Speeches by Kendall.

“The 5% increase that the OBR has scored in the Budget was on the basis of action taken by the previous Government. I think it was around free TV licences, as to what we think it will increase by. Of course it would only be 5% if we only did what the last Government did, but we are writing for the first time to the 120,…”

“You know the reason why we took the decision. We needed to make in-year savings. However, may I also be very clear to the Committee that the Chancellor is also onto this, increasing take-up, and likes regular updates of how we are doing. She is as committed as I am to doing that. We will publish data about claims and u…”

“I would like every pensioner who is entitled to Pension Credit up to £3,900 to get it, yes.”

“Regardless, because they are entitled to it. That is what I want to see. I am not claiming that I am going to give you a date. It is hard but I am determined to do everything I can.”

“The short answer to that is, yes, we are seeing an increase in the time. The latest published figures we have show that there has been a 152% increase in claims. I think that for September the average time was within the 50 days, 10 weeks goal. In October, however that crept up to 52 days. That is why we have deployed …”

“We have written to all pensioners about the change—”

“—and then to the 120,000 on Housing Benefit trying to encourage them to claim too. Later this month, I think it is 28 November, we will be publishing the latest claims and, I believe, uptake figures.”

“No, we do not have a target for each month.”

“I think this is the biggest employment challenge that we face. Although we have seen some changes in the latest statistics, unemployment, official unemployment, is still low by historic standards. However, we have seen this worrying increase in the number of people who are what is termed “economically inactive”. In a w…”

“Firstly, when you only have one in six employers ever using the job centre to recruit and that falls to only one in 10 of small and medium sized companies, that is not good enough. We need to work more closely with employers. In places such as Greater Manchester they are already doing great stuff. They have people who …”

“First, the Department for Education is reforming the apprenticeship levy so that we have a clear focus on young people and also what they call foundation apprenticeships that are the basic skills you are talking about, so that we can make sure people have the skills they need to get onto an apprenticeship. That is extr…”

“What the Permanent Secretary says is very important. We must go to where people are, not tell them to come to us. There is no one who is hard to reach: we are just rubbish at reaching them.”

“We already have a joint work and health unit with the Department for Health and Social Care. Earlier this week, or last week—I have completely lost track of time—I went on a visit with Wes Streeting to a new Work Well pilot in north London where we are genuinely joining up. GPs are referring people to new Work Well coa…”

“It has to be turbo charged and I believe much more led locally because that is the place you really join it up, not here. Q23            David Pinto-Duschinsky: I will just ask a very brief question—I realise we are short of time—picking up some of the earlier them…”

“If you invite me I would like to come back after our White Paper, because there will be so much more in that and I do not want to get even more on the wrong side of Mr Speaker by divulging details here. The big picture here is that we need to move our Jobcentres away from the sort of overwhelming focus on monitoring an…”

“Thank you, and, Chair, I will try to be shorter. I apologise. As you know, we have a very clear manifesto commitment to review Universal Credit to tackle poverty and make work pay. Those are the two absolutely central tenets of Universal Credit. I think 15 years on from when it was originally brought in is a good time …”

“Just because you change jobs does not mean you stop caring about the things you care about. I have been a lifelong champion of family carers, from my time as a shadow Minister for social care and as a human being as well, seeing how many more people, family, friends and constituents, are caring for an elderly or disabl…”

“That is the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. He is acutely aware both of the need to transform social care in this country, to better support paid carers and unpaid family carers. If you are interested in respite care, that might be something the Chair would be able to ask the Chair …”

“I agree with the first part of your question. The increase in the national living wage announced in the budget that will benefit 3 million low paid workers is a huge step forward. We are currently—certainly in this budget—uprating benefits in line with inflation. There are no plans to change to that at the moment but w…”

“Lots of organisations have called for things like an essentials guarantee—Joseph Rowntree, Trussell Trust and others. You will know very clearly from the Prime Minister and the Chancellor that we will only set out policies when we can show how we can afford them and how we can pay for them, but we have made a start on …”