-term award of disability living allowance which is due to expire after February 2014; and how many such people he expects to invite to apply for the personal independence payment for the year October 2013 to October 2014.
Anne McGuire: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many young disabled people who are in receipt of disability living allowance are expected to be invited to be assessed for personal independence payment in the next 12 months as they reach the age of 16.
Anne McGuire: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people under the age of 25 are currently in receipt of housing benefit by the smallest reporting unit and by gender with costs for each category.
Anne McGuire: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) how many bids were received for the Remploy factory in Wigan; and what rent is now being paid by the Red Rock document scanning company; (2) how many premises have been transferred to new social enterprises established by former Remploy workers; (3) how many former Remploy staff have been transferred to other businesses under...
Anne McGuire: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many former Remploy workers are currently (a) in training, (b) in employment and (c) unemployed.
Anne McGuire: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many former Remploy workers have received more than £10,000 to assist with the business planning for a new social enterprise.
Anne McGuire: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what work has been undertaken by his Department to assess the implications of the introduction of universal credit on (a) the two current statutory child maintenance schemes and (b) the newly-introduced statutory child maintenance scheme.
Anne McGuire: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people participating in (a) the Work programme and (b) Work Choice have received Access to Work support after finding employment in each quarter since the introduction of that scheme; and what proportion these people represent of the total number of people successfully supported into work.
Anne McGuire: To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what the average redundancy settlement paid to former Remploy workers has been.
