Speeches by Milne.

“I would like to explore whether you think the Government have a clear rationale and objective for the state pension. For example, the aim of the Pensions Commission’s reform was to help people achieve a percentage of working life income in retirement—for example, a replacement rate of 45% for median earners. Do you thi…”

“Thank you, very interesting. Kingsley, anything to add to that?”

“This is a set of questions for Juliet, because they relate to your report. The Social Security Advisory Committee felt there was a tension or even a contradiction between the expected Exchequer saving from the change in winter fuel payment eligibility on the one hand and the cost of increasing pension credit take-up on…”

“Your research from 2020 suggested that if everyone were to take up pension credit, for every £1 spent on benefit, there could be a £2 saving in health and social care costs. Can you explain the basis for that assessment?”

“You also admitted that although there was evidence for the health impacts, there was little on the wider societal costs of pensioner poverty. Do you think that is still the case?”

“First, I wholly respect the intention behind the Bill; it is a serious attempt to solve a serious problem. I also recognise that what was happening under the Conservatives did not work, and never could have worked even if we had given it 1,000 years. All it achieved was to fuel house price inflation, which has now crea…”

“Age UK in my constituency has told me that the employer NICs rise will cost it £50,000 a year. Does the Minister agree that it is impossible to improve the public sector by taxing the public sector?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. The DWP is making extensive and growing use of algorithms for investigation purposes. Without proper oversight, these systems threaten error, unfairness and bias, which could lead to wrongful debt collection. Our amendment therefore calls for an independent…”

“Encouraging and enabling people to get back to work is a laudable aim, but how can the Secretary of State assume £5 billion of success in advance of actually rolling out the programme? Surely the right approach is to let the reforms generate savings naturally by a concrete reduction in need, rather than to set an arbit…”

“I am content to beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 15 Offence of encouraging or assisting others to commit fraud “(1) The Social Security Administration Act 1992 is amended as follows. (2) In section 111A (Dishonest representation for obtaining benefit etc), after subsectio…”

“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. The new clause would require that the use of algorithms, algorithmic tools and systems, and artificial intelligence, including machine learning, should be included within the algorithmic transparency reporting standard. That standard, established by the Government, …”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. Last November, as a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, I asked the Secretary of State when we could expect to see a decision on compensation for WASPI women. She replied: “There is lots of information to go through. We need to get it right but I wa…”

“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In my speech, I referred to West Sussex county council but neglected to mention that, as declared in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, I am still a member of that council. I want to put that on the record—my apologies.”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. Clause 84 states that costs incurred by the Secretary of State in taking recovery actions can be themselves recovered. Will the Minister clarify what happens in a case where the claimant is found to be not guilty? What happens to the costs then? Are they b…”

“I thank the hon. Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) for securing this important debate. It is time to acknowledge that special educational needs and mental health provision in schools is one of the great crises that we face today, although I do appreciate that there is a lot of competition for that particular accolade.…”

“I used the word guilt, but can we forget that? I am referring to a case in which a claimant was investigated, so costs were incurred, but they were found not to be at fault, rather than guilty.”

“I recently sat in on a careers session in my constituency of Horsham. It was impressive, because there was a sort of private sector vibe; it felt not like an institutional box-ticking exercise, but like they were really trying, as they would for any paying candidate. We would be afraid to lose that. How should the Gove…”

“It was about the risks.”

“Finally, I will ask a question I asked a previous panel: how should the Government measure success and therefore, in effect, set targets?”

“Careers advisers and work coaches require different skills and approaches. How would you describe these different approaches, and do you think they can be successfully combined in the same place?”