Welfare Reform (Sick and Disabled People)

Yvonne Fovargue Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

The work capability assessment was flawed from the start. It stemmed from the work of the American insurance company Unum, and the so-called biopsychosocial model of disability assessment. That was exposed as an invention by the insurance companies simply to avoid paying out for claims. My right hon. Friend is, however, absolutely right that Atos was brought in and then given a contract to churn through large numbers of assessments very rapidly—as fast as possible. The staff employed in order to achieve that often had minimal medical or professional qualifications, and their expertise or experience was often totally unrelated to the condition or disability of the people they assessed.

Assessments largely disregarded people’s previous diagnosis, prognosis or even life expectancy. The recent “Panorama” programme “Disabled or Faking It?” exposed the scandal of seriously ill patients—people diagnosed with life-threatening conditions such as heart failure or end-stage emphysema—being found fit for work. The so-called descriptors, or criteria, on which assessments are based bear no relation to the potential employment available, take little account of fluctuating conditions and are particularly unresponsive to appreciating someone’s mental health issues.

According to all the Department for Work and Pensions figures, the appeals roll in—on 40% of decisions—and most appeals are now successful. The test has been condemned by the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing. The report by the president of the appeals tribunal to the Government denounced the test as

“failing to coincide with reality”.

Even when someone wins their appeal, there can be a lengthy wait before their benefits are reinstated. In one period, 37,000 people were waiting up to a year to receive benefits after they had won their appeal.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the cuts to the legal aid system—taking away the right to get legal aid for welfare benefit appeals—have caused additional distress to the sick and disabled people who are seeking an appeal?

[John McDonnell]

Interestingly, all the statistics prove that people who are represented win their appeal in vast numbers, while those who are not represented are suffering. To be frank, it is no wonder that 84% of GPs have reported that patients have presented with mental health problems, such as stress, anxiety and depression as a result of undergoing or the fear of undergoing the work capability assessment.

For all those reasons, the BMA has called for an end to the WCA “with immediate effect”, believing that it should be replaced with

“a rigorous and safe system that does not cause avoidable harm”.

Such systems are used in other countries, so why can we not use one of them here? That is why the motion calls for the WCA to be scrapped.

People assessed as capable of work and put on employment and support allowance within the work-related group now lose their contributory ESA after 12 months. Some 700,000 disabled people are losing a total of £4.4 billion as a result of the 12-month cut-off. There has been a massive escalation in the use of sanctions against people who are on ESA or jobseeker’s allowance; some 900,000 people were sanctioned last year.

Housing Benefit

Yvonne Fovargue Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Cooper]

Only a Government Member could begin to pose that question. The Government need to provide the means to make the change. Single people do not necessarily want to sit in a three-bedroom house. They need a property to go to. The Government need to provide the means to enable them to make that change. I will not be taught any lessons by the hon. Gentleman.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that housing benefit is an in-work benefit, not an out-of-work benefit? To talk about people sitting at home, out of work, on housing benefit is completely out of context.

[Rosie Cooper]

I absolutely agree with—[Interruption.]

Disabled People

Yvonne Fovargue Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my Front-Bench colleagues for choosing to debate this cause, which I brought to the House’s attention in a Westminster Hall debate at the end of last year, on 18 December, when I urged the Minister for disabled people, the hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), to conduct a cumulative impact assessment on the real-term effects of welfare reform on the most vulnerable people in our society. I am sure she will remember that very well-attended debate.

The Chancellor and the Prime Minister have repeatedly lectured us about the need for fairness and said that we are all in this together. However, it is clear that it is not the richest, most powerful and most able in our society who will pay the costs of this Government’s cold calculation and uncaring disregard. Instead, it will be the least able, the most vulnerable and the least powerful—the disabled—who will pay the price.

We call for a cumulative impact assessment because a range of cuts and changes is taking place at the same time, and we need to assess their cumulative effect. I am sure Members have read, or at least heard of, the report “The Tipping Point” by the Hardest Hit campaign, which concluded:

“Many disabled people feel that they are living on the edge, and that the loss of even a small amount of income could tip their already complex lives into greater dependence and insecurity.”

That has been brought into stark relief by campaigns outside this House by organisations such as the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, Mind and Carers UK, and the WOW petition and Pat’s petition. They have brought this to our attention, although I think Members already knew about it because in our surgeries we and our caseworkers are dealing with it in person, on the telephones and via e-mail on a daily basis.

“The Tipping Point” study discovered that disabled people and their families are struggling to make ends meet and feel increasingly nervous about the future, and because of that the Government need to act urgently to arrest disabled people’s slide into entrenched isolation and poverty. Members have heard of Pat’s petition, which had been signed by 62,500 people at the last count that I saw. It called on the Government to:

“Stop and review the cuts to benefits and services which are falling disproportionately on disabled people, their carers and families”.

I ask the Government not only to listen, but to act.

Let us look at the elements of welfare reform that are having an impact on disabled people, and their carers and families. The introduction of the universal credit will result in 2 million households seeing a drop in their income, with disabled people being among those worst affected. The DWP’s own equality impact assessment from November 2011 predicted that disabled households would lose £37 a week, compared with a figure for non-disabled households of only £26 a week.

Another major change is the introduction of the personal independence payment. Last year, in a Westminster Hall debate, the Minister with responsibility for disability matters said that 160,000 claimants would get a reduced award and 170,000 would get no award—that was before a single individual assessment had taken place, so it was a very mean prediction. That announcement concerned me greatly, given that the Minister already had figures on those who would get a reduced award and those who would receive no support before any assessments had taken place. Surely that suggests that the Minister is capping the number of those on PIP, rather than basing that benefit on individual need.

The issue of contribution-based employment and support allowance is affecting many of my constituents. The time limit of 365 days—one year—on those in the work-related activity group, and its retrospective implantation, is forcing many disabled people on to jobseeker’s allowance, given that there is no magic tree spouting jobs these days in places such as north-east England. As I am sure the Minister is aware, unemployment there is going up, not down, yet we seem to be expecting more people with disabilities, or profound disabilities, to get into the world of work, where jobs are already scarce.

Let me give an example from my constituency. It concerns a lady suffering from bronchial pulmonary dysplasia, who was too ill for a heart and lung transplant and who had been on steroids for 37 years. She had brittle bones—osteoporosis—kidney failure and was unable to walk. She regularly had fractures, she had osteoarthritis and she was diabetic. She was initially placed in the work-related activity group and told she would need to find work. As I am sure hon. Members have already fathomed out, she was housebound and bedridden. Thankfully, intervention from my office and other support groups showed that the DWP had clearly made a mistake and it was forced to retract that initial assessment.

I do not wish to talk extensively about the bedroom tax, but so many people who face it do not have spare rooms. These rooms are used to store specialist equipment or are for a family carer, often a spouse or a partner, to sleep in; if those rooms were not available, they would not get that much-needed sleep. We need to remember that those carers save the Government about £100 billion a year, because they take on the role of caring for those disabled people almost exclusively.

Before I move on, I need to talk briefly about Atos, its shocking assessments and the assessment process. I would need all day to discuss that, but I shall just say that the citizens advice bureau in Gateshead has undertaken 1,400 appeals on behalf of people, 1,200 of which have been successful.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not just the welfare reform assessments that are affecting the people with disabilities, but the legal aid changes, which meant that people can no longer appeal against these welfare benefit decisions with help from the CAB?

[Ian Mearns]

I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention, as she describes exactly why we need this cumulative impact assessment. So many different strands to this debate are having an impact on disabled people, and their carers and families.

Before I finish my contribution, I want to refer to a website, calumslist.org, which shows how many suicidal deaths have been directly attributed to welfare reform by a coroner’s court. The total so far is 33. When we had the debate in Westminster Hall in December the figure was 24, so that cost is going up by the month. We need to ensure that the assessment criteria take proper account of the full range of barriers faced by people with disabilities and health conditions, making the assessment and reassessment processes as simple, transparent and proportionate as possible and ensuring that robust evaluation and monitoring processes are in place. We need to bring all the strands together—the bedroom tax, housing, the welfare reform and the changes to legal aid. All those things will have an impact on people’s capacity to deal with the real changes occurring in their lives day by day. I ask all Members to support the motion.

Under-Occupancy Penalty (Wigan)

Yvonne Fovargue Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am pleased to have secured this debate on the under-occupancy penalty and its effects in my borough of Wigan. The importance of the policy has been demonstrated not just by the number of constituents who have raised the issue but by the unprecedented comments by the very non-political chief executive of Wigan and Leigh housing trust, who in a recent article for the Wigan Evening Post slated the policy and its effect on the trust and its tenants, calling it “a wicked policy” that will not save any money on the housing benefit bill but will bring misery and hardship, forcing thousands of people in Wigan to pay up from already overstretched incomes or move to smaller properties, which are already in short supply in the area.

The stock of one and two-bedroom properties in Wigan stands at 12,266, of which 1,496 became vacant in 2011-12. Demand for those properties before the implementation of the bedroom tax was 3,177. There are 10,110 three-bedroom properties, of which 553 became vacant, but only 353 applications were made for those vacancies. As can be seen, families are not tightly packed into overcrowded dwellings waiting for selfish people with acres of vacant space to move and release a home. In fact, contrary to Government rhetoric, the reverse is true.

We have heard many times from the Minister and others that this is about fairness, and that people in the private rented sector claiming local housing allowance are not allowed a spare room. I challenge that. I have worked on an LHA pilot and I am familiar with the rules. I recently tabled a parliamentary question asking how many people were under-occupying while claiming local housing allowance. The answer was, as I knew, that local housing allowance is based on the characteristics of the household and is not affected by the number of bedrooms in the property occupied. Two-bedroom properties in Wigan are readily available at the local housing allowance rate of £80.77 per couple. One-bedroom properties are much scarcer, so people in the private rented sector can have a spare bedroom without paying for the privilege.

The potential for social housing tenants to move to the private sector discredits another purported reason for introducing the policy: saving money. According to Government figures, £2.9 million could be saved annually in Wigan if nobody moved and everybody paid the penalty or if everyone downsized within the social rented sector. However, the harsh reality of the housing market in Wigan is that the shortfall of one and two-bedroom properties in the social rented sector is causing people to shift to the private sector, which could result in an additional housing benefit cost of £229,000 in 2014-15.

As of 15 April, 38 of the 4,200 households affected have terminated their tenancies. Each household that moves to the private rented sector increases the housing benefit bill by £700 to £1,200 a year. The move from one sector to the other is likely to go only one way. Of the 1,100 people on the waiting list from the private rented sector, 80% require one or two bedrooms, which, we already know and I have demonstrated, are over-subscribed and in short supply.

It is worth reminding the Minister that we are dealing with people who have families, communities, roots and memories bound up in their homes, not with chess pieces that can be moved across the country at will. Many of them have disabilities, live in adapted properties and have a medical need for a spare room. They are people like my constituents Mr and Mrs Pimblett and their 12-year-old son, who live in a three-bedroom Wigan and Leigh housing trust property.

Mr Pimblett is severely disabled and suffers from gigantism and osteoporosis. He has recently been assessed by his occupational therapist as requiring a further bedroom for his medical needs. If he follows that medical advice, he will pay a penalty of £25 a week. Mr Pimblett, who is virtually housebound, enjoys fishing with a friend who takes him. It is his only hobby, but the current penalty of £14.60 a week for his “spare” bedroom means that he now cannot afford the £120-a-year membership fee at the local angling club. It has caused him to become severely depressed, exacerbating the pressure on him, his family and the NHS, which is now treating him.

Another constituent arrived at my surgery in tears. She and her partner, who is also her live-in carer, had received a letter saying they were subject to the under-occupation penalty. She was injured at work but, due to financial pressure, carried on working until the pain became too intense, leading to severe arthritis of the spine, a degenerative condition. She must now use a walking frame, when she can walk at all. Their home is a two-bedroom adapted flat, and she and her partner cannot share a bedroom because she has a specially adapted bed and medical equipment, and must often get up during the night due to severe pain. Were my constituent to move, the adaptations budget would have to be used to adapt her new dwelling.

In Wigan and Leigh housing trust, 550 households include a disabled person and live in an adapted property. Some, like my constituent, feel forced to move. The additional expenditure on the already committed adaptations budget could be as high as an extra £1.9 million over the next 18 months. The only other funds available are from reductions in the capital programme, of which new house building is the most vulnerable area, so we cannot even build our way out of the problem. The policy is affecting people who might want to move to the social rented sector in future.

The stability of the social rented sector’s financial model is threatened. Rent arrears in Wigan and Leigh housing trust alone are predicted to increase by at least £1.4 million for 2013-14, solely due to the bedroom tax. The first two weeks’ collection report shows a large non-payment, and collection staff have been diverted from their normal recovery duties to deal with large numbers of angry tenants who are affected by the policy, do not understand why they are being hit and cannot afford to pay.

I repeat the question that I asked the Minister during an earlier debate on this topic. If a person subject to the charge cannot pay and is registered for a smaller property that is not available—I have figures showing that, given current vacancy rates, it will take several years in the Wigan borough if just a quarter of those affected wish to downsize—will they be considered intentionally homeless? If not, who will fund them? Will it be the already overstretched Wigan and Leigh housing trust? Are all those people and many others—the grandparents who look after their grandchildren two nights a week so their daughter can work, or Mr Smith, who shares the care of his son—expected to apply for discretionary housing payments, and how far will that budget stretch?

As I have time, I will mention another case. Mrs B is 55 and lives alone in a three-bedroom house. As it is her family home, she believed that she could live there for the rest of her life, but the cost implications of the under-occupancy charge have brought her a lot of stress and worry. She feels that it is designed to evict her from her home. She cannot afford the £20.75 that she must pay weekly. Before April, her rent was covered in full by housing benefit. She is a full-time carer for an elderly relative and her parents, and her income is minimal. She is just about getting by on what she has at the moment. She does not have any personal transport—she cannot drive—so her elderly aunt has moved close by, and Mrs B can help care for her as well. All the family members live close by to provide support, they all look after each other and they are all within easy walking distance.

Through no fault of her own, Mrs B lives in the property alone. She has lived there for decades: her son was born and died at this property, and her memories and life are bound up with it. Time and money have been invested to make it safe and secure; the family have created a memorial garden in the back to the memory of her son, because thieves stole the memorials from his grave. As a result of his death, she suffers constantly from anxiety, stress and depression but, despite that, manages to fulfil her caring responsibilities. The under-occupation charge has exacerbated her problems with the worry of losing her home and of wondering where she will be forced to live or whether she can look after her auntie and parents. Her children have grown up and left the property, and she is left there alone.

Wigan and Leigh housing trust has completed a discretionary housing payment application on Mrs B’s behalf, but how far will that budget stretch? Some analysis has been done by the housing trust. The additional money in Wigan can assist fewer than 100 households of the 4,162 affected, which is less than one fifth of the number of households that contain a disabled person in an adapted property affected by the bedroom tax, let alone the households of people such as Mrs B. Wigan has worked hard over the years to build stability and community spirit. Forcing people to pay for staying in their home or to move away from their network of support—friends, family—from their jobs in many cases, because we should not forget that the majority of housing benefit claimants are working for a low wage, from their schools, from the area they grew up in and from all their memories is, in many cases, completely heartless.

For Wigan and most of the north of England, this policy will not deliver the predicted savings or decrease overcrowding, but it will have a detrimental impact on other areas covered by the public purse. It will aggravate the housing supply problems and the demand mismatch in the north, increase financial hardship in our most deprived communities, leading to increased rent arrears, evictions and homelessness, and bring increased stress and misery to thousands of people. We have all heard horrendous and heart-wrenching tales from our constituents, and all for no good reason. I have to agree with the chief executive of the Wigan and Leigh housing trust: “wicked” is the only way to describe the policy and its effect in Wigan.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

It is a pleasure to be serving under your chairmanship today, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) on securing the debate on behalf of her constituents.

I am under no illusion about the strength of feeling of many about the removal of the spare room subsidy, but we are not introducing the change lightly. A number of important principles lie behind the reform, and it is only right to describe the main ones, because they provide the context for the changes, which of course have a financial imperative and other compelling reasons. Furthermore, no one has offered a serious alternative to achieve the savings of £500 million a year, especially since housing benefit doubled in cash terms to £23 billion under the previous Government, so we have had to look at the financial implications.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

In the Budget, the Chancellor cut the beer duty and cancelled a planned future rise at the cost of £200 million, which equates to 40% of the anticipated savings from the bedroom tax. Is the Government priority beer or bedrooms?

[Esther McVey]

That example is taken completely out of context; one measure is about a business and ensuring that it remains, as well as about how people spend their money, but the measure we are discussing is about one set of finances that doubled in cash terms under the hon. Lady’s Government to £23 billion and about what we should do about it. We cannot pick and mix and move the finances around; we have to get housing benefit under control, and I will say how we are doing that, although I do not underestimate in any way the complexity and difficulty of doing so. She said clearly that this is about people, and I fully understand that it is about people, which is why we have to get things right, not only for now but for future generations—their children and their children’s children—so it is always about people and getting the system right. Another reason for the reform is that it will result in the effective use of housing stock over time, because we also have to look at the people in overcrowded accommodation, and in Wigan alone more than 3,500 families are on the housing waiting list.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

rose—

[Esther McVey]

I will proceed a little further, so that I can answer the hon. Lady’s questions.

We need to improve use of the housing stock, and doing nothing is not an option, because we have 1 million spare rooms but 250,000 people living in overcrowded accommodation. The situation will not be easy to change overnight, but we have to start on the process of getting things right. It is about fairness. The hon. Lady said that I would talk about fairness, and of course it is about fairness, but from different angles and not only for those renting from private landlords or those in the social rented sector. It is about fairness between all those different people who are living under different systems. In Wigan, 27,000 people receive housing benefit, 18,500 of them in the social rented sector and 8,500 in the private rented sector, so 31% of people are already under the rules that we are introducing. May I clarify with the hon. Lady that today she is asking not only to oppose the measures that are progressing but to repeal the previous Government’s measures, brought in gradually from 2008? People are already living under the same rules and criteria. Is that what she would like to see—the reversal of her own Government’s 2008 rules?

[Yvonne Fovargue]

The Minister fundamentally misunderstands local housing allowance, which, as stated in the answer to my parliamentary question, is based on the characteristics of the family and not of the property. In Wigan, therefore, a couple can quite easily rent a two-bedroom private property—with a spare bedroom—for £80.77 a week. Fairness does not come into it.

[Esther McVey]

I can correct the hon. Lady. The size criteria applied to the social rented sector are exactly the same. If a private landlord is charging below the median market 30th percentile, a couple can do that. Equally, should local housing associations want to regroup or make a change from a three-bedroom to a two-bedroom property, they are entitled to do so. People can do such things, and that is what is happening.

I did not, however, get an answer to my question: would a Labour Government reverse what they introduced in 2008? We are drawing a parity between two unfair systems—one for private, one for social—within the housing benefit market. I see the hon. Lady shaking her head, so Labour would not reverse that and we seem to be having a fake argument today; the Opposition are opposing for the sake of opposing, with hypothetical arguments about something that they clearly introduced without the catastrophes and calamities that she is talking about. The number of people involved is not small, but 31% of those in rented accommodation in Wigan.

Wigan and Leigh housing trust manages Wigan’s council homes, provides tenants with comprehensive advice, and has dedicated financial support teams that focus on “claim, manage, pay”: managing and maximising income, and paying rent. In conjunction with Citizens Advice, Wigan council has set up Wigan Housing Solutions, a not-for-profit organisation that acts as a social letting agency and as a bridge between the private and rented sectors, helping to relieve pressure on the waiting list.

We welcome all such initiatives for managing welfare reform. It is only too easy to speculate about the potential impact of the change, and to come up with alarmist examples of people suffering and losing their homes. We have not seen that yet, but we are alert to such situations. We want people to work in partnership, which is why we have trebled the discretionary payment fund. We are offering different opportunities and outlets of what can be done. There is no one-fits-all solution. We understand that people live in different houses with different set-ups, and that we must think about how the change will work for them. That is why we welcome partnership initiatives.

I have talked about how changes were implemented in 2008. Some of the things that the hon. Lady is talking about and that she fears will happen in 2013 did not happen. Before implementation of the current changes, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made announcements concerning foster carers and parents of armed forces personnel when they are away from home on operational duty, and on what the discretionary fund could be used for. We have talked about disabled children who cannot share a room with a sibling and who are exempt, as are pensioners. Various people will be exempt and there will be significant discretionary payments, which will be constantly monitored to see whether the amount of money is right and whether the right people are being supported.

We have seen best practice with people pooling resources and coming together because at the end of the day—I am convinced that there will be agreement on this—we want the best result for people in social housing. We want the best result for those on waiting lists for social housing. We want the best result for those who may be overcrowded. We want that not just for 2013. We looked at what has happened over the last 10 years when payment costs doubled, and we want what is right now and what will be right in the future. It invariably takes a Conservative Government—in this case a coalition Government—to get the accounting right and to build and convert the right number of properties. A Conservative party always has to pick up the pieces of a failed Labour Government.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

The Minister has twice referred to the number of people on the waiting list for properties. In Wigan, 80% of those in private rented accommodation and on the waiting list are waiting for one and two-bedroom properties, but there is an over-supply of three-bedroom properties. She also talked about people moving to the private rented sector, where rents are higher. For every person who is displaced there will be a cost, and the policy is likely to lose money for Wigan because of the over-supply of three-bedroom properties and the under-supply of one and two-bedroom properties. Families are not getting larger; they are getting smaller. One and two-bedroom properties are in most demand.

[Esther McVey]

The hon. Lady is right to talk about housing stock and how so many councils got their housing stock wrong for so many years. Why was it not reallocated? Why were conversions not carried out? Why did they not use the money? If they realised that so many people were in three-bedroom properties when they should have been in two-bedroom properties, why did they not do something about that work? They are beginning to do it now, which is why there are so many spare rooms. That work should have been done, but it was not. No attention was paid to needs, what should have been built, and changing family demographics. It is right that housing associations could have reallocated housing by changing three-bedroom houses to two-bedroom houses. All those offers were on the table and are still on the table. We are trying to work through that, and the hon. Lady was right to mention it. We have provided a list of solutions to solve those problems.

I return to the number of people on Wigan’s housing list, which is 3,591families. Some people are overcrowded and still on the waiting list, and even if they are not overcrowded they may still be on a waiting list. That problem also needs to be solved. There also needs to be re-allocation of rooms. I understand the business pretty well because it is my family business and I know about conversion of stock and having the right people in houses. I understand what the Government are doing.

I resent people, even chief executives, talking about a wicked initiative. It is not wicked. It is solving a tremendous problem. We have been given a terrible problem and we take no pleasure in having to solve it, but we must do that. We must look at costs, people, the use of stock and how we support those people. Instead of people lobbying and scaremongering, I would prefer that we work together to solve the problem. Trading words is an ineffectual use of time and energy, but I believe that we can solve the problem, which is why we are monitoring it to ensure that the trebling of the discretionary payment goes to the right people.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

The chief executive of Wigan and Leigh housing trust said that the effects on people in Wigan are wicked, and that in the north of England and Wigan the effect of the policy on the people he sees daily—tenants—on the housing stock he manages and on his business planning for the future is completely the opposite of what the Government intend. No one is saying that the Government’s intentions are wicked, but their policy is not working and the effect on people in my borough and those I represent is absolutely wicked.

[Esther McVey]

We must get it right, and we are getting it right. I do not believe the hon. Lady’s description to be the case. We are working together to ensure that we support people now and in future. We never get a reply from Labour on spending commitments, but will the party—it introduced its policy in 2008—in addition to opposing what we are doing today, put on the record the fact that they will oppose, revoke or withdraw everything they put in place in 2008? There is silence from Labour Members because they will not go backwards on that commitment.

In our final few moments, I will say what we are doing. Our imperative is to sort out our housing stock, to put people who need houses into the bedrooms that exist. For the first time ever, we are ensuring that Britain is building. Under the previous Labour Government, where most of the problem comes from, there was a near collapse in the building of social housing, which fell to an all-time record low. In every which way of the argument, there was a pinch effect from lack of building, wrong allocation of resources, massive overspending, and not caring about those on waiting lists and those in overcrowded housing. We must deal with that in its entirety, but there are differences in different regions. I understand that, and the Government understand that, and that is why we will constantly monitor what we are doing. There has been a trebling of the discretionary fund, and Wigan is entitled to its fair share of that. We need to work in partnership with best practices in Wigan for pooling resources and helping everyone—not one section, but everyone who needs social housing.

Housing Benefit (Under-occupancy Penalty)

Yvonne Fovargue Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

We have already seen the impact of our restrictions in the private rented sector, and we know that people make certain choices. It would be wrong of any of us to belittle those choices, given the financial situation, and I do not do so, but we have seen people on relatively modest incomes in the private rented sector saying that paying £2 a day for a spare room is worth more to them than spending that money on something else. Some people in that sector are making that choice, and that is part of where the saving comes from. Some people in the social housing sector will do the same thing.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

In my constituency, the choice is between staying put in two-bedroom properties, of which there is a surplus, or moving to one-bedroom properties in the private rented sector, which cost more in housing benefit. How does that represent a saving?

[Steve Webb]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point. It is a common misconception that there is a one-way flow of people in this context. If someone moves from social housing into the private rented sector, as some do, that frees up socially rented accommodation, into which someone who might previously have been living in overcrowded, temporary or bed and breakfast accommodation can move. There will be flows in both directions, and we have taken account of those moves in our estimate of the cost of the changes.

Housing Benefit Entitlement

Yvonne Fovargue Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) on securing this important debate.

This policy, more than any other, except perhaps direct payment, will have a major impact on local housing associations and social housing providers. Wigan and Leigh Housing manages 22,600 properties, and 68% of our tenants are on housing benefit. Of those properties, 4,571 are under-occupied and in receipt of housing benefit. Nearly £3 million in housing benefit payments will be lost to that social housing provider, and our shortfall is in one-bedroom and two-bedroom accommodation. For example, our one-bedroom stock is 5,591. In 2011-12, 852 properties were void, and demand for those properties was 2,089 people. We simply cannot re-house people in one-bedroom properties.

If, as predicted by the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research study, 32% wish to downsize and move to the private sector, that will not offer any savings. In fact, more will be paid for a two-bedroom property in the private sector in Wigan than is paid for a three-bedroom property in the social sector. We have an oversupply of three-bedroom properties. The cumulative effect of the council tax changes will be some £3.50 a week for exactly the same group of people. The study estimates that 26% of tenants will not be able to pay the under-occupancy charge. If 42%, as estimated by the study, do not pay, the ultimate sanction will be eviction.

Has the Minister tested the courts’ view of a tenant who has requested a move, for whom no property is available and who cannot pay? What will be the courts’ opinion? If such people are evicted, based on an average eviction cost of £6,852 per person, my local social housing provider will lose £13.1 million. That £13.1 million will not be spent on building houses, repaying debt or improving stock for tenants. Wigan has done some modelling and made some assumptions about what will happen if the under-occupancy tax goes through as planned, and the change will cost the Department for Work and Pensions £229,000 per annum and, as I said, the authority a possible £30 million in eviction costs. There is no saving for the Department—it is not a policy aimed to save money.

Moreover, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield mentioned, the reassurances about the discretionary housing payments will certainly not meet people’s shortfall. The total budget for Wigan is £456,000, which will assist with only 15% of the charge. If the amendment proposed by Lord Best was agreed—a penalty only for under-occupation by two bedrooms or more—the situation in Wigan would be mitigated somewhat and the DWP savings would be delivered. In Wigan, if one bedroom could be under-occupied, the savings to the DWP would be £371,000 and the scheme would reduce the number of tenants affected to about 1,000, potential bad debt to £249,000 and eviction costs to close to £3 million. That is not a great policy, and it would pass central savings to the local budget, but it would be more manageable in areas such as Wigan.

What modelling has been made for areas such as Wigan of that amendment and the increased savings for the DWP? Has all the modelling been London-centric? Will the Minister consider looking at Wigan and other areas in the north and north-west, where there is a shortage of smaller housing, to mitigate at least the effect on communities and tenants?

The under-occupation tax is trying to solve a problem that simply does not exist in my area and other such areas. In doing so, it is creating massive problems for individuals, social landlords and communities.

Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Yvonne Fovargue Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

The proposal is to limit the increase in working-age benefits to 1% for the next three years, which is an effective cut. Let us make no mistake: for anyone who relies on benefits for all or part of their income, this will be a “poverty-producing policy”. Those are not my words, but the words of the Child Poverty Action Group. Working families are finding it hard to get by financially after two years of freezes in child benefit and working tax credit, and cuts to child care tax credit, housing benefit and support for new parents. It is no wonder that the CPAG is warning that the number of children living in absolute poverty will rise.

Let us look at what the proposal means for a full-time worker on the minimum wage. In a response to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey), the Treasury confirmed that the working tax credit lost in 2013-14 by people who are working full time on the minimum wage, due to the Government’s freezes and the increase in the earnings taper, will be £475 for a single person with no children and £660 for a couple with one child. Contrary to the assertions made in Parliament, the amount of working tax credit lost by families with one earner on the minimum wage will be greater than their saving of £420 in 2013-14 from the increase in the personal tax allowance.

Many of my constituents work in low-paid retail work. I am grateful to the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers for the survey of its members, who all report how difficult it is to manage with the rising cost of food, fuel and other everyday items. Many report that they have turned off the heating at certain times in the month. Tracey said that although both she and her partner work, after paying for the rent, gas and electric, they often find it so hard to manage that they go without food so that their children can eat.

That situation is confirmed by the Oasis food bank in my constituency, which has recently begun to operate. Although I support its good work and pay tribute to it, I deplore the fact that such organisations are needed in the 21st century. The food bank tells me that many working people come to it as they simply cannot make their money stretch to the end of the month, and we know that more people are turning to payday lenders simply to get money to spend on essentials, not on luxuries any more. It is no wonder those payday lenders are circling the estates.

The people affected have not made a lifestyle choice. They are working people such as the one who came to my surgery who gets up at 5 o’clock to do two cleaning jobs. It is not a lifestyle choice for those who are out of work, either. It is a situation that they find themselves in, like the young man who worked at Comet and lost his job, and is now competing with seven others for every job in my constituency. He was almost in tears at having to claim benefits, and I can relate to that: I claimed benefits myself for a few months in the mid-’80s when I was left with a young daughter, and it has left an indelible mark on me. I know what it feels like to go and sign on—it hurts, it really does.

Those in work who are struggling to make ends meet and those out of work who are desperate to find it are the people who are bearing the brunt of the Government’s failed economic policies, not the high earners and millionaires who are getting a tax cut of £107,000 this April. It is not fair, and it is not right, and I am proud to vote against the Bill and defend the 8,100 people in my constituency who are claiming working tax credits.

Welfare Reform (Disabled People and Carers)

Yvonne Fovargue Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Mr Chope, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

I thank the many Members who have made a contribution to this debate, and indeed I also thank the many Members who sat here in Westminster Hall but did not speak; they did not make a contribution but wanted to show their support for my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), who promoted today’s debate very successfully.

I have to say, in passing, that rarely have I seen a Government Minister so ill-supported by people on her side. Frankly, she is supported more by the number of officials with her than by Back Benchers.

I also thank the many organisations that have given us briefings, and indeed would probably have given briefings to many MPs from all parties. They include Scope, the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, the British Medical Association, the Disabled People Against Cuts, the Hardest Hit campaign, Rethink, Action for Children, Disability Rights UK, Mind, Pat’s Petition, the Gateshead Carers Association and the Gateshead Citizens Advice Bureau, which of course are in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead, Carers UK, and the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux.

Many Members have commented on the Chancellor’s statement of 22 June 2010, in which he said that the Government would not grind the poorest into the ground. Frankly, what a difference two years has made. This is the same Chancellor who is now looking for more cuts from the Department for Work and Pensions. As many colleagues have said, there are many hidden costs to being disabled, which do not always compute.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the costs that has not been mentioned today is the additional cost of child care for a child with a disability, the benefit for which is being reduced under universal credit?

[Mrs McGuire]

Yes, and because of the width of the spectrum of impact that we are having to deal with, it has been very difficult to highlight every particular aspect of that impact. I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue.

There is a hidden accumulation of disadvantages that this Government have consistently tried to hide, in the face of the evidence that has been presented to them over the past two years by some of the organisations that I referred to.

The Minister told me last week in response to my question about a cumulative impact assessment—I think this was mentioned earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore)—that there had never been a cumulative impact assessment under Labour, as if that somehow absolved her from undertaking a cumulative impact assessment. I find that an astonishing answer, because no Government—neither Conservative nor Labour—have ever launched such a torrent of changes, with such a speed of change, in the way that this Government have done in tackling the support that we give to disabled people. I worked with disabled people during the premiership of Baroness Thatcher, and frankly I have never seen anything like this—never.

According to the figures, disabled people have dropped at least a massive £500 million in income since that emergency Budget statement two years ago, when the Chancellor said that he would not be breaking the backs of the poorest in our society. The cuts to the incomes of disabled households go up to more than £2,000 a year; they vary, depending on individual circumstances.

We can see what the impact of those cuts is. There has been the imposition of the 12-month rule on employment and support allowance, a benefit that is intended to support people who are too ill or too disabled to work. The Government were so stubborn that they would not even accept an Opposition proposal to extend ESA to two years, to give people the opportunity either to adapt to a long-term disability or to receive the treatment that they needed to take them out of illness. That change is underpinned by a flawed work capability assessment, which states that disabled people are ready for work when they are palpably not ready; we have heard examples of that today.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead that we should not just attack Atos. There are issues to do with Atos and the professionalism with which it is conducting some of the assessments, but we should pin the responsibility on the Ministers who are supposed to be managing the Atos contract. If it is not the Ministers who are responsible—as is the way with this Government—there will be a civil servant somewhere who will have to accept some responsibility.

We have an appeals service that is logjammed, and many people, after months of uncertainty, find that their benefits are restored. Sometimes that happens—this shows the bizarre economics of this situation—after they have had their Motability car repossessed; several months later, they find that they are to get it back again. What sort of economics is that?

Although I welcomed some of the mitigation, or easement, that the Minister announced in the changes to the personal independence payment, there are still many descriptors that are causing concern. I appreciate that the Minister has only a few minutes to respond to the debate, but perhaps she will share with us details of where the new descriptors in activity 12 come from. It looks as though the 12 points needed for the enhanced mobility rate can be achieved solely by people who have only a physical impairment and who are not able to stand or move more than 20 metres. Perhaps she can tell the House how many people will lose access to their Motability vehicles as a result of this further tightening of the gateway. I point out to her that even in the 1970s disabled people qualified for those little blue single-seater cars if they were able to move more than 20 metres, aided or unaided. Talk about back to the future.

From April next year, families with disabled children will receive £1,300 less than they would receive under the current system. It is estimated that about 450,000 families will lose out under universal credit. Until the last couple of weeks, the Government gave the distinct impression—this was a clever dodge—that if a carer was in the same household as a disabled adult child, their carer’s allowance would not be included in the benefit cap. The Government have now had to admit that an adult disabled person will be assessed as being in a different household from their parents’ household.

Before the Minister says to me, “That’s always been the way; when an adult reaches the age of maturity, or the age at which they can receive benefits in their own right, they are a separate household”, I accept that is true, but what we never did—indeed, what no Government ever did before—was decouple a carer’s allowance from the disabled person whom it is intended to help. That is what this Government are doing.

I say to the Minister in all honesty that if this Government are so sure that what they are doing is right, and that, as the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) said, they have the best intentions as regards disabled people, why in heaven’s name will they not carry out a cumulative impact assessment? I have said this to the Minister and to the previous Minister, who is now the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport: it is surely not beyond the wit of the best brains in the DWP to come up with a cumulative impact assessment that will prove either the Government’s case or ours.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yvonne Fovargue Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

I believe that those fears are unfounded. Everybody tries to put information into the public arena that is meant to help, but frequently they do not, and instead raise fears. The whole reason for having a face-to-face interview is so that the claimant can explain clearly why they might need the benefit.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

25. Whether he plans to withdraw eligibility for housing benefit from people aged under 25.

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

My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will announce the Government’s expenditure plans in the autumn statement in a few weeks. Until then all discussion about further reform remains, as it always will do, somewhat speculative.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

Would not removing entitlement to housing benefit from people aged under 25 increase youth homelessness and youth unemployment?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As I said, we are happy to look at all these proposals. We are discussing them right now, as has been made clear by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and by the Chancellor. But it is worth putting a few features in the public domain. The key issue is that young people who are not eligible for benefits do all sorts of things such as sharing flats and working hard. They use much of their expenditure, on low pay sometimes, to get themselves accommodation. What we are looking to do is make sure there is parity—fairness—in the system so that those who are in a slightly different situation do not get an advantage which is not necessary. It is worth telling the hon. Lady something about that group. About 400,000 claimants who are under 25 are receiving around £2 billion a year, and shared accommodation rates extend to under-35s. That is a lot of money and it is worth looking at.

Universal Credit and Welfare Reform

Yvonne Fovargue Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

Universal credit has been called a “welfare revolution”—the most ambitious, fundamental and radical change to the welfare system since it began. As with any language when revolution is mentioned, people are worried and concerned; and when they are worried and concerned about their future income and their benefits and want advice, where do they go? To the advice agencies—to the local citizens advice bureaux and the law centres, which have helped people in troubled times for more than 70 years.

What these worried and concerned individuals might not realise, however, is that the introduction of universal credit is happening at precisely the same time as some of the most destabilising and threatening cuts to our advice services are taking place. Welfare benefit cases are no longer eligible for legal aid, leading to a loss of specialist advisers. Many specialist advisers, who have often worked in the system for a long time, train the generalist advisers who often give their services for nothing, and they support them by explaining the intricacies of any new system. The specialist support unit has already gone and all its funding has been cut, so there is no one at the end of the phone to talk through the complexities and anomalies or to provide the training. Many centres are having to close their services due to the toxic combination of council cuts, legal aid cuts and other funding cuts.

I worked in a citizens advice bureau during the change from supplementary benefit, so I know that people come early and want their advice early. Advice agencies are already receiving a spike in inquiries. Even a modest change means that the number of inquiries goes up exponentially. Will the Minister set out the Government’s strategy on the role of independent advice provision? I also gently remind him that a strategy without the money behind it remains simply a vain hope. It is no use relying on Jobcentre Plus and the Benefits Agency or presuming that people will go there for advice, as those agencies are seen as an arm of government. People rely on their neighbourhood advice centres and people want an independent assessment of their benefit claim. The emphasis on claiming online will also increase the number of people requiring advice because only 17% of people deal with their claims online, and 31% of the poorest in society never use the internet at all.

I can remember that when the social fund was brought in, people had to go to Jobcentre Plus, which had a free phone for claims. Where in fact did they go, however? They went to citizens advice bureaux and the advice agencies, even though the free phone was available, because people go to the agencies that they trust.

I am concerned about the change in payments, too. What about the 20% of people who do not have access to a bank account? I remind Government Members that they voted down our amendment to the Financial Services Bill, which sought to make the banks provide socially responsible products for those who had been discriminated against. How will they be helped to open an account and manage their money, particularly when housing benefit will be paid to the claimant? Have the need for and availability of budgeting advice been considered, particularly during the switch to monthly payments?

The harsher sanctions regime is another concern, as the DWP’s own research has shown that vulnerable claimants have been more likely to be subject to sanctions. That has certainly been borne out by my own constituency experience. A severely autistic claimant was sanctioned for not attending to sign on, when his appointment had been changed three times in three weeks and the last appointment letter was received after the date of the appointment.

I have a number of concerns about the social and human cost—and also the cost to the public purse—of failing to ensure that there is timely access to expert advice. Introducing a revolutionary new system at precisely the time when the advice services report that they are facing a “perfect storm” of funding cuts is unfair to claimants, will not help those who administer the system, and will affect the most vulnerable. I urge the Government to consider the role of advice provision in the pathfinder areas, and to assess the need for and funding of that advice in the roll-out.