Disabled People on Benefits: EHRC Investigation

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mims Davies]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the way he approaches this matter. It also gives a chance for all of us to thank our casework teams who do so much, and indeed all the staff across DWP. They know that our customers vary. They know that, at times in their lives, they need additional support. That is why we have those specialist services, roles and procedures in place, from the DWP visiting service to the advanced customer support senior leaders. We have the serious case panel review, and we have the customer experience survey. We are always listening and learning, and there is a continuous need to do that. On fluctuating conditions, which other Members have mentioned, we have put a better understanding of needs and diagnoses at the heart of our engagement on reforms, and that is what disabled people have told me as well.

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

Ministers have had three years to reach a basic agreement to ensure that the services that the Department provides are accessible and do not discriminate against disabled people. Is it laziness, incompetence or the chaos endemic across Government that has resulted in the absolute failure to reach a negotiation? Can the Minister acknowledge that this failure has never been seen in any other Department before, and represents, under the Equality Act, a further demonstration of discrimination against disabled people? The failure of the negotiations itself represents the problem.

[Mims Davies]

I reiterate to the House, and to the hon. Gentleman, that we take our obligations under the Equality Act incredibly seriously. I have spoken about the changing nature of conditions, understanding and learning, and the public sector equality duty, and we will continue to co-operate and engage with the commission on its investigation. As I said, we do not believe that an investigation is necessary, but we do take its concerns seriously. I undertake to the House that the Department will be focused on those new terms of reference so that we can work constructively with the commission, in its investigation, to better understand its concerns. [Interruption.] I understand the concerns of the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald), who is chuntering again, but I reiterate to the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) that we are very much determined to work with the commission as a way forward. I agree that it is very disappointing that we have not been able to come to a mutually agreeable position. I assure him that, over the past five years, this very large Department, which deals with many different areas and complex case, has put at the heart of what we do—of which I am extremely proud—a dedicated understanding of the individual and their needs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

The Government are putting an enormous amount of effort into improving the uptake of pension credit. The number of claims received in financial year 2022-23 was more than 80% higher than in the same period the year before, and the recent case load is going up for the first time in over a decade. We have given cost of living payments to pensioners on pension credit—we have given pensioners extra money on top of their winter fuel allowance and cold weather payments. The reality is that no Government have supported the pensioner population more than this Government have. As we all know, Labour is the party of 75p pension increases; no pensioner will ever forget that.

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

9. What steps his Department is taking to reduce waiting times for Access to Work assessments.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Mims Davies)]

Access to Work remains in high demand. We have increased the number of staff processing Access to Work claims, and are prioritising both renewal applications and applications from customers about to start a job. We are also improving the service through increased digitalisation to reduce the time from application to decision.

[Neil Coyle]

On this, there is a litany of broken promises to disabled people. Ministers have failed to tackle the backlog, failed to open the scheme to more employers, failed to extend the scheme to apprenticeships and failed to passport packages of support. So why have Ministers now decided to hit disabled people with more brutal cuts to PIP, when they have not supported disabled people into work through Access to Work?

[Mims Davies]

The average timescale for an Access to Work application decision in April 2024 was 43.9 days. We have increased the staff on applications, redeploying 95 staff from wider DWP work. Despite the hon. Gentleman’s points, claims for reimbursement are in a good position within a 10-day ambition to pay. It reflects the ambition that employers have and their mindset change to be more open-minded with their recruitment, and I am delighted about that.

Health and Disability Reform

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The Prime Minister shares my view, which is that it is really important that we achieve the best possible outcomes for the people whom we are discussing in this statement. He cares a great deal, and I think he said at the end of his speech that he wanted to help many people, some of whom are watching the screen flickering away while their opportunities drift off into the distance—or words to that effect. That speaks from the heart. That says that we have a Prime Minister who cares deeply that opportunities in our society should be made as widely available as possible. That is a view, a characteristic and a quality that I admire and that I share with him.

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

The Secretary of State has upset many disabled people and organisations with his clumsy, negative and juvenile approach. Mind, for example, has asked for a grown-up conversation. Furthermore, the Secretary of State said at the Dispatch Box today that there has never been a review of personal independence payments, but there have been two independent reviews commissioned by the Department, so perhaps he could correct the record when he gets to his feet. PIP is not an out-of-work benefit, so when will the Department publish its assessment of the impact of these latest cuts on disabled people using PIP to support themselves in work?

[Mel Stride]

It is the case that there has not been a fundamental review of PIP on the basis that that has subsequently led to a change in that benefit. Therefore, it is the case that that benefit has remained fundamentally the same for more than decade—it actually came in in 2013, as the hon. Gentleman will know. On what assessments may or may not be made available, I think they will come at a point when the Government arrive at their conclusions having conducted the consultation.

Work Capability Assessment Consultation

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

My hon. Friend has used exactly the right word: it is imperative that we get those people into the world of work. If somebody is on benefits—and we know that one in five of those people would, with the right support, like to get into work—it is our duty as a Government and as a society to do whatever we can to support them.

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

In 2011, this Government said that they would help 100,000 disabled people into employment through dedicated personalised support, such as Access to Work. In the 12 years since, the number of disabled people supported by Access to Work has risen from 37,000 to 38,000. Given the Department’s failure and the wider context of cuts, would disabled people not be forgiven for thinking that this is just further cuts dressed up as modernisation?

[Mel Stride]

Not at all, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have set out very clearly the principled reason why we are bringing forward these measures. As the hon. Gentleman will know, when it comes to more disabled people moving into the workforce, we set a target for the 10-year period from 2017 to see a million more disabled people in employment. We broke that target in half that time, reaching 1.3 million in addition after just five years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to help reduce waiting times for Access to Work assessments.

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

16. Whether his Department plans to take steps to reduce the time taken by the decision-making process for applications to the Access to Work scheme.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Tom Pursglove)]

Access to Work has received a significant increase in applications over the past year and has recruited new staff to meet the increased demand and reduce the time it takes to make decisions. We are also transforming the Access to Work service through increased digitalisation that will make the service more efficient and the application process easier, and improve the time taken from application through to decision.

[Tom Pursglove]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that, last week, 88% of claims were paid within 10 days and that we are taking steps to drive further improvement. The online application capacity that came on stream in June is a significant part of that, but we are also putting additional staff on to processing claims. We are streamlining various processes to ensure that people get access to that support sooner. Anecdotally, officials are saying that that is beginning to bear fruit. What we are not doing is speeding up that process at the cost of getting the right decision and the right outcome. We will continue to move this forward, and we are already making progress.

[Neil Coyle]

A decade ago, the Government’s Sayce review recommended supporting 100,000 disabled people through specialist employment programmes, but, last year, Access to Work helped just 38,000, and Versus Arthritis and other organisations that support people navigate this difficult system saw a tripling in the delays. When will the Department meet the 100,000 target and end the delays hitting disabled people, employers and the UK economy?

[Tom Pursglove]

Like the hon. Gentleman, I am passionate about the positive difference that Access to Work makes in terms of opening up employment opportunities for people. He will be aware of the passports that we have introduced to help better understand people’s needs and passporting that between jobs and between, for example, education and employment. I refer him back to the steps that we have taken to see improvement in the journey times, but we will continue to work tirelessly to make sure that people get the Access to Work help as quickly as possible.

Labour Market Activity

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mel Stride)]

It took the right hon. Gentleman a little bit of time to get going, but he certainly got going at the end of his speech—he was both Pinky and Perky at the finish there, which was good to see. I am afraid that I cannot accept the motion as it stands, of course, but I can reassure him that it makes fair points, highlighting the challenges that exist around employment, unemployment and economic inactivity. I welcome the opportunity to have a debate about those issues this afternoon. However, where the motion falls short is that it is entirely wrong, first, to deny the very considerable progress that the Government and previous Conservative Administrations have made in these areas, and secondly, to suggest—as the right hon. Gentleman does—that the Government have somehow been sitting on their hands. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is this Government and my party that have seen 3.7 million more people in employment since 2010, with 2 million of those being women. We have seen 1.3 million more disabled people in employment since 2017—these are simple facts. We have seen long-term unemployment decline by 12% since before the pandemic, and as the right hon. Gentleman recognises, unemployment stands at 3.7%, which is a near-historic low. Under this Government we have also seen payroll employment at a record level, and of course we saw this Government in action under the then Chancellor, now the Prime Minister, at the time of the pandemic. The Government intervened in the labour market, to the extent that all those economists who said that we would be back to the unemployment levels of the 1980s, up at about 12%, were disproved by the actions of this Government.

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

Would the Secretary of State extend his gratitude and congratulations to the frontline jobcentre staff who provided the statistics that he has just used? After thanking jobcentres such as Blackfriars Road in my constituency, can he then explain why they are being closed?

[Mel Stride]

It is a fact that we are going through an estate rationalisation programme, and there are very good reasons for that. During the pandemic, we stood up a lot of additional jobcentres for which we do not now have a requirement, and it is also important that we make sure we have an estate that is fit for the 21st century, with the right technology, job opportunities and so on. However, I join the hon. Gentleman in congratulating and thanking those very hard-working frontline staff—the work coaches in our jobcentres up and down the country—who do an extraordinary job. I will pay further tribute to them a little later in my remarks.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Will Quince]

We have always been clear: the uplift for universal credit was a temporary measure responding to the extraordinary circumstances. Our focus now is rightly on our plan for jobs, with tailored programmes to build skills, move towards employment, increase hours, get back into work or climb the career ladder, because we know that work is the best route to a brighter future.

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

16. What steps her Department plans to take to measure the potential effect of the removal of the £20 uplift to the standard allowance of universal credit from 6 October 2021 on levels of food bank usage.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Will Quince)]

Food banks are independent charitable organisations and the Department for Work and Pensions does not have any role in their operation. There is no consistent and accurate measure of food bank usage at a constituency or, indeed, national level.

[Neil Coyle]

Since 2010, there has been an explosion in the number of people unable to put food on the table. Conservatives such as the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson) admit that taking £20 a week off universal credit current payments, to use the Minister’s vernacular, will result in another dramatic rise in food bank demand. The Trussell Trust predicts that 900,000 more people will need support. Will the Minister or the Secretary of State meet the all-party group on ending the need for food banks and organisations working on this issue to ensure that there is capacity to meet Government-driven demand?

[Will Quince]

Of course, I am always happy to meet the hon. Gentleman, as I have always sought to do. I remind the House that there have been significant improvements in the public health situation, the vaccine roll-out is a huge success, our economy is opening up, restrictions are lifted, and we have a record number of vacancies in our labour market. Universal credit provides a safety net but it is not designed to trap people on welfare. Work is the best route out of poverty and to prosperity, but I am very happy to meet him to discuss this further.

Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

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

Today is blue Monday, when people feel at their lowest ebb, and the actions of this true blue Government will add to that despair. The Government were elected on a promise to level up, but are cutting help at a crucial time—in the middle of a pandemic, with rising unemployment and restrictions not yet lifted. People worried about their finances and pushed to the edge by covid will see how much the Tories really care today in the way they are holding this debate and in their denial about wider universal credit problems.

This system has been running for eight years, but it costs more than the legacy system and actually helps fewer people. A third of applicants last year got nothing—turned away at the point of need. It has caused food bank usage to rise dramatically, and food banks tell me that the last thing people require in their support needs is a cut from Government now. Last year, more than 300,000 people got their first payment late, and that figure will be substantially higher this year according to the Government’s own figures. This is a Government whom the UN has shown have created a system that requires people to experience poverty, much of it through in-built delays to payments. Delays are not free: rent does not stop and the need to eat does not stop. The Government’s solution for the people facing those delays is debt. Last year, half a million people seeking help were told they could only have a loan, with the universal credit deficit in the Department for Work and Pensions reaching £1 billion.

Extra funds are available to help, if the Government fixed the problems. The National Audit Office has shown that more than £1 in every £10 spent on universal credit is erroneous in one way or another, and the Government have not done enough to fix that problem.

In Southwark, a third of the people on universal credit are in work. The constituents I have seen include a woman whose entire first monthly payment of universal credit was £17.68. I have been helping a man whose combination of furlough and universal credit does not even cover his rent and bills. These are people required to use a food bank from my constituency office in the heart of central London.

And the Tory response to these circumstances is to cut help. It is extraordinary. We see their true blue values in the wider debate on tackling poverty—values that led to the ludicrous insinuation from the hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) that Government food vouchers were being used in “crack dens and brothels”, and the suggestion from his Tory colleague the hon. Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) that they were being used to buy alcohol, when they simply cannot be. More than 9,000 people in Redcar are on universal credit and deserve better representation. By contrast, their previous MP has been working in a food bank and setting up a book bank to help local children.

Then, of course, there is the Leader of the House, who has attacked UNICEF and charities helping children in Southwark. The fact that UNICEF and the UN are highlighting and seeking to alleviate poverty in Britain should shame our Government and secure action, but instead the Government attack the messenger. They pretend that their system is working, when it is failing people even with the uplift. They pretend that Labour would scrap the lot, putting out trash information because the truth is too painful for them to admit. They pretend to care. If they really did, they would be hammering on the Minister’s door and demanding an extension of help today, not a cut.

Supporting Disadvantaged Families

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

I know Basingstoke well, because that is where I worked for many years, and I am conscious of the wide variety of communities there that are supportive of one another. I hope my right hon. Friend will be aware of the £700 million package announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government last week, to ensure that rough sleeping really does become history.

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

Today’s measures are reactive; they have been forced out of this Government by the covid pandemic and the epic campaign of Marcus Rashford. The truth is that last year, the Trussell Trust had to provide 720,000 emergency packages of support to children in this country. That is more than 700,000 higher than when Labour left office in 2010. All we are asking today is for the Secretary of State to be proactive—scrap the benefit cap, scrap the universal credit delay and scrap the “no recourse to public funds” restrictions, which will all leave children hungry across this country if the Government continue to fail to listen.

[Dr Coffey]

This is a massive expansion of the holiday activities fund that we have been running for the past three years, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will welcome that. In terms of building on what we distributed earlier in the year—£63 million, as well as the covid summer scheme—£170 million will be there to make sure that every child has no need to go hungry in this country. I am sure that he will welcome that too. We will continue to work on helping people to try to get ready to get back into work as and when the economy recovers. We are doing that through our plan for jobs, which I am sure he will welcome too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely spot-on. This comes up time and again, and it is driving our desire to bring forward the integrated assessment: where a claimant has already secured sufficient evidence, with the claimant’s permission, and only with the claimant’s permission, that information can be used to increase the chance of a paper-based review and reduce the need for a full face-to-face assessment for other benefits.

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

For a decade, disabled people and disability organisations such as the Disability Benefits Consortium have highlighted the absurdity of testing people with learning disabilities and progressive conditions every six months, as well as the stress for them and the cost to the taxpayer and the NHS. The Minister says those assessments will be reduced. When can they expect them to be reduced?

[Justin Tomlinson]

We have already made changes—for example, in the PIP process, where we no longer routinely assess those of pensioner age and those with the most severe conditions—and that work will continue to be brought forward as our knowledge of different conditions improves. As part of the ambitious and exciting Green Paper we are bringing forward in the coming months, claimants, charities and stakeholders can further identify how we can make the claimant experience much better. I know that the hon. Member has done a huge amount of work in this area, and I hope he will contribute to the Green Paper.