Social Security Benefits

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I will start by commenting on the contribution made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger). First, it is really important that in this place we use evidence, to help ensure that we have effective, evidence-based policy. When we are using policy-based evidence, that is quite dangerous. I am referring to his remarks about conditionality. I refer him to the evidence, such as the two-year study undertaken by the University of York, which showed that there was no evidence to support tough sanctions. People have lost their lives because of sanctions, and that study showed that there was no evidence to support stopping somebody’s social security support—their money that they use to live—for up to two years, because that was the period that the Government of the day said benefits could be stopped for. That has real-life consequences.

I can also refer the shadow Minister to his own Cabinet Office reports, which showed that sanctions were not effective in getting people into work. We all need to be very responsible in what we say.

[Danny Kruger]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Debbie Abrahams]

No, I am sorry but I am not going to give way.

As a former public health consultant, I can also say that the key drivers of ill health are socioeconomic determinants. There is so much evidence for that, going back decades, and I wonder why Conservative Members are not familiar with it—whether it is just not palatable to them, or it is inconvenient. Much more recently, the covid inquiry that we debated a couple of weeks ago showed very clearly that one of the reasons why we had such a poor experience, both in terms of morbidity and mortality—more than any other country in Europe—was our ill health. It does a real disservice to the people who have lost their lives or are enduring long covid at the moment, to their families and their memories, to suggest that it is something else, let alone to the people who are—

[Danny Kruger]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Debbie Abrahams]

No, I am not going to give way. [Interruption.] I am not going to give way.

I welcome the social security order and, in particular, what my right hon. Friend the Minister has said about it. It was an absolute pleasure to serve on the Select Committee when he was its Chair, and in this respect I agree with the shadow Minister: my right hon. Friend’s transfer from the Select Committee to his ministerial position is very welcome. We all appreciate his gravitas and experience, but also his common decency in the role.

I want to talk about the context of this uprating order and the importance of our social security system in providing, at the very least, a safety net for people when they need it, and from cradle to grave, like the NHS. Unfortunately, though, over the past 14 to 15 years, the adequacy of support for people on low incomes has been dramatically eroded, particularly for people of working age—again, contrary to what the shadow Minister has said. Between 2010 and 2012, the uprating was about 1.5%; between 2012 and 2016, it was 1%; and between 2016 and 2020, it was zero. The average annual consumer prices index increase for each of those years was about 3%.

There has been a steady and consistent erosion in the value of social security support, which has affected the value of universal credit, jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance, income support, housing benefit, child tax credit, working tax credit and child benefit. The Resolution Foundation has estimated that this erosion was equivalent to a cut of £20 billion a year from social security support for working-age people. That is clearly not well understood by the Conservative party.

Something else that is not well understood is that these are predominantly people in low-paid work. The vast majority of people in receipt of working-age social security support are, or have been, working people—that is something for us all to consider. Only a tiny proportion of DWP spending is spent on jobseeker’s allowance, for example—it is 0.001% of the current budget. As is evidenced in the Work and Pensions Committee’s report from last year, which I invite shadow Ministers to read, out-of-work support is at the lowest level in real terms since 1912. This is not a generous system; according to OECD comparisons, we are not supporting people in the way that a civilised society as well off as we are should do.

The consequences of inadequate social security are clear. Last week’s Joseph Rowntree Foundation poverty report made for bleak reading—again, I invite people to read it. Over one in five people in the UK are in poverty; that is 21%, or 14.3 million people. Of those, 8.1 million are working-age adults. Some 4.3 million children are in poverty—three in 10 among the population as a whole, while in my constituency the figure is one in two—and 1.9 million of those in poverty are pensioners.

Disabled people are at greater risk of poverty, partly by virtue of the additional costs that they face due to their disability and ill health, and partly due to the barriers to work that disabled people face. Disability employment has flatlined; when it comes to being in work, the gap between people who are not disabled and those who are has been about 30% for the past 14 years or so. It went down by about 1%. Some 16 million people in the UK are disabled—nearly one in four—and almost four in 10 families have at least one person who is disabled. The poverty rate for disabled people, which is 30%, is 10 percentage points higher than it is for non-disabled people. The rate is even higher—50%—for those living with a long-term, limiting mental health condition, compared with 29% for people with a physical disability or another type of disability.

Other groups of people are also disproportionately more likely to live in poverty, including former carers, people from ethnic minority communities and lone parents, but given the media speculation there has been about the future of disability support, I want to focus on that. Last year’s Select Committee report on benefit levels set out a wide range of evidence suggesting that benefit levels are too low and that claimants are often unable to afford daily living costs and extra costs associated with having a health condition or disability. Although the Select Committee supports the Government’s ambition to get Britain working and a social security system that supports work, these ambitions are not achievable within a few months. Meanwhile, people are barely clinging on.

The DWP does not have an expressed objective for how it will support claimants with daily essential living costs. In the Select Committee’s report we recommended building a cross-party consensus to take this forward, and for the Government to outline and benchmark objectives linked to living costs to measure the effectiveness of benefit levels, and to make changes alongside annual uprating. I would welcome my right hon. Friend the Minister revisiting this Select Committee report, particularly our recommendations.

I would like to set out the consequences of our currently inadequate social security system. From peer-reviewed articles, we know that for every 1% increase in child poverty, six babies per 100,000 live births fail to reach their first birthday. That is the consequence of living in poverty for children. The hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), because of his medical training, will know much of this, but a rewiring of the brain of children living in poverty affects them for the rest of their lives.

In another peer-reviewed piece published in 2016 in a BMJ journal, entitled “First, do no harm”, a metadata analysis of the impacts of the changes to and reassessment of the work capability assessment between 2010 and 2013 in 149 local authority areas in England found that, for each additional 10,000 people who were reassessed, there were an additional six suicides, 2,700 additional cases of mental health problems and over 7,000 more antidepressant scripts. This is evidence.

Many Members will know of my previous campaigns, and I want to refer to the deaths we have seen of social security claimants whose benefits have been stopped. I mention again Errol Graham, a 52-year-old Nottingham man with a severe mental health condition, who basically starved to death after his social security support was stopped. There are so many others I could mention, and I pay tribute to the families who have campaigned on their behalf for justice, because it is quite horrific.

Talking about people surviving our social security system, there is the case of TP—I will use his initials—also a 52-year-old man, who had worked all his life. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and, sadly, his diagnosis was terminal. He was trying to be migrated from his particular incapacity support to universal credit, and he lost all his disability premiums. He was one of the litigants in a case about transitional protections when migrating from ESA and disability premiums to universal credit. This is an example of somebody who has worked all their life, and four out of five disabilities and health conditions are acquired—it could happen to any one of us, and I would just like us to consider that.

In another case, AB was born with congenital cerebral palsy and worked for 25 years, but then could not go on. If I read out the whole story, we would all be in tears, because it is just heartrending, describing the indignity of having to rely on such low-level support.

I will leave it there, but I know my right hon. Friend the Minister takes this very seriously, and I hope all of us here will work towards making the social security system more adequate for those people.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Liberal Democrats spokesperson.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I welcome the “Keep Britain Working” review but, according to last year’s DWP accounts, £4.2 billion of benefits were underpaid to claimants, and the claimants most affected were disabled people. What will the Government do to ensure that disabled people who may not be able to work get the money to which they are entitled?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

It is very important that disabled people get the money to which they are entitled. There will always be people who are not working, and we need to make sure there is good support for them. As I said a moment ago, we will set out our proposals on improving the assessment process in the upcoming Green Paper, but we are also very interested in hearing about the Select Committee’s proposals.

Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 3rd February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

It is absolutely right that fraud against the taxpayer, whoever it is by, is detected, that money is recovered and that future fraud is prevented. We saw fraud during covid when, for example, the abuse of the bounce back loan scheme cost the taxpayer nearly £5.5 billion. There was also covid-related contract fraud, such as the purchasing of unusable personal protective equipment, which was outrageous.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) mentioned, the National Audit Office identified six areas of fraud risk against the public sector, estimated to cost the taxpayer between £55 billion and £85 billion. They are grant fraud, which is the misappropriation or misuse of grant money; service user fraud, which we have focused on today; procurement and commercial fraud; income evasion; internal fraud and corruption; and regulatory fraud.

In its 2023-24 annual report and accounts, the DWP estimated that it made overpayments—including fraud and error—of £9.7 billion out of the £269 billion that it spent. That is 6.7% of related expenditure. However, it also made underpayments of £4.2 billion—that is 1.6% of related expenditure—up from £3.5 billion the previous year, because of underpayments of disability living allowance. Within that, there were different levels of fraud for different benefit types. For universal credit, the level of overpayment for the same period is 13.2%. That is down from a peak of 21% in early 2020, during the covid pandemic, when some of the controls were suspended to speed up the application process. In fact, by value, two thirds of all overpayments are on universal credit—£6.5 billion out of £9.7 billion.

The DWP has tried to argue that the increase in fraud in the social security system reflects an increase in fraudulent behaviour in society. However, that does not explain why the overpayments are concentrated in universal credit accounts, or why, for example, there was a 10% reduction in fraud incidents reported in the crime survey for England and Wales between 2023 and 2024. The National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee agree. In its recent report on the DWP’s annual accounts, the PAC said that it was not convinced by the DWP’s claims, adding that that was a “dangerous mindset”. The Committee also produced the following context, which we should all consider:

“It is concerning that DWP is not providing a decent service to all its customers, who include some of the most vulnerable in society and some of those with the most complex needs. In particular, claimants of disability benefits, including Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), are receiving an unacceptably poor service including processing times compared with those receiving Universal Credit (UC) and State Pension.”

I worry that many of those disabled claimants, made vulnerable by their circumstances, are receiving less than the DWP estimates that they are entitled to. I believe that there is a genuine commitment from Ministers to change the DWP’s culture and build trust with its service users, but the Bill will be seen by many as more evidence not to trust the DWP and not to engage. I am not alone in that; in evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee inquiry on safeguarding vulnerable claimants, Citizens Advice raised concerns that the failure to engage is the second largest category that the DWP classes as fraud, and that when the enhanced review team identifies a household as having potentially made a fraudulent claim, payments may be immediately suspended. Citizens Advice recommended that the detriment caused by such a suspension should not take place while the fraud review process is ongoing. Disability Rights UK, UK Finance and others have raised concerns about the lack of systemic safeguards in the Bill. To their credit, Ministers have accepted that and will look at it as a whole.

However, Ministers—particularly those from the last Conservative Government—will remember the housing benefit fraud allegations, in which more than 200,000 people were wrongly accused of and investigated for housing benefit fraud and error last June. An AI algorithm—which the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), just said we should be using more of—incorrectly identified people as potentially behaving fraudulently, and they were investigated. That is really serious. What level of investigation of innocent people do Ministers consider acceptable?

Policy in Practice has also raised concerns about underclaiming, barriers to accessing support, the lack of value for money of the DWP’s fraud detection, prevention and recovery system, which addresses less than 5% of the debt owed, and how the focus on fraudulent claims is

“spoiling the system for the 97% of ‘genuine’ benefit claims”,

fuelling beliefs about benefit cheats, and detracting from

“the millions of households that are rightfully and legitimately supported by a social safety net designed to be there for all of us when we need it.”

I have questions for the Ministers, some of which I have raised with them before. What risk assessments of the Bill have been undertaken? I know that there is an impact assessment and a human rights assessment. What are the risks, what mitigations have been put in place, and will the Government publish them? How are safeguarding concerns, including the Caldicott principles and the responsibilities of the Caldicott guardian—which the DWP has, to its credit, now put in place—addressed in the Bill? This Bill is too important for us to mess it up and for innocent people to become the victims.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

A recently published freedom of information request indicates that AI tools used to detect DWP fraud are biased and disproportionately discriminate against people by age, disability, marital status and nationality. Obviously, that has caused considerable concern. What assurances can the Minister give that the procurement and use of such tools will be covered by strict governance standards, including tests for fairness?

[Andrew Western]

My hon. Friend will know that we face a significant challenge, with fraud and error costing the Department almost £10 billion a year. It is right that we look to utilise all available tools to tackle it. However, I understand her concerns, although I would remind her that the final decision on whether someone receives a welfare payment is always made by a human. That is the most robust safeguard that we can have in place—although of course it sits alongside a broader suite.

International Day of Persons with Disabilities

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Today marks International Day of Persons with Disabilities—or disabled people, as we often refer to that group. Language is important, so I will use both terms. “Persons with disabilities” is understood internationally, but “disabled people” is often the preferred term in the UK.

This year’s theme is “Amplifying the leadership of persons with disabilities for an inclusive and sustainable future,” recognising the important role that disabled people have to play in creating a more inclusive and sustainable world. The refrain “Nothing about me without me” emphasises the importance of disabled people not just passively participating in but actively leading decision-making processes that affect their lives. I implore the Government to commit to that.

Disabled people are defined not by their limitations but by their boundless potential, talents and aspirations. Across the globe, they are leading as innovators, creators, athletes, entrepreneurs, educators and advocates, inspiring us with their stories and showing us that a more inclusive world is not only possible but essential. Yet despite progress, significant barriers remain, and the number of disabled people reaching their full potential is still far too low. Many disabled people—children and adults—still face discrimination, inaccessible environments, unequal access to education, employment and healthcare, and worse.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady. The word “champion” is often used, but she has been a champion for disabled people. More work must be done to allow those with disabilities to live, work and travel independently, including through enhanced public transport with lifts and ramps for wheelchair users to get on to planes and the tube. Although this day rightly focuses on the tremendous impact of disabled people in our society, it also highlights failures in society that must be rectified. Does she agree?

[Debbie Abrahams]

The hon. Member will not be surprised to hear me say that I absolutely agree with him. I will come to the issues on which we need to provide challenge.

Since 2010, disability hate crime has increased almost sevenfold—that is absolutely shocking. Not only are such challenges obstacles for individuals but they limit society. As leaders, we need to demonstrate that we want an inclusive society in which we all thrive, not just a minority. The social model of disability views it as a result of societal barriers rather than a person’s impairment or difference, whether of mind or body. If we are truly serious about having an inclusive society, we need to address those barriers. Thirty years on from the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, that work is well overdue.

This year’s IDPD theme is particularly significant as it encourages the international community, including the UK, to consider how to remove barriers to enable disabled leaders to develop and thrive.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

I highlight in particular the good work of those at the National Federation of the Blind, who were on the estate today campaigning on floating bus stops. Does the hon. Member agree that the Government need to ban floating bus stops?

[Debbie Abrahams]

The hon. Member—a fellow member of the Work and Pensions Committee—makes a good point. I am sorry that I was unable to attend that event myself, but I will certainly give that matter some consideration, and I hope that the Government will, too.

More than 16 million people in the UK have a disability—nearly one in four of us—and nearly half of all disabilities are acquired during a person’s lifetime. In recognition of that, in 2009 the UK not only became a signatory to the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, which includes 40 articles ranging from education and work and employment to the right to life, but enshrined disability as a protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010. We should be proud that we as a country have adopted that, but now it is about how we put it into practice, because we have unfortunately gone backwards in many ways.

Despite the important moves that the then Government had undertaken, the austerity brought in by the coalition Government in 2010, and amplified by the Conservative Government in 2015, not only restricted financial and other state support for disabled people—adding further challenges to their lives—but created a culture of fear, particularly for those reliant on social security support who were unable to work. All too often, disabled people were treated as workshy, with the shirker-scrounger narrative perpetuated in policy and practice and, unfortunately, also in our media.

[Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on International Day of Persons with Disabilities. Does she agree that a lot of the disabilities that we need to be aware of are hidden disabilities such as autism, depression and other mental conditions? We do not see those disabilities directly, but we need to be aware of them, and to deal with issues such as unconscious bias that we sometimes come across.

[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend makes such an important point—I absolutely agree. I talked about societal barriers and a social model of disability; we need to recognise that disabilities can also be hidden, so I thank my hon. Friend for pointing that out.

The reality is that most people, disabled or not, try to do the right thing, but as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has shown, if you are a disabled adult or a disabled child, your family is more likely to be living in poverty or destitution. Things became so bad that in 2016, the then Conservative Government were investigated for having breached the UN CRPD. Following an investigation, the UK Government were found guilty in 2017 of systemic violations. As a UN committee spokeswoman declared,

“the committee can confirm that some violations were grave, some others were systematic, and some were both: grave and systematic.”

In particular, the investigating committee found that the rights of disabled people to an adequate standard of living and social protection, to work and employment, and to independent living had been breached.

[Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I recently met with an organisation called Deaf-initely Women, which supports deaf and hard of hearing women in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. It became apparent to me that the voices of those women are not being heard in the way that services are designed. I wondered whether my hon. Friend might reflect on that as part of her speech.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Again, that is a very important point. We have seen the decimation of services—social services, but also those in the charity sector—so my hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that point.

The investigating committee found that the Government had implemented a policy aimed at reforming their welfare system, and that those reforms had been justified in the context of austerity measures to achieve consolidation of fiscal and budgetary policy. However, the impact assessments conducted by the Government prior to the implementation of several of their welfare reform measures expressly foresaw an adverse impact on disabled people, but those assessments were ignored. Evidence gathered nationally by many disabled people’s organisations, charities, academics and many more showed the adverse and disproportionate effects of those welfare reform measures on persons with disabilities.

The impacts on the health of disabled people were also documented in a 2021 report assessing the health effects of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016. This should have been a wake-up call for the Government of the day, but unfortunately, even after the tragic deaths of dozens if not hundreds of disabled social security claimants over the past five years, the UN committee published a follow-up report in March this year in which it said that

“no significant progress has been made in the state party concerning the situation of persons with disabilities addressed in the inquiry proceedings”.

That report stated that while some measures had been taken to address the committee’s recommendations, there were also

“signs of regression in the standards and principles of the convention”.

As my right hon. Friend the Minister will be aware, the committee has asked for a report by March 2029 to update it on the implementation of those recommendations. I know that he takes this issue very seriously, but despite the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act 30 years ago, we have seen other areas of discrimination against disabled people. The Office for National Statistics conducted qualitative research that examined the experiences that people with disabilities had with activities, goods and services in the UK. It found barriers including physical access, restrictive building layouts, inaccessible online services, poor information provision and inflexible design of customer services that do not consider accessibility for a broad range of needs.

Our train network does not have level access, about which we heard Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson make a plea in the summer, when what she was put through was outrageous. When I had a presentation on the trans-Pennine route upgrade, I was absolutely shocked to find that the rolling stock, which is yet to be commissioned, is not going to provide level access. It is absolute nonsense that that is not even in the design for that procurement, so we must do better. Given that the new rolling stock will not be out until 2029, I am hoping there will be time for people to think again, because that is just not good enough.

The difference in education outcomes is also shocking. According to the ONS, only a quarter of disabled people aged 21 to 64 have a degree or equivalent as their highest qualification compared with nearly 43% of non-disabled people. In addition, disabled people are almost three times more likely to have no qualifications than non-disabled people. Disabled people are also less likely to have GCSE grades of C and higher in comparison with non-disabled people. We know that disabled people do not have the same experience of UK schools as their non-disabled counterparts, and that barriers exist for these children across the educational system. I remember doing some work on this in my own constituency, and it was quite shocking to see the difficulties that disabled children face.

The cost of living crisis has hit disabled people harder than the wider population. Many disabled people have vital equipment that is expensive to run. The extra costs are estimated at over £975 a month on average. Imagine if that additional cost was one that everybody had to face, because we would really feel the pinch. A survey carried out by Sense found that 85% of people with complex disabilities are worried about this rising cost of living. If we look at employment, we need to remember that the disability employment gap sits at nearly 30%, as it has for many years. According to the ONS, there are 2.2 million disabled people who want to work but need support to get into work. Disabled jobseekers can face barriers on seeking employment, including from employers who believe that it is too difficult, risky or expensive to hire someone with disabilities. All organisations need to understand the challenges faced by disabled jobseekers.

[Richard Baker (Glenrothes and Mid Fife) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is unacceptable that only 7% of people with a disability in our country are in paid employment when so many more want to work? Does she also agree that it is vital that, as the Government look to get more people into work, we have equal opportunities and equal access to the workplace for disabled people?

[Debbie Abrahams]

I absolutely agree, and that is the point I am trying to make. There is a 30% gap between non-disabled and disabled people in work, with so many—as I say, 2.2 million—who want to work and are able to work. We must do better on that, and I know my right hon. Friend the Minister is absolutely committed to doing so. On top of that, we also have the disability pay gap, at nearly 14%, which again has increased. This is just not good enough.

I was really reassured by the statement by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the “Get Britain Working” White Paper last week, with the recognition of what we need to do and how we need to change, and I look forward to seeing how this evolves. I am pleased that the Government will, for example, be introducing disability pay gap reporting, which will help lead the way in addressing the lack of disabled people in senior roles. When I was writing this speech, I remembered when I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on this point back to 2015. Again, let us try and get this going a little bit more quickly.

Shining a light on inequality in pay encourages organisations to examine critically their hiring, promotion and compensation processes. Again, we all know from our own experience how, if we report something that we find is not working correctly, we are more likely to change things. I know my right hon. Friend recognises that not all disabled people can work, and that we must provide appropriate, timely and adequate financial support for disabled claimants, without a punitive and burdensome application and assessment process. I look forward to the Green Paper on that in the spring. I was heartened by the Secretary of State’s commitment to work with disabled people on that. She used the phrase “Nothing about me without me”, which should reassure people.

At its core, the theme of this year’s International Day of Disabled Persons is all about leadership, and as a nation we are introducing legislation and policy to enable a new generation of leaders with lived experience of disabilities. As a Parliament we must continue to lead by example and ensure that we make the right accommodations and adjustments for disabled colleagues. I am proud that nine of my parliamentary colleagues have declared a disability in this House, but we have a long way to go to being proportionately representative of the population as a whole in that sense.

Nearly four years on from another Adjournment debate I secured, I close my remarks by remembering those disabled people who lived in vulnerable circumstances and were let down by the then social security system. As I said earlier, there are dozens if not hundreds of families affected by the death of a vulnerable claimant, and the book “The Department” by John Pring describes some of those tragic deaths. I have got to know the families of Errol Graham, Philippa Day and Jodey Whiting. Errol Graham was a grandfather with a severe mental illness who starved to death alone in his flat, months after having his benefits stopped. He weighed five and a half stone when he was found. Philippa Day was a young mum who was found dead with a letter beside her from Capita, contracted by the Department for Work and Pensions, refusing her a home assessment visit over her benefits. Jodey Whiting also had poor mental health and other complex needs. She took her own life a fortnight after her benefits were wrongly cut off in 2017. They were appallingly let down by the Government of the day who should have been there for them.

Earlier this year the Equality and Human Rights Commission finally launched an investigation into potential discrimination at the Department for Work and Pensions through failure to protect claimants with learning disabilities or severe mental illness. I pay tribute to the families, charities, organisations, and individuals who constantly pushed on that issue to keep pressure on the EHRC to act. As Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, I am pleased that we have re-opened the inquiry into safeguarding vulnerable claimants, which was paused due to the general election. Although the Government have changed, and with them has come a change in attitude, the Department’s failure over the last 14 years must be fully examined to ensure that no more vulnerable claimants die. I urge Members to reflect on the past treatment of disabled people, and look ahead at creating a welfare system that, like our NHS, is there for all of us in our time of need.

“Get Britain Working” White Paper

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, and I look forward to reading the White Paper later. The cross-departmental approach she is taking with colleagues is essential and is a breath of fresh air, particularly in relation to tackling the root causes of economic inactivity, which she has explained predominantly relate to ill health.

In addition to the need to tackle regional inequalities in employment, my right hon. Friend will be aware that there is a 30% disability employment gap, with 2.25 million disabled people wanting and able to work. How will she tackle that real injustice? We know that disabled people are more likely to be living in poverty than other groups. What are her specific plans in that regard?

[Liz Kendall]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important question. The Minister for Social Security and Disability and I are working hard to tear down the barriers to disabled people being able to get work and get on in work. We are taking action across Government, including reporting on the disability employment gap. We need to tackle the long waits for Access to Work and the adaptations and other support that people need.

We also need brilliant supported employment programmes for people with autism and learning difficulties, such as those that I and my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary recently visited in our own NHS trusts. They really provide a pathway to work, with the right help and support. There is much more that we need to do, and I look forward to discussing these issues with my hon. Friend and other members of the Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Yesterday, it was reported in the Sunday papers that a blind woman with additional complex needs had her PIP assessment over the phone, which was approved, but was then sent a letter to confirm that. The charity Sense says that over half the people it surveyed feel humiliated by the process. I know my right hon. Friend is very keen to get this right, so will he expand a little more on the type of things the Department is changing?

[Mr Speaker]

Before the Minister replies, may I ask Members to look at the Chair, as third party, when they are asking or answering questions? I am being cut out. Those are not my rules but those of the House on how we should address each other, so if anybody has a problem, please have a word with the Clerks.

Income Tax (Charge)

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

May I start by extending a huge congratulations to everybody who has given their maiden speech today? I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Work and Pensions Secretary on her opening speech, and the Chancellor on her Budget.

This was an incredibly progressive Budget. It recognised the real hardship that families on low incomes have faced over the last 14 years and addressed them by extending and uplifting the living wage, and by reducing deductions for those on universal credit and the standard allowance, which are a significant burden on people on the lowest incomes, including those in work. Ultimately, what we will do on increasing the personal tax allowance will be important for increasing people’s incomes.

Getting Britain back to work is an important endeavour, and I entirely support it. We must recognise that we have nearly 3 million people of working age who are not in work, education or training because they are not well. Over the past decade, and particularly over the past seven years, we have seen declines in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy in areas like mine, particularly for women. That means that people who are expected to work are not in a position to work. The investment in the NHS will make a massive difference by addressing our ill health—we are a poorly nation—but it will also mean that we can help to grow our economy.

I want to touch on a report that was produced six years ago but is still relevant today—indeed, the relevance of its analysis has probably increased. The 2018 “Health is Wealth” report by the Northern Health Science Alliance argued that in order to improve our productivity and growth, we must improve our health. Those eminent epidemiologists and public health academics brought the evidence together to enable them to make those estimations, and they calculated that improving the health of the north to the level of the rest of England would increase productivity by £13.2 billion a year, so I urge the Government to consider updating this piece of work, and also to consider how we can ensure that our NHS allocations reflect the health needs in these areas.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I welcome the work that my right hon. Friend is doing in ensuring that the uptake of pension credit is increased, but there are genuine concerns about people who are just above that threshold who will remain in poverty—just under a quarter of a million in the north-west alone. In addition to the fantastic commitment there has been through the household support fund, will my right hon. Friend be undertaking any other mitigations to ensure that those pensioners living in poverty, particularly disabled pensioners, will not fall foul of this?

[Liz Kendall]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question, and I welcome her to her position as Chair of the Select Committee. Alongside our work to increase pension credit uptake, the household support fund is available for those just above the pension credit level. My own council has done a lot of work to make sure that pensioners just above that level can get extra help with the costs of heating or energy debt. There is also the warm home discount, which is available not just to those on pension credit, but again to those just above that level if they are on low incomes and have high housing costs.

Social Security

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I recognise the serious economic context of the debate today. The Institute for Fiscal Studies, for example, has estimated that 320,000 people are being pushed into poverty because of mortgage interest rate rises triggered by the disastrous autumn 2022 mini-Budget, and of course the then Prime Minister made many unfunded policies.

I recognise that the policy measures in the King’s Speech will go a long way to reduce household costs and increase incomes in the medium term, but those tackling the appalling poverty that we are seeing will not come in time for this winter. I am proud that Labour are continuing with the triple lock on pensions, something that will be worth an extra £460, but that will not happen until next spring. The setting up of a new energy production company, Great British Energy, alongside making homes more efficient, is a fantastic initiative that will contribute to our net zero targets and reduce energy bills for millions, but again that will not be in time to offset the 10% increase in energy bills this winter. I support our focus on growing our economy, but again that will not happen overnight.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimated in its report earlier this year that there are 2 million pensioners living in poverty—about one in six of all pensioners. In areas such as my constituency, poverty rates are much higher. We have one in two children living in poverty. From the figures, we estimate that will be the same for pensioners. We know that four in 10 older people in Oldham East and Saddleworth have a disability, and almost half have a long-term health condition. We also know that, even before the escalation of energy costs, over one in six households were living in fuel poverty. Although pension credit provides extra financial support for the poorest pensioners, and opens up help such as housing benefit and council tax discounts for those who are eligible for it, only 5,500 of the 9,000 households in Oldham are eligible to claim it. Again, I welcome the automatic linking of pension credit to housing benefit to increase the uptake, but this again will not happen in time—in the next few months.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Debbie Abrahams]

I am not going to give way. I thank the right hon. Member, but I cannot because I am under strict guidance from the Deputy Speaker.

One in three pensioners living in poverty are in the private rented sector, so what are we going to do about that? Even if everyone eligible for pension credit were claiming it, according to Age UK, there would still be another 2 million pensioners slightly less badly off who will not be eligible for pension credit and now the winter fuel payment. The cut-off threshold for pension credit is just under £12,000 a year for a single person. These are not wealthy pensioners. Poverty is poverty whoever experiences it, and we know that we have 8 million working people living in poverty, as well as 4.5 million disabled people, 4 million children and 2 million pensioners. As we did in previous Labour Administrations, I know we will tackle this, but again it will not happen overnight.

Could I point out what we know about the health effects of the cold? The Lancet published a very good paper reviewing data from the last 20 years, and it showed the extra deaths—the excess deaths—as a result of cold. I could mention dozens and dozens of cases from my constituents who have written to me and who, again, are just clinging on following the last 14 years. Is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State able to say not just what other options she may have considered for offsetting the loss of the £300, but what alternative ways there are of raising the £1.4 billion we will get from means-testing the winter fuel payment? I know how complex and difficult our economic situation is, but, please, we must protect our most vulnerable citizens.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.