Labour Market Activity

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

More and more people are being pushed out of work owing to ill health: 2.5 million working-age people are now economically inactive owing to long-term sickness. Given the current stalling living standards and the cost of living crisis, it is unsurprising that many of those people want a job, but the current system is preventing them from re-entering the labour market by not providing the right support, and that is happening on multiple fronts.

The aim of the Restart scheme was to help people who were long-term unemployed as a result of the covid pandemic to get back into work, but a recent evaluation by the National Audit Office found that the programme would support fewer than half the anticipated number of people but would cost 35% more per person. Meanwhile, the work capability assessment regime has disincentivised some people with disabilities from trying to get back into employment because of the risk of losing their benefits when a reassessment of personal independence payment is triggered. I understand that there has been a revision of operational instructions to mitigate that, but the problem has not been eliminated for many people in receipt of the benefit.

As we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), there are also problems with the functionality of the work capability assessment process. Not only are many cases overturned on appeal, but the process itself can be drawn out and difficult. One of my constituents has been waiting for her assessment since April last year, which means that she has been receiving a lower rate of universal credit until it is completed. She has had her appointments cancelled three times, apparently because of lost paperwork. That is unacceptable.

Another constituent told me about her experience of being assessed through the work capability assessment regime for her universal credit. She is a registered nurse, who is currently unable to work owing to health problems. She told me this about one call that took place as part of that assessment process:

“I came off the call in tears and my daughter was very concerned about my state of mind after this call. I was made to feel that I was not worthy of these benefits and made to feel I was claiming something that I shouldn’t be getting. The way I was treated makes me very concerned for other people not strong enough mentally to deal with this abuse of power.”

A third constituent recently told me:

“I feel like I am being made to beg for help.”

It is critical that people are not penalised for trying to obtain paid work. Someone claiming personal independence payments who get a job that does not work out within a year should be guaranteed the ability to return to the exact benefits they were on before, with no fresh benefit assessments required, and, crucially, there must be improved targeted support for people with long-term mental and physical health problems. The current system is trapping people out of the workplace when hundreds of thousands of people are in need of a stable income, so I hope the Secretary of State will agree to reform the disability benefit assessment, as Labour is proposing to do. If not, can he explain how he can listen to the experience of my constituents and defend the current system?

Unpaid carers are another group who have become locked out of the labour market. Although the majority of carers are of working age, many carers have had to reduce their hours at work or quit their jobs entirely because of their caring responsibilities. Carers UK has estimated that nearly 2 million people in paid employment become unpaid carers every year, but a survey by Carers UK found that two thirds of unpaid carers had to give up opportunities at work because of their caring. Women were much more likely to be affected, as were people giving more hours of unpaid care. In the same survey, a quarter of unpaid carers said that they needed better support to return to, or maintain, paid work.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I know the work that the hon. Lady has done in relation to unpaid carers and the support she has given to my private Member’s Bill on carers’ leave. Does she agree that one of the ways of encouraging people back into work is changing the carer’s allowance? It creates a cliff edge that disincentivises unpaid carers from entering employment. Does she agree that it needs to be changed?

[Barbara Keeley]

That is something that Carers UK has campaigned on repeatedly. It certainly does need looking at.

The Government have failed time and again to provide the necessary support for carers. I think I am right in saying that the Secretary of State, when he was talking about his review, did not mention carers. Again, that is disappointing. The carers action plan for 2018 to 2020 was shamefully void of funding provision and ambition for support for carers, and it pales in comparison to the national strategy for carers that Labour published in 2008. The last Labour Government pledged £255 million for new commitments to support carers. That included £150 million to increase significantly the amount of money provided by central Government for breaks from caring. Such breaks can be a lifeline for carers and allow them to continue in employment. That funding for breaks appears to have disappeared.

Labour also committed funding to enable carers to combine paid employment with their caring role and to re-enter the labour market after their caring role had finished, through flexible working opportunities and increased training provision. There was a commitment to working with Jobcentre Plus to deliver improved information and establish a training programme for carers. In contrast, the Government’s carers action plan merely promised to consider dedicated employment rights for carers, and said that the Government would work to increase opportunities for carers returning to the private sector. Those measures are woefully inadequate and demonstrate a failure to support this country’s 10 million carers.

Unpaid carers are repeatedly forgotten by this Government, despite the enormous social and economic contributions they make, so will the Minister—and indeed the Secretary of State, when he is back at his place—work with colleagues across Government to ensure that the benefit system works for, rather than against, people making claims? Will he commit to improving the current regime, which sees too many unpaid carers and too many people in receipt of disability benefits being locked out of employment?

Social Security and Pensions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I echo the relief expressed by the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) about the uprating decision, and I am pleased to follow his speech. I will begin with some points about the way we uprate benefits and echo some of the important points made by the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), whose contribution to the Select Committee I appreciate.

We now know that legacy benefits will be claimed by some people until at least 2028. The Select Committee, in its report last July, called on the Department to improve its IT systems and increase the speed with which changes can be made to legacy benefit and state pension rates, and the lack of progress has been disappointing. Annual uprating based on the previous September’s inflation is perfectly reasonable when inflation is stable, but it is not reasonable in the current volatile circumstances. The Committee called for a shorter gap—the hon. Gentleman echoed this—between the inflation reference period and the uprating date, preferably using inflation data from the previous quarter, or possibly more recent still.

In the past year, the lag has caused real hardship. Benefits were uprated last April by the inflation rate of the previous September: 3.1%. By the time the uprating took effect, inflation was nearly 10%. The result has been benefits at the lowest real-terms level for 40 years, and a big surge in food bank demand. Like the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, I applaud the fact that the Government are honouring their obligations this year, and that the uprating will be 10% in time for the new financial year. That should prevent things becoming substantially worse for many in the coming year.

But it is not going to make things much better. Trussell Trust food banks gave out 1.3 million food parcels from April to September last year—more than in any previous six-month period, and 50% more than before the pandemic. At the Liaison Committee in December, the Prime Minister said that he would

“work very hard to deliver”

lower food bank demand by the end of this Parliament. I warmly welcome his adoption of that goal, but it will be achieved only if social security support is increased in real terms. What is the right level for the social security safety net? The Work and Pensions Committee plans in the near future to launch an inquiry into the adequacy of benefit levels, a subject that the hon. Member for Amber Valley spoke about. It seems to me that the safety net is now so inadequate that it is damaging the economic recovery: it is too low to do its job properly.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

The Chair of the Select Committee cites some damning statistics from the Trussell Trust. For all that food bank use is increasing overall, the inquiry by the all-party parliamentary group on ending the need for food banks, which the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) mentioned, has demonstrated that it went down when the £20 universal credit uplift was in place. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we should look at that?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I absolutely agree. That was the one point at which food bank demand fell, and of course it went straight back up once the £20 uplift was removed.

The level of the safety net is now too low for it to do its job properly from the standpoint of economic efficiency. People are being forced to accept unsuitable jobs, with no prospect of training or advancement, simply in order to subsist. That is one reason why the UK’s productivity record is so poor, and we will not deliver economic growth until we tackle that productivity failing. Interesting cross-party thinking on the matter is under way, for example in the work of the Poverty Strategy Commission set up and chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud. Our Committee’s inquiry will be able to draw on that and other work.

It is clear that the immediately preceding Administration —the interim Government, as the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys described it—would not have honoured those obligations. The right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) told us yesterday that her Administration was brought down by a left-wing conspiracy in the financial markets. It is not clear whether she regards my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) as having been responsible for organising that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew), who made a thoughtful contribution, although obviously there are differences of opinion on some of the things he said.

I am pleased to contribute to this year’s debate. The Minister’s initial contribution was pretty factual and to the point, but these debates are always an opportunity for Members to comment generally on social security and uprating. I am pleased that this year’s debate is slightly less controversial than last year’s. Indeed, I think there has been relief on both sides of the House that the uprating will be in line with inflation. That means we have not seen the triple lock abandoned and benefits will be uprated in line with inflation. However, those conventions have been broken previously, so the challenge is that people are already behind as a result of previous commitments having been reneged on. But I am pleased to welcome this uprating.

In recent years it has become increasingly clear how important the social security safety net is as a public service. As I have said previously, covid has meant that some people who never expected to be supported by the state have had to access that support. That is the reality: we never know when we might need support. We might become injured or ill; the company that we work for might go under, maybe because it cannot get enough staff and cannot open its full hours, and therefore does not have the productivity it needs to keep going; or indeed, we might need to care for loved ones. Social security is, and should be, there to make sure that no one is left behind.

The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), who is no longer in his place, mentioned the all-party parliamentary group on ending the need for food banks. I co-chair that APPG, and have been very pleased to have the hon. Gentleman as part of our inquiry team. The final evidence session of our “Cash or Food?” inquiry is tomorrow, and I would be delighted if the Minister could attend our report launch on 22 March—I am grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), for her written response to our inquiry. We are looking at that issue because, as I said in my intervention on the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), the only time during the covid pandemic when we saw a decrease in food bank use was when universal credit had its £20 uplift. That suggests to me that people were using those additional moneys for the purpose of putting food on the table.

As I said, this debate is quite factual, but it gives us an opportunity to comment on Government policy and practice. I want to touch on something that the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) mentioned, which is universal credit for the under-25s. It may have been uprated by 10%, but it remains lower than for the over-25s, and I would argue that there is simply no good reason for that. Indeed, about 18 months ago I wrote to the Department for Work and Pensions on this topic in support of a campaign by One Parent Families Scotland. I was told, in terms that, frankly, I found quite patronising, that the reason for the policy is that the DWP believes young people are more likely to live at home—that was assumed even if they themselves are parents—and generally have lower earnings expectations.

That response totally ignores the experience of the majority of under-25s who claim universal credit. Of course, as parents we would hope to support our children as they take their first steps in the world, and to provide a safe haven to which they could return if necessary. However, that does not help the young people who need to leave home because they are looking for work and there are no jobs in their area; the young people who do not come from stable homes and need to support themselves; or the young parents who cannot stay in their family homes with their own children. I hardly want to deign to give a response to the statement about having lower earnings expectations, but I will say that no one who is out of work and receiving universal credit, or who, as has been pointed out, is in work and receiving universal credit, even at the full amount, is sitting idly by, wondering what to do with that excess income.

As many Members have said today, we are in a cost of living crisis. Universal credit is a safety net, and this Government policy assumes that young people deserve less safety than older people. That is the wrong message. Given the ministerial churn within the DWP and, indeed, elsewhere, I hope that we can review that misguided position. At the very least, I ask the Minister to review one aspect in his closing remarks: reinstating the higher rate for young parents, as it was under legacy benefits. Young parents are most likely to be struggling, and surely they and their children deserve the same support as a family where the parents are just a year or two older.

I will highlight a few other issues, starting with PIP. All of us in this place will have a caseworker who spends a lot of time providing support for PIP appeals, the vast majority of which are successful. It is a long, stressful application process, and we have assessors who simply do not understand the process or what applicants are experiencing, resulting in widespread mistakes that we as MPs end up dealing with. It costs the taxpayer more money to reverse those decisions than to get them right in the first place. The stress makes people who are already struggling even more ill, and as we know, very sadly, some people give up as a result. The system does not work. This issue is so important when the Government are currently looking at measures to deal with the economically inactive—I look forward to hearing their proposals. They want to get people back into work. Now is the time to bring those specialist assessors and the assessment process for PIP back in-house, and to stop lining the pockets of private providers with taxpayer money when they simply do not get the job right.

[Justin Tomlinson]

The hon. Lady raises a very important point about getting the job right. Thankfully, the vast majority of the millions of claims are right first time round, and for those where it sadly goes wrong, on the vast majority of occasions, that is because of missing additional supportive evidence. As such, will the hon. Lady join me in welcoming the Government’s move to a system where, at the mandatory reconsideration stage, rather than waiting for claimants, the assessors have now started proactively contacting them to identify the missing evidence and help them find it? That has seen the number of those able to be sorted quickly more than double.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I am happy to support any improvements to the process, but what the hon. Member has done is to point out just how complex these processes are and how difficult they can be for people to navigate. It is only when there is a proactive approach that we start to get things right.

[John McDonnell]

Part of the problem is the run-down in recent years of advice centres and other agencies that can assist people to get the paperwork right, and to ensure representation at the appropriate stage.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Scotland is not immune from that: with more and more ringfenced spending for Scottish Government priorities, local authorities have less and less discretionary spend to put into areas such as advice and support.

I want to touch on carer’s allowance. It will not surprise Members that I want to talk about carers; I am pleased to say that my private Member’s Bill, the Carer’s Leave Bill, passed its remaining stages in the Commons on Friday and is off to the other place. According to the Government, carer’s allowance aims to help carers keep a link with the workplace, but one challenge I had with my Bill was finding constituents who would benefit from carer’s leave, because so many of them had been forced to leave the workplace due to their caring responsibilities. Simply put, carer’s allowance does not work. Carers need to be allowed to work more before they lose that allowance—that would not cost the Government more, but it would get more people back into work. I would be very interested to hear the Minister’s response to the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller): he is no longer in his place, but he raised that very point. At Prime Minister’s questions in December, I asked the Prime Minister how the Government can believe that £132 per week in earnings is sufficient to live on such that people lose their carer’s allowance, especially when the caring never stops.

The state pension was the subject of a general debate last week. I do not necessarily want to reiterate the points I made on that occasion, but we do know that pensioners face real challenges. In the past year, I have probably done about three letters—articles—to my local paper to encourage people to take up pension credit. As other Members have mentioned, I wish the Government would pledge to follow the ombudsman’s recommendations on compensation for WASPI women, which, as we move into stage 3, would provide some degree of comfort to those campaigners. I refer Members to my early-day motion 814 on that.

When we talk about the pension increases, we need also to talk about errors that mean people do not necessarily get what they are entitled to. The LEAP—legal entitlements and administrative practices—exercise is looking at historical underpayments, and it seems to be forever increasing its remit and timescales. Perhaps one day it will finally look at underpayments to divorced women. Dividing pensions on divorce is incredibly complicated, and the Government have been deliberately blinded by not including that group. I know that the former Pensions Minister in the coalition, Steve Webb, has spoken out about this issue before. I urge the Government to listen to him, if not to me.

I raised this issue at business questions on Thursday: will the Government please tell the truth to the House about what is happening on universal credit national insurance credits? That is another issue where pensioners could go without because of internal DWP failures. Without honesty and openness, we cannot know the extent of the problem or how it will be fixed.

Every Member here knows—simply because of the number of constituents our caseworkers help every day —that there are fundamental problems with how the DWP functions. Sometimes it seems as though it has become a routine part of the process for DWP staff to send people to their MP, and that is simply not good enough. I welcome the uprating orders, but I hope that the Minister will give us some answers on everything else.

Raising the State Pension Age to 68

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) on securing this debate. How to calculate the state pension age is an intensely technical topic, but it fundamentally impacts on people’s lives, and what we have heard so far this afternoon illustrates that, because there is a great deal of consensus across the Benches. I congratulate the hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) on her speech and the areas she covered.

Obviously, it is our job on the Opposition Benches to scrutinise the Government, and I do not expect the Minister to pre-empt an independent review process, but I absolutely agree with the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) that we should be publishing any reports and looking at this issue before the Government make a final decision in the public space. This debate is an opportunity for the Government to make a political statement to commit to some of the existing methodologies we have used to date for the state pension age, and primarily that means keeping it based on life expectancy.

We have heard significant concerns today that planned pension ages might be accelerated, and that does not fit with what we are seeing with life expectancy. As the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) said in her intervention, life expectancy is not increasing. In fact, the evidence suggests it is falling, so far from seeing the retirement age going up faster, we should be seeing no change or at the very least a slowdown in planned increases.

It is highly technical, looking at actuarial tables to work out statistics, but it is important that we do not forget the faces behind the figures. In fairness, the WASPI women have made sure that we never forget the faces again. I am sure that every Member here, including the Minister and me, will have spoken with WASPI women in their constituencies about what they have suffered as a result of process failures with previous age increases. I have met many of the representatives who come to Parliament on fiscal event days. They often stand in the cold and damp waiting all day to be heard. I urge the Minister and Members across the House to meet them, if they have not done so previously.

Although this debate is about the future, I cannot mention the WASPI women without talking about their ongoing right for compensation. They have been waiting years now, and thousands have died without ever seeing a penny. The ombudsman is expected to report within a matter of months, but the only thing that has taken longer than their investigation is the Government’s inability to decide to do the right thing and to promise to follow the results of that report. I hope the Minister will make reference to that in her closing remarks.

The Government must learn lessons from what has happened to the WASPI women. If we are going to see changes, they must be communicated early and fully. People must be able to plan ahead. Age UK suggests 10 years as the length of time in which people need certainty to plan for retirement, as the hon. Member for Amber Valley mentioned. I hope that the Government can continue to commit to that.

I said it was important to remember the faces behind the figures, and it is vital that the Government remember that life expectancy is based on averages, and that all people are not alike. There are already people struggling to work to 66 through no fault of their own. Manual workers, whether farmers or factory workers, are just more likely to struggle to keep up as the impact of a life of labouring catches up with them. The fictional police sergeant Catherine Cawood of “Happy Valley” may hopefully be reaching her retirement from the police on Sunday night in the concluding episode of the series, but she will be 56 when she does so. That is because we accept that police officers are not necessarily physically capable of being able to chase offenders or fight or do any of the physical things we expect. We may hope, however, that Catherine Cawood, as well as going to the Himalayas, can also continue to contribute in a part-time work capacity elsewhere.

Health problems for many mean that people cannot work full time. Part-time working is increasing, and many people have caring responsibilities. This is the generation of sandwich carers who take care of their parents, their children or grandchildren and, when needed, their partners. There is of course a benefit to the economy, and to older workers themselves, of continuing to work if they can. If that is the Government’s aim, I implore them to see that increasing the state pension age, when we are not seeing a corresponding rise in health and life expectancy, is not the solution. People might be living longer, but they are not necessarily doing so in good health.

There are steps that the Government could take. I continue to champion the needs of unpaid carers, many of whom are in the pre-retirement age bracket. I welcome the Government’s support for my Carer’s Leave Bill, which will have its Third Reading on Friday, and look forward to their support as it passes through the Lords, but there is still much to do. Reforming carer’s allowance, securing flexible working as a day one right, offering more training and respite for carers, and investing in local services such as day centres would all help, as would more re-training, as the hon. Member for Dover mentioned, and a greater understanding of what is keeping older workers out of the workforce. We need to ensure that there is a social security net for people who have paid in and who, for whatever reason, cannot manage those final few years. That would be more effective at encouraging people to work longer, even past retirement age, than just forcing people somehow to soldier on.

Of course, there is a balance to be struck. The pension age must be both effective and sustainable. I agree that it must realistically reflect how long people can expect to live after retirement. We all see adverts pop up on our social media about how to retire at 40, but we know the Government could not be expected to fund such a period. Knowing that there is a balance means also making the expectation of the state pension realistic. I want my children, and my children’s children, to have it to look forward to one day. Our younger generations have suffered the outcomes of Brexit, of covid and of the cost of living crisis. Owning a house is a dream, not a reality for far too many. Future generations deserve the same promises, the same security as those that came before. We must not pull up the ladder.

I urge the Government to use this opportunity to reassure the House that they will follow the rules on determining retirement age by looking at life expectancy, protect those who struggle to work later in life and help those in work who can do so. Too often in recent years the Government have trailed potentially detrimental pension changes only to withdraw them later. Today’s debate gives them an opportunity to make sure that that is not the case in future.

State Pension Triple Lock

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

On the latter point, the right hon. Gentleman will recall that the state pension rose by over 50% under the last Labour Government and has risen by around 40% under this Government. I do not want to make an enemy of the right hon. Gentleman, because I know that he agrees with me; I read his comments in the Daily Express yesterday. Indeed, I suspect that he will agree with probably 90% of my speech—so much so that I was tempted to email it to him in advance of this debate, but I did not want to be removed from the Front Bench.

Let me make a bit of progress. The real-world impact in our constituencies of cutting the state pension again means more and more pensioners turning to food banks and more pensioners shivering under blankets in cold, damp homes, putting themselves at risk of hypothermia. It means more pensioners cutting back, at a time when they have already had to swallow a real-terms cut in the state pension of around £480. Breaking the promise on inflation uprating for next year amounts to a further real-terms cut in the value of the full state pension of £440. We are talking about a £900 cut, around £37 a month in the fixed incomes of Britain’s retirees; a cut in the fixed incomes of groups of the population who cannot easily earn a wage; a cut in fixed income when one in three relies solely on the state pension; and a cut that is punishing at the best of times, but is more devastating when prices are rising and energy bills are increasing.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Does the shadow Minister agree that we are talking not only about a cut, but about the uncertainty that the Government have created over the weeks, with their U-turns upon U-turns? Pensioners do not know whether to trust this Government and they have no certainty, even despite what has been reported this morning.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

We have had continued mixed messaging from the Government, which is why today is an opportunity for Conservative Members to send a clear message to their constituents about their position on the triple lock.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

As I said in my intervention on the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth), we all in this House, as the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) said, have supported the triple lock. However, we need only google “Daily Mail” and “triple lock” to see that in recent days Government Ministers have been on the news saying things to suggest that it is under threat. On the Government side, it is clear that there is a desire among Back Benchers for the triple lock to stay, but I do not think it is very fair for pensioners to have to wait and do this hokey-cokey to hear what is going to happen.

In February 2021, when this House considered the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2021, the then Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince), spoke in favour of that year’s triple lock increase as

“upholding our commitment to the country’s pensioners”.—[Official Report, 9 February 2021; Vol. 689, c. 186.]

We know that by September of last year the Government had turned their back on that lock, implementing a double lock only. The hon. Member for Easington reminded us that that uprating of 3.1% means that when we discuss maintaining the triple lock now, it is not about keeping pensioners up to speed with the cost of living; they are already behind the cost of living as a result of that earlier U-turn.

We were told that the downgrading was just for one year. I said then that I was wary of trusting that the Government would keep that promise, and it increasingly seems that pensioners feel that way too. Many have said that this feels like a broken promise, and we are seeing different Ministers here giving different views. I know we are supposed to now wait nine days, but I do not accept that this is not a debate we should be having.

As the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) said, Opposition days are given to the official Opposition and the third party so that they can hold the Government to account. We are Opposition MPs; that is our job. When we are hearing from constituents about their anxieties regarding the triple lock and the energy price guarantee, it is right and proper that Opposition time be used to debate such issues. I must also say that I have also been present in this Chamber when the Government have tabled motions designed to trap the Opposition. This debate is part of what we do; it is part of how we oppose and how we get answers from the Government.

Away from politics, I want to pick up one message from a constituent who says:

“My wife is 80 and disabled and I am 81 and act as her full-time carer. We receive our bills for both gas and electricity on a monthly basis and the last 2 months have seen them triple-fold…keep in mind that these were summer-time readings. God only knows how we are to fare as things continue in this manner. Once again I plead with you to help in whatever way you can to save the Triple Lock.”

The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, in its paper “Five Steps to Better Pensions: Time for a New Consensus”, highlights that pension inadequacy is an increasing issue. The state pension makes up the majority of most people’s retirement income, and given how sluggish wage growth has been in the last 15 years, it is now harder for people to make adequate pension savings. It is important that we keep the state pension to protect current and future pensioners from poverty. As the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) said, it is a social contract, and that is true for private pensions, too. We all know that there is not a pot—as a Scottish MP representing a UK party, I know there is not a pot—but we do put into pensions and national insurance on the understanding that when it comes our time to draw down, we can do so. We need to ensure that we do not break that social commitment and that social contract.

I conclude by saying that I believe firmly that the triple lock is about intergenerational fairness. If we devalue our state pension, we are also letting down young people and people of working age. Some of those of almost pension age will have seen the value of their pensions fall as a result of the recent economic turmoil, and for those people a state pension will never be more vital. For young people and people of working age, keeping the state pension viable now for those not retiring for decades to come is the right thing to do. Younger people face so many difficulties—on the housing ladder, and with increasing rents, the lowest levels of social mobility and insecure employment—so we need to ensure that we keep a pension for them to look forward to in the future.

I finish by turning to the words of Muriel, another of my constituents who has written to me. She asked:

“How are we to survive without being able to depend on our Government to do the right thing by us?”

Those are words for us all to keep considering.

Social Security (Special Rules for End of Life) Bill [Lords]

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 8th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

I am very pleased that the hon. Gentleman is engaging seriously with this very important matter. I have seen his private Member’s Bill and I know that my colleagues in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will be looking at it very closely in terms of the formal response from the Government. I can say that today’s Bill is all about how to get the best type of financial support to people. I really hope that that means that he will join us in support of the principles and practice of this Bill in addition to his own campaigning work.

In April of this year, changes were made in secondary legislation to the eligibility criteria for the special rules in respect of universal credit and employment and support allowance. These changes have been well received by the key charities that are active in the area as well as by parliamentarians and the public.

The special rules definition, however, for personal independence payments, disability living allowance and attendance allowance is set in primary legislation and therefore we need to be here today dealing with this primary legislation to change the eligibility criteria in those benefits from six to 12 months. This Bill, therefore, is a single issue, two clause Bill that makes those eligibility changes for these three benefits. As I have already explained, the changes put forward in the Bill will mean that, together with that secondary legislation, those expected to live for 12 months or less will be able to access that vital support via the fast-track process rather than waiting until they might meet the current six-month rule.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

As the Minister mentioned in her response to the Chair of the Select Committee, in Scotland there have been changes to the process. It has been highlighted to me by Motor Neurone Disease Scotland that part of the challenge now is that the benefits assessment for special rules in Scotland—BASRiS—form and the DS15000 form are required to be completed by clinicians. Can she advise us on what discussions she is having, because it would be very good if we could minimise that complexity?

[Chloe Smith]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. We want to get the greatest amount of support as simply as possible to those who need it the most. To that end, my officials and I have been having extensive conversations with the Scottish Government. We would very much have preferred them to agree to a simpler way to ensure that we get the relevant details and the relevant paperwork. But, of course, this is not fundamentally about paperwork: we need to work together to get that support across both the reserved and the devolved benefits to those who need it most.

We are talking about thousands more people at the end of their lives who will be able to access the three benefits in the Bill and others in secondary legislation. We want a consistent end of life definition across health and welfare services that can be more easily understood by clinicians, end of life charities and patients. The alignment of the definition will allow clinicians in particular to include discussion of welfare benefits in wider conversations about what matters most to their patients, which will, in turn, be more responsive to their needs. We have already touched on how we hope that means that clinicians will be better supported by a more straightforward and simple definition.

Once the Bill is fully rolled out, between 30,000 and 60,000 more people may benefit from the special rules process each year. My Department recognises that it is essential that people are aware of and understand the changes. That is why there has been that extensive engagement that I referred to in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) with key end of life charities, hospices, medical organisations and clinical groups such as the royal colleges.

I pay tribute to the many people who have supported this work since the launch of the evaluation of how the benefits system can better support people nearing the end of their lives. Their expertise and personal experience has been crucial in better informing and enabling the important changes in the Bill. I pay tribute to all those who support patients at the end of their lives, and I am sure we would all agree that it is crucial when someone reaches the final stage of their life that they have that support. By passing the Bill today, we will provide thousands more people with vital financial support so that they can worry a little less about their finances and focus more on sharing the valuable time they have left with the people who matter most to them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chloe Smith)]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point that we take very seriously in the Department. We want to get the correct support to people as early as possible and in a way that engenders trust and the proper levels of support from our Department. He will, I am sure, be an avid reader in due course of the health and disability assessments White Paper, which will go into some of these points in greater detail, following on from the Green Paper, to which we had 4,500 consultation responses. However, I can assure him, and all other right hon. and hon. Members, that we want to be able to ensure that the right decisions are made in the first place, and considerable resources are being put into the Department for that purpose.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Last year there were 337,000 overpayments as a result of errors by the DWP, with the debt waived in only 10 cases. Claimants spend these funds in good faith, but are then required to make repayments that they simply cannot afford. Will the Minister agree to bring universal credit in line with legacy benefits by making no-fault debts non-repayable?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (David Rutley)]

It is obviously important to ensure that we get our payments right, and we are working hard to do that, but it is also important to balance the needs of the taxpayer with those of benefit recipients. We do need to get that balance right.

Cost of Living

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I thank the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) and the Backbench Business Committee for granting this estimates day debate on DWP spending on cost of living measures. It is an important topic for every MP in this place, because DWP matters make up a proportion of our constituency casework, and people come to us at a time of need.

The real elephant in the room is this: the Government talk about spending to help people deal with the cost of living crisis, but we have to acknowledge that they have put some people into the positions in which they find themselves. It is all well and good providing a £650 payment to those on benefits and £300 to pensioners—I welcome that—but many of those receiving those payments have been pushed into crisis as a result of Government policies that have pulled the rug out from under them.

The Government refused to uplift legacy benefits alongside universal credit in the response to the pandemic, as the right hon. Member for East Ham pointed out. The Government told us that it was too complex to do, but given that they seem to have given it very limited consideration, we conclude that that is a political decision. We know that it affected disabled people the most because the High Court said so. Of course, disabled people and the organisations who support them did not need to be told that. They knew that disabled people were disproportionately more likely to be shielding, and as a result relying on expensive services, such as food deliveries.

The reality is that it is generally more expensive to be disabled. When I think about the cost of living crisis and, in particular, the rise in energy costs, I think about disabled people in my constituency and elsewhere who are running electrical equipment, and who need to have the heating on at times of the day when people who do not have a disability and who are mobile do not. As a result, this crisis is hitting them more acutely than others.

[Kirsty Blackman]

On the additional costs faced by disabled people, does the hon. Lady share my concern about the additional costs associated with specialist diets? For those with a gluten-free diet, for example, prices have increased significantly in excess of inflation.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

Yes, I entirely agree. I recommend to anybody who has not read it last Sunday’s article in The Sunday Times about food banks. The journalist took the time to eat a diet of what is provided in the emergency packages. It is not particularly healthy, but it is food, and I am hugely grateful that it is there. I co-chair the all-party parliamentary group on ending the need for food banks, and I am hugely grateful for the work that food banks do, but trying to meet specialist needs and requirements is very difficult for a charity run by volunteers. We should ensure that people have what they need to meet their medical requirements.

I am sure that many Members will refer to this, but the refusal to keep the universal credit uplift has taken away £20 a week from people who were already struggling. No taper, and no additional grants, will make up for that. When the Chancellor introduced the uplift, he said it was to reinforce the safety net. To some extent, that worked. In research by the Trussell Trust, the secretariat for the APPG, 70% of people said the increase in universal credit made it easier for them to afford essentials. Very quickly—this is my last point on the APPG—our call for evidence on the different responses to the need for food closes on 8 July, so if anybody would like to contribute evidence, we would love to hear from them.

The decision to remove the universal credit uplift at the end of lockdown restrictions, when the economy reopened and there was an expectation that people could take on more work, revealed the Government’s true thinking. It was an implicit acknowledgement that it is impossible to live on the current rate of universal credit, and that that would become abundantly clear to voters who started claiming benefits for the first time during the pandemic. The Government’s taking away the uplift clearly shows that they think that poverty payments are acceptable for those who rely on universal credit in the long term, either because they do low-paid but vital work such as caring, or because they cannot work full time for any other reason—there are many other reasons, as we all know from our case loads. I would like to know why the Government think that a reinforced safety net is needed for some people in our society, but not others.

I want to mention, as others have, unpaid carers, who are another left-behind group. Carer’s allowance is £69.70 per week. We do not accept jobs that pay less than £2 per hour, so why do we think it is acceptable to ask unpaid carers to accept that? Earlier, when my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) spoke in support of her ten-minute rule Bill on kinship care, she talked about the instinct to want to help a family member in need. No matter how much we love our family, anyone who has ever been a carer will tell you that it is work. As a society, we rely on that good will, so we must support our unpaid carers. They are the backbone of our society. Where people can and want to work, they should be supported to do so. Members have mentioned no recourse to public funds, but the other side of the coin is that we do not allow people claiming asylum to work and contribute. We give them neither support nor the opportunity to support themselves.

With its earnings cap of £132, the carer’s allowance policy seems designed to keep carers in poverty. We have been waiting for two years for a report from the Government on the effect that carer’s allowance has on people’s ability to work. I hope the Minister can update the House on when we will receive that report, and will explain how Members are supposed to scrutinise Government policy properly when we do not receive the reports that would enable us to scrutinise them. I am pleased that while we are waiting for the report, there are practical steps we can take to support our unpaid carers with work and into work, and with managing their caring responsibilities. I am delighted to be bringing forward a private Member’s Bill this Session to give unpaid carers the right to take additional leave, which would help them to balance their caring and working commitments. It does not go as far as I would like, but I believe it would be the first stand-alone piece of legislation giving employment rights to carers. It would help millions of people. One thing that the Government have been trumpeting is the current low rates of unemployment, but they are not talking about the increasing numbers of economically inactive people. I argue that some of those will be carers who are unable to combine work with caring responsibilities. I hope that my Bill will give them the opportunity to do that, but—this is a big but—it is only part of the picture of supporting unpaid carers into work. I hope that the DWP will do other things to play its part.

I will briefly turn to two pensions issues, the first of which is a specific constituency matter. My constituent is being denied her full state pension because of a gap in her national insurance record. The gap exists because she worked in intelligence for the armed forces a number of years ago. When she became pregnant, she was immediately discharged from the Army, but she could not return home to Scotland because of the sensitive nature of her work. The gap is purely caused by the pregnancy discrimination that she experienced at the hands of the state. She is being told that, rather than paying her the small extra amount that she would be entitled to each year, the Government would arguably rather give it to lawyers and have us go to court. I really hope that the Government can recognise that she has experienced an injustice. I urge the Minister to meet me so that we can find a way forward for my constituent, who was serving her country.

On a much broader injustice, the WASPI—Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign—women are still waiting to receive the money that has been denied them. As time ticks by, many will die before they receive what they deserve. Do the Government want that legacy—3.8 million women left to die, with far too many of them in poverty exacerbated by the cost of living? The ombudsman might still be reaching its conclusions on compensation, but it would be a huge comfort for the WASPI women to know that the Government plan to follow its recommendations. Will the Minister join me today in pledging to follow the ombudsman’s recommendations, when they are made, and to provide compensation to women who missed out because of Government error?

We could talk about lots in this estimates debate and Members have referred to other issues that I would want to raise. In conclusion, however, we are feeling the impact of the cost of living crisis more acutely in the UK. It is incumbent on the Government to stand up and help constituents, including those claiming benefits or who interact with the DWP, however they do so.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson, Kirsty Blackman.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Rutley]

I was going to come to that later, but as it is an important point, I will address it now.

As has been acknowledged today, none of the new one-off payments will be taken into account in the benefit cap, but there is a statutory duty to review the levels of the cap at least once every five years, and that will happen at the appropriate time. The current unusual economic period, with potentially counterintuitive and shifting trends, will need to be considered in the context of any decision about a review. The benefit cap provides a strong incentive and fairness for hard-working taxpayers and households, and encourages people to move into work. Last week, the Secretary of State told the Select Committee that she was taking advice on the exact timing and the approach. The statutory obligation to review the cap levels at least once a year in each Parliament changed on 24 March 2022, when the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 was repealed, and the new obligation requiring the Secretary of State to review the levels at least once every five years means that the DWP now has until 2027 to complete a review. As I have said, however, she is seeking advice on that.

The annual review of benefits and pensions for the next tax year will begin in the autumn. To measure inflation, the Secretary of State will use the consumer prices index in the year to September. To measure earnings related to the pensions side of the equation, she will use average weekly earnings for the period from May to July. The uprated benefits and pensions will come into effect in April 2023.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

May I ask a very brief question? I am really thinking out loud. In that review, when looking at uprating, will the Government examine the implications of the energy price gap, which is clearly having a critical impact on people’s incomes?

[David Rutley]

As I have said, the Secretary of State will be looking at the wider economic environment when making these decisions.

Let me now pick up some other points that have been made today. The hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), who is terrier-like in his tenacity, mentioned bereavement orders. The Secretary of State has met officials to discuss the proposed draft order, and they are now working on that as a priority. Others have referred to the five-week wait for universal credit payments. It is not possible to award payments as soon as a claim is made, because the assessment period must run its course before an award can be calculated, and it is not possible to determine accurately what the entitlement will be in the month ahead. Our measures will ensure that the correct entitlement is paid, and will prevent significant overpayments from being made.

Carer’s Allowance

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell.

We need our unpaid carers. Carers UK estimates that there were up to 13.6 million unpaid carers during the pandemic, providing care worth £530 million per day. However, carers have been left to fall into poverty by this Government. Carer’s allowance currently equates to £1.93 per hour, assuming a carer only does 35 hours of care, which they need to do in order to receive the allowance. Even with the 3.1% uplift, that figure will increase to only £1.99, which is still less than £2 per hour.

Carers have borne the brunt of the pandemic. In research by Carers UK, 81% of carers said they had to provide more care during the pandemic; 35% were providing more care because services were closed or not available during the pandemic; and 80% of them were caring for someone whose condition worsened during the pandemic.

This Government forgot unpaid carers during the pandemic, which is evidenced by the fact they initially did not include carers in the priority categories for vaccination. I will just point out that, having previously been an unpaid carer himself, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) did a lot of work to ensure that that was rectified.

Unless someone has cared for somebody else, it is hard to know the day-to-day pressure of performing a caring role. It does not matter how much they love the person they are caring for; caring takes its toll. We know that the pandemic has taken its toll on everyone and we know the impact on mental health of lockdowns, uncertainty and constant worrying. For those in caring positions, it can be a million times worse. Caring can also be a very lonely role. All disabled people and all conditions are different. For some, caring means caring for a loved one who does not have the mental capacity, who cannot communicate and who potentially gets confused.

When preparing for the debate, I spoke to my researcher—I am grateful to her for allowing me to share this—who recalled the experience that she and her mother had when caring for her father, who developed early and severe dementia a decade ago. She told me how his constant confusion and distress at not being able to make sense of his thoughts or communicate them worried the whole family. Much like a toddler, he would lash out, shout words that made no sense, and sometimes cause harm to the people and things around him. She said that they saw themselves as lucky—not only because he passed away quickly and was put out of his distressing circumstances, but because it happened long before the pandemic. She said that the confusion of the new rules would have simply been overwhelming for him, and that the isolation of lockdown without any respite would have left lasting damage to both her and her mother. This will not be the experience for all carers, but it will be the experience for many. They need not only our thanks but our support, and it must be tangible.

Lifting restrictions means that more disabled people are being required to continue shielding, because underlying health conditions have not gone away. It means that some people are simply not leaving their homes. It means they avoid seeing others or going to support services in the community. It means avoiding going into care homes for respite, and it means that people rely more heavily on the friends and family who care for them.

My party opposed the Government’s decision to scrap free lateral flow tests from this Friday, and although the Government have announced that some categories will be able to access testing, they do not include unpaid carers, who have been forgotten again. It is true that carers often share homes with the people for whom they care, so there is a risk of infection even if it is known that the carer has covid, but this is not always the case. Many carers provide full-time unpaid care to those outside their home, as reflected by the fact that people can apply for carer’s allowance even if they provide care to a friend outside their home, so I ask the Government to consider ensuring that unpaid carers have access to lateral flow tests.

I think that Members on the opposition side of the Chamber agree that £69.70 is not enough to live on. It is a real-terms cut to the carer’s allowance, and those on carer’s allowance are already living on a knife edge. In Scotland, the carer’s allowance supplement—£237.90 every six months—provides some additional help, but there ought to be an uplift for all unpaid carers everywhere. As the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) referred to in his opening remarks, it was disgraceful that when the uplift to universal credit was introduced, it was not extended to those on legacy benefits. The Government should have uplifted the remaining benefits at that time. If £69.70 is not enough for people to live on, one would think that the Government would support people who are trying to earn and do something to increase their incomes, but no. Carers are unable to earn more than £128 per week before having their allowance cut, which means that £197.70 per week is all they can hope to earn.

A constituent of mine wrote to me only yesterday. She talked about how she has had to leave her employment because she cannot get any help to support her disabled adult daughter. She would work full time if she could, and she would choose not to seek anything from the state, but it is just not possible. As it is, what little support she receives is not enough. In her own words:

“I cannot stress enough how life and death the question is. We are stuck and there is nothing we can do to change it.”

Hon. Members have referred to the fact that unpaid carers have increased costs, often because the people for whom they care have higher costs. To make ends meet, this means going without in other ways, which was happening even before we faced the cost of living crisis that we now see.

Carers should be able to transition into work or education if they want, but at the moment there is a ban on carers receiving full-time education. This means that young carers who are learning and caring for their family are being left without financial support. With more flexible learning methods now being commonly used, there is no reason why an older person could not be doing full-time training from home while still providing care. The ban does nothing but stop carers reaching their potential in life, and it keeps them reliant on the small levels of benefits provided by the Government, who say they want to make work pay. Working not only puts vital money in the pockets of carers, but gives a source of identity and support outside that caring role.

In conclusion, being a carer is hard. Accessing the support needed to fulfil that role should not make it even harder. Providing a carer’s allowance that actually cares is essential.

Cost of Living Increases: Pensioners

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth]

Yes, I do. My right hon. Friend, who was a first-class Pensions Minister and Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will remember being at the Government Dispatch Box when shadow Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions from the Tory party criticised pension credit and opposed the minimum income guarantee, saying that it was an extension of means-testing and undermined the universal basic state pension. Now, today, they are using pension credit to justify a £388 real-terms cut in the value of the basic state pension. I hope that the very sensible recommendation by my right hon. Friend, the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, is taken up by the Secretary of State, and that she responds to him when she speaks.

Of course, Ministers should be moving heaven and earth to drive up take-up, but the Pensions Minister revealed earlier this afternoon that, instead, we have a letter writing campaign. Writing to local newspapers—that is his plan to drive up uptake of pension credit. When pensioners cannot afford their heating bills and cannot afford to eat—when pensioners cannot afford the basic necessities of life—rather than taking action, all he does is write to local newspapers. What is he doing? Is he expecting pensioners to burn the papers to keep themselves warm? I am told he has written to the Leicester Mercury. Well, I have been looking at his local paper, the Hexham Courant. I cannot actually see his letter in it, but I can see that it is warning that

“Thousands in the North East to miss out on automatic £150 rebate…MORE than 320,000 households across the North-East will not automatically receive a £150 council tax rebate…and 40,000 in Northumberland”.

Many of them will be pensioners. May I suggest that he sorts out his own backyard before gracing the pages of my paper, the Leicester Mercury?

There is one other area where I think the Minister needs to show greater urgency in supporting the United Kingdom’s pensioners and I would be grateful if the Secretary of State responded in detail to the points I have made. She will know that the underpayment of the basic state pension to around 135,000 pensioners, the vast majority of whom are women, has been a scandal. I pay tribute to the former Liberal Democrat Pensions Minister, Sir Steve Webb, the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier), who have all shone a light on that.

The Department has allocated £1 billion and estimates that approximately 118,000 pensioners will be traced and could receive around £8,900 by the time the payments are made. So far, so good. But the last time Ministers provided updated figures, in autumn, they had paid out just £60 million to just under 10,000 people, so £900 million is outstanding. When we are in a cost of living crisis, should not the Department be showing greater urgency? When will the other £900 million be paid? The Secretary of State will know that there are stories of the DWP helpline giving inaccurate information and false assurances, forcing pensioners to keep living on less. There is no information available as far as I can see on how lump sums will impact on capital limits and the consequent impact on other entitlements, such as to social care. Divorced women have been excluded from the whole exercise on the basis that it does not think there are enough errors to be worth doing, even though there are cases of divorced women where errors have been made and it has had to pay out thousands in back payments.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Two weeks ago, during my absence with covid, a private Member’s Bill was presented which called specifically for divorced women to no longer be excluded and receive more than an apology. Will the shadow Secretary of State indicate whether he would support that Bill?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

Without having read the details, it sounds like a very sensible Bill. I look forward to reading the details. At first sight, it certainly has my strong encouragement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

That is very kind of you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Before Christmas, a constituent reached out to me to tell me about his mother. She had recently died, and when dealing with her affairs, he was distraught to discover that she had died with no money in the bank and with unpaid bills stacking up. She had worked hard, paid into the system and raised her family, and what she was left with was not enough. Of course, there was nothing I could do for his mother, though he was obviously extremely distraught to think that she had experienced that anxiety in the latter days of her life, but he wanted me to be aware of the cost pressures that pensioners face and to do what I could to stop older people ending up in the same position.

We know that my constituent’s mother is far from the only pensioner to have had to live in poverty and make the choice between heating or eating. That sounds like a cliché, but I am the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on ending the need for food banks, and we hear in our inquiry sessions of people going without. They do not have the patience or the time to wait for the Chancellor’s statement. For many, the Government’s recent actions have pushed them over the edge, with the real-terms cut to the state pension by abandoning the triple lock and the failure to respond to the cost of living crisis.

In her opening remarks, the Secretary of State said two things. She said that the triple lock had been paused because the pandemic had caused an unexpected, unplanned or out-of-the-ordinary increase in inflation, but that the cost of living crisis was due to multiple factors. Can we just accept that covid is one of multiple factors that has caused the cost of living crisis?

I have always said that the state pension is not just about pensioners now; it is about people in the future. Young people who cannot get on to the property ladder, cannot get a mortgage or are in insecure employment need to know that there is a state pension for them in the future that will support them. This evening, I was at the Gingerbread single-parent family reception downstairs, and it was pointed out to me that many single parents do not qualify for auto-enrolment because they do not earn enough. That is another reason why it is even more important that the state pension is viable if private pensions are not going to be there to support people in the future.

Research by Independent Age has shown that, in 2018-19, only 60% of those entitled to pension credit were receiving it. If those extra 40% of people were reached, 440,000 pensioners would be lifted out of poverty, as others have mentioned. I was pleased that a recent DWP response to a written question of mine said that it was currently estimating that there had been a 30% increase in new claims in 2021 compared with 2020, or approximately 31,000 new claims. However, that figure does not tell us if any of those claims come from pensioners in older age groups who were already missing out on pension credit, or if they are from people newly reaching pension age. We know that there are 80,000 more people reaching pension age each year than the year before, so a figure of 31,000 could just mean that 49,000 are not receiving it when they are entitled to do so. There does not seem to be targeted awareness-raising. We have agreed across this House that we must do as much as possible to ensure that those who qualify for pension credit get it. I want to understand what the Department for Work and Pensions can do to upgrade its systems and identify those who might be eligible or potentially assess broad geographical areas where there are low take-up rates. What is it doing to ensure its messaging is reaching those it needs to reach, and is it conducting any critical analysis?

We know some groups are especially likely to be in poverty in later life and that is linked to underpayment of pensions. My friend and former colleague the former Liberal Democrats pensions Minister Steve Webb has been mentioned this evening and I am grateful to him for his work around that. However, as has been mentioned this evening, divorced women are explicitly being excluded from the LEAP—legal entitlements and administrative practice—exercise. Dealing with pensions on divorce is incredibly complicated—such as the allocation of one person’s potential future pension rights to another’s. It is hard to understand why the Department thinks there can have been no error in the payment of pensions under these complicated arrangements considering some of the basic errors made in other areas. My hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green) presented a private Member’s Bill on my behalf just two weeks ago while I was off with covid; it would include divorced women in this exercise. I ask the Minister to consider supporting my Bill, or to set out either this evening or in the fiscal statement why he will not do so.

Bills are increasing dramatically now. It has taken 35 years for underpayments of some state pensions to be identified, but pensioners on the poverty line cannot wait that long. The Government must now act to address this crisis both historically in terms of their own failings and given the current cost of living crisis.

Long Covid

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

We were told this week by the Prime Minister that the worst of covid was over and that we are moving from responding to covid as a crisis to it being something we will be living with for the long term. I think we all hope that the Government’s assessment is right and that after two long years of sacrifice, the worst is over.

This Adjournment debate, granted before last week’s recess, is also timely, because missing from the Prime Minister’s statement on Monday was something very important: how we deal with long covid. In fact, the Prime Minister did not comment on long covid at all. He talked about omicron being a less severe variant, and he said that covid should now be treated like the flu, but that overlooks the fact that the debilitating symptoms of long covid are not impacted by the severity of someone’s initial covid symptoms. Someone can have very mild covid symptoms initially, but be left with an endless illness stopping them from carrying out the most basic activities. That is one of the reasons why my party wants everyone to continue to have access to free testing—the fight against covid is not over just because we want to appease Back Benchers.

It is not really possible to describe long covid, but doctors now think that it is caused by somebody having an ongoing immune response to covid, long after the virus has left their body. What that looks like differs from person to person. There are 150 possible symptoms, with each person having a unique combination. The most commonly reported symptom is fatigue, then shortness of breath, loss of smell, difficulty concentrating and aching muscles. Symptoms can also include vertigo, fever, vomiting and diarrhoea to name just a few.

Long covid is also relapsing-remitting, which means that symptoms can come and go with little warning. In short, it is complicated, but what we do know is that it is affecting a vast amount of people. According to the Office for National Statistics, in the four weeks before 2 January, 1.3 million people across the UK had it. Considering that the spread of omicron did not peak until 30 December, the actual number of people suffering today is likely to be higher.

Tackling long covid is a challenge that we must take on, as much as tackling covid itself. When I applied for this debate, I caused a little confusion for some: “Why does a Scottish MP want to talk about a health condition when the care of her constituents is under the remit of the Scottish Government?” In some ways, they are right. It would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to the hard work of my friend the Member of the Scottish Parliament for Edinburgh West, who has been leading the way on getting health and social care support for long covid sufferers in Scotland. I know that his calls for proper care pathways, specialist clinics and support from trained district nurses will hugely benefit my constituents and others.

Treatment is only half the battle, however. The focus of this debate is how long covid affects someone’s ability to work and what support they need as a result. If we are now living with covid, we are also living with long covid. We have learned a lot about the disease in the past two years. There was little understanding for people who caught covid in the early days, and no understanding that their symptoms could last, but they have lasted. For that first cohort of sufferers, they have lasted for nearly two years. At first, it might have been understandable to think that they just needed to wait it out for their health to return to normal, but it would be completely disingenuous to say that now. Their symptoms are the reality of their daily life.

I have already mentioned that more than 150 symptoms are associated with long covid. The medical profession is still just starting to grapple with it and most people do not understand it much at all. Sadly, that lack of understanding is causing a stigma, as it often does, which is all too well known by sufferers of other diseases such as ME. Like long covid, fatigue is a common symptom of ME that also comes and goes.

When preparing for this debate, I spoke to representatives from Action for ME who have extensive experience with the problems facing those who describe fatigue as their primary symptom. They told me that people with ME face a significant stigma and face being told that their illness does not exist or that they should learn to just push through. They also told me that the same narrative and the same problems are being reported for the hundreds of thousands of people who have severe fatigue as a result of long covid. Indeed, Action for ME has had to close its helpline and waiting list because such a surge of people have contacted it. I cannot believe that that is unrelated to long covid.

Thousands of people are left suffering from an illness that may well make it hard for them to work, but their colleagues and employers do not necessarily believe that there is anything wrong with them. How can they explain an absence or ask for support in the face of being told that they are fabricating their debilitating symptoms? A better definition, guidance for employers and a Government-led campaign to boost awareness and understanding would go a long way towards changing attitudes to long covid.

The problem is exacerbated for people who do not have a formal diagnosis of long covid to fall back on. The Government’s working definition of long covid is a condition where symptoms cannot be diagnosed as being from anything else but the after-effect of a covid infection, but not all sufferers of long covid have had a positive covid test result. For the past 18 months, covid tests have become a part of daily life for most of us, but those who got covid in the first months of the pandemic were ill without ever being tested because the tests simply did not exist. That is a huge problem in a system where support—from employers or the Department for Work and Pensions—requires proof.

There is a future problem too that I have already referred to and that perhaps the Government would like to pre-empt. On Monday, the Prime Minister announced that free testing will end in just five weeks’ time, which means that more people will have covid, and might then have long covid, without a formal diagnosis. It would be a small but vital change to ensure that the diagnosis does not rely on someone having a positive test result on their NHS record.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Would antibody testing achieve the aim the hon. Member intends, rather than antigen testing, which is what we are currently doing?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I would accept either testing, but I am asking that proof of a positive test does not need to be a requirement for a diagnosis of long covid. Of course, it would be better for many reasons to just keep testing everyone, but failing this, I ask the Minister to speak to his colleagues in the Department of Health about how long covid can be diagnosed without a test result, and to commit to making sure it is not required for recognition of the disease by his own Department.

I am sure that, in his remarks, the Minister will tell me that there is no evidence of a problem of long covid and keeping people in work, but that is because the information is not being collected. As I have said, 1.3 million people have long covid, and of those almost two thirds report an impact on their ability to carry out their daily lives. It is logical to assume that this includes employment—getting up, commuting, concentrating and completing a full day of work—and I would urge the Minister urgently to collect the data needed to find out the extent to which people with long covid are struggling at work.

I also urge the Minister urgently to provide guidance to employers as to how they can support employees with long covid. At the very least, affected staff need understanding, but beyond this, employers need to know what reasonable adjustments are appropriate, how to support staff who are on long-term sick leave and how to adjust their business practices to function in the face of increased absences. I have some experience in that I worked for a time in human resources—I have some experience with dealing with issues that arise as a result of long-term health conditions—and I have great sympathy for those in human resources who are tackling this problem now on behalf of their employers.

This problem may be larger for some employers than others, particularly given the number of key workers who caught covid by working on the frontline during the first waves of the pandemic, and I have been written to by many constituents in this position. To mention just one, a constituent of mine was working as a healthcare support worker in the first wave of the pandemic when she caught covid from a patient and, as a result of long covid, she has been unable to return to work. Her employer, the local council, wants to help, but it does not know what is best to do. There will be thousands of employees in the same position all around the country, and employers need guidance from the DWP about the condition, and what support they can and should be expected to give. In this regard, I am told that it would be helpful if long covid was classified as an occupational disease. I therefore ask the Minister to use his time today to advise whether that is under consideration, and then to bring forward such guidance as a matter of urgency.

I am sure the Minister will agree with me in hoping that, with the right support and guidance, most people experiencing long covid will be able to stay in their jobs—to keep working, to keep earning, to continue in their careers—but, sadly, that will not be the case for everybody. There will be those who cannot work as much as they used to or who cannot work at all, and that is where our social security system steps up. As the Minister knows, it is already official Government guidance that for

“anyone with a disability or long-term health condition, including long Covid, there is a strong financial safety net”,

and it goes on to list available support as statutory sick pay, universal credit and personal independence payments.

However, as is so often the case with benefits, it is not that easy. Applying for benefits is complicated, as there are a lot of forms, a lot of boxes to tick and a lot of assessments. When someone has a debilitating condition such as long covid or one of the other relapsing-remitting diseases I have already mentioned, they may not be able to sit and complete a 30-page form in one go, or even in the course of a week or two. Research by the MS Society has shown that a third of people with MS thought four weeks was not enough time to complete the forms, but the majority of applicants did not know that they could request a two-week extension.

One solution is simply to extend the time allowed to complete the forms. There is no incentive for claimants to take excessive time because they want to get the support that they need. Meanwhile, DWP resources are used up requiring people to request extensions. Setting the time to return the forms at eight weeks would be a simple and cheap solution. If the Minister disagrees and prefers a system that does not work for disabled people and also costs his Department money, will he at least commit to including clear information on the PIP application form on how people go about applying for an extension?

While we are thinking about the forms, does the Minister agree with me that the forms ought to be designed to be usable by the people completing them? People with relapsing-remitting conditions, of which long covid is just one, do not find those forms usable. There is no space on the forms properly to explain the impact of having fluctuating symptoms. They do not work for people with long covid, and these forms must be fit for purpose. I strongly encourage the Minister to consult with disabled people on this.

Long covid is a novel condition, and the DWP, like all of us, is having to learn and adapt, but as DWP staff see more and more individuals with long covid, it is vital that they receive the appropriate guidance and training. Universal credit requires claimants who can do so to look for work. In fact, more recently it required claimants quite quickly to look for just any work at all. Are work coaches trained in what sort of requirements are appropriate for someone with a relapsing remitting disease, where they fatigue quickly or have brain fog or any of the other hundred-odd symptoms of long covid? I look forward to hearing from the Minister about what guidance is in place and what support is offered, but I fear there is little.

The same is true for personal independence assessments. A PIP assessment is supposed to determine what additional support someone needs as a result of their disability or illness, but again that is an impossible test for anybody with a fluctuating condition. They could be functioning one day, or even ok, but the next day they are unable to get out of bed. One assessment—just one assessment on one day—determines whether they get support or not, and that system does not work. Of course, the system is failing not only long covid sufferers, but those with ME, multiple sclerosis and chronic pain, to name a few. There is a simple solution that I ask the Minister to adopt, which is to allow more weight to be given to medical evidence and the information provided by doctors and experts on someone’s condition, or by those people who see claimants on their good days and on their bad days. It is an obvious solution.

There are other ways that the assessment process could be reformed better to support all disabled people, including those with long covid: using specialist assessors, ending the five-week waiting period and increasing payments in line with inflation are vital for the health and wellbeing of all disabled people. I await the publication of the Government’s White Paper this spring, and wonder whether the Minister is able to provide an update on that this evening.

However, those with long covid cannot wait until then for their condition to be properly recognised by the DWP and their employers. The pandemic has been the biggest mass-disabling event since the first world war, and long covid is not going away. We have seen covid rip through classrooms over the past few months. Long covid does not just affect people of working age, and children who suffer from it are going to miss education and training. It does not matter if, like me, someone views social security as a public service and a safety net, or if they see the DWP as a means to get people into work. From either perspective, the Government must do more to support those with long covid to stay in work, get into work, and get the support they need if they cannot work.

We need information about the impact of long covid on employment, and a formal recognition of long covid as a debilitating condition, or an occupational health disease that affects someone’s ability to work. We need proper guidance and training for employers and DWP staff, and an assessment process that works for people with fluctuating symptoms. The Prime Minister told us on Monday that it was time to get our confidence back, but those words are cold comfort to those suffering from the debilitating impacts of long covid. They need practical support and they need it now, and I urge the Minister to heed them.