Speeches by Dixon.

“There are expenses and deductions.”

“Thank you for acknowledging the distress this has caused through DWP’s own errors. There are many more people—86,900—who have outstanding carer’s allowance overpayments. That may not always be due to this error on your part in terms of the internal guidance, but it has affected people because of the complexity of this.…”

“In light of the pretty damning Liz Sayce report, “Independent Review of Carer’s Allowance Overpayments”, I take slight issue with your framing of fraud, Neil. Some of that is claimant error. People face an extremely complex system. It is not intentional. We see that carers are saying they were pursued as if they were c…”

“I will leave it there in terms of controls.”

“I have one more question, which is in this area of controls. I have been made aware of an issue around the work capability and people notifying that they are in work, where that is not triggering a reassessment. Is that something, in terms of overpayments, that is covered in these figures?”

“I appreciate that you cannot go into too much detail on individual controls because we do not want to tell people out there where your weaknesses are. On the other hand, this Committee needs to try to judge value for money. There is a very significant amount of public money going in, through the Budget, to DWP to tackl…”

“I would like to stick with universal credit and ask Vikki about some of the controls, which are set out in the annual report, with claims of some £25 billion prevented. It seems that the largest amount there is in the downward adjustments to current or past entitlement. Can you say a little more about what controls are…”

“Q13. This week I met my constituents, Mike and Sue. Their autistic son Jimmy was imprisoned as a young man. The judge recommended a sentence of two and a half years. Jimmy is now in his 40s. He has been in prison for nearly 20 years on an indeterminate sentence for public protection. His doctors say that he is safe and…”

“I represent a constituency on the other side of the Pennines. Does my hon. Friend agree that this investment in transport in the north, linking across the Pennines to great cities like Leeds and Bradford and delivering on Northern Powerhouse Rail in full, including a station in Bradford, is necessary?”

“Last week, I went to Shipley college in my constituency and met some of the students. They asked what the Labour Government were going to do to provide them with training and employment opportunities. Does my hon. Friend agree that giving free training to SMEs to take on apprentices will help to deliver better opportun…”

“My hon. Friend speaks with passion about child poverty. The fact that we have so many children in poverty is clearly a legacy of Tory economic mismanagement. Does my hon. Friend agree that the removal of the two-child benefit cap is a victory for compassion, justice and evidence-based policymaking?”

“It is vital that people in all types of tenure and even low-income households—indeed, everybody—can access modifications that could save them money on their bills. Poor-quality housing particularly traps households in fuel poverty, because people need to spend a fortune to keep warm. Data from Friends of the Earth show…”

“I beg to move, That this House has considered the impact of home insulation on energy bills. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. Across the country, 12 million households are in fuel poverty, with almost 5 million of them spending over 20% of their income on energy. Like many other people across th…”

“I commend the work of local organisations such as Beat the Cold and the charity Groundwork. I also hope that the Minister will say how he can help support those efforts locally. Another local project that I would like to pay tribute to is Saltaire Retrofit Reimagined. It is a community-led home retrofit initiative supp…”

“My hon. Friend makes the point very well, and I absolutely agree that poor housing is part of a public health emergency. Young and old alike suffer from cold and damp homes. At the extreme, cold homes kill. It has been estimated that they contributed to 5,000 excess winter deaths among older people in 2022-23. For me, …”

“I absolutely agree that home insulation is essential in tackling not only rising energy bills but climate change. I hope the Minister will confirm the Government’s ambition to upgrade 5 million homes by the end of the current Parliament; it is a fantastic goal that will reduce energy bills. We are also expanding the wa…”

“I thank the Minister for the reassurance that householders affected by faulty work will be getting an audit and that there will be remedies. Can he confirm when those letters will be going out, if they have not already, and whether they will be from Ofgem?”

“I commend the Minister on her fantastic closing remarks. I emphasise the points made by my hon. Friends—[Interruption.]”

“Just briefly on the ABC programme, we heard in the pre-panel—”

“I am just thinking that that may be getting too technical—”