Disabled People

Anne Begg Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Greg Mulholland]

I pay tribute to the work of the Work and Pensions Committee, of which I was proud to be a member in the last Parliament. It has a vital role to play and I look forward to its ongoing reports, which should be part of the review of these policies.

The hon. Lady knows, having listened to me in debates on more than one occasion, that I personally felt unable to support the under-occupancy penalty precisely because there were not the sort of exemptions that I believed should be included. I thank Ministers for listening to at least some of my points and introducing further exemptions before the policy was introduced, but I would like more exemptions and I will continue to press for them.

During our last debate on the subject, I stood in this exact place—the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) was probably very near where she is now—and said that the Government must and should commit to a review on the specific policy. We did get that commitment. There must be a review, which should be done not only through the Department for Work and Pensions but in conjunction with councils up and down the country, so that we get an open and honest assessment of how the policy is affecting disabled people.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Greg Mulholland]

I will give way one more time, as it is the hon. Lady.

[Dame Anne Begg]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for being so generous. People living in a house specifically adapted for them have to pay the bedroom tax and therefore often have to apply for a discretionary housing payment. In most cases, they will get that payment into the future, which suggests that the payment should not be discretionary but automatic. Could the hon. Gentleman use that fact in his argument with Ministers about why those living in specifically adapted houses should be exempt?

[Greg Mulholland]

It is always a pleasure to hear from the hon. Lady and it was a pleasure to serve with her on the Work and Pensions Committee in the last Parliament, before she was Chair.

The hon. Lady knows that I have said that we should be discussing cases in which rooms deemed to be spare have not been spare. Some of those issues were dealt with in respect of the equipment needed and so on, and I was pleased with that. However, I feel that if discretionary payments are needed again and again and categories are established, those categories should warrant an exemption. I will continue to make that case and to push for a review.

In the limited time that I have left, I should look at some of the other issues covered in this broad debate, which the House should revisit regularly. It should discuss the issue at least twice a year because the situation is in a state of flux, which has been brought about, in part, by the economic situation and the need to look at the overall welfare budget, which all parties, including the Labour party, very clearly said needs to be reformed. We should also do so, however, to check on the positive reforms and make sure that these policies are indeed doing what we collectively want them to do. The Opposition were clear that DLA needed reform; indeed, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), who opened the debate for the Opposition, said that.

To respond to a point made earlier, it is very important that the wrong messages are not given out today, because the reality is that overall spending on personal independent payments and DLA will be higher in real terms in every year up to 2015-16 than spending was on DLA to 2009-10. This is not about seeking to reduce the welfare budget, therefore; instead it is about directing it at people who need it, and looking in particular at what people can do and genuinely empowering them, rather than judging people on what they cannot do.

Does that mean PIP will be absolutely perfect in a way that DLA was not? Of course not, and we all have to accept that every single change to any benefit will have implications and consequences, and it is right that we should look at them, but simply to use this debate as an opportunity to bash the Government on policy fails to achieve what I hope is the Opposition Front-Bench team’s intention: to say we must be looking on an ongoing basis at the impact of these policies.

I want to hear from Ministers today that they are not in any way afraid of having a review and that there must be a constant review of all policies in this area. My position on the motion is that I believe we should have a proper assessment, but that we should have one next year. That is my position simply because the big change from DLA to PIP is being introduced this year. I do believe we should have a review, however, and I hope we hear that from the Minister, too, so we do not send out the false message that we do not want a review.