Universal Credit (Transitional Provisions) (Claimants previously entitled to a severe disability premium) Amendment Regulations 2021

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness and to hear from her first-hand experience.

The severe disability benefit, as we have heard, awarded to people with existing disability benefits such as ESA and PIP, is by definition for the most complex disabilities, including physical and learning disabilities, autism, mental health challenges and, as we have heard, for people who are terminally ill. The excellent Motion of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, states that when moving to universal credit claimants should be,

“advised before moving from legacy benefits … that they could suffer financially”.

This is perhaps, in many cases, one of the groups who find it most difficult to obtain advice. For many, access to, or even ability to use, IT will be a challenge in itself when the benefit system is becoming almost exclusively an IT facility.

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee of this House examined the Explanatory Memorandum and discovered that it did not make clear that transitional payments would erode over time. The Government responded to that point and revised it to include further information at the request of the committee. However, if it takes a scrutiny committee of the House of Lords to identify that people are going to be worse off under a system, what hope is there for many people outside this House who do not have that expertise, knowledge or understanding? There is a responsibility on the Government to be absolutely transparent and make sure that before people make the move to universal credit, which, as has been said, is a one-way system—there is no going back, once people are in it—they do not erroneously put themselves at a financial disadvantage.

I know that my noble friend the Minister understands these things. She, of all people, with her experience of work before she came into the Lords, understands only too well how disadvantaged people live. I have a high regard and respect for that knowledge and I am glad that she is there to bring it to her department.

I mention one thing in passing and I hope that noble Lords will not think that it is too sexist. This debate has predominantly been contributed to by women. I sometimes wonder whether that is because it is women who take the responsibility in the family for the benefits of relatives and dependants. Maybe that is why women have a more instinctive understanding—I have no doubt that people will complain about this—of the real impact of these issues on day-to-day lives.

A lot of the disability groups have made their case about the financial impact this will have, including Disability Rights UK, among others. Disability Rights UK has made very strong statements, which I am sure the Government are aware of. But on the question of managed migration, my experience is that this group, who are the most severely disadvantaged because of the level of their disability, have been subject to all sorts of changes and disadvantages. But we have not had this spelt out in debate in either House.

My noble friend will know that last year, after 30 years of experience in Parliament of personally dealing with casework—I cannot imagine how many I have dealt with—I actually struggled to engage with the Government’s website to apply for ESA for a young woman in a very difficult situation with an advancing degenerative disease. In order to apply for ESA, the computer made me keep going to universal credit. This woman was married to a man in receipt of the support level of ESA, and the only way the computer would allow me to apply for even universal credit for her was if that man agreed to forfeit the right to his ESA. I know my noble friend has taken this up, and I hope she has made some progress with it. But this is what people are facing. They deserve a lot better than this.