Across the 9 days leading up to polling day Dorset Eye will publish the answers to the questions set by local people for some of the local candidates standing in the 2015 General Election. Some candidates have yet to reply and should we receive their responses then they will be included in later interviews.
How do you and your party plan to deal with the rising number of people having to use foodbanks?
How does the candidate plan on lifting the poorest parts of their constituency out of the bottom quintiles of poverty in the UK?
.Ros Kayes: Liberal Democrats West Dorset
· We will conduct a review of Universal Credit implementation to address poor administration, information management and data quality issues as well cliff edges within Universal Credit that may disincentivise increased working hours, or leave insufficient childcare or other basic needs support;
· Institute a reform of the Hardship Fund to provide immediate loans to people who have benefit sanctions, which will be repaid, and administered through local government;
· Ensure that sanctions are only used as a last resort in a small number of cases where all other approaches to engagement have failed introducing a yellow card system;
· Introduce a single assessment process across different disability benefits, based on real world tests of capability and functionality, with better allocation into different groups and greater onus and incentives on assessment contractors to collect relevant evidence from health professionals working with those claimants, so that assessment decisions can be right first time and avoid reconsideration and appeal costs.
· Review whether assessments should be undertaken by a public sector provider because of the failures in the current system;
· Remove the bedroom tax completely for the disabled and where no alternative smaller accommodation is available.
Inequality is often self-perpetuating. Consequences of inequality include poor health,
lifestyles, living conditions and reduced life expectancy; inadequate educational attainment and skills; limited self-esteem and aspiration; low participation in social, political and community life, and a sense of lack of control over people’s own lives.
· I’m already campaigning to address this in West Dorset by fighting for better funding for rural areas through my rural bill of rights campaign. I want to secure better funding for rural areas in housing, health, education, transport, support for small and medium enterprises. Housing, energy prices and housing and infrastructure. Rural areas receive less funding per head of population than urban areas. I’m already working with MPs and Peers to push to change this this in the next parliament.
I already have a record of supporting industrial development in West Dorset
· – securing an EU Grant of £220,000 to support training in renewable energy and green small business development in 2010 and working to secure the establishment of a Composite engineering centre in Bridport.
· I run a social enterprise (Skills Training Bridport) which develops training for unemployed people, and am involved in funding .
· I am currently supporting the Stir to Action Local Food Bus with my County Council grant – thisproject aims to maximise local purchases and support the local food economy, helping to build capacity of the growers in the region., as well as giving people on low incomes access to healthy food. I want to support similar strageties throughout West Dorset, including the award winning Home project.
Liberal Democrats want to further support enabling people on low incomes to move out of poverty by:
· extending 15 hours of free childcare to all children following the end of shared parental leave, to enable parents to return to work;
· to raise the tax threshold to £12,500 to lift more people on low incomes out of tax together;
· introduce a ‘Rent to Own’ scheme through which people can start renting social homes and after 10 years take up a mortgage enabling them to buy the property;
· We want to Create a ‘Nursery Premium’ to target extra resources towards improved pre-school provision and parenting support for the most disadvantaged families;
· and to place an obligation on private sector service providers to develop social tariffs which would offer their lowest rates to those in most need;
•as well as requiring financial services providers to tackle financial exclusion for example by ensuring reasonable access to free cash point facilities in low income areas and challenging pay day loans.
· We will be proactive in seeking to extend Sure Start further into harder-to-reach communities, with a goal of making it opt-out instead of opt-in;
· We will encourage Sure Start centres to act as hubs for all voluntary
and private nurseries in their area, in order to reach out to where parents are;
· because education is the key to climbing out os social exclusion, we will protect education funding from 2-19;
· continue the pupil premium targeted funding for disadvantaged students and extend it to nurseries;
· introduce 2/3 bus pass discount off bus travel for all 16-21 year olds to enable them to travel to work, training or college.
Peter Barton: Green Party West Dorset
In the sixth richest country on earth, it is a moral outrage that almost a million people have had recourse to food banks since 2010, half a million in 2014. Recently, the Trussell Trust reported that nearly one third of visits to food banks are caused by delays in benefit payments and almost a quarter by low pay.
In the very short term, the Green Party would address this situation by reforming the benefits system to eradicate these delays in payments. But the real long term solutions would come through introducing a decent living wage of £10.00 per hour by 2020, bringing down energy costs through capping prices and insulating homes, starting with the poorest, raising child benefit to £40.00 per week per child and introducing a decent state pension of £180.00 a week for individuals and £310.00 per week for couples. In addition, we would remove the ‘poverty trap’ experienced by those on benefits who gain employment by spending £30 billion on enabling individuals who find work to keep more of their benefits. Long term, the Green Party would introduce a basic or ‘citizen’s income’, paid to everyone irrespective of their financial circumstances to ensure that no-one ever has recourse to food banks.
Not only would I want to eradicate poverty in West Dorset but the Green Party would take the steps to ensure that everyone in the UK has a decent standard of living with good social security at every stage of their lives.
In West Dorset, we would improve the living standards of the poorest through the introduction of a minimumwage of £10.00 per hour by 2020 and abolishing zero-hours contracts. Additionally, as I stated in my answer to Question 12, we would bring down energy costs through capping prices and insulating homes, starting with the poorest, raise child benefit to £40.00 per week per child and introduce a decent state pension of £180.00 a week for individuals and £310.00 per week for couples. We will abolish the immoral ‘bedroom tax’. We would remove the ‘poverty trap’ experienced by those on benefits who gain employment by spending £30 billion on enabling individuals who find work to keep more of their benefits. All these measures would be steps towards the introduction of our basic income for all after 2020.
These steps to eradicate poverty would be paid for through fair, progressive taxes which make the super-rich one per cent in particular make a fair contribution through an annual wealth tax of 2% on all wealth over £3 million, raising corporation tax on large companies to 30%, raising the top rate of income tax to 60%, scrapping the cap on employees’ National Insurance, introducing a financial transactions (‘Robin Hood’) tax and cracking down hard on tax evasion and avoidance.
Other Green policies which would contribute to the eradication of poverty in West Dorset would be the building of sustainable new homes for social rent, reducing public transport fares by 10% and restoring full council tax benefit.
Oliver Letwin: The Conservative Party West Dorset
The way forward lies in a strong economy that generates full employment, taking those on minimum wage out of tax, and rolling out Universal Credit so that we have a seamless benefit system that doesn’t leave people temporarily stranded when their circumstances change.
The route out of poverty is properly paid work — which requires both a strong economy to generate the jobs and training for young people so that they can take up those jobs. That’s why I am a passionate proponent of our apprenticeship programme, which has provided 2 million apprenticeships in the last Parliament and will provide 3 million more in the next Parliament.
Vikki Slade: Liberal Democrats Mid Dorset and North Poole
Many of the families and individuals resorting to foodbanks are doing so because of sanctions placed on them through the benefits system. It is outrageous that vital funds are being withheld for punitive reasons, and to save money, for misdemeanours like failing to attend a single appointment or not being able to afford the fare to get to an appointment.
I want to see as many families as possible making their rightful claims for benefits and in particular Pupil Premium for their children. Children need to be supported from their very early days and it is through education and inclusion that they will grow and develop. Our passion for apprenticeships will give them opportunities when they leave school and our fair approach to welfare will allow them to find a sustainable way out of poverty.
Simon Hoare: Conservative Party North Dorset
By continuing to grow the economy we will create more jobs and opportunities. I want the need to operate or use a food bank to become redundant
Parts of North Dorset are very wealthy while others are not. Unfortunately it is sometimes only the wealthy parts that get seen. I want to increase the provision of affordable housing, improve roads/broadband and mobile coverage to encourage businesses to expand or establish in North Dorset. Growing the local economy and incentivising business is the best way to resolve this issue. It won’t happen over night but I am going to give it a go.
Rachel Rogers, Labour Party West Dorset
It’s laudable that so many people are volunteering to help run foodbanks for those who have no money but it’s shameful that, in 2015, so many people are being forced to use them. We need to stem this rising tide by getting more people into work, by banning the exploitative zero-hours contracts which make it difficult to budget and impossible to save and by enforcing the minimum wage and ensuring that it is a minimum and not a default. By increasing that minimum wage to £8ph by 2019 and by encouraging companies to pay the Living Wage, thus reducing reliance on in-work benefits such as housing benefit. By working to ensure that people are able to access the benefits to which they are entitled and are not discriminated against because of poor mental health or learning disabilities and by re-examining the question of sanctions, which leave families without sufficient money to live on.
In addition to the measures I outlined in the answer to question 12 we need to attract more jobs and better jobs, initially by lobbying Dorset’s conurbation-based Local Enterprise Partnership to invest more in West Dorset, an area whose existence it has so far barely acknowledged, and in the transport infrastructure which will enable people to access those jobs. However, a distribution covers the whole of the set (in this case, population) so there will always be people/regions in both the top and bottom quintiles of poverty (and of every percentile of every measure), and to claim differently would be statistically misleading.
Simon Bowkett: Labour Party Dorset South
This week the Trussell Trust, the largest single provider of foodbanks in the UK, reported that it has now helped 1 million people with its food parcels. Many more foodbanks are operated by other churches, community organisations and other faith groups. The scandal of food poverty, housing poverty and energy poverty is a national disgrace.
Increasingly, those seeking emergency assistance are in work – but the employment market is not working for too many people who are working too few hours in insecure jobs, for too little pay.
At the same time, the safety net of our welfare state has not worked for too many people. Errors in payments, delays and unfair sanctions have seen those most in need left without any support; while the welfare state continues to subsidise low pay through tax credits and housing benefits. Last year, £11 billion of welfare support was paid to people working in supermarkets alone.
The Tories have committed to a further £12 billion of cuts to welfare if they are re-elected, but will not say where the axe will fall. Child benefits, tax credits, disability and carers’ benefits, housing benefits – all could be in their sights.
Labour has a better plan for those out of work, or trapped into low-paid, insecure jobs.
We will increase the minimum wage to at least £8 per hour
We will ban exploitative zero-hour contracts
We will offer a higher rate of Job Seekers Allowance for those who have contributed the most over their working lives
We will reform the current unfair and punitive sanctioning regime within DWP
We will offer all young people unemployed for a year or more a starter job or apprenticeship.
Jane Burnet: Green Party Dorset South
We are not embarrassed to tax the wealthiest and I would ask you to look at my web site www.janeburnet4southdorset.org.uk to see how we could raise over £100bn / year and end the cuts. The use of food banks is a direct result of the cuts. In the 7th richest country in the world, they are an unnecessary disgrace.
More social housing for low rents, owned and run by the council for the local communities will do a lot to reduce rents and housing costs right across the housing market. South Dorset has one of the highest affordability gaps between house prices and incomes, so this is an important aspect of your question.
We then want to see the introduction of the living wage.
We want to reform the way energy bills are priced. At the moment the first kilowatts are more expensive so the more that is used, the less per kilowatt is charged. This penalises low energy users who are often in the poorer quintile. We would also ensure that those on meters do not pay more than those on quarterly bills.
Job seekers are penalised if they find a few hours’ work, which might be temporary but which could lead to something more. We want to see the first £50 ignored before JSA is reduced.
There will be free local public transport for children and students, allowing job seekers to go for interviews and making travel cheaper for the poorest quintile.
And because we are able to end the cuts with our bold tax policies, we will restore local authority funding and it is local authorities that offer much of the support that the poorest quintile needs.
Thank you to all those who responded and to all those who set the questions.
