Social Security (Equality)

Christian Matheson Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the effect of social security changes on equality.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. When the benefits system was established, it had a couple of main aims: to provide a safety net for people in work if they lost their jobs, and to provide a springboard back into employment. Surely no one could argue with those aims; they both remain relevant today. To listen to Government rhetoric, hon. Members would be forgiven for thinking that all was fine and well, but there are two other principal aims of the system that I believe should also be considered. One is surely to give comfort and dignity to those who are unable to work for themselves, and the second is to use the levers of government to reduce inequality and make ours a more equal society.

I start by asking the Minister this: is it this Government’s view that it is their role to use the tax and benefits system to achieve a more equal and less extremely divided society? Taxation can be used to raise revenue and to nudge citizens’ behaviour—through, say, taxes on alcohol, tobacco or even sugary drinks—but also to level off the harshest divides by supporting those who cannot support themselves. For all this Government’s rhetoric, the UK is at best as unequal now as it was at the start of this decade, and according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, it is likely to become more unequal towards the end of the decade. Perhaps that is acceptable to the Government. If the Minister concedes that equality is not a top priority, that is fine; we can accept his honesty and have a difference of opinion.

We have heard that the recent Budget will impact women most harshly, and there is still no fair transitional pension settlement for the 1950s women affected by pension changes. Young people are excluded from housing benefit and from the so-called national living wage—although, to be fair, as it is not actually a living wage, that is not much of an omission. Scandalously, state support for those affected by contaminated blood transfusions is being slashed. However, with your permission, Mr Hollobone, I will focus on the combined impact of changes to the benefits system on people with disabilities.

The Government have sought from the outset to justify cuts to benefits by demonising claimants, introducing a them-and-us atmosphere and creating a stark but false division between—in the Prime Minister’s words—shirkers and strivers. Or was it skivers and strivers? I cannot remember the exact words, but the sentiment is the same. Let me make it clear that I have absolutely no time for those who can work but do not, relying on everyone else’s work but not contributing themselves. They should be dealt with individually. However, those people are a tiny minority. Around 0.3% of the total benefits bill is spent on out-of-work benefits to those who could be working—the real shirkers or skivers—yet the Government have tarred all claimants with the same brush. I believe that they have done so deliberately, to make cuts to support for disabled people more palatable to the general public.

Nobody chooses to have a disability. Nobody chooses to have a long-term debilitating illness. I can guarantee that every single one of the people whom we are talking about would rather not be in the situation that they are in. People have disabilities for a variety of reasons, including genetic defects, pre-natal or ante-natal complications, serious illness and accidents. However, one common factor runs through all of those situations: blameless misfortune, or bad luck. It is surely the duty of the modern, compassionate state not to compound that bad luck, but to compensate for it.

Scope’s extra costs commission estimates that disabled people face average extra costs of £550 a month due to their disability. The personal independence payments system introduced to address those additional needs is failing. The extra costs are not being met, claimants are routinely being turned down, and 60% are being reinstated on appeal, but in the meantime, their worry and debt are growing exponentially.

This week I spoke to a constituent of mine, Kevin, whose wife has kidney failure and is on dialysis, as she has been for several years. It is unclear why she has kidney failure, though it could be linked to complications at the birth of her children. She receives dialysis in the morning, has something to eat and then goes to bed and sleeps until the next day. There is no possibility that she could hold down a job, and the support that she receives from the state is essential, yet when she applied for PIP after moving over from disability living allowance, she was turned down. My constituent is appealing the decision, which of course takes months. In the meantime, she and her family are being driven further into poverty, and probably into debt.

That brings me to my next main point. When PIP was introduced in the Welfare Reform Act 2012 to replace disability living allowance, we were told that it was to ensure that benefits were focused on those who needed them most. Indeed, the impact assessment for the 2012 Act said that under PIP, the number of claimants would fall by 500,000. I understand that it was designed to deliver a 20% cut to the total cost.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister expressed surprise and disappointment when the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), resigned this year. Does my hon. Friend not think that if the former Secretary of State believed in what he was saying about disabled people being affected, it would have been more appropriate for him to have resigned when he introduced PIP to begin with?

[Christian Matheson]

That certainly would have prevented a lot of heartache and difficulties for those who have been affected. My hon. Friend, who sits on the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, is an expert in this area, so I will take his word for it.

On his recent appointment, the new Secretary of State immediately used the justification of focusing benefits on those who need them the most. I admit that even previous Labour Governments have used that as an excuse. However, I believe that it is a bogus argument, and a sham to give cover to further cuts. Why should a disabled person placed in the group of greatest need when PIP was first introduced suddenly be deemed not to be in the greatest need, just a couple of years later? Are the Government seriously suggesting that someone with a lifelong disability or chronic illness can be cured of that disability? Why is my constituent who is on dialysis with double kidney failure suddenly considered not to require PIP, when there has been no change in her condition and she has not yet received a transplant?

The situation does not only economic harm by forcing the vulnerable into even greater poverty, but psychological harm by increasing their stress, and their worry that their lives will be further impoverished by reductions. My constituent Lynda Hesketh, who is wheelchair-bound and who runs the Chester People Have Abilities group, describes to me her terror—that is her word—whenever a brown envelope drops through her letterbox; she worries that it is announcing a further cut to her support.

Of course, many people with disabilities want to work and are capable of doing so, but they face cultural or physical barriers. The Government have made some progress in helping disabled people into work, but the disability employment gap has nevertheless widened slightly in recent years.

[Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that having listened to the debate about quiet cities, we should listen to the quiet man, the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who was scathing about the current Government’s policies in this developing area?

[Christian Matheson]

We should listen to him. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) mentioned, it might have been more help if he had spoken up a little sooner, but none the less, better late than never. The advice that he gives is absolutely valid.

Of the 12 million people in the UK living with a disability, impairment or chronic illness, around 7 million are of working age. We know that 47% of working-age disabled people are in work, compared with almost 80% of working-age non-disabled people—a disability employment gap of more than 30%. That is important because it indicates not only the waste of the potential talent of disabled people who want to get into work but the fact that those forced off PIP and other benefits will have far less opportunity to make ends meet through their own efforts than through benefits. I welcome the Government’s determination to address those issues in the forthcoming White Paper, and I hope that the Minister might be able to give us a sneak preview today if at all possible.

I turn to employment and support allowance. The Government’s stated aim was to ensure that work became a way out of long-term illness and that benefits were focused on what a person can do as opposed to what they cannot do. That is all very laudable, of course, but again the reality was detached from the rhetoric. As the Work and Pensions Committee recognised, the focus on a return to work in such a short time was not appropriate for many claimants, and the work capability assessment failed to provide an accurate assessment of a claimant’s individual health-related employment barriers or distance from the labour market.

Through announcements by Lord Freud, the Government have now moved to make additional cash available to help disabled people return to work. That indicates that they accept that there was and remains a problem. Indeed, the Government’s intention to produce a White Paper, which I have just referred to and which is keenly if nervously awaited by disability charities and campaign groups, demonstrates that there is still a way to go.

Chester was one of the first areas to move to universal credit. We now hear that further cuts to the universal credit rate are likely to be coming down the line, to make up for the cost of the Government’s U-turn on tax credits. Such cuts will inevitably have a still further impact on those at the bottom of the pile. Indeed, from its inception, universal credit included the abolition of the severe disability premium of £61.85 a week, which was a massive and largely unpublicised cut in the benefit levels of the most severely disabled people, although, to be fair, it was mitigated by a degree of transitional protection for existing recipients. Consequently, many of the effects of the changes to universal credit are yet to be seen.

That brings me to my main point. With the combination of the changes to PIP, universal credit, ESA and other benefits, disabled people in particular are experiencing increasing insecurity and inequality. The effect on them and their friends and families is becoming tangible. We talk about the cutting of individual benefits, but when a combination of cuts falls on individuals or families, that has a greater effect. I therefore make one further request to the Minister, which is that the Government consider instituting a cumulative impact assessment to evaluate the overall combined consequences of the many different changes.

I will finish with two brief quotes. The first is somewhat truncated and is from July 2009:

“I do believe that you judge a society by the way it treats its most vulnerable… together we can create a society we are all…proud of.”

That was said by the then Leader of the Opposition, who is now our Prime Minister. Sadly, those pre-election words have come to nothing, as shown by my second quote, which is from Richard Atkinson, a disability rights adviser at DIAL House, which is Chester’s disability rights centre. He says:

“What we do know though, is that the barrage of cuts and their accompanying media offensive—orchestrated and encouraged by the government—have had a real effect on the security, self worth and confidence of millions of disabled people. Here at DIAL West Cheshire, we see people every day who have become frightened and apologetic about their disability. They say to us, ‘I’m not one of these scroungers but...’, and they are afraid of being judged, reassessed and found wanting. I myself have MS and can’t walk well—but can and do cycle albeit on a tricycle. As well as being apprehensive about being transferred from DLA to PIP, I have had to become inured to comments like, ‘Why’s he carrying a crutch if he can cycle—to get benefits!’”

It is time for Government rhetoric and philosophy to change, to create the caring society that the Prime Minister claimed he wanted to see. It is time to treat disabled people with a dignity not currently afforded to them either in the benefits system and the process for accessing benefits or in the wider cultural context in which they live and we operate. It is time to take away the sword of Damocles that is dangling above people who live every day with a disadvantage simply because they have been unlucky in life.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We now have until 6.14 pm. When we get to the Front-Bench speeches, the recommended time limits for an hour-long debate are five minutes for the Scottish National party, five minutes for the official Opposition and 10 minutes for the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Matheson]

I thank the Minister, the shadow Minister and all hon. Members for having taken part in the debate. I confirm to the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) that my grandfather was indeed from Skye, so I am a proud grandson, at least, of Skye.

I am grateful to the Minister for his response. My one concern, which I ask Members to dwell on as we close, is that the system does not take into account how real life works, as the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) mentioned. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about the fact that he sees nobody coming into his constituency surgeries or his constituency office who is somehow a bogus claimant. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) mentioned problems in the assessment procedures and qualifications for assessment.

In thanking the Minister for his response, I ask him to ensure that the reality on the ground matches the aspirations that he has set out in his speech today, and which, as hon. Members have mentioned, often does not match the hopes that Ministers have. I am grateful to you for your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and I am most grateful to hon. Members for their participation today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the effect of social security changes on equality.