Personal Independence Payment: Regulations

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Corri Wilson]

I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. We should not be treating one disability differently from another.

I have said this before, but it bears repeating that the Government cannot simply move the goalposts every time they lose a battle in court. The regulations do nothing more than pander to the old stigmas and attitudes towards mental illness. If a person needs help, he or she needs that help regardless of the nature of their disability or health condition.

In evidence to the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, Disability Agenda Scotland, an alliance of Scotland’s major disability organisations, raised a number of concerns. It said:

“We disagree with the Government’s presentation of the change that this will not be a ‘cut’ for people currently receiving PIP, as it is a clear diversion from the stated aims of the legislation back in 2012 (to award the enhanced mobility component ‘if a person’s mobility is severely limited by their physical or mental condition’).”

Essentially, the Government are intent on trying to spin their way out of this outrageous, stigmatising move against those with severe mental health conditions. Disability Agenda Scotland also fears:

“Current recipients may also lose out in future despite no change to their condition, if they are reassessed under the new criteria.”

It will come as no shock that the DWP’s own evaluation of the changes shows that the Government have no idea of their long-term impact—no idea! They simply do not care and are happy to push forward a move that makes a clear distinction between people with different conditions, against the ruling of the Court.

There are clearly concerns about assessment processes for personal independence payment, and the Scottish Association for Mental Health’s report on PIP, “What’s the Problem?”, sets out those concerns. One of the main themes running through its research is a distrust of the process. One person said:

“People advise you not to shave, and turn up dishevelled—to show that mentally they are unwell! Just because you’re articulate doesn’t mean you don’t have a mental health problem.”

There is simply no consistency in the assessment process, yet the Government keep shifting the sands in a piecemeal way, which only exacerbates the problem and the impact on the lives of those who are simply trying to claim what they are entitled to.

The Government have form on pulling the safety net from under those who are desperately or life-threateningly ill. Such is the impact of sanctions on those with mental health conditions that many become destitute and dependent on food banks. The Government do not strike me as keen to ensure parity of esteem for those with mental health conditions; they seem intent on doing everything they can to make people dependent on support, rather than empowering people to live independent lives. We know that, in practice, “parity of esteem” means nothing to the Government, who have instructed private companies carrying out assessments to award the higher rate of the mobility component only to people with physical, cognitive or sensory impairments.

The Scottish Government, on the other hand, are determined to build a social security system with dignity and fairness at its heart. The process of building that system and taking over responsibility for personal independence payments is ongoing.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady describes the situation in Scotland, but I assure her that seats such as mine are also affected. People might call Ealing Central and Acton metropolitan, elitist or suburban, but we have had 120 such cases recently. She talks about parity of esteem, and people keep pointing out to me that that is another example of how this Government say one thing and do another.

[Corri Wilson]

I agree with the hon. Lady. I am sure that most of us in the Chamber will have had constituents queuing at our door with personal independence payment issues.

I hope that lessons can be learned from today’s debate. The Government should stop forcing important legislation through the back door. They should have consulted their own Social Security Advisory Committee, and they should not have had to be dragged to the Dispatch Box for an emergency debate because they simply did not give the House answers.

The Government have not even waited on the second independent review of personal independence payments before manipulating the system. The Minister needs to stop mucking people about, back away from these ill judged and ill thought out changes and call a vote on annulling the regulations. If the Government do not do so, it will show how intent they are on bulldozing through legislation without scrutiny, and in spite of an independent judicial ruling.

The bottom line is that these changes are being implemented to save the Government money, no matter the cost to our communities and those with mental health conditions. This is no way to treat our vulnerable people in society, and I ask the Government to reconsider.

Social Mobility Index

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Chloe Smith]

The hon. Lady has anticipated one of the next things that I was going to say. She is absolutely right, and for the record I will add that this section of the report—I am sure that hon. Members have read it themselves—is also about further and higher education, so we should talk about a range of options and opportunities at this point.

The second half of the report looks at the outcomes achieved by adults in the area, and this is where employment, and the types of job and pay come in.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is explaining very cogently all the different indicators, but does she not agree that there is a glaring omission in turning away from income as a measure of child poverty? I wonder what she makes of the comment by Alan Milburn, the chair of the commission, that

“without acknowledging the most obvious symptom of poverty, lack of money”,

the Government’s

“agenda…will lack both ambition and credibility.”

[Chloe Smith]

Funnily enough, I had anticipated that line of argument. I think that most of it accrues to the Minister to answer, but I will say this. We need to understand child poverty across a number of indicators. That is the argument that I am putting in my contribution. I will go on to make a few more points about what adult prospects consist of. Of course the hon Lady is right to say that money matters, but it is not the only thing that matters, and that is what we should be aware of as we plough our way through this kind of analysis.

Let me recap what is in the second part of the report. It is about people’s prospects of converting good educational attainment into good adulthood outcomes, so it looks at the weekly pay of employees, housing affordability, the proportion of managerial and professional jobs, the proportion of jobs that pay an hourly rate less than the living wage and the proportion of families with children who own their own home.

In my constituency, unemployment and youth unemployment are now lower than the national average, which I welcome, but so are earnings. The gross median wage in Norwich North for full-time work in 2015 was £440—a whole £90 below the UK average of £530. In addition—this is why I welcomed the intervention from the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron)—Norwich North has started up new businesses at about half the rate of the UK. I share her passion to see that number rise.

In the report, the Norwich City Council area is in the bottom 20 for adult social mobility. Locally, we might generally understand that some of the brightest young people leave the area to study because other parts of the country seem to be more exciting and have more opportunities, but there are now so many exciting industries and avenues in Norwich that I could talk all day about why bright people do not need to leave. However, that is not the point. This debate is about the people whose prospects are not so obvious, who began life with less.

Let me pick out one other thing that is noted in the report as an ingredient for a social mobility hotspot, which is about practicalities, not abstract concepts. Norwich does not yet have good enough transport links. The report rightly notes that public transport links and links to the motorway network provide advantages for those from disadvantaged backgrounds in less isolated areas, through access to job opportunities and the attractiveness to education professionals of working in schools in the local area.

Before the debate, I asked a few constituents about their experience. One young man said that he was not surprised by the report because “that is the nature of living in such an area—fewer people, fewer opportunities, fewer jobs. It’s not something that can be changed easily.” It is obvious, then, that transport and the access to more people that it brings can help to create more opportunities. Norwich has only just been connected to the rest of the country by a fully dualled road, thanks to many campaigners’ efforts and this Government getting it done. I lead the campaign for better rail links for our city, which we estimate will bring thousands of jobs.

I want to add a personal view at this point. I went into politics because I was that 16-year-old growing up in Norfolk, frustrated by the lack of opportunities and keen to do my bit to make it better. I had loving and supportive parents and encouraging teachers, but little access to people or places. It could be said that I did not even know what I did not know. As a teenager, I laughed a lot at Harry Enfield—perhaps you did too, Mr Percy. Do you remember that sketch in which women were told to know their limits? Of course, it was funny because it had once been true; it was cutting because it had once been true, but I do not want it ever to be true that a child in Norwich today should see limits.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend makes an absolutely powerful point and I say to the Minister who is here today, “Be careful about this issue of defining child poverty.” The Centre for Social Justice—with which, of course, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is uniquely associated because he founded it—says:

“Growing up in a single-parent household could count as a form of ‘poverty’”.

That is an absolutely unbelievable comment and I really hope that the Minister will take the chance today to distance himself entirely from it, and to criticise it as stigmatising lone parents.

[Dr Huq]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

I will quickly give way.

[Andrew Percy (in the Chair)]

Very briefly, I call Rupa Huq to speak.

[Dr Huq]

I just wondered whether my hon. Friend was aware of Fiona Weir from Gingerbread, who says:

“Further stigmatising single parent families will do nothing to tackle child poverty. Family breakdown doesn’t cause child poverty. It is unaffordable childcare, low levels of maternal employment and poor wages—”

[Andrew Percy (in the Chair)]

I call the shadow Minister.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We are increasing the number of advisers in jobcentres, and we are giving advisers much better training. A huge amount of money—more than £100 million—is being invested in training them to look at a wider perspective and a bigger picture, so that they can help those who have difficulties to get into work and support them when they are in work.

It is also important to note that universal credit opens the door to a much better package of support and care, because the advisers do not leave these people. When people receive tax credits they see no one, but from now on, when they go into work, they will be able to come back and see the same adviser. If they have a problem, they will be able to pick up the phone.

This is a hugely positive step, and I congratulate the hon. Lady on her question.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

We are trialling a new feature of the access to work scheme From today we shall be testing the use of personal budgets, which will allow disabled people who have received grants to decide exactly how and when the money can best be used to support their individual needs. That gives them more choice and more control over the support they receive to help them to start work, to stay in work, or even to start a business.

[Dr Huq]

Last week the bedroom tax was declared unlawful in the Court of Appeal because it discriminated against domestic violence victims and disabled children. However, the Government are set to spend more on appealing against the decision than they would spend on abiding by the ruling. Surely the Secretary of State agrees that that means poor value for the taxpayer, and that this despicable and discredited policy needs to go.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The hon. Lady ought to check her lines before making statements like that. The truth is that that is not what the Court of Appeal said last week. The debate in the Court of Appeal was about whether we should isolate individual groups and rule them out of the benefit system, or leave it to local authorities to handle the matter with extra money. We believe that, with the extra money that we are giving them for discretionary housing payments, local authorities are quite capable of allowing people to stay when they think that that is necessary, without limitation.

What I really wonder about—and this applies to the Front Bench as well—is the fact that Labour Members never, ever talk about those whom they left in overcrowded homes, on waiting lists, and unable to get decent homes. It was they who introduced this policy; we have merely followed through.

Young Jobseekers

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I echo the congratulations to the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) on securing the debate.

Youth, the state of being young that is between childhood and adulthood, used to be relatively carefree. In some senses it is now extending—something I say as a mum, as well as an MP—with more and more pressures on us, and people of middle age such as me seem to be on an eternal quest for youth.

In my constituency the good news is that 226 young people are now claiming JSA, which is 49 fewer than last year. The figure seems to be going down—that is a reduction of 18%—although, as we have been cautioned, we do not know how many of the jobs are zero hours or casual and the like. Those “young people” are 18 to 24-year-olds, but there are often different measures of what we mean by young.

We have two Jobcentre Pluses, one in Acton and one in Ealing Broadway, but what I wanted to flag up is the fact of conditional welfare arrangements, or ones that require people to behave in a certain way and involve the application of sanctions or penalties if they cannot. From the figures that I have seen, such benefit sanctions are disproportionately affecting young people under 25—another different measure of youth—although that might include the homeless and the vulnerable. In the past year two reports have come out, one from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and one from Crisis, with everything pointing in the same direction.

Young people account for the largest proportion of JSA claimants who are sanctioned, with two thirds of all sanctions applied to claimants under the age of 35—another different measure. We do not know the precise reasons—perhaps young people have more erratic lifestyles—but they need to be looked into and I will be interested in the Minister’s comments, because such a situation might lead to a vicious cycle. Those sanctioned might stop seeking support, hardship might result, people might fall out of the system altogether and, if they have dependent children, the sanctions might affect those third parties as well. It may be a case of unintended consequences, who knows, but it needs looking at, in case that group is suffering some kind of direct or indirect discrimination in the benefit system, leaving them more vulnerable to sanctioning, even if they are equally as compliant as others. That work needs to be done, because there is a concern, especially when the group faces challenges such as high rents and so on in a constituency such as mine.

According to the same YMCA report that the hon. Member for Norwich North cited, “Safety Net or Springboard?”, more and more conditions and expectations are being placed on young people applying for benefits. She also mentioned that young people want more personalised and meaningful support; they do not want to be simply a number. There seems to be a disconnect between people’s daily lives and the way in which jobcentres operate.

In my constituency we have an organisation called MyBigCareer, run by the energetic Deborah Streatfield. She is also campaigning for more mandatory careers advice at school, which I know exists, but it is sometimes only a link to a website, whereas her campaign is specifically for more one-to-one, personalised, sit-down advice. Will the Minister comment on that? My right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) raised similar issues.

Everything needs to be put into a context. Since the previous Administration, employment and support allowance has gone, student grants have been abolished and housing benefit is no longer available to 18 to 21-year-olds. We have also heard that the so-called national living wage will not apply to the youngest workers. We do not want some sort of inter-generational conflict as a result. I found a blog that stated:

“UK Boomers slash benefits to young & force them to load up on debt while guaranteeing pensioners ever rising incomes.”

We do not want mistrust between generations, because young people are our future. I worry that some of the logical consequences of Government policy might lead there.

[Richard Graham]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Huq]

I am about to finish, so I would rather not, if that is okay.

The Prince’s Trust—we are talking about Prince Charles, the heir to the throne—youth index uses a measure of 16 to 25, another different definition of what counts as young. One fifth of the respondents for the index said that they regularly fall apart emotionally and that they suffer from anxiety. It found all those mental health issues, so we do not want to be stoking things up.

There is much to agree with in the YMCA report. If we pick up any modern humorous dictionary of quotations, we will find many phrases about young people and youthful folly, such as, “You are only young once.” One such quote is from Oscar Wilde, who said:

“Youth is wasted on the young.”

We do not want to be in a situation where youth is wasted.

[Mr James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. Can I say that if hon. Members want to be called to speak, it is quite helpful if they stand up?