Welfare Reform (Sick and Disabled People)
Debate between Caroline Lucas and Sheila Gilmore(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Caroline Lucas
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the clarification, but, to be honest, it does not make much difference. In my view, benefits should be payable on the basis of need, not on the basis of an arbitrary cap. It is on precisely that point that the official Opposition and I part company. It will be deeply disappointing if the official Opposition abstain on this motion. There is a lot of sound and fury from Labour Members, but that must be followed through in a vote. I cannot understand why the official Opposition would not vote for this motion.
Sheila Gilmore
Does the hon. Lady agree that there are some forms of welfare spending that we should bring down? In my view, one of those is the excessive amount that is paid to private landlords through housing benefit. I am certainly in favour of reducing that form of welfare spending. Is she not?
Caroline Lucas
I am very much in favour of that if the hon. Lady wants to put it under the heading of welfare spending, but I am not sure that most people would. We can argue about the precise language, but the official Opposition will demonstrate later this afternoon that they are sitting on their hands. That is a great shame.
Let me make some progress, because the purpose of my speech is not primarily to attack the official Opposition, but to attack the Government. This afternoon, the Government have witnessed hon. Members giving case after case from their own experiences of the impact of the welfare reforms that the Government have introduced. I will talk about what the figures mean for Brighton and Hove, and tell the House about the local advice agencies in Brighton and Hove that came together to produce a powerful report on their experiences of working with ill people and people with disabilities. Those agencies include the local citizens advice bureau, Advice Brighton and Hove, Age UK and the Federation of Disabled People.
To illustrate the reality behind the figures, I will talk about two local case studies from Macmillan that were included in the report. It mentions Mr C, a 56-year-old single man who, following cancer of the spine, lost his mobility and became confined to a wheelchair. Mr C was forced to stop work owing to ill health and constant pain. Macmillan made contact to start the PIP application process last September. To my knowledge, it is still not resolved. At the same time, an application was made for ESA. That application followed a similar path to the PIP application. Mr C is still being paid the assessment phase rate of just £71.70 a week, with no information from Atos as to when it will assess him further. Four months on, we are still counting and he is still waiting.
Macmillan also relayed the story of Mr J, a 32-year-old who is suffering from advanced bowel cancer and who came to the charity for help. It took more than 10 weeks for him to be assessed. His wife was acting as his full-time carer because he was so ill. She was also looking after their baby and young child. The report states:
“Throughout this process both Mr and Mrs J were very anxious and suffering serious financial hardship. Mr J at this time was seriously ill, vomiting day and night plus major issues re fatigue due to chemotherapy etc. Both also felt throughout the period that they were not believed and had been labelled scroungers and benefit cheats by the DWP.”
The work by Advice Brighton and Hove makes it clear that people who are applying for PIP—some of the most vulnerable people—are being left without adequate finances. That is having a massive impact on their physical and emotional well-being. The cases in the report are dreadful, but they are no longer surprising. I have multiple examples of sick and disabled constituents who have been awarded no points, but have then been assessed for benefits under the Government’s regime.
The DLA regime is being tightened, even for disabled children such as my five-year-old constituent who has cystic fibrosis and needs constant 24-hour care to prevent her from falling and being a danger to herself and others. Her DLA has been cut from the higher to the lower rate. Just before Christmas, her parents asked for that to be reconsidered, but it still has not happened. As well as the loss of essential financial support, the family have lost their eligibility for things such as the blue badge.
Another of my constituents has, at last, got a date for a medical assessment in March, after submitting her application in August last year. In the meantime, funding for her electric wheelchair has been stopped. She managed to get funding for three months through the council’s discretionary fund, so she has not lost it yet, but she is extremely worried about what will happen if her claim is not processed in time.
I hope that the House will forgive me for taking up a little more time, but I want to give the example of a constituent who suffers from severe mental ill health. After months of delays, which caused her extreme anxiety, and with support workers very concerned about her suicidal state, an application for benefits that was submitted in August last year has only recently been resolved. She has rightly been placed in the support group, which means that the DWP recognises that she is definitely unable to work. Despite that, she was put through months of unnecessary anxiety.
Many people feel that the system is extremely counter-productive, in the sense that it makes people who are already ill much more ill. We hear example after example of that. I hope that the Government will not ignore them. If advice agencies are getting together to assess these problems, it must be about time that the Government looked at the impact of their own policies.
The conclusion of the report by my local advice agencies is that people are going through what they call “awful experiences” while waiting for their claims to be processed. Advisers are spending disproportionate amounts of time making calls to the DWP and the privatised PIP providers. That is frustrating and is a drain on resources. Claims that need to be followed up are taking more than double the amount of time that is usually allocated to such work. The advice sector in Brighton and Hove has made it very clear that the situation is untenable. It is looking to the Government to sort it out. In the meantime, it is asking for local contacts within the DWP and Atos so that organisations do not have to keep wasting huge amounts of time contacting DWP and Atos nationally. I hope that the Minister will respond to that specific request. It is quite a small one, but it would make a huge amount of difference to the time that is spent following up claims.
Finally, other hon. Members have given the shocking figures on the number of people who are dying while appealing against a decision that they are fit to work. Not every death will be related to fitness for work or to the stress of an unfair or wrong assessment. If a link could be proven, there would be a case for corporate manslaughter. However, Ministers cannot ignore the strong likelihood that significant numbers of people are being assessed as fit for work by the Government when, in reality, they are very close to death. That has to change.