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Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Government support for disabled people in poverty.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. Most hon. Members present will be aware that this debate takes place in the shadow of the publication of the welfare Bill, probably tomorrow, which could usher in some of the deepest and most severe cuts to disability benefits since 2010.
We already know that the current benefits system is not working. Some 700,000 families with a disability are already living in poverty, and 75% of people who turn to food banks are disabled or live in a disabled household. Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions in March this year revealed that 4.7 million people in disabled households are facing hunger, and unsurprisingly, women make up the majority of those disabled people and carers.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I withdrew my name so that other Members would have time to speak, but I will make a small intervention. In Northern Ireland, over a fifth of the population aged 16 to 64 are disabled. Among the UK regions, Northern Ireland has the lowest disability employment rate and the largest unemployment gap between disabled and non-disabled persons. The fact is, if someone is disabled and in poverty in Northern Ireland, they are really in trouble. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is up to this Government, and this Minister, to give us the changes that we need to help those disabled people in poverty in Northern Ireland and elsewhere?
Neil Duncan-Jordan
Yes, I agree, and later I will talk about disabled people and how employment may be a route out of poverty.
Any losses through changes to benefits will overwhelmingly fall on those who are already the poorest in our society. The Government are right that the social security system is in need of reform, but benefits are far from generous, and they often fail to cover the essentials of living. The process of claiming support can also be extremely complicated and confusing, and that often leads to individuals incorrectly filling in the forms or finding the process too difficult to even start. The assessment process, which is outsourced to five private companies, can be slow and is often open to appeal.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
My constituent in Langport, Samantha, is a recipient of personal independence payment. She had treatment for endometritis and is struggling with cancer. Her PIP review was submitted in 2024. It comprised 100 pages of evidence—an onerous process that took six weeks to complete—and she is still awaiting a decision. Does the hon. Gentleman recognise my concern that the Government’s intention to make what is already a burdensome process more challenging will discriminate against the most vulnerable in our society?
Neil Duncan-Jordan
I absolutely agree with the hon. Member.
All the things I described need to be addressed, but the fear among disabled people is that the changes outlined in the “Pathways to Work” Green Paper, which may or may not find their way into the Bill, amount to piling more cuts on to an already broken system.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)
In my constituency, 23,000 people receive universal credit and 11,000 receive PIP. I have asked what impact the changes will have on people going into poverty or being helped into work, and I have had very few answers. Estimates from Health Equity North show that the changes will amount to about £22 million a year being taken out of the local economy. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is utterly unconscionable for us to decide to produce that outcome without any evidence to demonstrate the benefits? We are effectively voting blind, and that is simply not acceptable.
Neil Duncan-Jordan
I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution. I will later talk about the evidence that we need to see before we come to a vote.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a strong case. Further to the previous intervention, 44,000 disabled people in my constituency risk losing PIP. They are absolutely horrified, because they will not only lose their dignity but be pushed into serious poverty. This is not the right way to do things, and it is certainly not the Labour way to do things. Does he agree that the right choice would be to tax the super-rich, so they pay their fair share?
Neil Duncan-Jordan
We absolutely have to look at our taxation system and ensure that those with the broadest shoulders carry the biggest burden, rather than saving money on the back of disabled people.
Even the Government’s own assessment shows that the changes are likely to have a significant financial impact on claimants. For example, tightening the eligibility criteria for personal independence payment so that individuals will be required to score four points in at least one category will mean that 800,000 people lose the daily living element of PIP, with an average loss of £4,500 a year. The points system is already deeply flawed, especially for those with dynamic disabilities such as multiple sclerosis or myalgic encephalomyelitis. The domino effect of tightening PIP eligibility will be severe, because it acts as a passport to other support—150,000 people are set to lose their carer’s allowance if someone they care for no longer qualifies. That could mean a loss to a household of £10,000 a year.
We know that having a disability is expensive: on average, households that have someone with a disability need over £1,000 a month more to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households. The proposed changes to the health element of universal credit will freeze the benefits of over 2 million people, and an estimated 730,000 new claimants will get a lower rate of £50 a week.
Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the sensitivities involved in considering, discussing and voting on such a serious matter require, at the very minimum, an equality impact assessment? It is only through such assessments that we can understand the impact on residents up and down the country.
Neil Duncan-Jordan
I agree. I will come on to that later in my speech.
Those individuals I mentioned—the 730,000 new claimants who will get the lower rate of universal credit—will see an average loss of £3,000 a year. The health element of universal credit will also be cut for those aged under 22, removing vital support that helps young people into work, education and training. The Government cannot claim to want to help young people into work while taking away their safety net. People in all those groups are already struggling to make ends meet so, in reality, the figures are likely to be an underestimate of the scale of the pain being proposed.
A recent freedom of information request revealed that 1.3 million people who currently get the standard daily living award will no longer qualify, which is significantly higher than the Office for Budget Responsibility’s estimated 800,000 people. As a result, 350,000 people will be pushed below the poverty line. In total, over 3 million households will lose out, with as many as 100,000 children being pushed into poverty.
I have heard Ministers repeat the claim that only one in 10 PIP recipients will be affected by the proposals, but that is based on the false assumption that people will get better at filling in the claim forms and that more people will be successful in scoring four points. There is absolutely no evidence to show that that will be the case. The one in 10 figure also does not take into account the potential new claimants who will lose out.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
On the suggestion that there is no evidence, does the evidence not come from when the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee looked at previous assessment changes?
Neil Duncan-Jordan
I have not seen that evidence, but what I have seen points me in a different direction.
We already know that PIP is an underclaimed benefit, as I think my hon. Friend would acknowledge, and that fewer than half of the disabled people who are eligible to make a claim do so. I would therefore argue that the recent increase in the number of claims is largely the result of declining public health in this country combined with the increased financial hardship that disabled people are facing.
The Government have suggested there has been an unsustainable rise in the benefits bill, but as a percentage of GDP, we are spending the same amount on working-age benefits as we were in 2015. Cuts to social security are not an economic necessity; they are a political choice. It has been suggested in the media recently that the transitional arrangements for someone who loses their PIP will be extended from four to 13 weeks, but that only delays the fact that the Government will be making people permanently poorer.
It is right for Ministers to say that work can be a route out of poverty, and that disabled people should be supported to find a job, but the proposed £1 billion of support comes in only at the end of the Parliament—three years after the cuts have been introduced. The Learning and Work Institute estimates that only 45,000 to 90,000 people might find work through that proposed employment support, which cannot possibly offset the 3.2 million people who are having their benefits cut. It is a completely false equivalence.
As hon. Members know, PIP is not an out-of-work benefit, so cutting it is likely to undermine efforts to get people into employment, rather than supporting them into gainful work. Too often, the attitude of employers is the real barrier to disabled people finding a job. Reluctance to offer flexible working patterns, harsh sickness absence policies and disability discrimination are the blockers that many disabled people face. Tackling those would be an important place to start.
Several hon. Members rose—
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
The hon. Member is talking about barriers to disabled people, particularly those in poverty. I am running a campaign calling on the Government to make sure that people with disabled bus passes can use them at any time of the day, rather than just after 9.30 am. Does he agree that that would be a great way to alleviate the poverty of disabled people?
Neil Duncan-Jordan
The hon. Member makes an excellent point, and it is certainly a campaign that I would put my weight behind.
Neil Coyle
On the hugely important issue of discrimination that my hon. Friend touched on, does he agree that it is completely unacceptable that the Government inherited a position where the Department for Work and Pensions was being investigated for unlawful discrimination against disabled people? That is another of the issues that the ministerial team and the Government are having to fix—issues that they inherited from the chaotic and incompetent Governments of the previous 14 years, five of which were in coalition with the Lib Dems.
Neil Duncan-Jordan
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We make a mistake if we say that we can do only one thing and not the other. We can tackle discrimination in the way that he rightly argues, but we do not have to make people poorer in the process. A false argument is being put forward.
There is also a misguided view that cutting expenditure and tightening belts brings savings. We know that that approach shrinks the economy and leaves everybody worse off.
Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)
Does the hon. Member agree that these proposed or suspected cuts to PIP and other benefits are a sword of Damocles hanging over disabled people in this country? Although the savings are expected to be about £4.5 billion across Britain by 2029-30, that does not factor in any of the broader systemic costs, especially those borne by the NHS and local authorities, which could well negate or even exceed that sum.
Neil Duncan-Jordan
The hon. Member has foreseen what I was about to say.
According to the New Economics Foundation, the Government’s projected savings could be entirely wiped out due to depressed economic demand in local communities. Cutting disability benefits will also inevitably lead to increased costs elsewhere through rising pressure on the NHS and local authority social care.
Most of all, people who are already under financial pressure will be even worse off. That is why virtually all major disability organisations are critical of the Government’s proposals. I am sure that I am not the only one who believes that the Government are rushing these proposals through, with MPs being asked to vote in a couple of weeks’ time, before the OBR’s estimates of the employment impact, the review of the PIP assessment, and the Keep Britain Working review into tackling health-related inactivity have been published.
Recognising that the benefits system needs to change, we should halt any proposals for cuts, redesign the system with disabled people and their organisations, and provide up-front investment to support those who can get into meaningful work.
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
My constituency is the home of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the Army Training Centre Pirbright, and is just next door to Aldershot, so veterans, many of whom have career-acquired disabilities, are an integral part of our community. According to recent statistics, 16% of disabled veterans are unable to heat their own homes, and the Trussell Trust says that more than half are considered to be food insecure. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is vital that we offer disabled veterans bespoke support to compensate them for their careers and the lives they have given in the service of our country?
Neil Duncan-Jordan
Veterans, like every disabled individual, should get the support they deserve.
Labour created the modern welfare state, underpinned by universalist principles, to provide dignity and fairness to people when they need a helping hand. That, in my view, is what we should be doing now.
Several hon. Members rose—
Christine Jardine (in the Chair)
Order. I remind Members that if they wish to speak in the debate, they should bob. We have only 20 minutes before we have to move to the Front Benchers at 6.6 pm, so please keep speeches very brief or go for an intervention instead.
Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan), my colleague from Dorset, on securing this important debate. I will attempt to edit my speech as I go along to buy back some time.
Ensuring fairness starts with recognising those who need support the most. The foundation of real support is ensuring that help reaches those who face the greatest challenges. The additional costs of disability—mobility aids, home adaptations, specialist care, heating and travel—add up and are all substantial. Scope estimates that disabled households need an extra £1,010 per month to achieve the same standard of living as a non-disabled household. Nearly 4,800 people in my constituency receive personal independence payments, of whom 40% receive the highest level of support.
Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)
One of the most common reasons why people claim PIP in Yeovil is poor mental health. Does my hon. Friend agree that to support vulnerable people’s mental wellbeing, the Government must urgently change course on the proposed cuts to PIP and introduce proper staff and accessible mental health hubs in every rural community?
Edward Morello
I absolutely agree. The costs for disabled people who live in rural areas include more expensive journeys to access healthcare, unreliable and sparse public transport, and higher energy bills for heating homes that are often older and less efficient.
Hundreds of my constituents have expressed their concerns to me over the last few months, and I have retold some of their stories in this Chamber. Each one represents a wider failure. The Government’s own analysis shows that the proposed changes to PIP will push 300,000 people into poverty. About 150,000 carers stand to lose carers allowance due to the knock-on effect of losing PIP eligibility, harming those who care for the most vulnerable. I urge the Government to change course.
Several hon. Members rose—
Christine Jardine (in the Chair)
Order. I urge Members to keep as close to a minute as they can.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
It is extremely disappointing that the Government are pressing ahead with the cuts. They should have learned the lesson from the winter fuel payment debacle. Ahead of the coming votes, we will hear a lot of Government spin about how it is really about helping disabled people, but it is not. Labour colleagues should remember one key thing: the Government plan to slash £7 billion from support for disabled people. They cannot cut £7 billion from disabled people and then credibly claim to be helping them.
The devastating consequences for our communities are clear: 300,000 to 400,000 more disabled people will be pushed into poverty, 700,000 disabled families who are already in poverty will be pushed deeper into it, and at least 800,000 disabled people will lose PIP—the support they rely on to eat, wash, dress and use the toilet. It is immoral and I will vote against it.
In conclusion, I say to Labour colleagues: this change will become a millstone around the necks of not just the Labour Government but every MP who fails to vote against it. In the coming days, Ministers will call in MPs, and there will be the carrot and the stick. They will be urged not to vote against the cuts, and all sorts of promises will be made. But the minute the vote has taken place, MPs will be dropped and their phone calls will stop being answered. From the day of that vote up to and including the day of the next general election, they will be left to face their constituents alone—left to pick up the pieces in their constituency as thousands are thrown into hardship.
I urge MPs not to sit on their hands but to vote against this change. It is immoral. But the Government should save us from that choice by thinking again and dropping these cruel cuts.
Ann Davies (Caerfyrddin) (PC)
Diolch yn fawr iawn. Analysis from Policy in Practice has found that four of the 10 UK local authority areas worst hit by the welfare cuts are in Wales—and we only have 22 local authorities—impacting 6.1% of our population at a cost of £470 million.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s “Poverty in Wales” report, which was published last week, found that 37% of disabled working-age adults in Wales are already in poverty, compared with 19% of non-disabled working-age people. According to the report, relative poverty increases by 219% among households affected by the loss of both personal independence payments and the healthcare element of universal credit in Wales, with the average depth of poverty among affected households increasing by 65% to £538 per month.
If the administration of the social security system were devolved to Wales, the needs and experiences of disabled people in Wales, rather than cost savings, could be placed at the root of welfare provision. More than four in 10 PIP claimants are already in the bottom fifth of the income distribution; the removal of this lifeline, at an average financial cost of £4,500 a year, will inevitably increase the rate of poverty in Wales and across the UK. The UK Government must urgently stop their welfare plans and instead listen and work with disabled people to address the challenges they face, rather than exacerbate them.
Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under you in the Chair, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) for securing the debate.
Fourteen years of austerity, followed by a global pandemic and then a cost of living crisis, has led to out-of-control inequality in Britain. People and communities have been hammered by austerity cuts to welfare, the NHS and the public services that bind us together and are the civilising force in our society. There is no doubt about it: cuts cost lives.
Last July, people voted for all that suffering to end. They were offered change by Labour. No one from any part of the country thought that, after 14 years of Tory austerity and welfare policies that robbed people of their dignity, the change they voted for would be billions of pounds in cuts from the welfare budget. People voted for something else, and I will be voting for something else.
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
Talking of austerity, Kirklees council has been devastated by the cuts imposed on it by the previous Government. Some 18.9% of people in Kirklees are recorded as disabled. Does the hon. Member agree that taking away PIP from nearly 4,200 residents in my constituency will put an even greater burden on council services that are ill-equipped to bear it?
Brian Leishman
I completely agree. I am glad the hon. Gentleman brought up the subject of local authorities and the added burden on them of picking up the pieces from this horrendous proposal.
As I said, I will be voting for something else. I will be voting against the cruel welfare reforms that the Government have put forward. A Labour Government should always lift people out of poverty, not put people in it.
David Pinto-Duschinsky (Hendon) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine.
If we are to be serious about tackling poverty among disabled people, we need to be honest and focused on tackling its root causes and on making sure that the system is sustainable. The overwhelming driver of poverty among disabled people is low levels of employment. Only 54% of disabled people are in work; that is 30% lower than the average for people without disabilities. Shockingly, 43% of disabled people are economically inactive, and our employment rates lag far behind those of other countries, such as Canada’s at 62%. We cannot just ignore worklessness as the driver of poverty. The JRF says that people in full-time work are five times less likely to be poor than those in no work.
David Pinto-Duschinsky
No thank you; I have very little time.
We have to deal with the root causes, so we have to focus on work. We also have to deal with the sustainability of the system, which is currently unsustainable. PIP claimant levels have risen at twice the level of underlying ill health. The rise since 2016 alone is equivalent to the entire police grant for England and Wales. If we are to sustain the system for the long term, we must make it sustainable. The proposed changes will not affect 90% of people. They will protect the most vulnerable and make the system fit for the future. That is why we should support them.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) for securing the debate.
Of the 13,132 disabled people who live in my constituency, 5,110 claim PIP. Cutting benefits without tackling the sky-high extra costs that disabled people face is unconscionable. Scope’s research shows that the monthly extra cost incurred by disabled people living in London is currently £1,469, which is notably higher than the UK-wide figure.
The Government’s claim that the cuts will increase employment is not backed by any assessment. Their own impact assessment found that the cuts will result in 250,000 more people in relative poverty, of whom 50,000 will be children. Disability benefit cuts will affect 3.2 million current or future claimant families. What I heard recently about the proposed cuts to disability benefit from disabled constituents at an event organised by the Disability Advice Service in Lambeth only deepened my conviction that the cuts are wrong and deeply damaging. Sadly, the Government are not listening.
Ian Byrne
The Government got it completely wrong when they cut winter fuel payments last year, forcing them into a damaging U-turn this month. Does my hon. Friend agree that, rather than make another gross error by pushing through brutal cuts to disability support, the Government should admit their mistake, withdraw the plans and introduce a wealth tax instead?
Bell Ribeiro-Addy
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. A wealth tax would be a start, and there are other ways in which the Government could look for savings on disability benefits. They could start with the US multinationals that make a profit off the humiliating PIP assessments. Maximus, the US firm that tests eligibility for UK disability benefits, recently reported a 23% rise in profits, making £29.1 million in the year ending September 2024. That is yet another example of a private company profiting while people are forced into financial vulnerability.
In last month’s PIP debate secured by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), I reiterated her point that it is never too late for the Government to change course, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool West Derby (Ian Byrne) just pointed out. The Prime Minister recently doubled down on plans to proceed with the cuts, but it is not too late. There can be a change of course, and I urge the Government to reconsider this very cruel group of cuts.
Christine Jardine (in the Chair)
I am sorry, but as we are now very short of time, I have to ask everybody to keep to a minute.
Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the chair, Ms Jardine. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) for securing this timely and important debate.
More than 6,000 people in my constituency claim personal independence payments. Hundreds of them have written to me and I have met many of them and their families at listening events I have held across the constituency. One clear thing they all say to me is that being disabled is already a full-time job. Of the 6,000 people who claim PIP in my constituency, 40% will never work; 30% are in work; and approximately 30% are awaiting some form of treatment.
I have been seeking assurances from Ministers on behalf of those constituents who are in work thanks to their PIP, and the answer I keep getting is that they may score differently next time around. If those people lose their payments, they will not be able to afford to pay their bills, and they could lose their jobs and their homes. How are we to get people into work when we are pushing others out of it?
PIP has never worked for disabled people and the Government should work with the disabled to design a positive vision for PIP. The Green Paper is not a meaningful reform; it is tweaking the same bad policies.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The diagnosis is wrong and the treatment is no cure; all these cuts will do is to displace the cost and displace the problem. It was not disabled people who broke the NHS waiting lists. It was not disabled people who removed the access to mental health services. It is not disabled people who are experiencing a healthier life expectancy. It is the system, which has failed them for 14 years, that has done that to them—which is why we must change direction and not progress with these cuts.
Above all, employers have a major responsibility. Of course Access to Work is not working when people have to wait 85 days to get the support they need. When life spirals out of control, people need a state behind them. The sequencing is wrong, the proposals are wrong and ultimately the outcomes will be devastating.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) for securing this debate.
It is clear from some of my colleagues’ comments and from some of the discourse on this topic that many politicians do not understand the lives of disabled people. In the UK, disabled people face an extra average cost of nearly £1,000 a month. That is not optional spending; it is the unavoidable price of navigating a society that was never built with disabled people in mind.
A persistent and damaging myth is that the personal independence payment is a benefit for those out of work. It is not a benefit. PIP is not income replacement; it exists to help to cover the extra costs of disability, whether someone is in employment or not. In fact, many recipients rely on it to stay in work, using it to overcome the additional barriers that working life presents.
There are significant and deeply concerning disparities between disabled and non-disabled people in employment opportunities and fair pay—17%, according to the TUC. That is really unfortunate, but I fear that we are focusing on the wrong things. This system should not be about punitive measures; it should be about encouraging employers to do the right thing, including making reasonable adjustments.
Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)
The level of destitution among disabled people in England is not just a problem—it is a national disgrace. Three quarters of adults receiving health-related universal credit are experiencing material deprivation.
Poverty among the disabled is the deliberate outcome of an economic model and a style of governance designed to serve the interests of ultra-wealthy individuals and corporations. Under this Labour Government, there can be no moral or fiscal justification—none at all—for maintaining the lowest corporation tax in the G7 alongside a social security net so threadbare that hundreds of thousands of disabled people have already fallen into poverty, let alone cutting back further the support that it provides, which would result in even more widespread destitution.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford) (Lab)
In my constituency, 10,000 people are in receipt of PIP or the health element of universal credit, and they are frankly terrified. Already more than 6.3 million people with a disabled family member live in poverty, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that the full impact of the Government’s measures could push an extra 400,000 people into poverty.
It is also important to stress that, although the Government’s package of employment support is welcome, the number of people back in work will be nominal. The Learning and Work Institute estimates that only 1% to 3% of people who have their benefits cut will be helped back into work.
While I recognise the dire financial situation that the Government inherited, balancing the books on the backs of the most vulnerable is not morally right when options such as taxing wealth more fairly are available. I should stress that that particular option has widespread public support, and indeed support from many millionaires themselves. I ask the Government to please do the right thing and scrap these cuts.
Gill German (Clwyd North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, Ms Jardine, to serve under your chairship.
From discussions I have had in Clwyd North, it is clear that our systems need urgent reform. I have heard too many stories from PIP claimants of unacceptable obfuscation and delay that have led to both mental anguish and financial hardship. That has to stop.
I welcome the measures already being taken, but we urgently need to do more. We must waste no time at all in the review of the PIP assessment to make sure that it is fit for purpose, including the assessment criteria and the descriptors. We must also be more ambitious and far-reaching with employment support, both for those seeking and those already in work. I know it can be done. In Clwyd North, local authority partners work with DWP colleagues, the third sector and local employers to create bespoke pathways into work from any starting point. I am pleased that their work is now a Wales inactivity trailblazer, but that kind of support must not be the exception; it needs to be the norm.
Terry Jermy (South West Norfolk) (Lab)
There is a clear link between disability and poverty, particularly in rural communities such as mine, where poor public transport adds to difficulties accessing basic medical appointments and makes it either really difficult or really expensive.
I wanted to ask the Minister about the PIP process. It is a horrible process—I know it painfully well. Residents are having to wait for up to a year to receive a decision and money. There is no financial benefit to the Government, because the money is backdated, but all the while that people are waiting they are presenting in crisis at the jobcentre, the hospital and the GP service, which is costing an absolute fortune and ruining lives. Will the Government look at the PIP process and aim to speed it up, so that we can help more people and save costs in the system?
Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Ind)
Let us say it straight: disabled people have been let down by 14 years of Tory Government. The number of disabled people in working households living in poverty doubled under the Tories’ watch, to 1.3 million people last year and the pay gap for disabled people is higher now at 13% than it was a decade ago.
I will touch briefly on the upcoming PIP reforms—I did have a bigger speech planned, but we are short on time. An unsustainable welfare system, one that does not enjoy public support or give disabled people enough good support, does disabled people no favours. What does do them a favour is scrapping the work capability assessment and providing extra funding to get people into to work. To have no answer to the additional 1,000 people a day who are currently going into the PIP system is to keep one’s head in the sand and to provide no real answers to the failure of the current system, which is not flexible or supportive enough.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Oliver Ryan
I will not give way. The principle of the social contract of the welfare state is at stake, and this Government are defending it.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Jardine. I congratulate the hon. Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) on securing this extremely important debate. PIP is not an out-of-work benefit, as many Members have alluded to, or a benefit that gives people their best lives; it helps them to live lives that are bearable—that is the reality of it. It allows people to get through what many of us in the Chamber would think of as a challenging life, rather than actually living their best life.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
I spoke to Jacqueline from Street, who is unable to work and is absolutely desperate. Heartbreakingly, she told me that if her PIP is removed, she is prepared to take her own life. Does my hon. Friend recognise that the vital support that PIP payments provide to the most vulnerable in society is not a luxury, but a lifeline?
Steve Darling
My hon. Friend is right to highlight that. I have received, as I am sure many colleagues have, disturbing commentary from constituents, where people are already desperately worried, 18 months ahead of any reductions.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation highlighted some key barriers around poverty. Members have already alluded to the extra cost of living, but one barrier that I am particularly alive to, as a disabled person who went to a special educational needs school myself, is the lack of ambition for youngsters. It was an exception in my school if someone did an O-level; the highest we were expected to do was CSEs. There is a significantly lower level of educational attainment for people with disabilities.
Hon. Members have already alluded to the barriers to getting into work. Those may be simple misunderstandings, because people with disabilities can do things; they may just have to do them a little differently. It was with great pleasure that I met earlier this week with Turning Heads, a community interest company run by Alan Tilley for people with learning disabilities—appropriately, since it is Learning Disability Week. Alan shared with us that 75% of people with learning disabilities are out of work and that 86% of those people want to work.
Rachel Gilmour
My hon. Friend reminds me of a remarkable institution in my Tiverton and Minehead constituency called Foxes Hotel, which trains people with mental disabilities to become employed in hotels and hospitality centres across the country. In fact, one young lady from Foxes works in our kitchens in the House of Commons. It is not all doom and gloom, but suffice it to say that Foxes is known within the disabled community as the Oxbridge of training—it is unique, and is not the norm. Did my hon. Friend know that?
Steve Darling
I am reminded of the gentleman who won “Strictly Come Dancing” last year, who said that what people with disability need is “opportunity, support and determination”. My hon. Friend’s example demonstrates that in spades.
I will not spend too much time discussing Access to Work, but it is a broken system. It should be there to support people, but it undermines them through massive delays in assessments. In south Devon, businesses that support people have closed down because they are owed so much money. The No Limits café in Newton Abbot closed because of a lack of money, due to the arrears owed to it by Access to Work.
I am concerned that Ministers are getting confused—I will be extremely upset if they do so today—about employment and PIP. They should not be confused. PIP is purely about ensuring that people can live what many of us would see as normal lives. I represent the most deprived community with a Liberal Democrat representative, Torbay, and I am concerned that the cuts to PIP will see cash sucked out of some of our most deprived communities across the country. That is money that would go to people doing support work such as cleaning, helping people to go shopping, taxis and so on being sucked out of what are already our most impoverished communities. There are some real challenges there. The real killer is that 150,000 carers could lose support funding—£12,000 per household. That will push people deeper into poverty and further into destitution.
Neil Coyle
Can the hon. Gentleman remind us whether the disability employment gap and the disability poverty gap rose or fell when his party was in government?
Steve Darling
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention—I always look forward with great relish to his interventions.
I am concerned at the lack of consultation around the cuts. That is perverse. I am also concerned that the Government may be rushing the proposals through, perhaps even without a Bill Committee, but rather a Committee of the whole House. Will the Minister assure us that the Bill will receive appropriate scrutiny?
Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)
I shall be as quick as I can. I am grateful to hon. Members for their contributions. I fully recognise and share all the concerns that people have raised on behalf of constituents facing the cuts that are coming down the line.
Nevertheless, the Government are right in their overall objective of trying to tackle the challenges in our welfare system, which traps too many people in economic inactivity and presents an unsustainable cost to taxpayers. We have seen an onflow to both PIP and the UC health element, which doubled in the last Parliament. The PIP budget alone will rise by 50% in this Parliament, to £35 billion. Those figures are not affordable over the long term.
Nevertheless, the Government’s plans are crude and cruel. The Government are effectively proposing to scrap the standard rate of PIP altogether. Some 87% of people on the standard rate of PIP will fail the four-point test, so we are effectively doing away with that benefit altogether.
Mention has been made of the 14 years of the last Government. The fact is that this Government had 14 years to prepare for government, and—in response to a fiscal crisis that they created—they are having to rush through these crude and cruel benefit plans.
Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Johanna Baxter
Talking of cruelty, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is cruel that the number of people from working households living in poverty more than doubled under the Conservatives’ watch, from 600,000 to 1.3 million? Is that not cruel?
Danny Kruger
There were significant issues presented by the benefit reforms that the last Government introduced—again, in response to the fiscal crisis that they inherited. Many of those reforms were very positive in terms of getting people into work. However, I recognise that the axe fell disproportionately on certain members of the community, and I recognise many of the challenges faced by our constituents over the years.
Nevertheless, I insist that the benefit changes introduced some important reforms to help people get into work, as well as significant increases in support for disabled people. Carer’s allowance and disability living allowance increased significantly, and the WorkWell programme introduced at the end of the last Government helped disabled people into work. Some genuinely positive measures were introduced.
Neil Coyle
The hon. Gentleman’s point about DLA is interesting, given that his Government and the Lib Dems abolished it. My question is this: has the £12 billion that the Conservatives said they would cut from the Department for Work and Pensions budget during the last election been identified or outlined? What would his party have done and where would those cuts have fallen?
Danny Kruger
Let me come on to where I think the Government could be doing a better job.
To conclude my concern with the current plans, we will not see significant savings, as hon. Members have said, because the costs will be shunted elsewhere in the system. We should be very concerned about what will happen to local authority budgets and the NHS. The cause is the Government’s failure to introduce the substantial reforms needed to the way our benefit system, and in fact our wider economy, works.
The solution needs to be a much better assessment system. I am glad that the Government are proposing to review the assessment process for PIP and UC; I think they should be doing that before they introduce these significant cuts to benefits. We need assessments that recognise the fluctuating nature of many of the conditions that people experience. That is particularly the case with mental health, but there are also increasing numbers of young people who come forward with claims and the assessments do not take account of their conditions. We need a more human system, which is why it is important to introduce more face-to-face assessments.
Most importantly, we need more support for people who are far from the labour market. I echo the point made by the hon. Member for Clwyd North (Gill German); we need a process led by civil society. That was a key part of the reforms introduced under the last Government, but I do not think they went nearly far enough. A whole system of universal support, alongside universal credit, is the way to support people who are far away from the labour market. It is about not just the benefit levels, but the support that is given.
We need to listen to disabled people, and I am grateful for the input that I have had from disabled people’s groups as we look forward to the coming changes. We also need to listen to employers and put them in the driving seat with the reforms. We have a real problem in this country: in the UK, only 12% of employers offer phased return to work support, whereas in Germany that figure is 34%. We could do so much better at helping employers to provide support for people who are trying to get back into work.
I will conclude by stressing that Access to Work needs to be improved. We doubled spending on that in the last Parliament, but more needs to be done. Finally, and most of all, we need a growing economy. With unemployment up, inflation up, debt up and taxes up, we have a disjointed approach. Unless we get properly well-paid jobs, we will always struggle with the welfare bill.
The Minister for Employment (Alison McGovern)
It is a pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) for securing this important debate. It has been a good debate. I would normally run through all the people who have spoken, but there have been so many—I will try to cover some of the points that have been raised. However, I begin by saying that the level of poverty among disabled people demands our attention and action, and it is right that we discuss it today.
Disabled people, like everybody else, have the right to dignity, the right to work and the right to have power, choice and control over their lives. When someone is in poverty, regardless of whether they are disabled, they are robbed of the opportunity to choose how to live their own life, which is why the situation we face today is so very shameful. When the Tories left office, 14 million people were in poverty, including 6.3 million people living in households in which someone is disabled—enough to fill Wembley stadium 70 times over, and more than the population of Scotland. That is a moral, social and economic failure on a colossal scale, and this Government have already taken urgent action to tackle it by delivering our plan for change, putting more money in people’s pockets and raising living standards.
Some of the specific anti-poverty measures in last week’s spending review are really important. For the first time, we have taken a long-term approach to the household support fund so that local authorities can properly plan, and we are turning the fund into a crisis and resilience fund so that we can properly deal with the issues that come up from time to time when a crisis tips somebody into long-term poverty.
Last autumn, we introduced a fair repayment rate for universal credit by reducing the maximum amount that can be taken from people’s benefits to pay for what they owe from 25% to 15%, meaning that 1.2 million of the poorest households will keep an average of £420 more in universal credit. As my dad used to say, “Out of debt, out of danger.”
Ellie Chowns
Today the Minister has heard many MPs, representing their constituents, express their huge concern about the effects of the PIP cuts on disabled members of our communities. She says that she cares about disabled people in poverty and about dignity. Why are her Government refusing to raise funds through a wealth tax so that our disabled constituents can have the support they need to live full and supported lives?
Alison McGovern
I thank the hon. Lady for her comment. I do not just say that I care about poverty; I have spent nearly a year working on a child poverty strategy to repair the damage the Tory Government did to this country. We will bring forward proposals as soon as we can to deal with the poverty crisis—I have mentioned several of them already.
The hon. Lady asks about a wealth tax. We have put VAT on private schools and private jets. We have removed exemptions from inheritance tax, which is a wealth tax. We have doubled stamp duty, which is a wealth tax. We are increasing capital gains tax and abolishing non-dom status, which meant that wealthy people could escape the taxes they owe. I do not accept that we have not taken steps to raise money through taxes so that we can pay for the public services this country needs so that working-class people can escape poverty. That is what this Government have done. [Interruption.] I will continue before I lose my temper.
We are expanding free school meals in England to all children with a parent receiving universal credit, lifting 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of the Parliament, and that is on top of our roll-out of free breakfast clubs. As I just mentioned, our child poverty strategy, on which Ministers right across Government have been working extremely hard, will reduce costs, support families with better local services and increase incomes, because we know that is the best way to tackle poverty.
As I mentioned, the extra money we are collecting through taxation will help to rebuild our NHS, with an extra £29 billion a year for the day-to-day running of our health service, so that disabled people can get the healthcare they need. We are also extending the £3 national bus fare cap, helping people to maintain their independence.
I want to respond to some of the points that Members have raised, particularly on the PIP review, which is already under way. I know that Members will be involved in that work but, just to be clear, it is already happening.
Johanna Baxter
The Government’s consultation on mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting, led by the Office for Equality and Opportunity, recently closed. Can the Minister update the House on the findings of that consultation and when we might expect a formal Government response?
Alison McGovern
My hon. Friend raises an important manifesto commitment. I will relay her request to the Minister for Disability, who I am sure will update her.
We are anxious to get on with it. As many Members have said, it is important to reset some of the assumptions that employers have about the capabilities of disabled people, and the assumptions about whether disabled people should be included in our economy like everybody else.
On how many people will be affected by this, I point out that all the numbers that have been mentioned, including the numbers we have published on the poverty impact of the policy change, are static. They assume that nothing else changes by 2030.
While I understand the very correct concern that the employment support system this Government inherited was nowhere near what it should be, I can reassure Members that change is already happening. We are already getting on with Connect to Work and building a new jobs and careers service. I currently spend half my life with frontline work coaches in jobcentres, including disability employment advisers who are anxious to do better and are moving forward with a changed system. We are not waiting to get on with the change; the change is already happening.
Ayoub Khan
On the £5 billion cut to PIP, does the Minister agree that it is not just a lifeline for the most vulnerable in our society but is £5 billion that ends up in the economy? For that reason, does she not agree that a holistic impact assessment needs to be done? It ought not to be rushed, so that Members can review it and come to a sensible conclusion.
Alison McGovern
I thank the hon. Member for his point, because it is one of the other things I wanted to clarify. A number of Members have mentioned money being taken out of communities. Having been a Member of Parliament during the actual austerity years under the Conservatives, I can say that the benefit and other changes made under austerity clearly had a huge impact on certain parts of the country.
That is why the spending review set out our investment plans. I have already mentioned the funding for the NHS and other areas through which we will be supporting the very communities that need to be lifted. I refer the hon. Member to the distributional analysis published alongside the documents last week, where he will see that this Government are prioritising lifting the communities that really need to be lifted.
The hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton) has gone now, but I want to say that veterans can be supported through the armed forces independence payment, whether in work or not. That is separate from PIP, and no changes are proposed to it.
Alison McGovern
I will wind up, because we are out of time. I have no doubt that these discussions will continue over the coming weeks, and I look forward to engaging with everybody here on them. [Interruption.]
Christine Jardine (in the Chair)
I am sorry, but we have to put the Question quickly.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered Government support for disabled people in poverty.