Blind and Partially Sighted People: Employment Support

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) for his powerful testimony about the enormous opportunities and barriers in this space, and particularly to the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for the work she has done on this topic during her time in Parliament. She serves her constituents and this community very well.

I was struck by the interesting speech by the hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) about the opportunities of AI, which opened my eyes to the huge barriers that blind and partially sighted people have suffered and how technology is helping to overcome those barriers. I pay tribute to his wife: learning to ski with partial sight is a tremendous achievement, so all credit to her.

I echo the points made by other hon. Members about the imperative to overcome and reduce the barriers that blind and partially sighted people face in gaining work and progression in the workplace. Doing so is an absolutely necessary matter of justice to those people themselves; it is entirely wrong that people are discriminated against, directly or indirectly, because of their disability. We therefore have a moral imperative to act. As the hon. Member for Battersea stressed, we also need to reduce barriers to employment for blind and partially sighted people for the sake of the economy; when we exclude blind and partially sighted people from employment and progression in work, the country is denied an enormous wealth of talent.

Finally, addressing remaining barriers to employment and work progression for blind and partially sighted people is necessary for the sake of the taxpayer and the public finances. Our country’s disability benefits bill is simply unsustainable. It has risen sharply in recent years and is projected to rise to unsustainable levels over the course of this Parliament. On the current trajectory, spending on health and disability benefits will rise 56%—an additional £27 billion—over the course of this Parliament if change does not happen. Overall, spending on incapacity and disability benefits will rise from 2.4% of GDP to 3% over the course of this Parliament. If we could ensure that people who are currently excluded from the workforce can gain employment and reduce dependence on benefits, we could spend much of that money better in other spaces. I therefore support what the Government aim to do in this space and their plan to get activity back to pre-pandemic levels—a noble aspiration, which my party will support.

There are two ways to approach this question, as has been touched on in the debate so far. The first is the role of the Government themselves in getting the law, benefits system and incentives right in the fiscal, legal and welfare spaces. I am proud to say that my party led the way in ensuring that we as a country tackle discrimination against people with disabilities. The Disability Discrimination Act 1995, introduced by William Hague, required employers to make reasonable adjustments to facilitate the employment of disabled people, and it remains the great landmark and a vital step in this space. We also introduced Access to Work grants, which have been discussed today. I am pleased to say that last year saw the highest number of Access to Work grant applications awarded for over 15 years—68,000, of which 3,000, I understand, were for blind and partially sighted people. That is encouraging.

Nevertheless, we clearly need to go further with Access to Work, as we have heard today. Some innovations were introduced towards the end of the last Parliament, including health adjustment passports, which aim to reduce the time that it takes people to apply for and receive an Access to Work award, by allowing people to take the statement of their disabilities and necessary adjustments from one employer to another. As I understand it, that helpful and practical innovation is now in force. The last Government was also introducing an enhanced Access to Work package, which gave employees more support than they got under the existing scheme, as well as ensuring that employers received support if they were helping to facilitate access to work. Clearly, the process remains onerous and complex—that is a condition that applies across the benefit system with its complex, difficult application process. It only recently went online and it has just become possible for all people to apply for Access to Work digitally. Improvements clearly need to be made.

I am concerned about the extent of the backlog in the application process, which began in the previous Parliament and continues. In September 2023, 22,000 applications remained outstanding; in May 2024, there were 37,000; and in October 2024, 56,000. There are significant problems in processing these applications. I am interested to hear the Minister’s views on why that is and what can be done to reduce the backlog.

We need to ensure that the conditionality and incentives in the benefit system and employment support are robust and sensitive. I look forward to the forthcoming White Paper to see how that will be achieved. The hon. Member for Battersea recommends a review of the Equality Act and I welcome contributions there. It will be interesting to see what is suggested to improve that legislation.

I am concerned, however, about proposals that rely on tightening laws—strengthening the stick side of the arrangement, as it were. As the hon. Lady said, there have been a lot of laws and programmes introduced to support blind and partially sighted people—people with disabilities—into employment, yet there are still significant problems helping them to access and progress in work. Rules will only take us so far. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme talked about the role of technology, it struck me that technology will also only take us so far.

There is a danger in looking to technical solutions, whether in the law or technology, that let us off the hook for what really needs to be done. I gently point out the phenomenon of crowding out: the danger that statutory action can diminish the voluntary action that needs to be taken, in this case by employers, to do the right thing. That is the second approach that is crucial to this space; I am pleased that that was the focus of the hon. Member for Battersea’s report and today’s debate. We need to look at the attitude and culture of employers, more than the obligations and systemic responses that Government can make. Of course, Government can significantly influence the attitude of employers but, to quote the Royal National Institute of Blind People:

“There are no hard and fast rules”

when supporting disabled people at work. We should avoid making assumptions about what blind and partially sighted people can do. That is why we need a flexible approach, in which employers use their imagination and intelligence, in consultation with employees, to develop access for blind and partially sighted people in the workplace.

The way to do that is to stress the opportunity, the benefits that employers will reap and, frankly, how easy it is. I was struck by the hon. Lady’s story of what good looks like in the workplace. It sounds like human beings being human towards each other, being genuinely inclusive, ensuring that people help their colleagues literally to navigate the workplace. One can imagine the enormous benefit to that workplace and all employees when there is a culture of inclusivity and generosity, as the hon. Lady described.

The key is awareness. Many of the changes needed to make workplaces accessible are not difficult; they just need to be done deliberately as part of the policy of the Government. I welcome the practical recommendations in the hon. Lady’s report, and I look forward to seeing what the White Paper will do to implement them. I respect the Minister and his colleagues, who are genuinely dedicated to improving employment and employability. I am pleased to see what has been trailed for the White Paper, with a focus on skills, devolution, empowering local communities and opportunities for young people.

I very much hope that the White Paper will work with employers in the spirit of the report we are debating, rather than against them, but I am concerned by the policies that the Government have announced so far with respect to employers. The national insurance rise will result in thousands of pounds of taxation on every job, and new burdens on employers are being created through the Employment Rights Bill. Those are not good portents of an employer-friendly approach. Nevertheless, on this issue we agree about the direction of travel that needs to be taken, and I very much hope that my party works with the Government to progress the very helpful recommendations that the hon. Member for Battersea has made.

Food Banks

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) on bringing this debate forward. I am grateful for hon. Members’ helpful contributions, and I am happy to take interventions from hon. Members who were not able to speak if there is time.

Let me first acknowledge that I agree with hon. Members who have pointed out that the existence and extent of poverty in our country is shameful. It is a source of deep shame to our country that so many people are reliant on the charity of others for essentials. Briefly, I pay tribute to the food banks in my constituency and in my former constituency of Devizes, which do such good work. I also previously worked with the Hammersmith and Fulham food bank. I echo the points made by hon. Members about the valuable work of such organisations.

[Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)]

I have seen extraordinary work and inspiring volunteers at the DN7 food bank, the Isle of Axholme Foodshare Project, Hatfield’s Pre-loved Uniform Bank and the Hygiene Bank Doncaster. Does the hon. Member agree that although their work is amazing, we do not want to see those banks grow on our high streets or even exist in the first place?

[Danny Kruger]

I am grateful for the intervention. I recognise those points and pay tribute to the hon. Member’s food banks too.

Hon. Members have cited some of the facts. It is a fact that the number of parcels handed out by the Trussell Trust doubled in the last Parliament in the light of the covid crisis and the cost of living crisis, but I emphasise that we should not take food bank use as a perfect proxy for poverty, because that data is patchy and affected by the supply of food banks. There is also an important displacement effect. It is not necessarily the case that all the need identified by food banks is new need; that need might formerly have been met by other sources, such as family and friends or other community organisations.

Nevertheless, the profile of food bank use tracks the state of the economy and the level of poverty in our country. We saw it spike during lockdowns, then decline and then spike again with the cost of living crisis. I am afraid that it has not really declined since: 1.4% of households have used a food bank in the last month and 3% in the last year, which are significant numbers.

So what is going on? I echo the point of my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) about the complexity of the causes of food bank use, but we recognise the obvious point that it is ultimately down to household income. The “Hunger in the UK” report points out that the main reasons for people having problems with their household income are difficulties with benefits, as many hon. Members have mentioned; the existence of in-work poverty; and the difficulty of gaining well-paid work, particularly for disabled people and carers.

[Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)]

A number of constituents have written to me expressing their struggle to afford food, despite being in work, and that is not an isolated issue. In mid-2022, almost 90% of those referred to food banks in Wales were in work and had such low incomes that they were living in destitution. Does the hon. Member agree that the working poor, created by the last Government, are disgracefully reminiscent of Victorian times?

[Danny Kruger]

I do recognise the extent of the problem of in-work poverty and of people reliant on benefits to sustain their incomes and on additional support from the outside. I do not accept that that was a new phenomenon; in fact, I will come to the last Government’s record in a moment.

[Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)]

One of the last Government’s best policies was the introduction of a £20 additional uplift to universal credit during the pandemic. It stopped poverty growing in its tracks and showed the impact of increasing access to money—not to be facile—on poverty. Does the hon. Member share my hope that the Government will bring forward their review of universal credit, as promised in the Labour manifesto?

[Danny Kruger]

Yes, indeed; I very much look forward to that review coming along soon.

Many hon. Members have mentioned the record of the last Government. I recognise the extent of low wage growth and in-work poverty that we have seen. If we look at absolute poverty, however, which is the measure that we should ultimately be looking at if we are thinking about the extent of destitution and food poverty, 1 million fewer people are in absolute poverty after housing costs in 2024 than in 2010. That includes 100,000 fewer children, 200,000 fewer pensioners, and 700,000 fewer working-age people, so the last Government made a real impact on absolute poverty. Overall, there are 1 million fewer workless households than in 2010.

Much of that impact was driven by the introduction of universal credit. Those of us who worked in the social sector before 2010 might remember the labyrinthine complexity and the perverse incentives that were created by the mess of the benefit system that we inherited in 2010, which we rationalised and improved. It is also worth mentioning the enormous £100 billion cost of living package that the last Government put together in the light of the energy shock.

Let us turn to what this Government are doing. The most significant policy that they have announced so far on poverty is the withdrawal of the winter fuel payment. Some 10 million pensioners will be denied that essential benefit, including 70% of disabled pensioners. That is surely not a record that hon. Members are proud of.

[Sam Carling]

The shadow Minister has made a point about the Government’s difficult decision to withdraw the winter fuel payment. If he feels so strongly about it, why did his party pledge to do it in 2017?

[Danny Kruger]

We did not pledge to do it and we did not do it. I think it is important to have universal entitlement to essential benefits, but if there does need to be some means testing, surely it should penalise, or withdraw the payment from, only the wealthiest pensioners, not 90% as is happening under this policy.

The other thing that the Government have done is impose a significant tax on employment through the national insurance rise, which they promised not to do in their manifesto. The cost of that will fall disproportionately on low-paid workers, who will see the impact of that tax in their wage packet.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which is no friend to my party, has pointed out that poverty is due to rise because of the Budget that the Chancellor has introduced. Every household type, except pensioners, will be poorer. Single-parent families will be £1,000 poorer. An average couple with children will be £1,760 poorer. Inequality will be higher. That is all the testament of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The Office for Budget Responsibility points out that real wages will fall and indeed, the Budget has caused the OBR to lower its real wage growth forecast by 0.5%. As the OBR says, the Budget shifts

“real resources out of private households’ incomes in order to devote more resources to public service provision.”

That might indeed be the policy that the Government want to pursue, but the effect will to be to reduce household income, as the OBR acknowledges.

[Alex McIntyre]

Will the shadow Minister acknowledge that the OBR actually said that 90% of households will be better off under this Budget, and it is only the wealthiest 10% of households that will feel the cost, making sure that we are spreading the cost on to those shoulders that can bear it most?

[Danny Kruger]

As I said, I do not think that withdrawing the winter fuel payment from 10 million pensioners reflects a transfer of the burden on to those who can bear it most—nor does imposing a taxation on low-paid jobs.

What shall we do about all this? I am sorry to say that I have not heard enough in the debate about what could and should be done, although I acknowledge that the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East made some suggestions—many of which I agree with, particularly around the importance of having an adequate safety net. I, too, look forward to the universal credit review that the Government are bringing forward, and I strongly agree with the focus on nutrition and empowering communities.

I do not agree with the need for the essentials guarantee, although I respect that campaign. I do not think that transferring responsibility for setting benefit levels to an independent body—essentially, to an unaccountable quango—is the right way to go. The Government should be responsible for that policy, and accountable to Parliament, rather than an independent body.

If we look at the drivers of food bank use as reported in “Hunger in the UK”, we need to improve the benefits system and make it quicker and easier to use. I look forward to seeing how the Government are going to improve pension credit applications to improve winter fuel payment access. We need to drive up wages again; I deprecate the introduction of taxation on wages. We need to grow our jobs market and ensure that it is easier and better for employers to take workers on and promote them—which, I am afraid to say, the Employment Rights Bill that we are anticipating will not do, given that it imposes punitive obligations on employers from day one.

I am conscious that my time is almost up, so let me finish with this point. I praise the flexibility of food banks, and the human relationship that they imply: the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East talked about the powerful sense of community. A quiet revolution happened during the covid pandemic that momentarily offered a better social and economic model in which remarkable innovations, particularly around food and provision to the poorest among our neighbours, were enabled to flourish.

I agree that we want food banks to be redundant, but while we have hardship they can be an important part of the mix. I pay tribute to other innovations such as social supermarkets as well. Lastly, I do not agree with the hon. Member that we need a more central strategy and direction for the household support fund. Its great value is in the innovation that it enables, and the way that it empowers local communities, which he said that he believes in, to ensure that local authorities can take responsibility for supporting their communities. That is an important innovation that was brought in by the last Government, which I supported, and I hope that it will continue.

Oral Answers to Questions

Danny Kruger Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We come to the shadow Minister.

[Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)]

The withdrawal of the winter fuel payment from 10 million households, including 70% of disabled pensioners, is a huge change, as is using pension credit to distribute the benefit to the minority of people who will still get it, yet the Government have rushed this change through without giving their own statutory advisory committee the chance to properly scrutinise it. Ministers have not even responded to the chair of the committee, who wrote to them several weeks ago with suggestions on how to mitigate the effect of the policy. On top of that, they have failed to provide a full impact assessment to show what the effect on poverty would be. Will they finally produce a full impact assessment of this policy, and when will the Minister respond to the chair of the advisory committee?

[Emma Reynolds]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his place. In answer to his questions, we have published an equality analysis, which he can find on the Government’s website. Owing to the legislation, we do not have to produce an impact assessment, but there is an equality analysis. I urge him to have a look at that. All I would say to him is that the new Leader of the Opposition argued in 2022 that winter fuel payments should be means-tested. I wonder how the hon. Gentleman might means-test the winter fuel payment, if he had the chance.

[Danny Kruger]

The Minister mentions the equality assessment. That was a high-level equality assessment that was only dragged out of the Government in response to a freedom of information request. The fact is that they are avoiding accountability for this policy and avoiding scrutiny by the House. The Government are saying that the impact of the cut on the poorest pensioners will be mitigated by pension credit, and we have heard from the Minister about the very small numbers who are taking up pension credit in response to this announcement. Their own figures predict that fully a third of eligible pensioners—that is 750,000 of the poorest people in the country—will not get pension credit and will not get the winter fuel payment.

That is what the Government are banking on. That is how they are making the savings that they predict from this policy: by cutting benefits to some of the poorest people in our country—[Interruption.] The Minister shakes her head, so she might want to put me right. Does she want all eligible pensioners to claim pension credit? [Interruption.] The Secretary of State says yes. If she does want that, does she then accept that the Government’s savings from this policy will be completely wiped out?