Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady will know from the Bill and the impact assessments the fiscal savings that will result from the measure. Fundamentally, we are making the change so that we can provide long-term support. For that reason, I think that all hon. Members will look forward to it.

We are committed to tackling the problem that too few people are moving off benefits and being supported into employment. There are economic, social and moral arguments for ensuring that those who are able to work can work, and that they are supported into work. Work is the most effective way to improve the wellbeing of individuals, their families and their communities.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

The Government’s equalities watchdog has said that there is

“very little in the way of evidence”

to show that what the Government are trying to do will support disabled people back into work. In the last five years, the number of working-age disabled people has fallen, and the Government speak from a track record of failure. Are disabled people not right to be sceptical about what is about to happen? What direct evidence can the Minister offer about the support that will be delivered to disabled people?

[Priti Patel]

As the hon. Gentleman will be aware from his participation in the Public Bill Committee and during the Bill’s passage through the House, the Government are committed to bringing in reforms. As I will shortly come on to say, the reforms will be set out in a White Paper later this year. Importantly—we are optimistic; we really are—the White Paper will outline our plans to reform further the help to support people with health conditions and disabilities into work.

A large body of evidence shows that work is good for physical and mental wellbeing. There is also a growing awareness, as I am sure all Members recognise, that long-term worklessness is harmful to both physical and mental health. Reform is therefore vital in itself, but we will go further. We are ambitious; we do not believe in writing people off. Importantly, we will ensure that the welfare system incentivises and supports people into employment.

[Neil Coyle]

rose—

[Priti Patel]

I will give way one more time.

[Neil Coyle]

In the past five years—in fact, in the past six years, during which the coalition and this Government have been in office—the number of disabled people of working age in work has fallen, the Government have closed Remploy factories, the number of disability employment advisers in Jobcentre Plus has fallen by 20% and the number of people supported by the Access to Work programme has fallen.

[Priti Patel]

I will repeat my starting premise: we are more positive and optimistic for people with health conditions and disabilities. Support through the Access to Work programme has increased. We have great initiatives, such as the Disability Confident campaign, which is supporting people back into work. The hon. Gentleman may want to join us, perhaps by hosting a Disability Confident event in his constituency. I would very much welcome such support. I think that we should be optimists. This Government are committed to halving the employment disability gap, which all Members of the House should welcome.

Work Capability Assessments

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. Is there not also an issue about the significant waste of taxpayers’ money in the Government failing to address the fundamental flaws in the system, which lead to an over-reliance on appeals and reconsiderations and the Department for Work and Pensions having to prop up a private company that is failing to deal with assessments appropriately the first time?

[Louise Haigh]

I could not agree more, and I will come on to that issue.

This is about providing not just a good-quality service for clients, but best value for money for the taxpayer. As I said, when one side is trying to cut costs and another is employed to maximise profit, something has to give. As report after report has identified, the contractors that the Government have employed to carry out cuts have been anything but successful. They have presided over failure after failure. There has been poor performance, a disregard for vulnerable people and, in this new age of outsourcing, a total lack of accountability for Government and operator alike.

[Louise Haigh]

Again, I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and I thank him for that intervention. The contractors continue to get paid despite repeated failures. Even worse, after being deemed unfit to perform in relation to one contract, contractors simply get to continue with another lucrative long-term deal, as Atos has done. After failing to handle the work capability assessments contract, it is still running a seven-year contract for personal independence payment assessments for the same Department. Now Maximus is failing to meet a range of key targets—targets that, importantly, put far greater emphasis on saving money than on meeting the needs of people who unjustifiably suffer. Whatever the rhetoric about service quality, this is still a system designed to cut costs for the Government and maximise profit for Maximus.

We have undoubtedly all read last month’s report by the National Audit Office, but some of the figures deserve to be rehearsed. Despite the new contract—which followed Atos’s spectacular failure—being worth some £570 million a year, there is still a backlog of 280,000 employment and support allowance claims. The average cost of each individual assessment is now almost £200, and that is for a 15-minute assessment. One in 10 disability benefit claimants’ reports are rejected as below standard by the Government, compared with one in 25 when the shamed Atos was running the show.

Individuals have to wait an average of 23 weeks for a decision to be made on their benefits; there has been a huge rise in that timescale—almost a trebling—in recent years. For each person, that can and almost always does mean hardship, but the number being referred keeps rocketing as the Government, desperate to clear the books at any cost, lay the bill for clearing the deficit squarely at the door of the sick and disabled. The Government are forcing away from ESA people who need and rely on it, and the failing contractors are being overwhelmed. Despite all that undeniable pain, unbelievably, the Department is not expected to meet the initial £5.4 billion savings target originally envisaged for the 10 years to 2019-20.

[Neil Coyle]

I thank my hon. Friend for generously giving way again. Does she agree that the failure at ministerial level to get a grip on the backlog, the rising costs and the incompetence in the Department for Work and Pensions has led to the Treasury’s demand to take even more money from disabled people on employment and support allowance, which is why the Government are seeking to cut £30 a week from half a million of the most disadvantaged people in the country?

[Louise Haigh]

Again, my hon. Friend has neatly anticipated my next point, which is that the Office for Budget Responsibility has identified ESA and PIP as a major risk to planned public spending targets, given the uncertainty of the estimates. The NAO has gone so far as to say that PIP and disability living allowance performance issues have been the main contributing factor in the Department’s inability to save any money in the spending review period up to 2015.

It is clear that both the Government and contractors are failing on their own terms, yet still the cash is handed over to failing contractors. We are locked into long contracts whereby Departments do not have the capability to improve performance. The original policy itself is flawed, but it is in the treatment of individuals unlucky enough to come into contact with the system that the whole rotten trade-off between cost cutting by the Government and profit maximisation by Maximus is most apparent. Specific cases abound, and I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House would be able to relay evidence of deeply concerning practice, which is why it is interesting to note that not a single Government Back Bencher is in the Chamber today. I will list a few from my case load.

One man with learning difficulties whose case was highlighted to me attended his work capability assessment, but during the assessment his support worker was shocked at the lack of care and attention given to him. When the assessment came through, there were some glaring factual errors, but none the less his ESA was docked, just in case he was in any doubt about what comes first—the person or the profit. On making his request for mandatory reconsideration, he was appalled to find out that he would be ineligible for ESA, which was his lifeline, until the reconsideration decision was made, and he was unable to meet the conditions placed on him for jobseeker’s allowance. He now faces months of waiting until his tribunal, and potentially an annual battle if assessors continue to lack understanding of his learning difficulty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gerald Jones]

My hon. Friend illustrates a valid point that is replicated across the country.

I am sure that hon. Members are as concerned as I am when they hear that, according to the DWP’s own figures, around 50% of assessments are overturned on appeal. That surely calls into question the reliability of the initial assessments and raises the question why we are putting people through such unnecessary stress, which has undoubtedly had a negative impact on the mental health of many claimants.

I am also concerned that the work capability assessments do not seem to take account of individuals who have a limiting long-term illness that means their condition often fluctuates, such as kidney dialysis patients or people with Parkinson’s. I visited the kidney dialysis patients support group in Merthyr Tydfil last weekend, and a number of people told me of their concerns about the work capability assessment and the lack of understanding of their condition. Dialysis patients often feel reasonably all right on certain days between dialysis, but on the day following treatment they can feel very low, which means that if they are receiving treatment three days a week, the number of days when they feel okay are few and far between. The Government need to address that lack of understanding.

If the original clauses 13 and 14 of the Welfare Reform and Work Bill are reinserted, financial support for new claimants in the work-related activity group will be cut by around 25% from £102 to £73, which will have a drastic impact on disabled people. The Government have said that they are committed to protecting support for disabled people, so the clauses are deeply worrying. The cut will not incentivise people, as the Government say they want.

[Neil Coyle]

Could the Government’s proposed cut to half a million people, including people with learning disabilities or cancer, have the perverse incentive that those people will then try to go into the support group when there is already a 280,000 backlog due to the Government’s incompetence in handling that contract?

[Gerald Jones]

I agree, and it shows how ill thought out the Government’s proposals are.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patricia Gibson]

I am afraid the only possible reason I can think of for that is that the information does not present the work capability assessments in a flattering light. I leave others to draw their own conclusions about how bad it might be.

The worst thing about the system is that those caught up in the controversy and confusion are people with long-term health conditions, and some of the most vulnerable people in our communities. There is a lot of consensus in the Chamber about the need for an urgent review of the work capability assessment. As the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) pointed out, the cost is increasing, and it is expected that £595 million will be paid for 3.4 million assessments—about £190 per assessment. There has also been a problem with the recruitment of enough medical professionals to meet the demands of the assessments. At least £76 million of taxpayers’ money has been wasted through the failure to get a new IT system up and running more than two years after it was supposed to be in place. As has been mentioned, the National Audit Office report, which was released only last month, revealed that

“recent performance shows the Department has not tackled—and may even have exacerbated—some of these problems when setting up recent contracts”.

[Neil Coyle]

The points about rising costs and the backlog are well made. Perhaps we can help the Minister by asking her to consider removing some of the routine retests for those with progressive conditions and conditions that will not change. We have all had the excellent briefings from Parkinson’s UK and Mencap, for example. Perhaps the Minister should look again at the frequency of testing for some people, to save the taxpayer money and save some of the stress and anxiety that the hon. Lady has mentioned.

[Patricia Gibson]

That is an excellent, well made point and I thank the hon. Gentleman.

There is also a problem with transparency. In December, the Work and Pensions Committee concluded that it was unable to scrutinise benefit delays fully because of lack of available data. Its report said that

“if the DWP has this data, they should publish them. If they do not, then they are making policy decisions in the dark. The Department should address the lack of data immediately.”

Chillingly, in answer to parliamentary questions about the connection between assessment tests and the incidence of suicide or mental health problems in disability claimants, the Department has admitted that it neither holds such information nor has any plans to collect it. I think that is significant. There has also been an admission that it does not have information on how much, on average, it costs the Department to fund an appeal against a fit for work decision. It is clear—and becoming increasingly clear to claimants—that the system is in a mess. There is clear capacity shortage; there are also wildly optimistic targets, a lack of transparency and problems with hiring and training staff—within the context of dealing with individuals with long-term and serious health problems who are simply trying to access the support they need to survive. The National Audit Office has concluded that this system has

“significant financial and human costs”.

The current situation is cruel, inhumane and demeaning; as has repeatedly been pointed out in the debate, the system is not fit for purpose. I sincerely hope that the Minister will respond to the debate in a positive way and consider the significant financial and human costs to those who need, rather than bureaucracy and judgment, our support and compassion. The debate is about much more than simple work capability assessments. Ultimately, it is about the kind of society we want to create, and the society we aspire to be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Whiteford]

As ever, the hon. Gentleman makes an important point clearly. There is no reason why people’s medical history should not be included in the assessments. Often, consultants—sometimes it is a GP, but in cases of serious illness it is more likely to be a consultant—are in a position to provide insight into the longevity of a condition as well as its immediate acute effects.

[Neil Coyle]

Is the hon. Lady aware that the Government, during the last Parliament, also shortened the timeframe within which individuals can provide independent medical evidence? As it takes longer to see a consultant or specialist, that inevitably means that some people cannot provide that information in time, which contributes to the number of reassessments, the backlog and the cost to the taxpayer.

[Dr Whiteford]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The shortening of the timeframe makes it extremely difficult for people to contribute, which is why that opportunity needs to be included right at the start. If people can nominate someone—an advocate, a consultant, a GP or a community nurse—to provide such information as part of the application process, we could get around a lot of those problems.

For people with complex disabilities, people who suffer from more than one condition or people whose condition fluctuates, the tick-box exercise of the work capability assessment fails to capture the impact of their health on their ability to work. Around half of those in receipt of employment and support allowance have a mental health condition, yet the work capability assessment has proved poor at accurately assessing conditions that are not visible, and people with mental health or incapacity issues are not always able to articulate well the effects of their condition.

I pressed hard during the last Parliament for improvements to how mental function champions operate within the assessment process, but there is increasing evidence that as things stand, the work capability assessment causes so much distress and anxiety for some people that it is actively harming their health, pushing them further away from being able to work and—in extreme cases such as the ones mentioned by the hon. Member for Glasgow East—towards harming themselves.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists has expressed serious concerns for some years about the impact of the work capability assessment on the health of people with mental illness, but as evidence of harm grows, the college is becoming more outspoken. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran pointed out, robust research conducted at the universities of Liverpool and Oxford suggests a correlation between mental health problems and the roll-out of work capability assessments. That backs up the findings of voluntary sector service providers such as the Scottish Association for Mental Health, which has extensive experience of people who use its services suffering setbacks in their recovery due to the assessment process.

The bottom line is that too many people are still being wrongly assessed. We know that because of the extraordinary success rate when claimants who have been found fit for work appeal that decision. Between 2010 and 2013, it hovered around the 40% mark; since the introduction of mandatory reconsideration in 2013, it has shot up to around 54%. In other words, more than half of those who appeal are likely to get the original decision overturned. Successful appeals on that scale indicate major underlying flaws in the assessment process, and they cost the Government a lot of needless time and money. More than that, they mean that sick and disabled people are left feeling abandoned and desperate for months without the support that they need. The human cost is enormous, as is the financial cost, as the National Audit Office has pointed out.

We must also remember those who do not appeal but who are nevertheless extremely unwell or seriously disabled. Many people in our constituencies who are destitute or living in extreme poverty are people whose access to ESA has expired, or who have been found fit for work but cannot qualify for jobseeker’s allowance—because they really are not fit for work and cannot comply with the conditions attached to JSA, or because they have tried to comply but have been sanctioned, or because they have disengaged from the system altogether and have simply dropped out of view.

I have no idea how many people fall into that latter category, but I know that I am meeting such people regularly. They live off other family members or friends, some of whom are themselves not wealthy, and they depend on food parcels from church voluntary groups or food banks. Consequently, when the Government consider how they might proceed with a replacement for the WCA, they need to take on board the systemic failures of the current approach and think beyond simplistic functionality.

The first and probably the most valuable thing that the Government could do is to work with disabled people and their representatives from the outset. Throughout the past few years, health and disability organisations have been coming forward with constructive suggestions to improve the existing system, and contributing to the successive reviews. Some of their ideas have been taken on board, at least partially, but the opportunity presented by a new White Paper to get stakeholders around the table and—more significantly—really listen to what they say has never been more important.

I also urge the Government to go back to the work that was done around the evidence-based review of 2012-13 and the alternative assessment that was developed under that process. I know that Ministers were not convinced by that review at the time, but a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then, a much stronger evidence base has been developed and I think there is a lot of substance in that review, not least in the way that it suggests descriptors that would account for the impact of pain and fatigue on a person with an illness or a long-term condition. That review could really usefully inform a new approach.

Lastly, I urge the Government to learn from international experiences. The UK does not have a disproportionately high number of sick and disabled people compared with the rest of the OECD. Clearly, there are regional variations, even within the UK, with higher numbers of claimants in economically deprived or heavily industrialised areas, where health outcomes and life expectancy are significantly lower than average. On the whole, however, we are grappling with the same challenges as other industrialised countries and on a broadly similar scale.

A number of countries have used what have been called “real world incapacity assessments” that take account of a person’s age, skills and work experience, as well as their health or disability, when assessing their fitness for work and considering what kind of work they might be able to do. This seems just to be common sense and means that someone is assessed as a rounded human being. The same condition with the same severity will affect two people differently in relation to their ability to work, depending on whether their work experience has been in physically demanding manual jobs, whether they sit at a desk or whatever. The Government should explore the models used in other countries to see what is working well.

We all agree with the Government that the social security system needs to support people to move towards work, but it also needs to provide a safety net and a dignified life for those who are not fit for work, and not only those who will never return to work but those with long-term conditions and those who need time to recover from serious illness or injury.

The work capability assessment has failed a lot of sick and disabled people, and it has proved extremely inefficient. What follows must be better, and I hope that the Government’s keenly anticipated White Paper will reflect the concerns that have been raised today.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

May I reiterate what other people have commented—that it is lovely to see you in the Chair today, Mrs Moon? I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) not only on securing this debate but on an excellent speech; it really was very informative.

We have already heard a number of Members say that the current work capability assessment, which was introduced under the coalition Government, is failing on a number of counts and needs to be overhauled. I share the view of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) that the fact no Government Members have spoken, and the imminent White Paper, suggest that the Government are finally getting it. I really hope that is the case. However, I need to reiterate some of the points that have been made about why the Government need to think again.

The WCA needs a complete overhaul. It is not fit for purpose, and we have heard that it is failing to assess a person’s fitness for work, or work-related activity, accurately or reliably. We have heard the figures about appeals. More than half of people—54%—who appeal against a decision that they are fit to work have the decision overturned. We have also heard about how the costs of the WCA have spiralled out of control, which reflects the woeful performance. Obviously, the National Audit Office report last month was very damning indeed, although I have to say that it came several weeks after it was clear what was going to happen.

Fundamentally, the WCA fails the most important requirement of any Government policy—that it will not knowingly harm citizens. For almost a year now, the Government have obfuscated and tried to evade revealing the toll that the WCA process is having on the people being subjected to it, even after stark warnings from the Select Committee on Work and Pensions. The mounting evidence against the WCA cannot be ignored any longer; hopefully the Government are listening to it.

There have been five independent reviews of the WCA since 2010. The Work and Pensions Committee undertook two of them in the last Parliament; I was pleased to be serving on the Committee when it undertook the review in 2014. The most recent report from that Committee included evidence taken from the reviewers, who warned the Government that in spite of all the reviews that had happened before—Professor Harrington and Dr Litchfield have produced reviews—the process was still flawed. They said that people with progressive and fluctuating conditions, such as Parkinson’s, were particularly likely to fall foul of the process. I will never forget taking evidence from people in Newcastle as part of that Select Committee inquiry in 2014 and hearing their personal testimonies. The evident pain and humiliation that they had experienced as part of the process was quite shocking.

Like other hon. Members we have heard from today, I have had evidence from my own constituents. A man who came to see me had a serious heart condition. In a WCA, he was told by the nurse undertaking it that he was in the process of having a heart attack; that was how stressful the WCA was. He was told to go to hospital, but two weeks later he received a letter telling him that he had been sanctioned because he had left the WCA. There are similar examples up and down the country.

The former chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, Dame Anne Begg, spoke on the issue and said:

“When my constituent, who has lost his job because he has motor neurone disease, scores zero on his WCA and is found fully fit for work, there is something wrong with the system. When that same constituent appears in front of a tribunal and in less than five minutes is awarded 15 points”—

that is the maximum score, which means the person is completely unfit for work—

“there is something wrong”.

I hope that we are seeing a different view from the Government now, but in their response to the Work and Pensions Committee at the end of 2014 they were having none of its report; there was the usual rhetoric. I would be interested to know what the Minister would say today if Dame Anne’s former constituent was standing here in Parliament now.

The Committee said that simply rebranding the WCA by taking on a new provider would not work, and it recommended a complete overhaul of the system. We still believe that that is needed, and such an overhaul is Labour party policy; I have said that consistently since my appointment to the Front Bench. What is required is not just a process to determine eligibility for employment and support allowance but an examination of health-related barriers to work. I agree with the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan that we need to look at the international data. I know that work has already been done to compare different processes, and adopting a more personalised and holistic approach is important. I remember producing such a piece of work before I came to the House, and there are lessons to be learned from elsewhere. However, as I have said, at the time of the Select Committee inquiry, the Department for Work and Pensions was not particularly inclined to consider those lessons.

When the Minister responds to the debate today, I am sure she will talk about the new work and health unit. However, I would also like her to describe, if she can, the discussions that the Government have had with the royal colleges, because I have some concerns. For example, the Royal College of Psychiatrists has raised the issues of medical ethics, treatments and interventions, the principle of consent, and the qualifications of the staff involved in WCAs. I would be grateful if she referred to those points in her wind-up.

My next point is about poor performance. We know that last month’s National Audit Office report reiterated that the WCA is not only unfit for purpose but poor value for money, as many of my hon. Friends have already mentioned. The Government have failed in their fiduciary responsibility to ensure that taxpayers’ money is spent wisely. They have failed to monitor and performance-manage work capability assessment contracts and hold the providers to account.

The NAO report stated that under contract with the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments, which is a subsidiary of Maximus, the cost of each assessment has risen to approximately £190, compared with £115 under the previous contract with Atos. If that was an investment in greater efficiency and a smoother process, one might possibly say that it was value for money, but the NAO described the performance output issues, with a backlog of 280,000 assessments and the contractor not being expected to meet its performance targets for last year.

The NAO went on to describe how the Department for Work and Pensions was struggling with target setting and had failed to test bidders’ assumptions during the tender process—for example, on staff recruitment and training. Will the Minister describes how that is being addressed? After six years, it is a real problem if we are trying to ensure that we live within our means.

The biggest indictment of the Government’s work capability assessment process is the potential harm it does to people who are put through it. As we have heard, last November the University of Liverpool and the University of Oxford published a study in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. It is a peer-reviewed journal, and papers with Mickey Mouse statistics are not published in such journals—they would not be tolerated. It is a robust—[Interruption.] I hear some chuntering from the Government Benches. These are robust data; papers would not be allowed if the data were not robust—[Interruption.] There is still chuntering, but I will carry on. That study showed that between 2010 and 2013 the Government’s work capability assessment regime was independently associated with an additional 590 suicides, 280,000 cases of self-reported mental health issues and 725,000 antidepressant prescriptions.

The Royal College of Psychiatrists has raised the concern that, for people with mental health conditions, the work capability assessment process can cause a relapse, thus hindering rather than helping in their recovery. Just before I came to the debate I was provided with a list of coroners’ reports containing concerns that the deaths, including suicides, were associated with the work capability assessment. I am particularly concerned about the case of Stephen Carre, which has already been mentioned, in which the coroner wrote to Ministers and the Department and apparently did not receive a response, as required by law. I would be grateful for the Minister’s response to that point.

The findings reported in the paper in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health—in a paper entitled “First, do no harm”—came on top of published data relating to the deaths of incapacity benefit and ESA claimants between November 2011 and May 2014. The Government were compelled by the Information Commissioner to publish those figures. At the end of April, an appeal went to that body, which ruled in favour of the appellant and required the Government to produce the figures. But when did they produce them? Just before the end-of-August bank holiday.

The figures showed that the overall death rate for people on IB or ESA was 4.3 times higher than in the general population—an increase from 3.6 times higher in 2003. People in the support group are 6.3 times more likely to die than the general population, and people in the work-related activity group, from whom the Government want to take £30 more a week via the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, which is going through the House, are 2.2 times more likely to die.

The Government’s innuendo that people with a disability or illness might be “faking it” or are “feckless” or, as the Prime Minister said shockingly last week, are “making a lifestyle choice”, is grotesque and belies the epidemiological data. IB and ESA are recognised as good population health indicators, in that they reflect areas with an industrial backgrounds and areas of poor health.

[Neil Coyle]

My hon. Friend describes the impact on people. One of my constituents has referred to it as the Secretary of State adopting a pterodactyl style of management, flapping around high above, making a lot of noise and—pardon the expression—dumping on the little people down below. Does my hon. Friend share that view?

[Debbie Abrahams]

I would not put it in quite those words, perhaps, but I know exactly what my hon. Friend is getting at.

The Government’s own data show that the people involved are sick and disabled. They need support; they do not need vilification. Unfortunately, that is too often what happens, as at last week’s Prime Minister’s questions.

Being disabled or being ill is not a lifestyle choice. Alarmingly, we now hear reports of people in the ESA support group—people who have been found not fit for work, including people who are terminally ill—being required to go to work-focused interviews. The Minister might be aware of that. We have evidence only from England so far, but I would be grateful if she gave us an explanation.

For me, that latest revelation says it all. It is about cuts for disabled people and the seriously ill. The Government are not content with having cut £23.8 billion from 3.7 million disabled people since 2013 under the Welfare Reform Act 2012; they are going for more cuts, and the work capability assessment and the Welfare Reform and Work Bill are another way of achieving them.

The Government have tried to regenerate the economy on the backs of the poor and disabled. Their modus operandi is division and blame, deserving and undeserving. Like the NHS, our social security system is based on principles of inclusion, support and security for all, assuring us all our dignity and the basics of life should any one of us become ill and disabled. The Government need to remember that and stop their attacks on disabled people.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Employment (Priti Patel)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I start my remarks by commenting that the debate has been wide-ranging, and I thank everyone who has contributed. This is obviously an important subject, and we must put it in the context of the overall commitment we all feel should rightly be in place to support people who cannot work because of health conditions and disabilities. We must also reflect on the fact that we have a system that obviously seeks to support such individuals.

A range of comments have been made that pre-date me as a Department for Work and Pensions Minister. I will do my utmost to address as many of them as I can, but it would only be fair to write to hon. Members whose points I do not address directly. The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) mentioned the very tragic case of Mr Carre, and it might be more appropriate if I write to her about that.

We all recognise that work is good for individuals—it enhances physical and mental well being—and we also recognise that being out of work, for whatever reason and whatever the condition, can exacerbate poor health conditions and make people’s situations even worse. A system that supports people is vital. I will talk about contracting later, but we want to move away from a system that tells people they cannot do any work to one that supports them in what they can do. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) touched on the forthcoming White Paper that will focus on the support that can be given to individuals, and I will address that shortly.

The work capability assessment was established under the previous Labour Government in 2008 and it has had quite a journey, not just in relation to the contracting process; the assessments have come under scrutiny under previous Governments and under the present Government. There have been more than 100 recommendations in response to the five independent reviews of the work capability assessment. That has made the assessment process more reliable and has improved the claimant experience

In the final independent review of the work capability assessment, Dr Litchfield commented that, having looked at the systems in comparable countries, there was

“no better replacement that can be pulled off the shelf”.

[Neil Coyle]

There is a concern among the disability and advice sector that the Government continue to say they have accepted the recommendations of the independent reviews. Will the Minister outline how many of the recommendations have been fully implemented?

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

A huge amount can be done locally. Universal support, which is now part of universal credit, is being trialled with a lot of councils to look at the families with the greatest difficulties. It involves councils in getting financial support to those families and in helping them to sort out drug and alcohol abuse. As they receive the special payments, we expect councils to work with us to ensure that their problems are put right, rather than ignored and left to one side.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

The Department is responsible for providing support to some people who, sadly, are at the end of their lives and have a prognosis of six months or less to live. Will the Minister update the House on progress to remove the 28-day waiting rule for terminally ill people who are transferring from the disability living allowance to the personal independence payment?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

May I write to the hon. Gentleman about that? We are considering that issue but have not quite made a decision, so I will provide a full answer in due course.

In-work Poverty

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Carolyn Harris]

I do, and not only Wales is affected; this affects every constituency in the country.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

Would it surprise my hon. Friend to hear that, under universal credit plans, some 116,000 disabled people who are in work—and therefore doing the right thing, according to the Government’s narrative—will be £40 a week worse off under the Government’s proposal?

[Carolyn Harris]

That is a shocking indictment of the low consideration the Government have for people in need. For example, a lone parent working full time on the minimum wage who receives no support for their housing costs will experience a reduction of £2,600 a year—that is £50 a week. Nobody can afford to lose £50 a week.

The combined effect of income tax, national insurance and the universal credit taper will mean that universal credit claimants who pay income tax will keep only 24% of any increase in their earnings. They will have to increase their earnings by £210 a week—or, to put it in percentage terms, 72%—to make up the income loss they will face as a result of the reduction in support.

[Carolyn Harris]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I agree. That is a reality people face every day, and it can only get worse.

The short-term effect for current claimants of universal credit is that they face huge losses to income come April 2016. There are currently 155,000 recipients of universal credit, and the number is increasing every week, with an aim of there being 500,000 recipients by April this year.

During Work and Pensions questions recently, the Secretary of State claimed that the flexible support fund will act as transitional protection for current claimants and said that

“those who are on universal credit at present will be fully supported through the flexible support fund, which will provide all the resources necessary to ensure that their situation remains exactly the same as it is today.”—[Official Report, 7 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 688.]

However, that existing fund is used for a different purpose. Its budget last year was £69 million, but the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates cuts to working families of £100 million next year, rising every year until they reach £3.2 billion in 2020.

[Neil Coyle]

I apologise for not thanking my hon. Friend for securing the debate in my previous intervention or saying what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. The Secretary of State was referring to the number of people currently receiving universal credit who will be protected by some measure, but is that not a little disingenuous given that the Government are about 1,000 years behind schedule on delivering universal credit? They had expected some 2 million people to be on it by now. Should the Government not be a bit more embarrassed about mentioning the small number who are already receiving universal credit?

--- Later in debate ---

[Gerald Jones]

I could not agree more. Both the Welsh Government and local government have tried to mitigate those circumstances, but the major levers lie here at Westminster.

[Neil Coyle]

May I add a London voice? Specific costs include much higher accommodation costs for many in London, which contribute to in-work poverty. However, the last Government hit something like 30,000 working people in Southwark with reductions in support and left 700 people in work using the local food bank, according to figures from Pecan, which is part of the Trussell Trust network.

[Gerald Jones]

I could not agree more with my hon. Friend, and the situation he describes is replicated in many areas across the UK.

Can it be right in 21st-century Britain that many people are working hard and cannot afford to live above the poverty line? As my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East outlined, 85% of people receiving support from the food bank in her constituency are working people. In my constituency, many working families rely on food banks to be able to put food on the table. That is clearly not acceptable.

Years of below-inflation wage increases, particularly in the public sector, have taken their toll on people’s incomes. In-work benefits such as tax credits are meant to support families against the worst effects of in-work poverty. The current proposals to change universal credit will clearly make matters worse for millions of working families. In Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney alone, about 10,000 working families are likely to be adversely affected by the Government’s universal credit proposals by 2020.

Jobs must be a clear and critical part of any programme to end poverty. Access to jobs, and the quality of those jobs, must be addressed if families are to be able to work their way out of poverty. Low pay is a major factor in in-work poverty and is unfortunately a routine feature of much of the work available to poorer families. The national minimum wage sets a floor for pay levels, but one report shows that a couple with two children would need to work 58 hours a week at the minimum wage to lift themselves out of poverty.

As a county councillor prior to being elected to this place last May, I was proud to be associated with the introduction of the living wage at Caerphilly county borough council, one of a growing number of Labour councils in Wales that pay the living wage. I am proud of the many former colleagues in local government across the UK who are championing the true living wage, as promoted by the Living Wage Foundation, not the gimmick national living wage that the Chancellor has announced.

The low-paid sector is characterised by jobs that often do not provide steady employment. Moving in and out of work on a regular basis is common for lone parents and generates grave financial uncertainty for many families. Limits on the number of hours worked and zero-hours contracts mean that many people might work full-time one week, part-time the next and have no work the following week. Even if they have reliable employment, many find it hard to work enough hours, given their caring commitments and other barriers to employment.

Such situations can also compound problems with in-work benefit entitlements, such as housing benefit. The process for benefit assessment cannot be done efficiently, leaving households falling into rent arrears while things are readjusted and threatening the security of their tenure. Often, due to barriers to employment, people do not have the opportunity to increase their hours and therefore their income. As a result, many low-paid jobs are nothing more than poverty traps.

It is not just a lack of income that causes hardship in poorer families. Evidence shows that they also pay higher prices than others for many essential goods and services. Low-income families are often unable to take advantage of the cheaper prices that are routinely offered to customers paying by methods such as direct debit. The situation has been exacerbated by rising utility bills. With fuel prices coming down, the Government should bring more pressure to bear on utility firms to ensure that they do more to pass savings on to customers.

Finally, many people who are in work discover that their jobs are so low paid or insecure that they are unable to provide an income sufficient to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. The Government appear reluctant to reconfigure the tax system so that the richest households pay more of the burden. Policy changes such as the changes to inheritance tax, the reduction in the 50p income tax rate to 45p, the retention of the bedroom tax and the changes to universal credit mean that poorer families will continue to pay more than their fair share of tax.

To make a positive impact on tackling in-work poverty, the Government have to take action on the issues raised during this afternoon’s debate. Unfortunately, we are seeing very little evidence that they are serious about tackling in-work poverty. In fact, some of the Government’s proposals risk making matters worse. Will the Minister outline what the Government are doing to tackle urgently the unacceptable scale of in-work poverty facing people across our country?

--- Later in debate ---

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I thank the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for securing the debate. I congratulate her on her passion, her facts and her real commitment to her constituents. It is sometimes refreshing to hear how it really is on the ground in the constituencies and how real people who work hard will suffer more and more because of the Government’s actions.

I commend the contributions of the hon. Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) and for Foyle (Mark Durkan). The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney mentioned the problem of zero-hours contracts. “Making work pay” or “Work is the best route out of poverty” are great catchphrases, but people do not have a route out of poverty if they are working on zero-hours contracts and do not know from one week to another whether they will be earning or how much they will earn.

The hon. Member for Foyle gave us, as usual, some wonderful quotes. For example, he said that it is not a lack of work ethic that prevents people from working; it is a lack of work. That is true of many places across the country. He also said that there now seems to be one law for the working poor and another for the working rich. That will lead to even more social division across the United Kingdom.

Hon. Members may well be aware that last week the independent adviser on poverty and inequality, Naomi Eisenstadt, reported to the First Minister of Scotland on tackling poverty and she recommended that we build on living wage accreditation, which has been touched on in the debate. The new national living wage that the Conservative party is touting is not actually a new living wage. It is simply a small increase based on the national minimum wage; it is not much higher. It does not involve looking at actual household expenses and relating it to them. In Scotland, the Government have done a lot of work on trying to increase people’s income—maximise their income—and trying to support people in work. One thing that they have done is in the area of procurement. They have ensured that no firm can now get a contract in Scotland that does not pay the national living wage. It is £8.25 in Scotland and should be much higher.

[Neil Coyle]

Does the hon. Lady share our concern that this Government are even trying to scrap the measures of in-work poverty, and are the Scottish Government committed to keeping them?

[Marion Fellows]

The Scottish Government would actually like to have more powers over all this area, but unfortunately the Smith commission agreement or recommendations have not given the Scottish Government that amount of power. However, within what they are allowed to do, they are maximising, as far as they can, the wages that people get and the amount of work that they are able to get.

Another recommendation and another thing that the Scottish Government have been trying to do is to look at more family-friendly policies. A lot of in-work poverty affects women even more than it affects men. One recommendation and one thing that the Scottish Government will try to move forward is more free childcare to allow women to go to work. It is all very well being able to work, but what if people cannot afford the childcare? Again, that affects family incomes, and more and more children are being affected by that.

Scotland has the second highest proportion of employees paid the living wage—about 80%. The highest proportion is in the south-east of England, where it is 81.6%, but that is a function of the fact that there are many jobs in this part of the United Kingdom and employers have to compete in paying people. If there is high unemployment, there is no competition to raise wages. That has to be addressed.

Opposition Members really do believe that work is a good route out of poverty—indeed, it is the best route out of poverty—but we cannot ensure that that is the case unless we support people, and this Government are attacking the lowest-paid people in our communities, the poorest in our communities and the ones who have to work the hardest.

The hon. Member for Swansea East referred to the Minister saying that, because of the cuts that are going to happen and the reduction in the work allowance, people will just have to work longer. That is, in this day and age, an absolutely scandalous thing to say. We totally refute it, because making people work more and more will only make them ill and less able in the long term to provide for their families.

[Neil Coyle]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way again; she is being generous about allowing interventions. Another group of working people may not be able to take on additional hours as a result of ill health or impairment. I do not know whether she is aware of the case of Denise Haddon, which was covered in the Daily Mirror. As a direct result of this Government’s introduction of personal independence payments, thousands of disabled people who are already trying to work and are supported through Motability vehicles will have them withdrawn and may not be able to continue in work.

[Marion Fellows]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Fortunately, I do not always get to read the Daily Mirror; it is not top of my reading list, as people can imagine. However, I am aware, as a constituency MP, of people who are losing PIP or who are being transferred to universal credit and who are suffering real hardship. There is a constant stream of constituents into my office, and I am obviously trying to help them, but it is hard when Government Members are absolutely determined to come down hard on the working poor by cutting some of the benefits that those people rely on to support their families.

This debate has shown that, again, there are real issues that Opposition Members are very keen that the Government should change track on. Whether they will listen I doubt, but it is very important for our constituents that the Government understand the real damage that they are doing to families, especially children and women, with this move. To ask a family to lose £1,300 to £1,600 a year when they are already on minimum wage and have no hope of getting more money is nothing short of disgraceful. It is totally abhorrent, and I hope that the Government will think again about introducing the cuts that they are proposing in April this year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I again reiterate my pleasure at serving under your chairmanship, Mr Turner. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on securing the debate.

For the second time this week, I appear opposite this Minister in this Chamber. I am starting to get very worried about her and the hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley), because they must be becoming extremely lonely. This is the second time this week that they have appeared in this Chamber without one Tory MP coming along to support them. Not one came for the child poverty debate on Tuesday or has come for this debate today. “Now why is that?”, I ask myself. I cannot believe for a moment that it is anything personal towards them. Nor can I believe that the Tory Whips Office has become so incompetent that it cannot even encourage hon. Members to attend a debate such as this. The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s leadership bid is already so long gone that I cannot believe that he has got them round to the Treasury to glad-hand them. It cannot be that, so why exactly is it?

I can only draw the conclusion that both child poverty and in-work poverty simply are not high enough on the Tory agenda for their MPs to come along here this week. That is the only explanation, and perhaps we should not be too surprised about it, given what the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions said—he does speak occasionally. Indeed, he was in the main Chamber this morning. He came to watch one of his Ministers, as he usually does. I think that he is trying to live up to the reputation of being the quiet man that he got when he was Tory party leader, because he does not say very much, although perhaps in some cases less is more. But he actually said, at the Tory party conference back on 6 October 2015, that he thought that tax credits were a “bribe”. That is how the Secretary of State sees support for people in work, so perhaps it should not surprise us that no Tory MPs are here to support the Minister and the hon. Gentleman.

[Neil Coyle]

Is my hon. Friend aware that in Bermondsey and Old Southwark 6,100 working families were claiming the tax credits that the Secretary of State apparently referred to as a “bribe”? I hope that the Minister will give some reassurance that those families will not be adversely affected by the introduction of universal credit.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I, too, hope that that reassurance will be given this afternoon.

In contrast to the absence of any contribution from Conservative Members, we have heard passionate contributions from the Opposition. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East spoke with her usual verve and passion both on the issue and for her constituents. What a telling statistic it is that wage growth this decade is the third worst since 1860, when Palmerston was Prime Minister. That is an incredible and shocking statistic.

My hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Christina Rees) made several very good interventions, and her passion for Wales, in particular, shone through in what she said. Similarly, my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) put his finger on several crucial points, including the delays to universal credit. To be clear about this, I will quote from a press release of 1 November 2011 from the Secretary of State. What did he say? He said:

“Over one million people will be claiming Universal Credit by April 2014”.

[Neil Coyle]

He said it very quietly.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Indeed, he would have been better off saying it quietly, because in November 2015, the actual figure was 155,568. He should be sanctioning himself, on the basis of such a performance. It shows an absolutely dreadful level of incompetence.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), who drew on his experience as a county borough councillor, and set out well the measures that Labour councils in Wales are implementing to try to deal with wage levels. My hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) spoke, as he always does, with great authority on the matter. His point about the availability of work, and his quote about there being one rule for the working rich and one for the working poor, really resonated in the context of the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) on her speech, which was delivered with great passion.

Let us remind ourselves of what the Chancellor—his must be the longest leadership bid in recorded history—said on the “Today” programme on 8 October 2012:

“It is unfair that people listening to this programme going out to work see the neighbour next door with the blinds down because they are on benefits.”

I fundamentally disagree with that statement. The person behind the blinds could be disabled or vulnerable. Dare I say it, they might even have just worked a night shift, although that is something that seems to be lost on the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Chancellor has been trying to draw a division between those who work and those who do not. He is not the only one who has a problem with the language that has been used in the debate. In September, the Secretary of State said, in answer to the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), that

“the most important point is that we are looking to get that up to the level of normal, non-disabled people who are back in work.”—[Official Report, 7 September 2015; Vol. 599, c. 6.]

Normal, non-disabled people—what kind of language is that? What does that say to somebody who is disabled? I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity this afternoon to distance herself from such shocking remarks.

Even if we accepted that distinction between those who work and those who do not, the Secretary of State is now in such a mess that he is on the wrong side of his own dividing line. It is all very well to say that work is the route out of poverty, and of course we want to see more people in work, but the kind of poverty that we are talking about affects people who have jobs, and who go out to work. As the smoke lifts from the Chancellor’s U-turn on tax credit cuts, it has become clear that he is simply going to make the same £12 billion of cuts to universal credit. No one can tell me that when the Tories were going around during the election campaign and talking about their £12 billion of welfare cuts, people such as cleaners seriously thought that they would be affected.

Let me give another couple of examples. I gave the statistics for single parents to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East.

--- Later in debate ---

[Priti Patel]

If it were not for the fact that this Government picked up the shambolic legacy of the Labour Government in 2010, rebalanced the economy and, importantly, created the right environment for the creation of new jobs, those new jobs in Wales would not exist today. We have supported lower corporation taxes and lower taxes for businesses to come to the UK to make the UK a much more competitive place.

We have heard voices from around the UK in the debate, including the hon. Members for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows). A record number of jobs have been created in Scotland and wages in Scotland are going up as a result.

[Neil Coyle]

The Minister seems to have the utmost confidence in the economic growth, which does not appear to have been shared in the latest survey of business leaders. Is their nervousness about the current state of the economy perhaps to do with the fact that the Chancellor seems set to take over from the lame duck Prime Minister?

[Priti Patel]

That intervention does not befit the hon. Gentleman.

[Neil Coyle]

That is up to the Chair.

[Priti Patel]

No—I have served with the hon. Gentleman on a Bill Committee in which he has made some valuable contributions. This is not about individuals. We live in a global world. Look at what is happening with the international economy right now. Stock markets around the world, including the UK, have faced a challenging start to the year. Business is right to be sensitive to global factors. I come back to the point that the UK has a highly competitive economy thanks to many difficult decisions undertaken by the Government in the previous Parliament, and we continue to make difficult decisions in this Parliament.

All the contributions this afternoon are valid. The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw mentioned that individual constituents come to her on a weekly basis. If she would like to share with me her casework examples regarding universal credit, I would be happy to take them up. When it comes to stability, we have made choices. None of the opposition parties has presented solutions to the House this afternoon. Hon. Members said that universal credit should not exist and that they want to scrap it, but they have no alternatives for welfare reform or changes to the welfare system. As we heard in earlier debates today, to govern is to choose. Our choice is to reform welfare and to ensure that we support people into work.

Under-occupancy Penalty

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

No.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

When the Government consulted on the bedroom tax in the run-up to the introduction of the Welfare Reform Act 2012, how many disability and carers’ organisations and others warned the Department categorically of the discriminatory nature of the measure, and why was their advice ignored at such substantial cost to the taxpayer?

[Justin Tomlinson]

In the development of this policy there was full and wide consultation.

Disabled People: Support

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the changes to funding of support for disabled people.

I thank you, Mr Crausby, for chairing this important debate, and I thank everyone for attending. I also thank all the organisations—especially the Disability Benefits Consortium—that have briefed MPs on today’s debate. [Interruption.] I also thank whoever is phoning.

The debate is important. The disadvantage experienced by disabled people is well evidenced. They are twice as likely as other people to live in poverty. The percentage of working-age disabled people in employment has dropped in recent years. Even in work, disabled people are worse off than non-disabled people. According to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, disabled men in work face an 11% pay gap, while disabled women face a 22% pay gap.

Disabled people also experience higher routine costs of living. The Scope-facilitated Extra Costs Commission, which began its work in 2014, has set out in detail the hundreds of pounds that many disabled people spend every week as a direct result of living with certain health conditions and impairments. Sadly, Government policies—particularly since 2010—have made things far worse for disabled people and caused them greater difficulty.

As to my personal background on this issue, my mum has schizophrenia, and that contributed to my work choices —I worked for the Disability Rights Commission, the National Centre for Independent Living and Disability Alliance UK among others. The issue is also very relevant to my constituency, because we have a higher incidence of certain mental health conditions, and about 12,500 disabled people—about one in nine of my constituents —live in Bermondsey and Old Southwark, according to the Library. The issue should, however, matter to everyone, because we should facilitate a society in which anyone can contribute, to the maximum of their potential. Sadly, however, that possibility is being undermined.

The debate’s timing is useful. Tomorrow is the last day of the Government’s consultation on the future of personal independence payments. Fears about disabled people losing work as a direct result of the introduction of personal independence payments are beginning to be realised. Over the weekend, the Daily Mirror covered the case of Denise Haddon which is yet another example of a disabled person who uses a Motability vehicle for work, but who could see that vehicle withdrawn, with them being forced out of work as a direct result of Government policy.

Today, colleagues in the House of Lords—certainly, Labour colleagues—will also be pushing amendments on the work-related activity group cuts in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, which will affect half a million disabled people. This afternoon, we will have an Opposition day debate on supported housing, in which we will call for an exemption for such housing from housing benefit cuts. This debate is therefore very timely.

The Government have their priorities wrong. They keep coming back to disabled people and undermining support, rather than focusing on areas where there is more potential. Just this week, for example, we saw the Google fiasco, which demonstrates yet again that we are not all in this together and that there is a significant imbalance in whom the Government choose to squeeze more out of.

What is worse, the Government suggest that their measures are about supporting disabled people into work or about providing more support to those who need it most. If they believe that any group of disabled people has definitely benefited more as a direct result of any policy since 2010, I would welcome the Minister providing evidence to back that up.

On work, 53% of working-age disabled people were in work in 2010, but the figure is now under 50%. The Library has pointed out that, of the 320,000 disabled people on employment and support allowance referred to the Work programme since 2011, only 16% got a job. Although 43% of those on Work Choice—a more specialised programme—could be supported into work, which is of benefit, the Government have announced that the two schemes will be merged in 2017. It would be useful to have a stronger indication from the Minister whether we will see a levelling up or a levelling down of the support provided to disabled people. Will we see a return to more specialised, localised support, with smaller suppliers who are better able to provide the dedicated support that many disabled people need? We saw good schemes under things such as the future jobs fund and the working neighbourhoods fund, which were more localised and specialised, but which were unable to compete following the changes introduced in 2010.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Does he agree that the issue is sometimes ensuring that training makes the right skills available for disabled people? Many disabled people want to get into work, but they are prevented from doing so by the inability to access the very skills they need to get into the workplace.

[Neil Coyle]

I completely agree that that training needs to be there. It would be useful to hear from the Minister how whatever new programme is put in place in 2017 will make training and dedicated, specialised support available.

Another thing we have seen is that the number of disability employment advisers, who have specialist knowledge, has dropped by 20% since 2010. There is now less than one adviser per 600 disabled people who are meant to be supported, so we are heading in the wrong direction.

People have been in touch with me about the Access to Work programme. For anyone who is unfamiliar with it, it is a specialised programme that helps disabled people to retain or attain work. The Department for Work and Pensions used to accept—it seems to shy away from accepting this know—that, for every pound spent on Access to Work, about £1.48 was returned through things such as national insurance contributions and income tax. However, fewer disabled people are now supported under Access to Work than in 2009-10—the figure has dropped from just over 37,000 to 36,700. That needs addressing, and it would be welcome if the Minister told us whether there will be more targeted support under Access to Work to increase those numbers.

In 2014, the Government said they were expanding Access to Work to include work placements acquired by the individual disabled person. I have asked questions about that and received no information to show whether the Government are actually delivering on that. In 2011, the Government said that they accepted all the recommendations of the Sayce review, including those on Access to Work. Perhaps we could have an update on how they are taking forward the review’s retention and promotion aspects. In the 2015 spending review, the Government announced that Access to Work funding would support 25,000 additional disabled people by providing IT help, but we have no information on what that means or how it will be rolled out in practice. It would be useful to hear more about that significant target.

The Down’s Syndrome Association has been in touch and has provided briefing for the debate to highlight its WorkFit programme. The association says the programme has supported 75 individuals with Down’s syndrome into work, but that only three have met the stringent eligibility criteria for Access to Work. The association feels that that needs to change, and it is keen to hear from the Minister whether the Government will take forward its recommendations.

I want to raise the issue of assessments and accessible information. I have a constituent called Norma who lives in Walworth. Her daughter, who is about 50, has learning disabilities and a visual impairment, and she is deaf. The DWP has been contacting Norma to press for her daughter to be assessed, and Norma feels that her daughter is being told she should be working, even though she cannot leave her home without support. Norma feels she is under considerable pressure. I will write to the Minister about this specific example after the debate, and I will encourage him to explain why Norma and her daughter feel they are under such pressure from the DWP.

Disabled people have also been in touch with significant concerns about universal credit. Some projections suggest that universal credit will be about 1,000 years in delivery, so perhaps some of the fears are unnecessary, as we will not be here. However, it appears that the Government have scrapped the limited capability for work element before any disabled person has been able to access it, which will leave 116,000 working disabled people £40 a week worse off. Once again, the idea that the Government want to support people into work is undermined by their policies. Citizens Advice has also highlighted in a report that in-work single disabled people will be worse off because of the scrapping of the severe disability premium, which will leave almost 250,000 disabled people worse off by between £28 and £58 a week. The Children’s Society has pointed out that, under universal credit, 100,000 disabled children could also lose £28 a week. I ask the Minister what message that sends to those disabled people.

Employment and support allowance is also a significant concern for many of my constituents, 5,630 of whom receive it. The Government recently announced that a cut of £1.4 billion will affect disabled people in the work-related activity group; that is £30 a week for half a million disabled people. DWP statistics show who those people are. They include a quarter of a million people with learning disabilities, autism or significant mental health problems. Again, I ask the Minister why those specific people were chosen for that measure. What are the Government seeking to achieve by targeting such a disadvantaged and vulnerable group?

An example given to me by Parkinson’s UK shows something of the challenge that disabled people have in accepting that the Government agenda is genuine. In a written answer to a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff) on Monday, the Minister for Employment revealed that since 2008, when ESA was introduced, 200 people with Parkinson’s in the work-related activity group were assessed and given a medical prognosis by the DWP that they would not be able to return to work for at least two years, or longer. The Department is telling people whom it has assessed as unable to work for two years that they will be receiving £1,500 less per year to get them back into work within that period. I hope that the Minister will comment on that. I hope, too, that he will answer the suggestion raised elsewhere that there will be no change for those already in the work-related activity group. Does that include those whose circumstances change, and those who undergo repeat assessments?

The change to ESA follows previous changes, including the time limiting of some support, which has left 280,000 disabled people with no out-of-work benefit. Some have very low incomes, and it is most unfortunate that the Government have managed to pick that group for an increase in poverty. I would welcome a comment from the Minister about that.

I want briefly to cover sanctions. In its briefing, the Child Poverty Action Group highlighted the fact that some sanctions mean that 100% of a person’s financial support goes. Those sanctions can last up to three years, under the increasingly automated system introduced by the previous Government. [Interruption.] I am glad that some Members find that funny. I find that very strange. Would the hon. Gentleman like to intervene?

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

No, because I am about to make a speech, but I thank the hon. Gentleman for the offer.

[Neil Coyle]

The hon. Gentleman is welcome. Perhaps I will enjoy his contribution as much as he appears to be enjoying mine.

The concern that I have about sanctions is the growing number of disabled people who experience them; 70,000 sanctions have been imposed on ESA claimants between December 2012 and June 2015 alone. The Select Committee on Work and Pensions highlighted the fact that safeguards may not always work effectively. My question for the Minister is: if he believes the system is adequate, how has he responded to the Committee’s recommendations, and when will the Department publish its own findings of a review of sanctions? Furthermore, as sanctions and benefit changes are specifically mentioned in some people’s suicide notes, how does the Department support Jobcentre Plus staff and other agencies in handling suicidal claimants and those who raise the matter of suicide in meetings with Government officials?

Disability living allowance and personal independence payments are a growing concern for many disabled people. In Bermondsey and Old Southwark, 3,600 working-age disabled people will be affected by the abolition of DLA and hundreds more children will be affected as they reach the age of 16. The DWP has revealed that 607,000 disabled people will lose help with the abolition of DLA. That struck me as quite odd, given that a former Minister for Disabled People accused charities of scaremongering, such as when the Disability Action Alliance suggested that half a million disabled people would be affected. Now that the Government have revealed that the figure will be 607,000, perhaps Ministers should apologise to the charities they accused. Instead, the Government attacks charities’ ability to challenge the Government agenda, which is most unfortunate.

The Disability Benefits Consortium, among others, recommended that there should be better trials of the new assessment process. The DWP chose to ignore that advice; then the National Audit Office reported that the early operational performance of PIP was poor, and the Public Accounts Committee suggested that early delivery was

“nothing short of a fiasco”.

What assessment is the Minister making and what monitoring is the Department undertaking of those changes and how they are affecting disabled people’s ability to work, in the context of the stories about Denise Haddon and others? What is the impact of the changes on NHS demand, for example? It would also be useful to have an update on the backlog of PIP assessments. Citizens Advice reported in August that PIP has now overtaken ESA as the most complained-about benefit system.

I want briefly to focus on the bedroom tax. The DWP acknowledges that two out of three people affected by the bedroom tax are disabled people. That is 440,000 disabled people. Assuming that average amount is £14 per week since the introduction of the bedroom tax, by the time it reaches its third birthday at the end of April, it will amount to a disability tax of almost £1 billion. Disabled people are also affected by issues such as the freezing of benefit of uprating. Even for those on ESA, the value of the uprating for the vast majority of their benefits is lower than the rises in their energy bills or transport costs, for example.

On housing, I have been contacted by John, who is pleased about this debate and the one this afternoon. He says that he lives in supported housing, which he relies on to live independently. He says that he has

“lived securely, independently and safely in a social housing wheelchair designated flat provided by Habinteg for 27 years and this is now potentially under threat.”

Many of his neighbours have considerably greater needs and are equally threatened. He finds the threat alone destabilising, let alone what could happen if the changes go through as the Government intend. He believes that the Government’s plans will stem the supply of wheelchair-accessible housing, particularly as there is already a shortfall in the availability of genuinely accessible housing. Has the Minister undertaken any impact assessment of how that specific change will affect the supply of accessible housing over time, given that we have an ageing population and growing demand for wheelchair-accessible homes?

On social care, a recent report from the Royal National Institute of Blind People and Age UK suggested that more than 12,000 blind and partially sighted people over 65 lost access to social care between 2009 and 2013. That is more than a third of those who were previously getting support. The role of the Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People should not just be to act as an apologist for the DWP. It should be cross-Government. I am intrigued to know what monitoring the Minister is undertaking with colleagues at the Department for Communities and Local Government, or the Department of Health, about where those disabled people go next if they lose social care. For example, is there a rise in demand for NHS services? Reductions in support for disabled people inevitably mean an increase in the demand for informal carers, who, without adequate support, can go on to experience health conditions and impairments of their own. There has been a rise in the number of children providing support for disabled parents and grandparents, which is a risk to their own long-term prospects if they do not receive sufficient support.

The independent living fund is being abolished. Its 18,000 users are very nervous about what happens next. It would be useful to have an indication from the Minister about how the people who lose it will be monitored, to see where they go next, given that the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services estimates that social care has lost £3.5 billion in funding since 2010. Many councils are losing about 28% of their budget but are spending about a third of their entire budget on social care. Councils cannot pick up the loss; they cannot step in and fill that gap.

I am sure that the Minister will want to mention the better care fund. My understanding of that fund is that it will only support new services, so those losing independent living fund support may not qualify for help. Scope, Mencap, Leonard Cheshire Disability and the National Autistic Society have estimated that one in six care users have fallen out of the system since 2008, and a further 36,000 working-age disabled people could lose access under the latest cuts as a result of the autumn statement. Will the Minister comment on what that loss could mean for other Government services?

Not only have social security and social care services been undermined by changes since 2010, but changes to a whole range of services used and needed by disabled people have had a negative impact. For example, there are 3,000 fewer nurses and hundreds fewer doctors in mental healthcare than in 2010. In my borough, we have therefore seen a rise in crisis treatment—that is, a rise in the number of people with mental health problems arriving at A&E, rather than having the right support further upstream.

In education, we have seen changes to the disabled students’ allowance. Randstad provided a briefing for this debate in which it highlights its concerns about both the changes to DSA and the regulatory change to how provision is administered. It quotes its survey of disabled students, which found that almost 28% of disabled students would not have attended university if DSA had not been available. Another third said they were unsure whether they would have attended university. The survey also found that more than three quarters of disabled students said that attending university as a disabled student was more expensive, with 42% saying they were more likely to drop out as a result of losing DSA. Furthermore, 87% of students said they were concerned that not completing their studies would impact on their future employment prospects. Will the Minister try to demonstrate that the Government are taking a long-term approach and looking at what DSA changes might mean in lowering income for disabled people and lowering tax contributions to the Government in the longer term?

Even on legal aid, the Government have acknowledged that changes to funding have the potential to discriminate against disabled people unduly. That is borne out in the case summaries since the changes. In 2011-12, there were 7,676 disability discrimination-related cases. That has fallen to 3,106 cases—less than half—in the last year stats were available. That collapse is not due to discrimination ending, though it would be useful if that were so. The Government’s concern should be that, without disabled people receiving the right support, the Government will not meet their commendable target to cut the employment gap for disabled people.

I suspect that the Minister will mention in his contribution the £50 billion a year spent on disabled people. The Resolution Foundation estimates that disabled people have lost more than £28 billion in support under a range of funding changes since 2010. If the Minister were to use that figure, he would therefore acknowledge that the Government have cut resources by about one third. That is not a record I would trumpet. It would be welcome if that figure were broken down into the different pots of support it covers. My concern is that it includes social care funding, without taking into account the charges that many disabled people pay to use social services, so it is not representative.

I want to conclude with a reference to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities inquiry into the rights of people with disabilities in the UK, which should report next year. Investigations by the committee are confidential, and the process, extent and scope of the inquiry are unknown, but it is widely believed that it will consider policies introduced by the coalition Government since 2010 in relation to welfare and social security benefits and, in particular, their compatibility with articles 19 and 28 of the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, which cover their rights to live independently and to enjoy an adequate standard of living.

The UK is the first country in the world to be investigated by the UN in relation to that convention. We have moved from being at the forefront of disability rights, respect and inclusion globally to being the first state in the world under investigation for rolling back disabled people’s rights and undermining their equal citizenship. I simply end by asking the Minister this: can he genuinely be proud of that position for the UK?

[Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)]

I intend to call the three Front-Bench Members starting at 10.30 am. If they could give Mr Coyle an opportunity to sum up briefly at the end, I would appreciate it. I do not intend to impose a time limit, but if Members could self-regulate, that would be best.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Tomlinson]

The consultation is just completing, and we will analyse what people have had to say. We were right to do that following the Paul Gray review. He highlighted the issue following court judgments. On an earlier point, rather than waiting for the courts to continue to drag it through, it is right and proper that we have a thorough look at it, but I do not want to pre-empt any consultation. We are continuing to look to improve the PIP process, and I look forward to reading the hon. Lady’s comments, assuming that she has fed into that consultation.

Only 16% of DLA claimants secured the highest rate, and the figure is now 22.5% under PIP. As a specific example of an area of disability where people have benefited from the changes, 22% of those with a mental health condition would get the highest rate of DLA, but now 68% of mental health claimants are on enhanced PIP.

[Neil Coyle]

But that is not someone getting more support but someone qualifying for exactly the same support that existed previously under DLA, a system that actually cost less to run.

[Justin Tomlinson]

My point is that only 22% of those with mental health conditions would have qualified, and now the figure is at 68%, so more people with a mental health condition are qualifying for the enhanced rate. That is one example, and there are others.

We are in the process of the full roll-out, taking the 1.7 million DLA claimants over to PIP, but please be assured that that is being done in a controlled, measured and timely manner that learns the lessons of the reviews. We are doing the roll-out in a manner that meets the available capacity so as not to repeat the mistakes of when PIP was first launched. The disabled facilities grant currently funds about 40,000 house adaptations a year, and I am delighted that funding is due to increase by 79% next year from £220 million to £394 million.

A number of Members talked about working across the Government, which is a big part of my role. I meet not only Ministers but Opposition Members and Lords stakeholders. I make lots of visits, which is a part of my role that I very much enjoy. My door is always open, and I have met a number of speakers here today.

Some 16,900 have transferred from the independent living fund, of whom 91% already had some form of their care provided by the local authority. The funding was transferred in full. The protection was underwritten by the Care Act 2014. The Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Health, the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Treasury are keeping a close eye on that as it progresses. I understand the importance of the issue, on which we have had many debates.

We must not forget that ESA WRAG was not a golden solution; it had been criticised by all parties for a long time. Only 1% of claimants a month were coming off that benefit into work. No Government ever invented could have spun that as anything other than failing the people it was meant to serve. Those already receiving ESA will see no cash loss. Anyone whose capacity to work is limited by severe work-limiting health conditions and disabilities will continue to remain in that support group. Existing claimants who undergo a work capability reassessment after April 2017 and are placed in, or remain in, the WRAG will continue to receive that additional rate.

The Government have invested an extra £1.25 billion in mental health support, and in our area we are doing a series of pilots on group work, telephone support, face to face, online and inside jobcentres to look seriously at how we can do that and scale it across the country to help people as quickly as possible, which is clearly the key. On the disabled students allowance, we recognise that progress has been made since the Equality Acts. Universities, like all public sector bodies, have a duty to comply with the law. We should not be paying for things that they should be doing and are underwritten by law. I have had a number of meetings on that, and I will continue to keep a close eye on it.

Finally, on accessible information, the Royal National Institute of Blind People rightly challenged me because it felt that the Government were inconsistent in how they presented information. It is important that my Department leads on that, as well as pushing the rest of the Government, so I set up a taskforce that includes the RNIB and a number of organisations and people with a wealth of experience who will work through how we communicate our information. I understand that, when people are looking to use services and claim benefits, we need to make their journey as easy and as helpful as possible, and I am delighted that so many organisations are supporting that valuable work.

It is a pleasure to have responded to this helpful debate, which is a credit to the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark.

[Neil Coyle]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. I thank everyone who has contributed to this debate. The Minister seems to have left most of my questions unanswered, particularly on unemployment—there was just some indication there. I share the concern of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that, although we welcome the commitment to halve the gap, there is a reverse-Ronseal approach coming from the Government. The approach is not doing what it says on the tin. The number of people supported by Access to Work, for example, seems to be heading the wrong way.

On DSA and universities needing to do more, it goes back to the point raised by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) and my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams). Look at the court case today: the Government do not do what they are meant to do on impact assessing or following their own Equality Act obligations. That from the Department that is directly responsible for representing disabled people and much of central Government disability policy. The Government are not doing enough, and to try to pass responsibility on to universities when the Government are failing to uphold their own responsibilities is crude.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) for her contribution. I completely share her concern about the Government’s risky, uncertain and late approach, and I thank her for all her work with Carers UK, which is based in my constituency. I consider her an honorary constituent simply because of the amount of time she spends with Carers UK.

The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) mentioned funding, but the Government still do not seem to co-ordinate a longer-term approach to planning. What happens when disabled people lose support and end up making increased demands on the NHS? He made lots of points about the extra costs of disability and then seemed to suggest, in some kind of sick joke, that disabled people in the work-related activity group of ESA should get JSA, which would be a considerable reduction in financial payment, because it might incentivise them into work sooner when we know they have health issues. That is a completely unacceptable approach, and sadly that is what we see time and again from a Government whose priorities are upside down—tax is not collected where it should be, and they keep coming back to disabled people for more.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

Housing Benefit and Supported Housing

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I do not often disagree with my hon. Friend, but I do not agree that that is the solution. It is absolutely clear, as the motion says, that the Government need to act immediately and confirm that they will exempt in full supported housing from these housing benefit cuts. They then need to work with housing providers to ensure that such housing can be developed and secured for the future. I hope that my hon. Friend accepts that argument and will back us in the Lobby today.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend suggests that the Government do not know what they are doing, but does he agree that it could be suggested that they do not care about the people whom they are directly affecting? They should care, however, that the Homes and Communities Agency has estimated that its investment in supported housing results in a net benefit of £640 million a year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Tomlinson]

I have made it clear that, for those in supported housing, the change will be delayed for a year as we conduct the urgent review.

On the rationale for changes in the social rented sector, we will stick to our principles of protecting the most vulnerable. However, these are important reforms. We inherited a burgeoning housing benefits bill that we had to get control of. We have started to do that, but we need to go further. The housing benefit bill for England has risen by over 20% during the past 10 years, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) said. Part of the reason is that the rises in social rents have outstripped those in the private sector, as highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). Social rents are up by 60% compared with 23% in the private sector. In the private sector, the local housing allowance curbs the spiralling housing benefit bill, but there is no similar restraint in the social sector. That is why we are going to cap social sector rents in the same way as in the private sector, thereby reducing rents in the social sector. We should remember that this will help the one third of people in this sector who do not claim any housing benefit and whose rents will come down. However, we will continue to protect the most vulnerable.

This is just part of our wider housing reforms. We are improving access, creating more choice and building more affordable homes. We are doubling the housing budget to more than £20 billion over the next five years to help to ensure that housing is prioritised for those who need it most.

[Neil Coyle]

Will the Minister give way?

[Justin Tomlinson]

No. I am short of time.

Under Labour, the number of social and affordable rented homes fell by 400,000, but under the Conservative Government, 700,000 new homes have been built in the past five years, of which 270,000 are affordable homes. We are broadening opportunities for people to access housing through Help to Buy, right to buy and the £8 billion commitment to deliver 400,000 more affordable home starts. This Government are tackling the chronic problems of under-supply and access to housing, which the Labour party failed to do.

In conclusion, we will not fall into the trap of Labour’s blank-cheque approach by paying away problems without making any real or meaningful reforms to welfare. Our reforms bring fairness for hard-working taxpayers and make the welfare budget more sustainable for the future, and we are doing that while providing the right protection for the most vulnerable in society.

Question put.

Benefit Sanctions

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered benefit sanctions.

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to lead this short debate this afternoon. Members will be aware that I have debated this topic with Ministers several times in the past, and that I have been at pains during those debates to raise concerns about the impact of conditionality on vulnerable claimants. At the forefront of those debates has been the disproportionate level of sanctions imposed on people with mental illness. I met the Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People not long ago to discuss some of the ways in which the Government might address the acknowledged shortcomings in the regime for those with serious mental illnesses and other fluctuating conditions. However, I am glad that the Minister for Employment is responding to today’s debate, because I think the wider issues sit far more appropriately in her portfolio.

As I have argued before, one of the reasons why the sanctions regime is failing vulnerable people so badly is the underlying problem with the work capability assessment. High levels of sanctioning among people who are ill or very disadvantaged is, in part, symptomatic of people being found fit for work when they are not really fit for work. Until that gets fixed, I fear we are destined to go round in circles. But that is not the whole story. Although I do not think anyone would dismiss the value of conditionality in the benefits system per se, the conditions that the Government set need to be proportionate and fair, and I do not think we can say that at the moment, particularly for the more vulnerable claimants.

The Government’s announcement a few weeks back that they intend to pilot a so-called yellow card scheme for sanctions in the new year is, I think, an acknowledgement that the system is not working very well at present. I hope the Minister will take the opportunity today to set out in more detail how that warning system will work in practice, and, specifically, what protection there will be for those who are identified as vulnerable.

My main call today echoes the calls I have made previously, and that the Work and Pensions Committee made in the previous Parliament, for a full independent review of the benefit sanctions regime. That is necessary and long overdue. I fear that tinkering around the edges of the system will not resolve the systemic weaknesses, and this afternoon I want to highlight a growing body of evidence that sanctions are not only failing to support claimants into work, but are actually having a counterproductive effect, undermining the Government’s policy objectives and causing unacceptable levels of hardship and destitution to vulnerable and disadvantaged people.

Last week the homelessness charity, Crisis, published a major piece of research undertaken at Sheffield Hallam University into homeless people’s experiences of welfare conditionality and benefit sanctions. It is a significant and timely piece of work; it is the largest study of its kind ever carried out, and it provides a robust qualitative evidence base for how sanctions are affecting vulnerable claimants. The researchers drew on the experiences of more than a thousand people who use homelessness services in England and Scotland, and looked specifically at the impact of sanctions on their lives and employment prospects. Distressing individual stories are documented in the report, and I urge the Minister and other hon. Members to read it. It deserves to be widely read.

There are many reasons why people become homeless or precariously housed. Often in the past, relationship breakdown has been cited as the single biggest reason why someone will end up homeless, but more recently that has been overtaken by problems with benefits, particularly among those who have been sanctioned. In many cases, though, homelessness is itself a symptom of underlying vulnerabilities. Young people leaving care; people with long-term mental health problems; people with addictions; and people with borderline learning disabilities who have trouble with literacy or numeracy—those are all high risk factors for becoming homeless, but what the Crisis research found was that the most vulnerable claimants were those at the greatest risk of being sanctioned. They also found that, far from pushing people to secure work, sanctions were actually pushing people further away from the labour market. To my mind, that is an extremely serious finding, because it undermines the Government’s assertion that sanctions are helping to bring down claimant numbers and are playing a positive role in getting people into work.

As far as vulnerable claimants are concerned, that is simply not where the evidence leads. Research from the University of Oxford and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, published earlier this year, found that

“Sanctions do not appear to help people return to work. There is a real concern that sanctioned persons are disappearing from view.”

Similarly, the Economic and Social Research Council has questioned the effectiveness of conditionality in getting people into work, and the Department for Work and Pensions’ own evaluation of Jobcentre Plus in 2013 concluded that there was no evidence to suggest that knowledge of jobseeker’s allowance conditionality led to actual movement into work. However, there is mounting evidence that sanctions are a key driver of the growth in demand for food banks and are causing unprecedented hardship, and now there is evidence that they are fuelling homelessness.

The number of people being sanctioned has fallen from its peak in the year to October 2013. Since that time, the labour market has improved significantly, and the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance or its successor benefit, universal credit, has fallen by 41%, so we would expect to see a corresponding fall in the number of people being sanctioned. What is more revealing is that we have also seen a smaller, underlying downward trend in the proportion of claimants being sanctioned, which has fallen to 4.92% a month in the year to June 2015, from a high of 6.77% a month in the previous year. That, however, is still dramatically higher than the pre-2012 rates prior to the introduction of the new regime, and a staggering proportion of sanctions—more than two thirds—are now overturned on appeal, where claimants challenge the decision. I know from speaking to colleagues in Citizens Advice that it now urges people who are sanctioned to appeal against that first sanction. If people do not appeal against that first sanction, there is a real risk that if they are sanctioned again, the consequences will be devastating for their incomes.

Research carried out by Dr David Webster of Glasgow University highlights a couple of very important statistical limitations of the data that we have on sanctions. First, the recorded stats show sanctions only after reviews, considerations and appeals, so there is a time lag in the data, and the figures do not tell us how many people actually had their benefit money stopped in the first place. Also, and more significantly, as the DWP has been making the transfer to universal credit, new single claimants of unemployment benefits are going on to that benefit instead of on to JSA, and absolutely no data have been published on universal credit sanctions. This is now having what researchers describe as a “significant distorting effect” on analysis, because the number of those at risk of JSA sanctions is being reduced. Moreover, the young single claimants now more likely to be on universal credit—almost half of them are under 25—were previously twice as likely, statistically, to be sanctioned under JSA, so the distortion in the data could be amplified by that, but without hard data, we simply do not know. So we need that data on universal credit.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. She has made an interesting point about jobseeker’s allowance, but there are data to show that in the past couple of years there has been a significant increase in the number of disabled people in receipt of employment and support allowance who have been sanctioned, up from 1,400 in March 2013 to 5,400 in March 2014, according to the Crisis figures that I believe the hon. Lady was citing.

The hon. Lady made comments about improving the work capability assessment. Even if the WCA were improved, what is her solution to the sanctions on disabled people on employment and support allowance?

[Mrs Cheryl Gillan (in the Chair)]

May I remind hon. Members that interventions are supposed to be short and pithy?

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne McLaughlin]

We are not missing the point. Most of us have been there ourselves. Most of us have been unemployed and looking for work. None of us was born with a silver spoon in our mouth. None of us has had a job for the boys. Most of us have experienced living on benefits. I am telling the hon. Gentleman that the way to get people into work is to support them, understand them and build their confidence, not to attack or threaten them and certainly not to take away the means by which they feed and clothe themselves and their children.

[Neil Coyle]

Does the hon. Lady share my concern about the despicable comments that we just heard? We are talking about disabled people with mental health conditions or learning disabilities. A quarter of a million people on employment support allowance have been found unfit for work. It is disgraceful to be pretending that this is about supporting them back into work. This is about taking money from disadvantaged people.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I will finish by completely agreeing with the hon. Gentleman. I have had a constituent—a grown man—crying to me on the phone. He once had a lot of self-respect. He once had a tough job that he worked really hard at. He became ill, but he has not been believed. He is now talking to me about ending his life. I do not know what to say to him. The hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) pretends that this is all about getting people into work, but why does he not listen to what we are telling him? Why does he not listen to the evidence? He may believe something else, but he needs to open his ears and start listening.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. The latest figures show that the employment rate for young people who have left full-time education is above the UK average and is at its highest level for a decade at 74.3%.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

Low pay and training needs affect many disabled people. Two years ago, almost to the day, the Department announced the extension of the Access to Work programme to disabled people seeking training, internships and apprenticeships. How many people have benefited from that scheme and when will we hear about its progress?

[Mr Vara]

We are very close to record levels as far as that initiative is concerned. As I said earlier, our long-term economic plan is continuing. While I am at the Dispatch Box, may I say that the House has considerable sympathy with all that the hon. Gentleman and a lot of his colleagues are going through?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My apologies to the hon. Lady. May I say to her that we will come back with our exact reasons and rationale for how we will decide that? The reality remains, however—and this is, I believe, popular among the public—that those who make choices and take responsibility for them want everyone else to do the same as well.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Points of order come after statements. I shall await with eager anticipation the hon. Gentleman’s point of order.

Welfare Reform and Work Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Debbie Abrahams]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Coyle]

On childcare, will the Minister explain how families with children older than the qualifying age will benefit from that policy?

[Priti Patel]

They will benefit from tax-free childcare. That will be available for families whose children are at school—basically, those who are still school age. That is a Treasury policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The new clause is about having a review of the application of sanctions. Many shadows have fallen upon our discussions over the past few weeks. This particular shadow is whether there is a link between welfare reform and work. What happens to people who do not live up to the requirements imposed on them?

Too often in recent years the Government’s focus has been on a target-driven approach that has assumed that anyone out of work simply lacks willpower. The cornerstone of that approach has been the sanctions regime. The Committee might remember that the previous Minister for Employment, who lost her seat at the last election, took the view that

“people who get sanctions are wilfully rejecting support for no good reason”.

The evidence, however, had she or any of her colleagues cared to look, suggests otherwise.

As the Minister frequently reminds us, and as I am sure she will remind us again today, it is true that conditions have always been attached to the social safety net since unemployment benefit was first introduced in 1911. Nevertheless, the Government mislead the public when they fail to acknowledge that the sanctions regime introduced as part of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 marked a radical departure from the history of the welfare state and from the entire principle of evidence-based policy making.

The official justification of the Department for Work and Pensions for sanctions remains that

“they are there to encourage claimants to take reasonable steps to find employment or move closer to the labour market”,

but its own impact assessment for the 2012 changes acknowledged that there was insufficient evidence for the proposed approach achieving that. Since then, of course, extensive evidence has emerged that demonstrates that sanctions are deeply counterproductive if helping people into work is really the intention.

The number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance has fallen since 2012, but that has coincided with a significant rise in the number of people whom the Office for National Statistics classes as economically inactive—not unemployed or claiming jobseeker’s allowance, but statistically almost non-people. Interestingly, many of those economically inactive people, if asked why they have become economically inactive, give their reason as being discouraged. So that is their reason—they have been discouraged and so dropped out of the labour market altogether. I would have thought it was important to do some work on what “discouraged” means and on the experiences of those discouraged people, because there might well be a clear link between cause and effect.

Research published in January by Oxford’s Professor David Stuckler found that, of those sanctioned between 2011 and 2014 who subsequently stopped claiming benefits altogether, only 20% said that it was because they had found work. According to the professor, all those people were sanctioned and 80% of them then stopped claiming benefits, but not because they had found work. So they are all off the jobseeker’s allowance statistics and are no longer unemployed. In some ways, therefore, perhaps there has been some success.

To the extent that increased sanctions have had an identifiable impact at all, it has been to increase dramatically the levels of hardship and poverty in recent years, as illustrated most starkly in the extraordinary rise in food bank use. I do not know how many Members were at the Trussell Trust breakfast this morning, but one of the stories I heard arose because the trust has started to give medical advice at some of its food banks. It was giving medical advice to a nurse who had a condition that meant she needed to take various pills. The nurse in her knew that she had to take the pills regularly, but the mother in her knew that, because their tax credits had been wrongly taken away and they were in great need, she had to give the food in the cupboard to her children. So she was taking the pills without having eaten anything and was causing herself more harm. There are hundreds of thousands of these stories and unfortunately things seem to be getting worse, not better. We understand that last year, a million people took advantage of food banks. One has to wonder what would happen if they were not available. According to the 2014 survey by the Trussell Trust, 83% of food banks said that the new sanctions regime had caused an increase in the number of people needing their help.

Another very odd thing about the sanctions regime, which would be addressed if the new clause were accepted, is that different towns and villages have different numbers of people going to food banks and different levels of sanctions. There is one jobcentre where in one month, 40% of people were on sanctions. If there are such extraordinary variations happening within the system, there is clearly unfairness. If individuals within jobcentres are given powers and exercise them with a wide element of discretion, that discretion will clearly be exercised differently in different jobcentres. In some areas there will be more strain on food banks, let alone on the poorest and most vulnerable who continue to be sanctioned.

[Neil Coyle]

It might surprise my hon. Friend to learn that part of the strain on the resources of the food bank in Southwark, which is provided by Pecan as part of the Trussell Trust’s network, comes from people in work. Some 10% of that food bank’s users are working, and the Government have just made that a whole lot worse with their tax credit changes.

[Emily Thornberry]

My hon. Friend is right. The range of people going to food banks is very alarming. It is not enough to say, “Oh well, it’s because people know that there are food banks now. They didn’t know about them in the past, but now they do, and they are going in because it’s free and taking a can of beans, but they don’t really need it.” That may be how some Government Members feel that people behave. There is another point of view, which is that to go to a food bank is completely humiliating. It is the worst.

I raise my own personal experience again. After my family got thrown out by the men with the bowler hats and went into social housing, I remember my mother used to get boxes of food from friends. It was embarrassing, but it was the way we kept things together; there were no food banks at that point. I remember that one of the food boxes always used to include Campbell’s meatballs. My mother kept them under the stairs and threatened us that if we did not eat what was on our plates, we were going to have to eat the meatballs instead. They may still be under the stairs for all I know. But at least those boxes of food were delivered to our door, instead of my mother having to go out to ask for food. That is humiliating for anybody, for heaven’s sake.

What the Government’s sanctions regime has brought us is increased hardship and suffering, with no tangible gains in the likelihood that those affected will move into work as a result. If we could be confident that all this suffering was resulting in something good, that there was meaning and that people were moving into work who would not have moved into work otherwise—can the Conservative party show us some real evidence of that?—that would take some of the edge off the terrible stories that we hear, which show that the sanctions regime is simply unfair. How on earth do people manage if they are living from hand to mouth, have no savings and have exhausted the support they can ask for from their families and friends, but then are sanctioned a third time and given nothing for three months?

--- Later in debate ---

[Priti Patel]

Let me start by saying that the Government keep the operation of the sanctions system under constant review to ensure that it continues to function effectively and fairly. Where we identify an issue, we will act to put it right. It is therefore unnecessary to embed the implementation of a review in the Bill. The Government have made a number of improvements to the JSA and ESA sanction systems following recommendations made by the independent review led by Matthew Oakley only last year. That improvement work is continuing to ensure that the Oakley recommendations are acted on in the right way where possible. In addition, we are taking the opportunity to ensure that the ongoing improvements in the review are built into the design and delivery of universal credit.

We have not only responded promptly and positively to the recommendations, but have gone further. We have improved the clarity of the JSA and ESA hardship application process, and made improvements to the payment process to ensure that payments are made within three days. We have carried out a review to check that our systems are operating effectively in respect of housing benefit, and that housing benefit is not impacted when a sanction is applied. We have introduced an improved claimant commitment for JSA jobseekers on the Work programme. We have also revised guidance to encourage jobseekers to share that claimant commitment with their provider. That will ensure that jobseekers understand what is required of them—their responsibilities both to Jobcentre Plus work coaches and Work programme providers—and that providers are clear on any previously agreed restrictions for the jobseeker, helping them to design tailored support.

We have made significant improvements to the decision-making process to ensure that doubts about actively seeking work are resolved quickly. The vast majority of decisions are now made within 48 hours, including consideration of good reasons. Our systems are ensuring that, when decisions are made in the jobseeker’s favour, their benefit payments are transferred to them using faster electronic payment systems to ensure that payment reaches their account on the same day.

I would like to touch on a couple of the points hon. Members have made. Sanctions were discussed in Committees in the previous Parliament, and there have been many debates about sanctions in the Commons Chamber and in Committees. Each month, more than 99% of ESA claimants comply with the requirements that are asked of them with regard to sanctions, and the individuals are asked only to meet the requirements that they agree with their advisers. That includes consideration of any health conditions, disabilities or health impairments.

[Neil Coyle]

There are individual examples. A man with a visual impairment and who has a guide dog was sanctioned for non-compliance. He did not know what the agreement said, because he was never sent it in an accessible format—he never had a Braille copy of the agreement. That was raised with the Royal National Institute of Blind People. A case was raised with Mencap of someone with a significant learning disability who never understood what the agreement meant, could not comply with the proposals that he had supposedly agreed to, and ended up being sanctioned. Does the Minister agree that those examples do not reflect a system that she has described as effective and fair? Where is the Department’s review of accessible formats provision?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman is right to give those examples. What happened is not right. He mentions accessible formats. I will go away and report back to him on that, but what happened in that case is simply not right—that should not have happened to someone with a visual impairment.

The Department is considering the contents of the Work and Pensions Committee report and looks forward to working with it not just on that, but on future reports.

I come back to my point that, with all our policies, we will keep the operation of the sanctions system under review. We are focusing our efforts on continuing to improve the process on JSA and ESA to ensure that the agreed recommendations can continue to be delivered in the existing universal credit live service and embedded into the design and build of the emerging universal credit digital service. On the basis that we have a system of continually reviewing the sanctions system and are looking at it with regard to the universal credit live and digital services, I urge the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury to withdraw the new clause.