Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

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

This is a wicked Bill. It punishes the sick, the disabled and the poor. Not content in the last Parliament with cutting £23.8 billion from 3.7 million disabled people as part of the Welfare Reform Act 2012, the Government are going for even more. Clause 13 cuts the amount of employment and support allowance that disabled people who are in the work-related activity group, and who have been assessed as not currently fit for work, can get. They will have their income cut from £102.15 a week to £73.10 a week.

The implication is that these measures will incentivise people with disabilities to find, stay and progress in work. There are currently 7 million working-age disabled people, 4 million of whom are working, but although 1.3 million are able to work and want to work they are currently unemployed. The Government say they want to halve that disability employment gap, but how will they do it? With currently only one disability employment adviser for every 600 disabled people, what additional support will be given to help disabled people to get an interview? How are the Government going to address the attitudes that often prevent people with disabilities from even getting a job interview? Given that 90% of disabled people used to work, what will the Government do to support newly disabled people leaving the labour market prematurely?

The chaos and inadequacy of the specialist employment service, Access to Work, which last year supported just 35,000 disabled people into and at work, just does not cut it. The Select Committee undertook an inquiry in this area of work last year and is still awaiting the Government’s response to its report. When will that be published? How can the Government really be taken seriously? Why has the money from the Remploy factory closures, which was meant to be invested in Access to Work, not been used to provide vital support for disabled people?

The cuts in support to disabled people fail to recognise the additional costs disabled people face as a result of their disability. The Extra Costs Commission analysed the additional support and found that on average disabled people spend an extra £550 per month on things associated with their disability. It comes as no surprise that people with disabilities are twice as likely to be living in persistent poverty as non-disabled people, and 80% of disability-related poverty is caused by these extra costs. Last year, the number of disabled people living in poverty increased by 2%, which equates to more than 300,000 people. This has implications not just for disabled people themselves, but for their families. A third of all families living in poverty include one disabled family member. In addition to these cuts, we have seen a four-year freeze in other benefits that many disabled people receive, including housing benefit, local housing allowance, universal credit and JSA. How does that fit with the Tory pledge to protect disabled people’s benefits?

The Bill removes the duty for the Government to meet targets to reduce child poverty, saying, in effect, that ending child poverty is no longer an important goal. The Bill replaces the use of “relative child poverty” with a confused definition of child poverty determinants. The worsening inequalities that are facing this generation are becoming intergenerational. With that in mind, and recognising the Government’s legal obligation under the Equality Act 2010, when will they produce a cumulative impact assessment? That has been piloted already and needs to happen.

Independent Living Fund

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Nic Dakin]

That is very much part of the issue at the moment, and I congratulate my hon. Friend’s council on being one of those that are making the right stand.

Disabled People Against Cuts, which organised the demonstration last week, has argued:

“At the very minimum the ILF funding should be ring-fenced for the continuing care and support of existing ILF recipients when funding is transferred to Local Authorities and devolved administrations”.

That is not being done and, in an age of austerity and deepening cuts to local authorities, the funds will get lost in the wider budget. That is the key and crucial fear.

DPAC sent freedom of information requests to 151 different local authorities, asking how many are ring- fencing the funding. The response showed that only 21.43% were doing what the council in my hon. Friend’s constituency is doing, whereas 50% said they were not doing that. At the time they were asked, 28.57% still had to decide what they were going to do.

What will further budget cuts bring? As of now, Ashley is allowed to keep his carers, but in a year’s time, will that change? Will his family have to deal with a succession of strangers who do not have time to get to know them and understand their needs?

Leonard Cheshire Disability published a report in 2013 stating that in England, 60% of councils use 15-minute visits, which are not long enough to provide adequate care, with disabled people having to choose whether to have a drink or go to the toilet. Hopefully, things have improved since then, but it is understandable that such reports fuel ILF recipients’ concerns. Those fears are backed up by Disability Rights UK, which made the following observations last week on the eve of the fund’s abolition:

“The monies being transferred from the ILF to local authorities will not, in most areas, be ring fenced meaning that the money can be spent according to local decision rather than necessarily on those in receipt of ILF funding.

There is currently no indication of whether funding for ILF recipients will continue to be transferred from national to local government beyond 2015/16.

The level of social care funding in real terms has, and is likely to continue to be, cut overall outweighing many times the additional funds being transferred from the ILF.

The consequences are that some disabled people in receipt of ILF funding will no longer receive any support at all; and others will find their support package reduced.

We want to see equity of support that achieves independent living across all impairments and age groups—closure of the ILF in current conditions will not achieve this.”

That summarises the strong concerns out there in the community. Scope, Leonard Cheshire Disability, the Spinal Injuries Association and various trade unions are among many other organisations that share those concerns.

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

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech. Oldham, my constituency, is another local authority area that is promising to support families and make sure that the ILF budget is ring-fenced, but I am aware that that is not happening elsewhere. This is not only about the person who is disabled, but about the families, particularly when parents are the carers. They are extremely worried about the uncertainty, and hopefully the Minister will be able to respond to that point.

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend puts her finger on the heart of the issue, which is the high level of uncertainty. Let me quote some heart-wrenching comments from ILF users and their families. They illustrate the concerns out there very well:

“I am really terrified of losing my home and being forced into residential care…I have never been so worried and scared of my future without the ILF...We are locked in a prolonged period of insecurity of worrying what is going to happen. We are all only too aware of how hard strapped local authorities are and the temptation to use ILF monies for purposes other than care support for current ILF recipients…The current situation is greatly affecting our health with increased stress levels and sleepless nights a regular feature of our current lives. Not knowing what will happen, how this may affect the team of personal assistants we employ to support our daughter and whether we will receive any respite care once the fund closes in June only adds to our anxiety.”

Finally, a user said:

“I fear I will have my care time cut, and become a prisoner in my own home, unable to go to the toilet, go to bed, eat and drink when I choose—I fear my choice will be taken away. I fear being socially excluded and losing touch with my family and friends. I fear not being able to go to all the hospital appointments I have to attend. I fear I will lose my independence.”

That is the heart of the problem—loss of independence. The ILF has given severely disabled people real independence in their lives. At this point of change, and despite all the assurances that there have been in the system and the genuine messages of support from all the authorities, that concern is still very much there, and what is happening at the moment has not allayed the concern.

As those fears and worries illustrate, there is a real danger that attempts to save some money in one area, the ILF, will end up costing the state more in another area—the NHS. During the election campaign, when asked directly by one of the ILF recipients, the Chancellor of the Exchequer insisted that the Government would transfer all the ILF money and that there would be no cuts in their budgets. When pressed further, he made a commitment that money would be there in future years. So the Chancellor, who has been making the news today, is on the record on this issue. It is the duty of the House and the Minister to ensure that he keeps his word, so my questions to the Minister are as follows.

First, in the light of that, will the Minister discuss with the Chancellor how he intends to deliver on those promises, and will he report back to Parliament on the Chancellor’s response? Secondly, will the Minister be in contact with the 78% of local authorities that have said either that they will not ring-fence the money or that they are not sure whether they will ring-fence it, and are therefore not delivering on the Chancellor’s promise, and will he take steps to ensure that they do deliver on it? Thirdly, will he ask local authorities to report to him on what contact they have had with ILF users in their area and what feedback they have received from them in relation to satisfaction with the transfer? Finally, will the Minister make a commitment today to report back to the House in a year’s time on the impact of the transfer of the ILF to local authorities on the lives and wellbeing of recipients?

Child Poverty

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree. Apart from the two key areas that we are going to study very hard and put forward proposals on—the educational attainment and worklessness measures—we will have a duty to report on the pathways to poverty that I spoke about. Those will be the guiders that allow us to drive forward the change that is necessary, often in the very early years, in families suffering deprivation.

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

Is not this statement merely a justification for next week’s cuts to tax credits for the working poor? Is it not also about avoiding the fact that the Government have absolutely no hope in hell of achieving their Child Poverty Act targets? The fact is that low income is the cause of child poverty, so what is the Secretary of State going to do to address that, because this Government have absolutely failed to make work pay?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree that low earnings are part of the problem, but that is exactly what we are trying to address in raising the thresholds and planning to raise them again to over £12,600. We have taken millions of people out of paying tax. We also targeted this by raising the minimum wage, which will rise again to £6.70. I have made it very clear that I personally want the minimum wage to rise even further. This Government are determined, through the mechanisms and interventions that I am talking about, to raise incomes and change life chances at the very earliest stage.

Welfare Reform (People with Disabilities)

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered welfare reform and people with disabilities.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Sir Roger. It is poignant that this debate falls on the very day that the independent living fund closes. A further £1.2 billion is being cut from support for people with disabilities. Such cuts were a hallmark of the Tory-led coalition, and many are concerned that not only will this increase but the cuts will get worse under this Government. My purpose in calling this debate is to highlight where we are now and the effect on disabled people, but I also want to draw attention to the punitive and dehumanising culture that has been part of the delivery of these welfare reforms, which set the tone for the leadership within the Department for Work and Pensions and the Government’s wider tone on social security.

In the final days before next week’s Budget, I urge the Minister to listen to disabled people, their carers and the millions of compassionate people across the UK who are saying that enough is enough. Going back to the 2010 emergency Budget, we know that £500 million was cut within weeks of the general election. The following year the analysis by Demos on behalf of Scope assessed the cumulative impact of the Government’s so-called reforms, and estimated that, by 2018, £23.8 billion of support would have been taken from 3.7 million people with disabilities. Demos identified a total of 13 cuts, of which I shall mention the top few.

First, the indexation of social security payments was changed from the higher retail prices index to the lower consumer prices index, and there was also a 1% cap on the uprating of certain working-age benefits. That cut £9 billion from 3.7 million people. Secondly, people on incapacity benefit were reassessed, and we could have a whole separate debate on that—we had a number of debates in the previous Parliament on the work capability assessment. That cut £5.6 billion of support available to people with disabilities. Thirdly, there was the limiting of the time that disabled people in the work-related activity group are able to receive the employment and support allowance. Such people are now able to receive only two years of support, which is a further cut of £4.4 billion. Fourthly, and this is four of 13 cuts, disabled people in receipt of disability living allowance are being reassessed to determine whether they are eligible for the personal independence payment, which is another cut of £2.62 billion.

How have the Government managed that? How has there been buy-in from the public? How can such draconian cuts be acceptable? Part of the Government’s strategy has been the invidious spreading of a culture of blame and fear. In the 1980s we saw the unions being targeted; today the focus is on the poor and the vulnerable. The narrative associated with the so-called welfare reforms has been one of divide and rule, deliberately attempting to vilify people who receive social security as the new undeserving poor.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

In the past year, across Tameside, Oldham and Manchester there has been a 230% increase in the number of people going to citizens advice bureaux for help after being sanctioned. One man in my constituency who is not computer-literate, is dyslexic and has a recognised learning difficulty was sanctioned for four weeks for not properly filling out a job search agreement. Does my hon. Friend agree that Ministers need urgently and closely to consider the impact of benefit sanctions across the whole of Greater Manchester?

[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the punitive sanctions regime. We have called for an independent inquiry into sanctions, following on from the Oakley review. Oakley himself said that his review was “insufficient,” which the Government still refuse to accept. Will the Minister respond to that?

The Government have spread a culture of pejorative language, such as “shirkers” and “scroungers”. They have intentionally attempted to demonise social security recipients, including disabled people. The innuendo that people with a disability or illness might be faking it or are feckless is, quite frankly, grotesque and belies the epidemiological data.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has said, “When you go to work in the morning and see the curtains of your neighbours pulled tight, you know there is somebody lying in there who can’t be bothered to get out of bed and go to work.” Somebody might actually be lying in there because they cannot get of bed owing to an incurable disease. Is it any wonder that some people tar everyone with the same brush? Was that not a deliberate ploy by the Chancellor?

[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I cannot remember whether it was during the Budget or the autumn statement, but it is absolutely shocking that the Chancellor used that language. Incapacity benefit and ESA are recognised as good population health indicators, so what is implied by words such as “shirkers” and “scroungers” is not supported by the evidence.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

I am worried by the hon. Lady’s language. She is attempting to project the party of government as demonisers who are against people with disabilities, which is offensive to those of us who employ people with physical and mental disabilities. I ask her to look at the other side of the coin, which is the work that some of us have been doing on events such as Disability Confident to help get people back into work. What many people with disabilities in my constituency want is not more endless handouts but the respect of being encouraged and enabled to get jobs. Today some 320,000 more people with disabilities are in jobs than was the case a year ago.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I would not want to impugn the hon. Member’s reputation because I know he is an honourable gentleman, but, frankly, I refer back to the language that is being used. We can see a pattern and, again, the Government have to be responsible for that. I will come on to what the Government have done, or how little the Government have done collectively, to support people with disabilities into employment.

Unfortunately, the regular misuse of statistics is another way that the Government are trying to harden the public’s attitude. The facts are that, in an ageing population, the largest proportion of social security recipients are pensioners and not, as is often implied, the workshy. Again, fear and blame are not the Government’s sole preserve. We all need to be very careful of the language that we use and how it is perceived. As the Government prepare to cut £12 billion from the annual social security budget in next week’s Budget, there are real concerns that, in addition to potentially slashing tax credits for the working poor, they will cut further support for working-age people with disabilities.

A recent analysis of trends in disability benefit spending showed that, far from being generous, disability benefits are approximately 15% of average earnings. With the recent changes—the 1% uprating and the indexation to the consumer prices index—they will fall even further. The 2012 public spending on people with disability was just 1.3% of GDP. If we compare that with our European neighbours, we find that that is lower than Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Luxembourg, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

That figure has decreased since 2012, given the Government’s welfare spending cuts in 2013. Total social security spending in the UK in 2012, before the cuts, was only 15.5% of GDP. That spending supports our pensioners, the sick and disabled, people in low-paid work and people out of work. We are 17th out of 32 EU states. Again, I contrast that with the fact that the Government are trying to say how generous we are in terms of what we provide.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is an outrage that disabled people spend an average of £550 extra in connection with their disability, and that one in 10 disabled people spends more than £1,000 extra?

[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will come on to the additional costs of being disabled.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

The hon. Lady mentioned percentage of GDP, which I might address later if I have a chance to catch Sir Roger’s eye. What does she think the percentage should be? We spend 0.7% on international development and 2% on defence. What does she think is the appropriate and right percentage of GDP to spend on disability?

[Debbie Abrahams]

I would not be so pushy as to state such figures at this stage in a Parliament. I am making a point about the mood music that the Chancellor in particular is stressing before the next Budget. I warn hon. Members that we are not over-generous; our spend is 1.3%, and we need to bear that in mind.

There are more than 12 million people in the UK living with a disability, impairment or limiting long-term condition, 7 million of whom are of working age. That is one in five of the population. Of those, 4 million working-age disabled are working already, and another 1.3 million can and want to work but are currently unemployed.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the hon. Lady agree with me that there are about 5,000 people with motor neurone disease, which is a rapidly progressive and fatal illness, and that not all of them can obtain a DS1500? That pushes things to the point where people think that they can or should work, when they are not physically capable of doing so. The Government must deal with that rapidly to ensure that all 5,000 people in the UK with MND are taken care of.

[Debbie Abrahams]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The work capability assessment’s insensitivity to mental health conditions, progressive conditions and fluctuating conditions makes it unfit for purpose at the moment, and there is a lot of evidence to support that.

[Richard Graham]

The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) raised an interesting point about MND sufferers. Has the hon. Lady also thought about people suffering from multiple sclerosis, a condition that often deteriorates over time? Some of my constituents with MS who have been assessed physically and moved from disability living allowance to personal independence payments are receiving an increased amount of money because their condition has worsened over time. It varies from condition to condition and situation to situation, does it not?

[Debbie Abrahams]

It does indeed, but the fact is that 600,000 fewer people will be eligible for PIP than currently receive DLA; those are the statistics. However, I will come to that.

The UK currently has a disability employment gap of 30%. The Oldham fairness commission, which I chaired, found that the local disability employment gap is 34%. As the vast majority of disabled people—90%—used to work, that is a waste of their skills, experience and talent. Attitudes, perceptions and judgments can often get in the way of identifying someone’s talent or skills—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

I indicate to Members now, to allow them a little preparation, that I intend to impose a five-minute limit on Back Bench speeches. Six hon. Members from various parties have indicated a desire to speak: if you can manage it in less than five minutes, it will help others. That will leave about five minutes each for Opposition Front-Bench speeches and for the Minister.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I was discussing the experiences of disabled people, 90% of whom have worked. For people with disabilities, the experience of an interview can be particularly discouraging.

People with disabilities should be able to access the same opportunities as everyone else, including being able to use their talent and skills to the best of their ability. No one should feel that they are unable to reach their potential or that their hopes and dreams do not matter. The Government have cut the support for disabled people that allows them to live as normal a life as possible, but they have failed to provide meaningful support to help disabled people into work and enable them to thrive, thereby protecting them from leaving the labour market prematurely.

Having just one disability employment adviser for 600 disabled people is quite shocking and reveals the Government’s priorities. Similarly, there is chaos, and inadequacies, in the specialist employment support service Access to Work, which last year supported just 35,000 disabled people into work and at work. That just does not cut it. What happened to the money de-invested from Remploy, which was meant to be reinvested in Access to Work?

The extra costs commission analysed the additional costs faced by disabled people and found that on average they spend an extra £550 per month on costs associated with their disability. By contrast, in 2015-16 the average award of personal independence payment or disability living allowance was £360 per month. On top of this, as I mentioned earlier, Scope has estimated that 600,000 fewer disabled people will be eligible for support. Couple this with the £3.5 billion cut to social care and it all adds up.

It comes as no surprise that people with disabilities are twice as likely to live in persistent poverty as non-disabled people: 80% of disability-related poverty is caused by extra costs. This has implications for disabled people’s families as well, because a third of all families living in poverty include one disabled family member.

George has a mild learning disability. He has suffered with a bad back since an accident a few years ago and can no longer do the heavy lifting work that he used to do when he worked in a warehouse. George works 12.5 hours a week as a cleaner in a local college, but wants to work more to earn working tax credit. He said:

“Hopefully I might be able to find another job or increase the hours with the job I’ve got. Next year I might have a word with my supervisor but everyone is short of cash at the moment so I’ll have to wait and see!”

For now, he relies on employment support allowance to top up his wages. He lives a modest life. He attends a local self-advocacy group, where he receives additional support when he needs it, and meets up with friends and family when he can. He certainly does not have cash to spare. Without ESA he could not afford to get out and about and would risk becoming very isolated. He has been in financial difficulty in the past, and it was only because of the support he got from the self-advocacy group that he managed to keep his own home—he was under threat of being made homeless. George is lucky. Unfortunately, thousands of people do not have the benefit of the support that he has.

I am sure it has not escaped your attention, Sir Roger, that more than 336,000 people have signed a petition calling on the Government to publish data on the number of people on incapacity benefit and ESA who have died since November 2011. This petition was started followed a ruling by the Information Commissioner on 30 April compelling the Government to publish these data in 35 days, including the number of those who died following being found fit for work.

Last week there was an amazing sequence of events. On Monday, the Secretary of State told me that he could not publish these data because they were not kept, and told me to stop scaremongering; on Wednesday, the Prime Minister said that they would be published; and this was swiftly followed by the Government saying that they were appealing against the Information Commissioner’s ruling, stating that publishing these data would lead to “probable misinterpretations” and “was too emotive...and wasn’t in the public interest”. What an absolute shambles! I could not disagree more. This is definitely in the public interest. As a former public health academic, I am more than aware of the strict criteria for establishing causality, but there are no grounds for not publishing numbers of actual deaths as well as the Government-proposed standardised mortality ratios, including those who died within six weeks of being found fit for work. Will the Minister now confirm when these data will be published?

At the same time, following on from Select Committee on Work and Pensions inquiries into sanctions beyond Oakley, I should be grateful if the Minister confirmed when the Government will publish redacted information on the circumstances of the deaths of claimants who died while sanctioned, and what changes the DWP instigated in the light of reviews of these deaths. It is notable that, since the Government’s new sanctions regime, the rate of sanctioning of people on IB and ESA has doubled. Will the Minister also confirm whether the significant surge in suicide rates for both men and women since 2010—but particularly for working-age men—is being analysed by the DWP? I thank my former public health colleague Ben Barr for providing me with these data.

My final comments relate to next week’s Budget. There is much concern that the Government may once again target disabled people. Will the Minister pledge today that there will be no further erosion of support for disabled people, including taxation of universal disability benefit or restricting the Motability scheme, which enables over 56,000 to keep their job? He did not answer the questions I asked him during our previous exchange on the PIP process, so I should be grateful for a yes or no answer today.

Being disabled is not a lifestyle choice. I am proud of the principles underpinning our model of social welfare, where any one of us is afforded protection should we fall ill or become disabled, but it is at risk from this Government. I urge the Government not to take any further steps along their regressive path.

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

The debate will end at 5.55 pm. I shall have to call the Front Benchers to speak not later than 5.40 pm.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justin Tomlinson]

I have only four minutes in which to respond, so that is what I have to do.

On the disability employment gap, in the past 12 months, an extra 238,000 people got into work, which is 650 a day, an increase of 2.4%, which is the biggest in the past decade. We are committed to halving the disability employment gap—it is about a further 1 million. That is a key priority.

Scope’s Extra Costs Commission report was fantastic. I have already met with Scope’s chief executive to look at different ways to support it—for example, this morning I was at the Inclusive Technology Prize competition. Clever people are coming up with ways to improve access in people’s everyday lives to the sorts of things—

[Debbie Abrahams]

Will the Minister give way?

[Justin Tomlinson]

Honestly, I would like to, but I cannot.

The amount of money spent on disabilities actually increased by £2 billion over the last Parliament, and DLA and PIP are uprated in line with inflation. Access to Work was also mentioned in the debate, and numbers increased to 35,500 last year, which is up 4,000. It is demand-led. We are always looking to promote that, which is where the Disability Confident campaign comes in, in particular by highlighting Access to Work to small businesses, which provide 45% of private sector jobs and are not always aware of things. I know from meeting the Federation of Small Businesses that that is felt to be important.

I hear the concerns about sanctions, which were expressed by more than one Member. They are a last resort and we are looking continually at how they are operating. Even the Oakley review stated that sanctions were

“a key element of the mutual obligation that underpins both the effectiveness and fairness of the social security system”,

and we accepted 17 of its recommendations to improve the process. I am happy to provide details on those 17 points.

[Debbie Abrahams]

rose—

[Justin Tomlinson]

I know that the hon. Lady wishes to come in, but time is tight.

On the point about George, universal credit will help, in that different disabilities can have different impacts from week to week. That would therefore allow somebody to maintain a certain income, and where they work extra, they have an income on that. We will be publishing them the mortality stats—I know the hon. Lady is keen to see them soon; we would all like to see them as soon as possible.

The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) kindly made her points in a debate two weeks ago and has agreed to meet with me on Thursday, with Parkinson’s UK and the Motor Neurone Disease Association. I am grateful for that. It will be an opportunity to discuss all the points made today. With regards to terminally ill people, we are processing things within six days and 99% are being awarded. I understand the points made about the DS1500 form. GPs are not comfortable doing it. We are talking to the Department of Health about that, so we can expand on that from the meeting.

My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) again took a reasoned and proactive approach. A lot of stakeholders echo the words that were used—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady should not panic; I am coming to that.

I understand what the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) was saying about the frustration, but I am afraid that this happens with every single Budget, whoever the Government are. There is always uncertainty before the Budget. I am no different to anyone else present—we are not the Chancellor. What I do know, however, is what underpins his reform. We will continue to support disabled and vulnerable people. We are providing a strong welfare net for those in need and we will always ensure that work pays. The hon. Gentleman is a strong voice and I would be keen to continue to work with him, in particular on issues arising from surgeries or personal experience.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones) and I have shared experience of employing people with mental health conditions. The Government have spent £42 million on a series of pilots that provide group work, telephone support and face-to-face individual support. In the Budget earlier this year, we put in for direct purchase of support, to bring it about much quicker. Through the Access to Work scheme, that can provide help for people within work, and there is a 92% success rate.

Child Poverty

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is an interesting question. I agree that it is important to get beyond this sterile debate. I want to bring to the House what I consider to be the right measures, and then I will be happy to discuss options. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) has come up with an idea, and I am happy to discuss that as well.

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

I have to say I found the Secretary of State’s tone absolutely breathtaking. Given that two thirds of children living in poverty are from working families, will he answer the question—this is the sixth time of asking—what assessment have his Government undertaken of the proposed cuts in tax credits and how they will affect child poverty levels?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

We have got more people back into work and more people progressing through work, and more people are better off. They are better off in work than they are out of work—a fact that the hon. Lady seems to miss completely. The tax changes and the reductions in tax on take-home pay mean that people are actually better off. The answer to her question is simple: we will continue to support people who need that support through getting into work and beyond. That is the purpose of universal credit, she should stand assured.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My right hon. Friend is right. We are all about ensuring that more women get employment and enter the labour market. On the barriers to women entering the labour market, she will be aware of our work, for example, on shared parental leave, increasing the availability of childcare places, and increasing the provision of childcare from 15 free hours to 30 free hours. In relation to women and pay, the Government will require large employers to publish information on the gender pay gap.

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

T7. My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Marie Rimmer) is right. Given that on 5 June the High Court found the Department’s actions—this time on PIP delays—unlawful, does the Secretary of State think that he and his Department are above the law? Why does he refuse to publish the details of the number of people who have died within six weeks of their claims for incapacity benefit and employment and support allowance, including those who have been found fit for work?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As I said to the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Marie Rimmer), I find it unbelievable that she, the hon. Lady and others have spent all their time trying to make allegations about people going about their work. [Interruption.] She knows very well that the Department does not collate numbers on people in that circumstance. It deals with individual cases where things have gone right or gone wrong and reviews them. It is a crying shame that Labour Members want to go out every day scaring and frightening people. It is no wonder they lost the election.

Personal Independence Payment Applications

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) on securing this important debate, and on the measured way in which he introduced it. I reiterate his point about the High Court ruling on 5 June, paragraph 93 of which stated that the way two claimants’ applications for PIP were processed was “not only unacceptable” but “unlawful”. They had been waiting for 13 and 10 months respectively. I wanted to set the record straight on that point.

PIP has been beset with problems since it was introduced. In October 2012, I remember the former Chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee, Dame Anne Begg, debating this issue. She raised concerns about the migration from incapacity benefit to employment and support allowance. At that point, 40,000 assessments a month were being undertaken; the further 70,000 assessments estimated for DLA/PIP that would be breaking point for the assessment providers. She did not feel the capacity was there, and she has been proven right on this issue, as on others.

Opposition Members welcome welfare reforms where we can see there will be genuine benefit. I mentioned the other assessment process; we feel that the accumulation of assessments has not necessarily been wise. They underpin what is behind the Government’s welfare reform agenda. An estimated 607,000 people in receipt of DLA will not be eligible for PIP. In total, it has been assessed that the Government will have cut nearly £24 billion from 3.7 million disabled people by 2018. Concerns have been raised about the reliability of the assessment process, as well as the limited involvement of the Royal Colleges on specific conditions, and of disabled people themselves in determining the metrics. The toll of the PIP process cannot be overestimated.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) on securing this debate. Does the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) agree that, for people with mental health issues or particularly traumatic disabilities who finally get to an assessment centre, the process can be traumatic? Perhaps the process needs to be reconsidered for such people.

[Debbie Abrahams]

As I was about to say, I had a meeting with Mind yesterday. One of the people in attendance said that he is due to have his PIP assessment tomorrow, and he is absolutely terrified. About a third of respondents to a survey of more than 4,000 Parkinson’s sufferers became financially worse off after they were diagnosed; for a quarter of them, money concerns are having a negative impact on their Parkinson’s. Those impacts are compounded by the process and their experience of PIP.

Dame Anne got it right two and a half years ago, and it is a shame that the Government did not listen at the time to her and my other former colleagues on the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, Sheila Gilmore and Glenda Jackson. It was not until the February 2014 National Audit Office report described “poor early operational performance” and “long uncertain delays” for new PIP claimants, and until the Public Accounts Committee and the Work and Pensions Committee pointed to the unacceptable delays, that the Government finally took action. At that time, the average wait was 107 days, and in some cases many months more, whereas there was a 74-day target for completion. For terminally ill claimants, claims were taking 28 days on average when they should have taken only 10 days.

Last year’s report by the Work and Pensions Committee made a number of recommendations; in particular, it suggested that penalty clauses in the contracts for assessment providers be used to recoup money when the providers fail to deliver value for taxpayers’ money. What moneys have been recouped? I am pleased that we are now seeing progress, for the sake of claimants and the taxpayer, but we are still not getting it right, as the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness has shown. Some 42,000 people are waiting more than 42 weeks, and four out of 10 people are still waiting for their PIP claim to be processed.

I heard from a woman whose partner has cancer and is waiting for radiotherapy. They have been living on £113 a week since they applied at the beginning of April, and there is also an effect on passported benefits such as carer’s allowance, disability premiums and concessionary travel. I have also heard about the case of someone who received a full PIP award last July but has been told by the Department for Work and Pensions that she has to go through the process again. That beggars belief.

I recognise that the median waiting time has been coming down, and I am pleased about that, but I am concerned about the measures that have been used to bring it down. We have heard about people having to travel considerable distances to remote assessment centres. One person with Parkinson’s was required to get to a 9 am appointment in Deptford from Crawley, which exacerbated their condition. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that paper assessments can be undertaken instead of face-to-face assessments? On the training and skill of assessors, what steps has he taken to ensure the use of skilled assessors who are able to interpret clinical evidence for a range of clinical, physical and mental health conditions? Given the recent capacity issues, will the Department be revising the roll-out of PIP to a further 1.7 million DLA claimants in October?

My final couple of points are about the independent review of PIP that was published last year, which recommended that there be a full evaluation. I have already mentioned the concerns about the effectiveness of the assessment process, and it was recommended that the Government put in place a rigorous quantitative and qualitative evaluation strategy. When might we expect to see that strategy? Finally—this is definitely my final point—we know that the Chancellor will be announcing further cuts to social security in next month’s Budget. What cuts are being considered to disability and associated benefits, including through taxation? Will the administration of those benefits also be affected? Given that the introduction of PIP did not have an impact assessment, which was a big failing, will the Minister guarantee that any changes to disability benefits will have the necessary impact assessment?

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

I will try to make myself a bit clearer. I will call the Front Benchers from 5.25 pm, and if we carry on with speeches of that length at least one person will not get in. I urge people to be mindful of others who wish to speak.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

Sanctions have been around since the benefit came into being, to ensure compliance, to enable the Government to have a backdrop to the social security they provide, and to enable the support to be matched by work to enable people to go into a job. As the secretary-general of the OECD said:

“The United Kingdom is a textbook case of best-practice on how good labour and product markets can support growth and job creation.”

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

Freedom of information requests to the Department for Work and Pensions have revealed that of the reviews of 49 deaths of social security claimants, 33 called for improvements into how the DWP operates nationally and locally. What changes have been introduced, and how have they been associated with sanctions on claimants?

[Esther McVey]

As the hon. Lady will know, we are always improving what we do and always making things better. We brought in the Matt Oakley review to look at better communications, and we work with claimants always to ensure that sanctions are applied only correctly. We know that the vast majority of people work within the system. For employment and support allowance claimants, over 99.4% work within the rules, and with jobseeker’s allowance claimants, it is over 94%. It has to work, but we always look to see how we can get it better.

Housing Costs (Reformed Welfare System)

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Teresa Pearce]

It is true that solutions can be found. Sadly, no one seems to have found them yet in my part of south-east London.

The Work and Pensions Committee looked at the problems that are faced by people on housing benefit. They are discriminated against when looking for private rented accommodation. For families, that makes trying to find a roof over their heads an uphill struggle. Given that tenancies typically last for six to 12 months, private renters often have to move just as they have settled in. Children who live in such places have their life chances restricted and their education disrupted, and are often not registered with a doctor. That cannot be acceptable.

Private landlords may be reluctant to rent accommodation or provide temporary accommodation to claimants for a number of reasons. It might not just be general discrimination, but might be due to constraints that are imposed by mortgage lenders, who say that they are not allowed to provide longer tenancies, or due to fears that local authorities will fail to allocate housing benefit in a timely manner. Giving private renters the option of allowing the housing benefit component of their universal credit payment to go directly to their landlord might allay those fears and enable private renters to control their finances more easily. The Government must work with private sector landlords to address their concerns about universal credit and offer greater support to those who rent property to housing benefit claimants. That work must start now.

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

I grateful to my colleague on the Work and Pensions Committee for giving way. I met my key local social housing provider on Friday. It said that there was a 15% gap in rent collection between those on universal credit and those not on universal credit. That is manageable over a year or so, but over the longer term it will create huge problems. I wonder whether my hon. Friend wants to comment on that point.

[Teresa Pearce]

That is a valid point. It is something that we all encounter locally when we talk to housing providers. It needs to be addressed, so I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention.

Another problem for private renters is that the change to local housing allowance is further restricting their access to the widest selection of available properties. Local housing allowance rates match only the 30th per- centile of homes within a broad rental market area. The Government reduced that from the 50th percentile. I believe that that needs to be re-evaluated urgently, especially in London. Rents have risen, but the local housing allowance was frozen in 2012-13 and uprated by 1% in 2014. There has been a reduction in the number of homes that can be rented out at that rate.

An analysis by Crisis shows that across Britain, one in 10 local housing allowance rates for 2015-16 is 5% or more lower than the estimated 30th percentile of local rents. Those include 77 rates that have already benefited from an additional increase due to the targeted affordability fund. As was outlined in the Select Committee’s report, analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that rent levels did not decline as a result of the cap. In fact, the most recent rental figures show a 1.8% rise across the stock in England and a rise of 2.4% in London. That is well above the recent 1% cap and means that additional properties will fall out of the reach of those on benefit.

Private renters should not have to choose between having a roof over their heads and eating, but increasingly that is becoming a daily choice for many people in my constituency. The Government should consider increasing LHA rates by more than 1% annually in more pressured areas. Although the Committee welcomed the introduction of the targeted affordability fund as a means of increasing LHA levels in areas of higher rents, some areas may see rents rising by more than the maximum of 4% a year. The Government should amend the targeted affordability fund so that it can be paid at higher levels in areas where rent increases are greater than 4%. It should also use available rents rather than stock rents as a measure for the rental increase.

Rents are currently unaffordable across the private sector. In 2012, the Money Advice Trust stated that rent arrears were the fastest growing debt problem it had encountered and that the number of calls it received on the issue had risen by 37% on the previous year. At the end of 2014, the National Landlords Association reported that almost a third of private landlords had seen arrears that year. There were a record number of evictions of renters across the social and private sector in 2014 as a result of a combination of factors, including the bedroom tax, benefit sanctions, increased numbers renting with the reduced LHA rate, and rising private sector rents.

Recent figures from Crisis have also shown that the No. 1 leading cause of homelessness now is eviction from a private tenancy. The figures highlight not just the lack of affordability for renters when having to manage competing living costs, but how unsustainable rising rents will be for the private rented sector without Government intervention.

The Government must continue to monitor homelessness levels and take action to mitigate the impact on households and local authorities. The Department for Communities and Local Government reported that rough sleeping increased by 14% in autumn 2014. I am regularly contacted by constituents who tell me that they cannot be housed by their local council because they are not in priority need and that they have no option but to live in overcrowded accommodation with family members or to couch-surf, which is code for sleeping on the floor of a friend’s house. If they can be housed, they have been told that their only option is temporary accommodation. In my local area of Bexley, people are often temporarily accommodated in Manchester and Bolton, which means having to uproot their children from school and leave their support networks behind.

It always worries me greatly that, while a number of landlords are reputable, a number of others are not. There are private landlords in my constituency who line their pockets while renters struggle to pay their rent. I wrote to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Treasury in November to ask about the Let Property campaign, which was launched in September 2013 to target the residential property letting market. Specifically, I wanted to know whether it had been successful in closing the tax gap on let properties, but the responses I received were not encouraging. They said it was too early to tell, but one of the figures they did give me was an estimate that the tax gap on letting income was just over £500 million. It is absolutely disgraceful that public money is going to landlords who do not then pay their way or their tax. We need to address that urgently.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Hon. Members agree that there are serious problems when payments of housing benefit rise so high. We disagree on our analysis of how it came about and what we should do about it. Unless we tackle the underlying issues, we will simply trim the edges, to the detriment of many households and families. As the Office for Budget Responsibility says in its review of spending on benefits and pensions, the main drivers for the increase in housing benefit are increases in rents and the number of people on low wages who have to claim housing benefit to make ends meet. The OBR was concerned that those two things would continue to be drivers in the coming decade unless action was taken. There is very little—I would say virtually nothing—in the steps that the Government have taken since 2010 to tackle those problems. Indeed, they may have made them worse.

We were told by Ministers during the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill that the private rented sector had become so intrinsically dependent on the housing benefit market that rents would fall as a result of the changes. Rents have not fallen. In many places, they have risen considerably above inflation. That is certainly true in my city, in the city represented by the Chair of the Select Committee and in London. The DWP accepts that this is the case. For the private rented sector, it has introduced additional payments in some areas to top up the local housing allowance—after it previously made reductions—because it accepts there is a growing gap between the actual rents available to people who want to rent and need housing benefit, and the payments they would otherwise receive. The promises that rent would fall as a result of the policy have not come about. I hope that in looking to see what savings are supposed to have been made, those additional payments will be factored in.

We are repeatedly told that this policy is about saving money. I think the Minister from a sedentary position said, “Oh, it’s about £1 million a day,” but that was based on the Government’s original statement that the policy would save about £500 million a year. Other experts said, at a very early date, that it would be lucky to be somewhere nearer £350 million, and that does not take into account the very high cost of discretionary housing payments, which are a cost to Government and so detract from any savings made. It is therefore not correct for the Government to say what they say.

For individuals, households and families, the impact is extremely serious. This is not the same, as is often said, as what happened previously in the private rented sector, dating back to about 1998 when size was taken into account. This is an impost on people now, whether they can move or not and whether there is anywhere for them to move to or not. One of the amendments tabled during the course of the Welfare Reform Bill by the Opposition—it was followed up through the House of Lords and incorporated into a private Member’s Bill that was not allowed to progress in this House recently—proposed that if people were offered a suitable alternative house and did not take it, then the cut in their benefit could apply. For many people, however, that just is not practical. I have just checked yet again, as I do constantly, the number of houses available for social rent in my city. This week, there were 54 in the whole city. Of those, 31 were one-bedroom, but eight were sheltered. The people affected by the bedroom tax are by definition under pension and retirement age, and so would not qualify for those eight.

[Debbie Abrahams]

That is not just the case in my hon. Friend’s city. In Oldham in my constituency, 2,048 people are affected by the bedroom tax and there are only 50 properties for them to move into.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention.

In Scotland, the priority given to people who are homeless—a much wider definition of homelessness has been adopted by the Scottish Government—means that there is real competition for smaller houses. The majority of people who present as homeless are single people, so they too need the small houses that other people are trying to fit into.

Compulsory Jobs Guarantee

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is right about that. I have spoken to a large number of people, including young people whose break came through the future jobs fund. They have said that having got six months’ work under their belts, thanks to that initiative, they were then able to look after themselves and apply for jobs, do well and build a career. As he rightly says, young people need that crucial first break and that is what this guarantee will provide.

Every day of unemployment means hardship, worry and missed opportunity for someone who wants to be working and earning. But the full costs are borne more widely and last much longer. Every day of unemployment is a cost to the taxpayer in unemployment benefit and tax revenue forgone, and a cost to the economy in lost output. It also imposes a cost we can never account for, through the strain it puts on individuals, families and communities. Those costs—in benefit spending, tax revenues, economic output, and individual and social well-being—can reach far into the future, as the scarring effects of unemployment build up.

The Acevo commission on youth unemployment found that people who experienced unemployment in their younger years are more likely to suffer not only spells of unemployment in later life, but in work an average wage penalty of more than 15%. That is why it is so troubling that youth unemployment is going back up. It is back up today to more than three-quarters of a million. Young women now unemployed will, a decade from now, be earning on average £1,700 a year less as a result of being unemployed today. Young men now unemployed will be earning £3,300 less a decade from now. Those effects worsen the longer that somebody is out of work.

Work by Paul Gregg at the university of Bath and Emma Tommony at the university of York suggests that the 200,000 young people who have now been out of work for more than a year are, on average, likely to spend another two years either unemployed or economically inactive between the ages of 28 and 33, and that the men, by the age of 42, will be suffering a wage penalty of more than £7,000 a year. Those are big effects that need to be addressed.

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

My right hon. Friend is making a very powerful case. On the effects of long-term unemployment on young people, he mentioned the impact on income, but will he comment about the impact on mental health, as unemployment can have lifelong effects? Does he agree that it is important to have a joined-up approach between the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions?

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was at an event yesterday with the Prince’s Trust where a young man was describing how he was about to be sectioned when, thanks to the Prince’s Trust, he was able to go into a job and his mental health problem was resolved. She is also right about the costs to the economy and the health service of long periods of unemployment early on.