Category: Wokingham and West Berkshire Issues

I had a talk with the Secretary of State for Transport last week to remind him of the issues about concentrated overflying and the noise it generates for some constituents with easterly winds. There are various ways of improving the situation which I have presented to his department and others which I rehearsed again.

I have received the enclosed letter from the Secretary of State for Education. I would like to offer my congratulations to all the teachers & staff at Whiteknights Primary School, which has been chosen as an English Hub:

On 2 October, I announced the 32 schools chosen to be English Hubs, and support the teaching of literacy in primary schools. Each of these schools has demonstrated excellent practice in teaching reading to its young pupils, and has achieved great results. I am writing to you to confirm that Whiteknights Primary School in your constituency has been chosen as one of these hubs.

Each hub school will offer support in early language and literacy teaching to up to 170 primary schools, with a focus on supporting improved teaching in the reception year and key stage 1, particularly for schools with high numbers of disadvantaged children. There will be an emphasis on improving the teaching of systematic synthetic phonics, which evidence shows is the most effective method for teaching the essential first steps in young children learning to read. We know that early communication and language skills underpin later educational success. Five years old children who struggle with language are about six times less likely to reach the expected standard in English at age 11 than children who had reached the expected standard of language at age 5.

Schools will be able to self-refer to the English Hubs programme by filling out an application form with their local hub. Hubs will offer half day showcase events, highlighting best practice in phonics and early language teaching, and will provide financial support to enable schools to buy resources including commercial phonics programmes. Some schools will be eligible for an audit of current provision, and in the second year of the programme hubs will provide an intensive programme of up to 6 days of in-school support in early language and literacy teaching for up to 20 local schools.

We will be funding English Hubs to carry out all the above activity. The precise amounts per hub have yet to be determined though, overall, we are committed to spending up to £26.3 million for the national network of English Hubs.

Yours ever

Damian Hinds
Secretary of State for Education

I met the Local Government Minister again today with some other MPs.

I urged him to make an early decision on the issue of negative support grant for Councils. Wokingham and West Berkshire would be badly affected were there to be any such charge against them, and it is important to future budgets that no such levy is made.

I also asked for more money for social care, following the increase announced recently to deal with immediate pressures. These budgets need to meet rising demand, and can help reduce pressures on the NHS budget when people are provided with the right support and care at home.

I lobbied for Councils to have access to their business rates in future years, as this too can help a fast growing place like Wokingham with new business rate revenue coming form new shops and other commercial premises.

Congratulations to Whiteknights Primary on becoming a literacy teaching hub. Whiteknights has done well in teaching reading to young children and is now one of a few schools selected to provide help to other primary schools to raise their standards of literacy. More money will be paid to the hub schools to carry out these duties. Pupils at the  hub schools should also benefit from the work the teachers put in to improve teaching techniques and to spread their local successes more widely.

One of the crucial elements is using synthetic phonics to assist early reading, as evidence shows this is the best method to encourage young children to read.  This is a crucial task, as people’s life chances and job prospects are much improved if they achieve good standards of literacy.

I would like to thank all involved in the local branch event held in the Victory Hall, Farley Hill on Saturday evening. We enjoyed a good meal, and the surroundings of the recently renovated venue. The Hall was originally constructed to commemorate the end of the First World War.

Last night at the Trafalgar evening I was introduced to a local cheese called Waterloo. Made in Riseley it is a tasty product, and reminds us what scope there is to add value to farm products. They use milk from nearby Henley. This local business complements Barkham blue, another cheese which has done well in recent years.

I attended the debate on Wednesday 17 October. I have lobbied the government to ensure people in need do not lose out from the transition to Universal Credit, and to encourage them to be more generous with benefits for the disabled. As the Secretary of State made clear in the House, and as the government statements which I published on Wednesday confirms, they are improving the scheme. It will pay more to most disable people than the old scheme. They will roll it out gradually, making improvements as they go if new issues arise.

Earlier this month, the Health and Social Care Secretary announced £240 million for the social care system over winter, giving councils a significant boost to prevent people from going into hospital unnecessarily and getting them home as soon as they are ready.

This funding will ease pressure on the health system, and follows the announcement of £145 million to improve emergency care within the NHS this winter.

The money will pay for home care packages to help patients get out of hospital quicker, reablement packages to help patients carry out everyday tasks and regain mobility and confidence, and home adaptations.

I have lobbied extensively for more money for social care for our local Councils and am glad we will receive some of this latest increase.

Wokingham will gain £401,589 and West Berkshire £500,898.

Universal Credit is a modern benefit based on the sound principles that work should always pay and those who need support receive it.

The old system failed to reward work

It replaces an out of date, old system that disincentivised work and trapped people on benefits. The system we are replacing was a complicated mix of six different benefits from 3 separate government agencies (HMRC, DWP and Local Authorities).

It failed to make work pay because it created ‘cliff edges’ – where people suddenly lost lots of money if they worked more than 16, 24 or 30 hours. This meant some people paid an effective tax rate of over 90 per cent – denying them the opportunity of more work.

Under this old system, 1.4 million people spent most of a decade trapped on benefits instead of being helped into work. Taxpayer-funded welfare spending went up by over 60 per cent (£84 billion in today’s prices) under Labour, and the number of households where no one had ever worked almost doubled.

As well as trapping people on benefits, 700,000 households are missing out on benefits they are entitled to, losing on average £285 a month. Universal Credit puts all that right.

Why Universal Credit is a better system

Universal Credit replaces these benefits with one, simple, single payment, and is working for the vast majority of claimants – adding to our employment success which has seen on average over 1,000 more people moving into work each and every day since 2010, and youth unemployment more than halve.

Under Universal Credit claimants have a dedicated one-to-one work coach, who stays with them throughout their claim, helping them into work. It is a more flexible benefit, covering 85% of child care costs for working parents, compared to just 70% under the legacy system, and is designed to ensure that people are better off for every additional hour worked.

When rolled out, Universal Credit will help an extra 200,000 people into work, and empower people to work an extra 113 million hours because they are better off for every additional hour worked. It will also ensure that around 1 million disabled households receive an average of £110 more per month. Analysis shows that people claiming Universal Credit are more likely to find a job compared to Jobseekers allowance, are supported to work more hours and those in work and on Universal Credit increase their earnings on average by £600 per year.

Taking a ‘Test and Learn’ approach
However, we are also listening and responding to concerns about how Universal Credit supports people and constantly looking to improve the benefit.

Significant changes have been made to the system already. We have removed the 7 waiting days, made 100% advances available, and provide an additional 2 weeks of housing benefit for claimants moving onto UC. The opposition cynically voted against these measures earlier this year – risking vital support for claimants.

The government has reviewed legal cases reversing past positions and not appealed court decisions allowing the Department to reinstate housing benefit for 18-21 year olds, exempted kinship carers from changes to the Child Tax Credit element of Universal Credit, and announced measures to protect 500,000 severely disabled people when they move to Universal Credit.

This has been the ‘test and learn’ approach to UC, and importantly where further improvements need to be made we will do that too.

What we are doing next

By December, Universal Credit will have rolled out to every Job Centre in the country. This means that people who are making new claims to our benefits system now receive Universal Credit rather than the being put on the old system.

Soon we will start the wider process of moving people from the old benefits system onto Universal Credit, following the passage of regulations in Parliament.

These regulations allows us to move claimants onto UC, and provide transitional protection. These are important regulations to pass, in order to ensure that targeted support reaches those it is designed to help.

Throughout managed migration, we will continue to take a slow and measured approach. This will not begin in January 2019, but later in the year, after a period of preparation. For a further year we will then begin migration working with a maximum of 10,000 people, continuing with our ‘test and learn’ approach. This is to ensure the system is working well for claimants and to make any necessary adaptions as we go, until full roll out ends in 2023.

Whilst we are helping millions more into work, Labour don’t have a plan. They want to scrap – or pause UC – returning to either a costly legacy system which was confusing for claimants, trapped people out of work, and unaffordable for taxpayers, or a Universal Basic Income for all regardless of their circumstances – the Billionaire’s benefit. In stark contrast, Universal Credit ensures that we have a welfare system which is a safety net that rewards work, is fair to taxpayers, and sustainable for the future.