19:00 - The House divided: - Ayes: 215 / Noes: 262 - Question accordingly negatived.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Stephen Crabb)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith).
This House is at its best when it seeks to speak with one voice. There have been times in the past when the House has sought to speak with one voice, and no more so than in the area of disability. That is when we get the best response from organisations that represent disabled people and disabled people themselves, because they respect that. The tone that the hon. Gentleman has struck this afternoon is entirely the opposite approach. I regret the way in which he has gone about his business this afternoon and his partisan tone. I know he thinks that this style of opposition works for him, especially on Twitter, but organisations that represent disabled people and disabled people themselves will be very disappointed with the tone that he has struck.
Under this Government, our country has seen the highest levels of employment ever, with more than 2.5 million more people in work than six years ago. However, for many disabled people who want to work and who could work, the unquestionable improvement in our labour market and historic levels of employment over recent years do not ring true when it comes to their own circumstances and outlook for the future.
That is partly a legacy of the system that we inherited as a Government. It dates back to the days of one of my predecessors, John Hutton, who said that under his reforms, he wanted to see 1 million sick or disabled people get back to work. The truth is that that never happened. Instead, far too many sick and disabled people were parked on benefits without the correct support from the health service or the jobcentres. That is what happened under Labour and what has been happening over the last six years.
I made it clear in my first statement to the House following my appointment in March that I am ambitious for disabled people and for the support that they receive. I am ambitious for Britain to become the best country in the world for disabled people to live: a country that provides the right kind of support to help them lead as full and active a life as possible; a country that is a world leader in assistive technologies that transform their independence at home and their working environments; a country where employers embrace and embed disability awareness as a core component of their business; a country where disabled people have the same opportunities as anybody else to get a job and share in the prosperity of our growing economy.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State chided my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) for the tone of his opening remarks, but does he not recognise that the organisations that represent disabled people are unanimously opposed to the scale of the cuts to support that his Government have introduced?
Stephen Crabb
I have huge respect for the right hon. Gentleman. The truth is that in real terms, we are increasing the support that we give to disabled people. By the end of the Parliament, we will still be spending about £50 billion to support people with long-term health conditions and disabilities.
Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
I struggle to understand how the Secretary of State could suggest that support for disabled people has gone up in real terms, when if someone who is currently on employment and support allowance and who is in receipt of ESA WRAG goes into work but then falls out, they lose access to that £30 a week. How can he possibly say that when he is looking at a person-centred approach to this debate?
Stephen Crabb
We can get on to that later in the debate. The truth is that ESA has not worked in the way that was intended when it was set up by the previous Labour Government. When John Hutton created ESA, it was with a view to seeing 1 million people with disabilities and long-term health conditions get back into work. It has not done anything like that. The truth is that for those people who are in the work-related activity group, there are better ways to get them the support they need and to help them back into work. The incentives are not in place.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
What percentage of the workforce in this country has disabilities, or, to put it another way, what percentage of people with disabilities are part of the workforce?
Stephen Crabb
There are different ways of measuring that, but around one in six people have a disability. I will come on to explain why those figures will go up and what challenges that will present to us as a society. It is a mark of the extent of our ambition as a Government that we have a commitment to halve the disability employment gap. That is exactly the right vision to have, but we are in no doubt that the challenges are both profound and complex.
The employment rate for those who are not disabled is currently 80%; for disabled people it is 47%. That is not just a gap of 33 percentage points, but a gap in the life chances of disabled people up and down the country. It is a gap that has persisted for too long. The barriers that disabled people have built up over many years will take time to break down. I am clear that, for far too long, too many have not had the right support or been given the opportunity of work. Very often they are parked on benefits, cast aside and forgotten about. That is not good enough.
Stephen Crabb
I will make a bit more progress, but I will give way later.
Emerging from this past of unfulfilled potential, there are encouraging signs that those barriers are being dismantled and that attitudes are changing. Travelling home on the Tube the other day, I saw an advert promoting a career with Shell—I can already see grimaces on Labour Members’ faces. That ad made it clear that Shell recognises that the more diverse and inclusive a team, the more varied the ideas and the better the business. Diversity drives innovation. The ad shows how a disabled person is as much a part of a business’s core vision of success as any other recruit. Recruiting disabled people should not be a bolt-on extra or a nice thing to do. As the ad says, the company is in search of “pioneers” and “remarkable people”. For me, this was more than a recruitment ad; it was a much wider advert for how society is changing and how disabled people are viewed. They are no longer patronised or diminished, but a core component of a well-performing business and of a diverse and successful society.
I see and hear that change for myself when I meet employers, charities and disabled people. I hear it from members of the Disability Charities Consortium and of the mental health expert advisory group. Just yesterday, when I was visiting the constituency of the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), I had the pleasure of going to a micro-brewery in Bermondsey where all the employees have learning disabilities.
Stephen Crabb
Now is probably a good moment to give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Neil Coyle
I thank the Secretary of State for giving way and for visiting the fantastic organisation, UBREW, in my constituency. He has spoken a lot about ambition, but does he not think that this House and disabled people were misled about the timing of the new disability support programme from next year—at the same time as the ESA cut is going to be delivered? Does he not think that it would be fairer and more reasonable if the ESA cut was delayed until his delay to deliver the new employment programme has come to an end?
Stephen Crabb
I do not think that the House was misled. The money has been made available from the Treasury and I have discussed it with the Chancellor. That money is there. What I have decided to do—I will explain this in more detail later—is to take a step back and work much more closely with disability organisations and disabled people. Rather than rush to push out a White Paper, I have decided to talk to those organisations that know the situation the best, and work in a new spirit to work up some proposals that we know will make a long-term difference. That decision I have taken not to rush ahead with a White Paper and to work more collaboratively on a Green Paper has been welcomed by the organisations that I have been speaking to.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
The Secretary of State talked about the importance of having the right support for people with a learning disability. Young people with a learning disability often tell me that the transition at 16 to mainstream college can be especially challenging for them, particularly if they want to go on into employment. Will he join me in supporting organisations, such as Dove House in my constituency, that want to do more to help special schools support students right through to 19, to ensure that young people have the support they need to get into employment?
Stephen Crabb
My right hon. Friend, a former Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, makes a really important point and that is an organisation that I would love to hear more from. That period of transition is crucial. Those charities—we all have them in our constituencies, do we not, Madam Deputy Speaker?—often have more expertise than anybody else and work day by day in local communities, supporting people with disabilities. We need to hear far more from organisations like that.
The pride and passion that I saw displayed yesterday among the staff at that social enterprise, employing people with learning disabilities in that wonderful community of Bermondsey in south London, was a model of motivation for supporting people with disabilities. These positive experiences are reflected in the figures. Over the past two years alone, 365,000 more disabled people have gone into work, and that is a huge achievement. However, that progress has not translated into a narrowing of the disability employment gap, largely because of the enormous growth across the labour market in general. The gap will close only when we see a faster increase in the rate of employment growth among people with disabilities than across the economy generally. That is how we close the gap.
The shadow Secretary of State lauded the fact that, on paper at least, the disability gap was narrower under Labour, but that was because unemployment was soaring across the economy. That is not the way to close the disability employment gap. We need to harness the positive progress across the economy and ensure that people with disabilities and long-term health conditions are at the front of the queue to benefit from those changes in economy.
Chloe Smith
I am very pleased that my right hon. Friend has come on to this point. Does this not echo the broader point about what we need to do about life chances, which is not to focus on transfers over an imaginary line but instead focus on the real underlying factors?
Stephen Crabb
My hon. Friend makes an important broader point about how we think about poverty and disadvantage. I think that we have come a long way as a Government and across society in understanding poverty. It is not just about chasing after a target on paper; it is about understanding what is going on behind the scenes and drilling down into root causes.
The disability employment gap is national but the support and solutions are, I believe, often local. Many Members on both sides of the House are doing excellent work to encourage and support disabled people in moving into work in their constituencies. One example of that is the holding of reverse job fairs, which are important events to link local employers with specialist disability organisations and help to create long-term job opportunities for disabled jobseekers. Jobcentres up and down the country are also on the frontline, supporting disabled people’s move into work, and we are more than doubling the number of disability employment advisers in jobcentres to provide specialist and local expertise to help disabled people enter employment.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
I commend the Secretary of State for his tone. One category that he has not mentioned is those who suffer from long-term mental health conditions and who are getting back into work. I commend to him recommendation 7 of the independent mental health taskforce, chaired by the chief executive of Mind, which talks about the DWP working to direct funds currently used to support people on employment and support allowance to commission evidence-based health-led interventions to help get people with long-term mental health conditions back into work.
Stephen Crabb
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I am clear, as is my whole ministerial team at the Department, that the challenge of mental health is enormous and profound. We must do far more to understand it and its interaction with employment. We will be spending tens of millions of pounds in the coming years on pilots to try to understand what interventions can make a positive difference for people with mental health conditions, and I can assure my hon. Friend that we are determined to see positive change in that regard.
We are expanding Access to Work, so that 25,000 more disabled people by 2021 will be helped with the additional costs they face from working. We are ensuring that disabled people are part of our plans to increase apprenticeships, with an accessible apprenticeship task force which is providing advice on how potential apprentices with learning disabilities and other hidden impairments can take these up.
Nicola Blackwood
The Secretary of State is generous in giving way. On Access to Work and the fact that we are increasing spending on it, that increased spending will be of little value if it remains, as Liz Sayce said, the “best kept secret” in the DWP. How can we ensure that the most vulnerable and the smallest businesses, which would benefit most from it, hear about it and can gain the full value of that scheme?
Stephen Crabb
The slightly glib answer that I could give is that there is a role for all of us in this House to promote Access to Work in our communities and constituencies, but there is a broader challenge for the Department and for the Ministers as to how we get that information out. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, who has responsibility for disabled people, is taking the lead on that and will refer to it in his closing remarks.
Neil Coyle
I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. Can he explain why the number of disabled people supported by Access to Work is lower now than it was in the last full year of Labour in government? When will he publish the figures for the number of young disabled people who are supported from the £10 million fund that was meant to have been dedicated to voluntary placements from 2013?
Stephen Crabb
I do not have the specific figures to hand, but I heard a voice in my ear from my colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), that those figures are not correct, so perhaps in his closing remarks he can respond directly to the question from the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle).
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
My right hon. Friend made the point about apprenticeships. I was interested to hear some comments from the Minister for Skills recently about the possibilities of adapted apprenticeship frameworks for people with particular disabilities and learning difficulties. We recently had a fantastic cross-party debate in this House about autism. Does my right hon. Friend agree that for people with autism, apprenticeships can offer a very good way forward if they are properly designed?
Stephen Crabb
Indeed. We have the accessible apprenticeship taskforce, which will report to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. That is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), who has deep experience and expertise on these issues. I am sure autism will be one of the aspects that we consider.
We are embedding employment advisers with mental health therapies to support people with mental health conditions to receive timely and tailored employment advice. We are supporting disabled entrepreneurs through the new enterprise allowance, with over 16,000 businesses being set up by people with disabilities and long-term health conditions since 2011. Only today, I was reading about a deaf person in Gloucester who has been helped by the new enterprise allowance to set up a carpentry business. That person is no longer on benefits and has joined the many thousands of small business entrepreneurs who are so important to our economy.
These are all real, practical measures that we are taking to make a difference for disabled people, but the scale of the challenge that we face demands a broader response. The scale of the challenge is demonstrated by the forecasts and by the way our demographics are changing. More and more of us of working age will be living with some kind of health condition in the future that will need to be managed for us to stay healthy in work. Around 12 million people of working age are already living with at least one long-term condition, and that figure is forecast to rise. Mental health problems are also rising, particularly for young people. Around one in six working people have a mental health condition, and that figure rises to around one in four for jobseeker’s allowance claimants and almost half for those receiving ESA. Lifestyle factors such as smoking and obesity mean that the proportion of the working population with significant health conditions such as diabetes and heart disease is likely to increase.
Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)
Is any monitoring being done as to how many people who get into work are still in that job one year later? Sustainability is just as important as getting the job in the first place.
Stephen Crabb
The hon. Lady mentions an extremely important point. We are doing that, particularly for people with disabilities. More broadly, with our universal credit reforms, that is one of the things that we will be doing generally for people moving off benefits. The support does not end the day that they find a job. The support continues, to ensure that the employment is sustainable.
On top of the long-standing barriers disabled people have faced, there are serious long-term demographic changes. They require serious and long-term cross-sector solutions. No single policy or initiative from my Department or any other will serve as a silver bullet to immediately close and seal the disability employment gap. We will only make the strides we all want to see by working differently and by working in a truly collaborative way; yes, with the health service and the welfare system, but also with local authorities, employers, charities and voluntary organisations. It means we also need to listen to, and speak with, those who know what support will work best—disabled people themselves.
That is why I announced that we will publish a Green Paper later this year to do just that. I make no apology for taking the time to ensure we get such important reforms right. The reforms have the potential to transform so many lives. It is important to build consensus and to seek the views and support of the individuals and groups involved. It is also about understanding what works with groups who perhaps have not been heard from enough so far, such as smaller, local organisations who have a lot of expertise and understanding of what works on the ground, and importantly, groups such as employers to look seriously at the role they have to support and help the disabled people they employ.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
The Secretary of State will know of the work done by the charity Pluss. Indeed, his colleague the Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), attended the showing of a recent video it produced about people who had returned to work. Does he agree with Pluss and me that there may be opportunities to attract more smaller employers into taking on people with disabilities if there is a tax break on national insurance, in the same way as there is a tax break on apprenticeships for smaller employers at the moment?
Stephen Crabb
It is exactly that kind of incentive that I hope the Green Paper process will explore. Those are exactly the kinds of ideas that we need to examine. My colleagues in the Treasury will obviously take an interest, but we have to think differently right across Government if we are to have any hope of closing the disability employment gap. I am particularly keen to know what small businesses think about what they can do to employ more people with disabilities.
Stephen Timms
I applaud the aspiration for consensus, which the Secretary of State has now set out a couple of times in his speech. Does he not recognise, however, that he will not achieve a consensus against a backdrop of such huge cuts in support for disabled people? The Chancellor tried that again in the most recent Budget. While the Government are cutting support so much, the Secretary of State will not find the consensus that he rightly wants to achieve.
Stephen Crabb
I hear the right hon. Gentleman’s point. When it was made earlier, I said that by the end of this Parliament we will still be spending more in real terms on supporting people with disabilities. My aspiration for the end of the Parliament is that we will be spending in a much more effective way to help to transform lives.
This new approach is not just about changing the way disabled people are supported to move into work, but how they are helped to stay in work. A disabled person may make the breakthrough into work only to permanently fall out of work and on to sickness benefits soon after. Tens of thousands of disabled people do so every few months. I completely agree with the Resolution Foundation’s report this week, which highlighted the need for more focus on supporting disabled people in work, as well as those moving into work. Prevention and early support will be key to that, which is why we are supporting people to stay in work and trying to prevent them from becoming ill in the first place. That is why we are investing an extra £1 billion a year for mental health care in the NHS to support 1 million more people to access high-quality timely care.
Our Green Paper has the potential to be an historic opportunity to harness and build on the positive changes we have seen for disabled people. It is only through this approach—working with employers, disabled people themselves, the NHS and the welfare system, and local authorities—that we can build a strategy that will work to make a difference to people’s lives, keeping them in work as well as helping to support many, many more into employment.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People (Justin Tomlinson)
It is a great pleasure to conclude this debate, which has been a positive and constructive debate on a very vital subject. I think it is fair to say that on the majority of the issues there is genuine cross-party consensus. We have identified the challenges that we face and we are looking to find as many opportunities as possible to move forward. I am proud to serve in a Government where the Prime Minister personally committed us to halving the disability employment gap. Our Secretary of State has shown a genuine passion to understand, listen and engage with the stakeholders—those with the first-hand experience of how we can identify the opportunities and overcome the challenges. I am confident that we will continue to make a real difference in this vital area.
In the past two years alone, 365,000 more disabled people have entered into work. This is crucial for a number of reasons, as I find when I engage with stakeholders, particularly young stakeholders. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) mentioned his nephew who is taking his GCSE exams—I join in the good luck messages to him. That summed up exactly why this is so important. Disabled people rightly wish to be judged on their ability, not their disability. I say that as an individual who has not only employed disabled people but benefited from doing so.
We have to look at businesses. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) highlighted one of the key areas, which is that we have a skills shortage in this country. If businesses have the confidence to make the necessary changes—often, they are small ones—they will benefit. If more disabled people can get into work, disabled people and businesses will benefit. It is a genuine win-win situation. Key for the Government, and key in my role, is to make sure that we showcase talent, share best practice and create genuine opportunities.
I will quickly whizz through some of the highlights of the work that we are already doing. There is a real-terms increase in support to help those with disabilities and long-term health conditions to seek work. We are reforming Jobcentre Plus. We have the hidden impairment toolkit and additional training. We have doubled the number of disability advisers. We have commissioned the £43 million mental health pilots, including the collocation of improving access to psychological therapies.
The new Work and Health unit rightly brings together the greatest minds in DWP and the Department of Health —something that has been greatly welcomed by our stakeholder groups. In that, we have already commissioned pilots on the innovation portfolios with a real focus on mental health support, the personalisation pathfinders and the peer-to-peer support that our stakeholders repeatedly highlight as crucial. Disability Rights UK has helped to lead on those pilots. The hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron), who does great work as the chair of the all-party group on disability, also recognises the importance of peer-to-peer support.
With the reforms and the introduction of universal credit, the area that I am most excited about is having a named coach for the first time. As individuals navigate their way over the challenges of getting into the workplace, they will have a named coach to support them to find work and to get additional support. When they are in work, for the first time they will have continued support to help them to achieve genuine career progression.
I welcome the increased focus from the Health and Safety Executive, for which I am also responsible. Its title includes health and safety, and on safety it is world leading—foreign countries and foreign businesses pay for our expertise in improving safety—but there is also a real focus on the health side, recognising that we lose 131 million days a year to ill health. There will be a huge amount of additional work in that area. The HSE has fantastic business engagement. Businesses of all sizes—small, medium-sized and large—proactively engage with it, and we want to utilise that.
Mr Robin Walker
While my hon. Friend is on the subject of health, does he agree that disability sport can play a huge role in not only supporting the health of people with disabilities but building their confidence and helping them to prepare for work? Does he agree that we should do all we can to support initiatives such as the International Centre for Inclusive Sport at the University of Worcester?
Justin Tomlinson
I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention. I absolutely agree, and it was a great pleasure to join my hon. Friend in visiting Worcester arena, which showcased how inclusive design right from the beginning has made a genuine difference and created more opportunities. That was one of my favourite visits as a Minister.
The new employment allowance has helped more than 16,000 disabled people to start their own business, and with Access to Work we have secured funding for an additional 25,000 people. We are close to launching the digital service to bring Access to Work online, which will please employers and those who seek to claim. We have introduced specialist teams. We have the mental health support service, and we are doing further work to support apprentices, particularly those with mental health conditions. My hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup) highlighted the need to increase awareness, and she is absolutely right. All too often, this has been Government’s best-kept secret. I commissioned work through KPMG to look at how we can better increase awareness so that we can, as quickly as possible, fill the 25,000 additional places. As many speakers have highlighted, it is not just about the Government; we have to look at employers, because employers will create those opportunities.
Neil Coyle
Before the Minister moves away from the role of the Government, can I just say how refreshing the disability organisations I am proud to have worked with over the years have found it to have a new Secretary of State, with a new and more engaging agenda, who is willing to acknowledge that there has been significant failure over the last six years at the introduction of new and better schemes?
Justin Tomlinson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that comment. I find it refreshing that the Secretary of State is willing to engage, because we are talking about the individuals who see those opportunities and challenges from day to day, and who can provide us with constructive solutions. The Green Paper, which I will talk about later on, is a real opportunity for them genuinely to shape how we will improve opportunities.
We want to help encourage employers to provide such opportunities so that those who chose to engage with the Work programme, with Work Choice and with charities do not continue in the loop—yet another 12-week course to be told how to prepare a CV and go through an interview—and lose confidence as they move further away from the jobs market. The key is that if we can create those opportunities, more people will be able to get into work.
Our Disability Confident campaign has now signed up over 600 employers, and we are recruiting over 100 a month. This is about sharing best practice and signposting, but we will go further. We are working on plans with greater asks of particularly the larger employers to make sure that they include as many people as possible from their supply chain in such training days.
Several Members have highlighted reverse jobs fairs. It was a great pleasure to visit the one held by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones). This is about bringing together all the organisations doing a huge amount of work to support disabled people in their respective communities to meet small and medium-sized businesses that are often unaware of the huge wealth of talent in the country and the support that would help people into work. I am proud that a cross-party group of over 50 MPs have signed up to hold their very own reverse jobs fairs. I thank each and every one of them because it will make a difference.
We have commissioned small employer engagement pilots, in which we are sending out representatives to talk to small and medium-sized businesses—doorstepping them, asking them to put on the kettle, and saying, “Look, we are here to support you. We can signpost you to genuine talent to fill your skills gaps.” The pilots are still in their early days, but I am very excited by the positive outcomes achieved in matching skills gaps with people who wish to work.
Some speakers talked about how vital apprenticeships are. They give people a genuine opportunity to develop real, tangible skills that will lead to work. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), who has chaired the joint taskforce set up by the Minister for Skills, the BIS Minister with responsibility for apprenticeships, and me. The taskforce will make sure we can open the apprenticeship commitment—the Government want 3 million more people to access the apprenticeships scheme during this Parliament—to more people with disabilities, particularly those with learning difficulties who find the entry requirement of grade Cs in GCSE maths and English to be a hurdle too far. Again, I am very excited about this. We set up a one-month taskforce, and its work was completed yesterday. We will look at its recommendations, and we intend to act as quickly as possible.
This is about the importance of localising and tailoring our solutions, and we are absolutely committed to that. Several speakers highlighted the fact that only 6% of those with learning disabilities will typically achieve meaningful, tangible outcomes. That is totally unacceptable. When I visited Foxes Academy in Bridgwater, which was featured on Channel 5, I learned that over 80% of its students have been able to find work, of which 45.6% are in paid employment. That is because it has the equivalent of an apprenticeship scheme, with supported working. It works with employers to identify skills gaps and it provides the necessary training. That is something we can replicate and that I want the taskforce to highlight, and I am excited about its potential.
I attended the launch of the Resolution Foundation report yesterday, and I pay tribute to both Laura and Declan, who did a huge amount of work on it. The report highlights a lot of important issues, especially about the retention of disabled people in work, which is particularly important given that we have an ageing workforce and that 83% of people with a disability have developed that disability with age. It is right to look at all those areas to help keep as many people as possible in work. It is far easier to support people to keep them in work than it is to get them back into work.
To turn to the Green Paper, I know from my engagement with them that the stakeholders are genuinely excited at this opportunity. They understand that they will make a tangible difference to what the Government are doing, and I hope that that will secure support.
I want quickly to respond to some of the points made by the shadow Secretary of State. On mobility, there are 22,000 more people accessing the mobility scheme than before PIP was introduced. On the 20-metre rule, it is not as black and white as whether someone can do 19 metres or 21 metres; it is about being able to travel a distance reliably, safely, in a timely manner and repeatedly. On the assessment process, I urge the shadow Secretary of State to visit a centre and sit through an assessment to see what happens. There is too much hearsay, and not enough genuine knowledge. On DLA, let us remember that only 16% of claimants accessed the highest rate of benefit compared with 22.5% under PIP. We are targeting the money at the most vulnerable, and that is why the numbers are increasing and the money is being spent.
I say to the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) that it is right this is done on a cross-Government basis. It has to be joined up and we genuinely need greater understanding. I say to all those who contributed to this debate that it has been an important and positive one.
Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Main Question accordingly put.