Universal Credit

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I think a profoundly concerning picture has been painted for us today of how the roll-out of universal credit is proceeding in practice. I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) on focusing her attention on that, and I am glad we have had the opportunity to debate these issues prior to Dissolution. She and the other Members who have spoken have constituencies that have been at the forefront of the full roll-out of universal credit, and they have outlined a litany of problems that are having a severe impact on the people affected—problems that are causing immense hardship, debt and insecurity and are putting huge, unnecessary and wholly avoidable pressure on other public agencies.

Many of those problems were widely predicted. For example, a range of stakeholders—everyone from social landlords to homelessness charities and those working with disadvantaged groups—warned that the full service roll-out was likely to lead to a sharp rise in rent arrears and evictions. Many warned that the move to monthly payments could lead to hardship for people on very low incomes. Unfortunately, from the testimony of MPs this afternoon, those fears were well founded. Some of the other problems highlighted today, such as the unacceptable delays in receiving payments, the exorbitant cost and prolonged call handling problems with the telephone helpline, were not anticipated, in that they are not policy changes, just failures of the system. People claiming universal credit in the full service roll-out areas have been human guinea pigs in the process and are paying a heavy price.

Two key issues have arisen today with the delays in payments. First, even if the system was working perfectly, many claimants would wait six weeks for any money. That is an excessively long wait for new claimants, particularly when we know that people rarely claim as soon as they become entitled to benefits. Usually they exhaust their savings or redundancy package.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

The debate will go on until 4.22 pm. I call Dr Whiteford.

[Dr Whiteford]

Usually people have exhausted their savings or redundancy money before they claim benefits, but if someone starts a new job, it is normal to be paid at the end of the week or month in which they start. The Government have said consistently that they want universal credit to mimic the world of work, but in that respect it really does not, and they need to look urgently at waiting times.

We all understand that processing a claim will take some days, but the monthly payment and discounted first seven days slows down the process unnecessarily and leaves people in considerable hardship. In reality, many claimants are having to wait a lot longer than six weeks. Eight to 12 weeks is more typical in some full service areas, and often longer. That is just not okay, and we have heard today about how those problems are not just abstract. I know from previous discussions on the subject that people have lost their homes. Many people on universal credit will be in work already so may have some other source of income, but a significant minority of new claimants will be sick and disabled people, assessed as unfit for work, and people who have just lost a job. The advance payments available are simply inadequate and are driving people into food banks, into debt and into trouble with their landlords. The bottom line is that the system is failing. It is in chaos.

Rent arrears are possibly the most far-reaching adverse impact of the full service roll-out. The Highland Council alone has seen rent arrears soar by £1 million, which is entirely and solely attributable to the roll-out of universal credit. My concern is that that is just the tip of the iceberg. We can get accurate figures of the scale and extent of the problem from local authorities, but the impact on other social landlords is likely to be profound. I know that housing associations in Scotland have warned that increases in arrears damage their financial stability, hitting their ability to invest in existing properties and build new ones. Private sector tenants and landlords face significant problems too, given that landlords may be servicing mortgages and may not have the level of solvency needed to wait several months for unpaid rent. We are already witnessing evictions. Just as worrying, we are already seeing evidence that some landlords are simply refusing to consider universal credit tenants.

Evictions and homelessness cause untold upheaval and misery for all involved and have a huge impact on other public services. The homelessness charity Crisis reports that 89% of English local authorities fear that the roll-out of universal credit will exacerbate homelessness. That situation is avoidable. We do not need to go down that road. The Government need to get a grip.

The Government have offered the excuse that the sharp increase we have seen in arrears appears to fall over time, several months down the line, but, frankly, that obfuscates the scale and extent of the increase in arrears. It also obscures the debt and hardship that those tenants, on desperately low incomes, are enduring in order to pay off a level of arrears that they would never have incurred under the previous system. It is yet another way in which the universal credit system fails to mimic the world of work, where most landlords require rent to be paid upfront a month in advance and, certainly in the private sector, expect sizeable deposits. Once again, the systemic pressures of the new system are being borne by people on marginal incomes—those with the fewest assets and means, working in the lowest paid jobs, recently unemployed or unable to work because of ill health or disability.

The other major breakdown in the system is in relation to the online accounts and problems with call handling on the telephone helpline. In many parts of rural Scotland, digital connectivity is well behind that in urban areas, notwithstanding significant recent progress. In my own constituency, 25% of people do not have access to the internet. It also remains substantially more expensive than in urban areas, and because of that, there are significant numbers of people with limited digital skills and experience who rely heavily on public access terminals.

My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) highlighted the high costs and time involved in travelling from rural areas to a diminishing number of jobcentres. I do not think a 200-mile round trip is acceptable. To put that trip in perspective, it would be like asking somebody here in central London to travel to Nottingham or Stoke-on-Trent for a DWP appointment. I do not think that is realistic.

My hon. Friend also highlighted a litany of problems with the telephone helpline. If someone calling from a mobile phone has to wait half an hour on the line, they could spend as much as a third of their weekly income on food, heating and essentials. Twenty quid may not sound like a king’s ransom to higher rate taxpayers, but for someone on a very low income, it is an enormous amount of money. Even if the Government’s assertion that waiting times are only eight or nine minutes was backed up by the documented experience from MPs’ offices and citizens advice bureaux, that is still a fiver. Proportionately, that is a lot of money for someone in receipt of £73 a week who is struggling to pay rent, heat their home and buy food.

Universal credit should have been quite easy to roll out in the highlands, in that there is a relatively buoyant labour market and universal credit should, in theory, be better suited to managing patterns of seasonal employment, which is widespread in the region. But it is proving to be a disaster, not just there but, as we have heard today, across the UK.

My last point is this: leaving aside the catalogue of incompetence that has dogged universal credit from the start, the new benefit is turning the screws on low-income working families and is now unrecognisable from its original design. According to the Child Poverty Action Group, by 2020 families with children will be, on average, £960 pounds a year worse off than they would have been under the previous system. The effects are magnified for families where one parent is working full time and the other is working part time or is at home with the bairns. Parents of severely disabled children are losing out. Those who will be most disadvantaged are single parents working full time in low paid jobs, who will be, on average, £2,380 pounds worse off. That is almost £200 a month.

The idea that work always pays under universal credit is just nonsense. It is a massive cut in household income and it punishes people who are already working full time, doing everything they can to make ends meet. For some of those people, work will no longer pay, and they would be better off if they cut their hours. That is exactly the opposite of what universal credit was designed to do. The policy has been so filleted by successive austerity cuts that it is no longer able to deliver the improvements it promised. Instead, it is set to drive up child poverty.

As we have heard today, the full service roll-out of universal credit is proving to be a disaster. It is causing chaos for landlords, housing associations and local authorities. It is causing turmoil, upheaval and real hardship in the lives of claimants who are entitled to support. We have had no adequate assurances from the Government that the systemic failures are being addressed. In those circumstances, I believe that we need to call a halt to the universal credit roll-out and go back to the drawing board, because at the moment it is an unmitigated mess and ordinary people are paying the price.

Employment and Support Allowance

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Neil Gray]

Absolutely. There are great problems in the assessment process. It is part of a wider problem with the system as it stands. To take away £30 a week from people who have been assessed as unfit for work and who are in the work-related activity group is certainly not the right way to go about things. We impress it on the Minister that these cuts should be paused.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and raising these critical issues. Does he recognise that many of those in the work-related activity group will be people who move in and out of work as their conditions fluctuate? When they go back on the benefit during a period of ill health, they are going to find themselves in a very much disadvantaged position compared with before. This is just no way to treat people who are battling and living as best they can with often incurable, long-term, debilitating illness.

[Neil Gray]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and, to her credit and in her typical way, makes her point well. The Government have suggested that there will be a 12-week window in which recipients of ESA in the WRAG may well be able to return to the previous rate; I suggest that that is not enough. If the Government will not reverse the cut, there should be a longer grace period to allow people the opportunity to return to work and to attempt to sustain that work, which is not always easy for some of these people to do.

Oral Answers to Questions

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

Universal credit is a transformational benefit. It converts six benefits into one, which means working with one organisation and not three. It supports people into work and makes sure not only that work pays, but that it is visible to the individual that work pays. It is indeed transformational in our system.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

In just a few days’ time, austerity cuts to universal credit come into effect that will further cut the incomes of millions of working families, including families with disabled children, who could lose about £1,600 a year, while single parents in full-time, low-paid work could lose almost £200 a month. Was the intention of universal credit to drive up poverty among disadvantaged children? If not, why will Ministers not accept that the system is failing those whom it was designed to help?

[Damian Hinds]

No such cuts are about to happen in universal credit. The taper change from 65% to 63% will eventually benefit 3 million households.

[Dr Whiteford]

Mounting evidence from the full service roll-out areas exposes the fact that the universal credit system is beset with failure. It is simply not working. Rent arrears are soaring, claimants are waiting up to three months to have their claims processed and some people have even lost their homes. The Government need to get their head out of the sand, so will Ministers call a halt to the full service roll-out while they conduct an immediate review?

[Damian Hinds]

We will not call a halt to the roll-out, because it would be unfair and wrong to deprive people in Scotland or elsewhere of the advantages that the universal credit system brings. We continue to work on improving processes and accelerating delivery, including with respect to housing, and a number of improvements have already been made, with more in train.

Social Security and Pensions

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I am glad we are able to debate these orders simultaneously. The Scottish National party will obviously not oppose the social security uprating order, and we certainly welcome the pensions uprating order, but this is an opportunity to put on record, again, our deep concern about the ongoing impact on low-income households of the freeze on working-age benefits. We are particularly concerned about tax credits, which are mostly paid to working families with children, and employment and support allowance, which is paid to those who are not currently fit for work but are in the work-related activity group.

Any of us who regularly pushes a trolley around a supermarket can be in no doubt that the price of basic foods and household essentials is rising, and rising sharply. The depreciation in the value of the pound last year has taken some time to filter through to retail prices, but increases in the price of imported food and other goods is now very visible. The Bank of England has made it clear that it expects inflation to remain well above the 2% target for several years.

Ahead of the Budget and looking further forward, I hope the Government will look again at the benefit freeze and recognise that those on low and middle incomes spend a much larger proportion of their income on essentials than wealthier households and are disproportionately affected by rising food and fuel prices. In that context, a 1% rise in those benefits that are included in the order is unlikely to keep pace with the increase in prices that we expect to see over the coming months. The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) has already alluded to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation assessment of the rising costs of essentials, which should give us all pause for thought. One simple example is that many of the severely sick and disabled people who will receive a 1% uprating—those who receive ESA as part of the support group—have limited mobility and are likely to spend a lot of time at home. Inevitably, they incur high heating costs during the winter months, yet the cost of energy is rising. Some of the big energy companies have already made announcements of price increases, and others have said that they are set to follow. Benefits that will be uprated by 1% include most disability and carer benefits—ESA, carers and pensioners’ premiums, statutory maternity and paternity pay and statutory sick pay. All are paid to people who are likely to be disproportionately affected by rising energy costs, and all are paid to people who are unable to work or who are limited in their ability to work.

Financial hardship is an increasing reality for households affected by sickness and disability and, as prices rise, that will only get worse. Even with increases to the minimum wage and personal allowances, large numbers of working parents and disabled people are significantly worse off in real terms and are finding it harder than ever to make ends meet.

When even the Financial Times is highlighting, as it did earlier this month, the strains on household finances that are already apparent and is warning that

“a combination of falling living standards and rising inequality would be extremely dangerous in today’s febrile politics”,

we should really heed the warnings.

I want to turn now to pensions and highlight the proposed increase in the single-tier pension. This has been the first full year that the new single-tier pension has been in effect, but I get the very strong impression that it is poorly understood among the general public.

Although I welcome the 2.5% increase in the single-tier pension, I am not at all clear how many pensioners will actually receive the full benefit of that increase. We know that there are both winners and losers in the transition process and that most new pensioners will not receive the full single-tier pension. Before its introduction, it was estimated that only around 22% of women and half of men reaching state pension age would be entitled to the full single-tier pension. Perhaps the Minister can clarify what has happened in practice and whether those sentiments were right. What proportion of male and female pensioners have received the full whack, and what ongoing impact assessment has the Department undertaken?

Perhaps the Minister can give the House an update on the pensions dashboard. I get the sense that there are real gaps in most people’s knowledge of the new system and that many people coming up for retirement are in for a nasty shock when they realise that they will not be eligible for as much as they think.

In this context, it would be very wrong not to mention the WASPI women, many of whom got insufficient and wholly inadequate notice of the shift in their pension age, and who, as a consequence, will lose enormous sums of money over the course of their retirement.

This week, I had a letter from a constituent who is one of the WASPI women. She did not get proper information about the changes and she has had no time to plan for them. She is facing an uncertain future in more ways than one in that she is currently undergoing treatment for cancer. She says that she does not know whether she will ever receive her pension. She is hopeful that she will make a good recovery—certainly I send her my good wishes. She makes the sobering point that none of us knows what is around the corner. There is a basic injustice here and that is why, even though she is ill, she is determined to fight for a fairer settlement. We can and we must do better by these thousands of women who are losing out.

While we are on the subject of women and gender inequality in pensions, I have to say that I am sorry that, in the past year, the Government have removed savings credits for new pensioners. Around 80% of those who previously benefited from savings credit were women, most of whom will have spent their working lives in low-paid jobs and are unlikely to have had access to an occupational pension scheme. Nevertheless, these are people who have managed to save, against the odds, despite the limited opportunities available to them. There is little enough incentive for people in low-paid jobs to save, and reducing savings credit and abolishing it for new pensioners erodes that incentive even further.

Pensions uprating is a wistful dream for some pensioners. Those who have frozen pensions are left out of the uprating. That is still a very live issue, and one that is likely to be more acute in the months ahead. There are those who are entitled to a UK state pension by virtue of having worked for it and of having paid their contributions but who have, for whatever reason, spent their retirement domiciled abroad. They face very different circumstances depending on whether their country of residence has a reciprocal agreement with the UK for the uprating of state pensions. Those in countries that do not have a reciprocal arrangement with the UK see their pensions frozen at their initial retirement level so, in real terms, the value of their pension falls every single year.

There are thought to be more than half a million people with frozen pensions, mostly in Commonwealth countries such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa, but also in countries with strong family and historical links to the UK such as India, Pakistan, parts of the Caribbean and Africa. The issue will only become more acute in the months ahead as the UK leaves the European Union and European economic area. UK pensioners who retire to sunnier parts of the continent—there are thought to be 400,000—currently get their pensions uprated throughout the EEA as normal, but reciprocal arrangements will need to be put in place when we leave the EU if those pensioners are not to find themselves in the same difficult situation as those living in Canada and Australia. I hope that the Minister will be able to share the Government’s thinking on that issue, and tell us what steps they are taking to protect UK pensioners who live in other parts of Europe.

We need to deal with the fact that many of those approaching pension age, who have lived through an era of globalisation, will have worked in several EU countries and may have accrued pension rights in several parts of Europe, with wee bits of pension in several systems. That is true for many people who have worked in global industries or for multinational corporations. It is a bit of a minefield, and it would be immensely helpful if the Minister offered reassurance to UK pensioners living in EU countries that those issues are on the Government’s radar and will be addressed. I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to address all the issues I raised as she closes the debate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a characteristically reasonable point, to which I make two responses. The first is that those who are put into hardship have available to them discretionary housing payments, which have been extensively used by local authorities throughout the country precisely to avoid the problem that he suggests. Secondly, on the other point he makes, some of the research we have done shows that households that have been capped are 41% more likely to go into work than similar, uncapped households. So the policy is very successful in encouraging people to get back to work, which of course is the best thing for them in the long run.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

During the passage of the Scotland Bill, UK Ministers gave me and others clear assurances that any income derived from new benefits or top-ups introduced by the Scottish Government using new powers would not simply be clawed back from claimants through the benefit cap or other forms of means-testing, and those commitments were reflected in the fiscal framework. Will the Secretary of State therefore give a cast-iron assurance that that is still the UK Government’s position?

[Damian Green]

The UK Government’s position has not changed at all and nor, so far, has the Scottish Government’s, which is that they are not prepared to take or exercise the powers that they have.

[Dr Whiteford]

With respect, that is just nonsense; the Scottish Government are working towards the already-published timetable. But there should be absolutely no ambiguity here, so will the Secretary of State now commit that he, his Ministers and his officials will engage positively with Scottish Ministers as they use those new powers to abolish the bedroom tax in Scotland?

[Damian Green]

I, along with both my Ministers and my officials, engage positively with the Scottish Government all the time. I know that because I go to the meetings, and I have engaged positively with them on this and all the other important issues that we have to discuss in this field.

Oral Answers to Questions

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

Absolutely. That is precisely why this Government, and previously the coalition Government, have decided that having a simple income-based measure and target is not the right way. We need to look at the root causes of child poverty, and having a range of indicators and targets—one of which is on family breakdown—is the best way to make sure that we have as few children as possible living in poverty and that more and more children are able to emerge from it.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

A good new year to you, Mr Speaker.

The Secretary of State has focused so far on the value of work in tackling child poverty, but the reality is that the average working family in receipt of universal credit will be more than £1,000 a year worse off by 2020. According to the Resolution Foundation, some working parents will be more than £2,500 a year worse off. With child poverty projected to rise dramatically over the next three years, why do the Government continue to downplay the role of income poverty in determining children’s future health, job prospects and even life expectancy, in spite of all the evidence?

[Damian Green]

I am not downplaying the role. I am talking about the underlying causes and about making sure that we take a range of measures across the board that help to eradicate child poverty. That is the only sensible way to do it. Simply focusing on individual incomes or, indeed, individual benefits does not represent the whole realistic picture. We need to be much more wide-ranging in our approach.

[Dr Whiteford]

The Prime Minister has been talking over the weekend about the pressures faced by people who are just getting by on low and average incomes and about our shared responsibilities to them. Those are fine sentiments, but does the Secretary of State not accept that they sound utterly hollow when the Government’s planned cuts to work allowances will slash the incomes of exactly those families who are just getting by? Does he accept that the Government have a responsibility to support parents who are working hard in average and low-paid jobs, rather than cutting their already stretched, precarious incomes?

Supported Housing

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) on securing the debate. This is a timely opportunity to re-examine the issues around the 2015 proposal to cap—in effect, cut—housing benefit for tenants in supported housing, given the Government’s temporary postponement of the plans, their further announcement in September that they were stepping back from the brink of implementation, and the publication of the report arising from their evidence review just over a week ago, which we are still digesting.

We have had insightful contributions from Members from both sides of the Chamber. One of the common themes is that supported housing is a crucial part of the social rented sector. It meets a variety of specialised needs in our communities—needs that would not easily be met in other ways. We heard that supported accommodation include homes for elderly people, for people fleeing domestic violence and for people overcoming addictions. For the majority, we are talking about homes for people with learning difficulties, substantial physical difficulties, serious mental health problems or other complex needs. In other words, they are people who would otherwise be unable to live independently—people who are frequently disadvantaged—some of whom are also very vulnerable.

We have heard stories from every part of the UK about the huge value of supported accommodation in our constituencies, the huge difference that it makes to the lives of those who need it and benefit from it, and the challenge and uncertainty that the Government’s proposals have caused not just to the people living in those homes but to those who provide those homes. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) highlighted the impact of the arbitrary age restrictions on disabled young people—those under 35 in that regard. The hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) expressed a range of concerns about the financial implications of the proposed changes for local authorities and supported housing providers. He also called for a pilot scheme for any changes that come in, which seems to be a sensible suggestion that I hope the Minister will take on board.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) got right to the heart of the matter when he challenged the Government’s approach to social housing in the wider context of austerity. He also made crucial points about women’s refuges and the role they play in helping people leaving violent home situations. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) focused his remarks on the impact on vulnerable tenants in Northern Ireland, and the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) who, regrettably, was unable to make her own speech in the debate, emphasised the need for investment in the supply of supported accommodation to meet identified demands.

We should remind ourselves that, if we turned the clock back 40 years or so, many people with similar types of disabilities to those who live in supported housing today often did not live in the community. If they could not live with family or, as outlined by the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas), their family could no longer look after them, they were moved into large residential hospitals, often out in the countryside away from everyone. There was one in my constituency, and while I do not doubt that the residents had a high standard of professional nursing and medical care, most were not ill and did not need to be in hospital. Most of them were people with learning disabilities. It was an institutional model that cut patients off from wider society and robbed them of their independence. It also cost a fortune, even by the standards of the time. By contrast, there are now real homes in the area for disabled and learning-disabled people, and that is immeasurably better for everyone.

Supported accommodation has developed in the subsequent decades in a far more humane, appropriate and altogether better model of living for adults who would struggle to live independently without some degree of external support. However, the proposals we have seen from the Government in the past year to 18 months or so have put real question marks over the viability of that. The hon. Member for St Ives said that there is growing demand for supported accommodation, and I suspect that that is driven by changing demographics, with many members of the baby-boomer generation who were looking after adult disabled children at home no longer able to do so. Many young disabled adults, as we have heard, want to go to college and university, just like their peers. That has to be a good thing in the longer term, but it means that there is still a demand for supported accommodation. It has been a success, so let us not undermine that success with unnecessary cuts.

The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations represents dozens of housing associations in Scotland that provide supported accommodation of one sort or another. It estimates, based on projected turnover of tenancies, that nearly 6,000 new tenants could be affected by the proposed cap if it is introduced—obviously it is impossible to know exact numbers because the cap will affect future, not current, tenants.

The financial shortfall for those people—the gap between their housing benefit and their rent—is likely to add up to between £4.3 million and £5.6 million a year. That may sound like a small sum relative to the debates we were having in this place on the autumn statement last week, but for a tenant in supported housing in receipt of housing benefit the gap between their rent and housing benefit will on average be about £615 a year. That is nearly £12 a week, which would represent a substantial portion of income for, say, an adult over 25 on the new rate of employment support allowance. That would leave them with only about £60 a week to feed, clothe and keep themselves warm. A young person under 25 who has been assessed as fit for work would be left with only about £46 a week for their essential needs.

It is important to understand that many of the people we are talking about in supported accommodation may be on ESA for a lengthy period. Some may be in work or on jobseeker’s allowance, but for many the special needs that make them eligible for supported accommodation also make it difficult to find sustained full-time work. We should accept that some folk in supported accommodation will always need quite extensive support to have a decent quality of life.

We need to ask ourselves what happens when tenants in supported housing cannot pay their rent. The answer is simple. Whether people are in private sector, local authority or housing association-owned property, when rent arrears get out of hand or build up over time their tenancies are put in jeopardy. A rise in evictions and homelessness is not an outcome that anyone wants to see. It is also hugely costly to deal with the consequence of failed tenancies.

There is a real risk to social landlords’ willingness to invest in supported accommodation. If it becomes economically unviable to build and operate supported living, housing associations will not do it. That would be a disastrous outcome for individuals who could live independently in supported accommodation, and it would also leave local authorities with an almighty challenge of finding ways to meet the basic welfare and housing needs of some very vulnerable people.

In many of the case studies provided by the SFHA of current tenants with similar types of support needs to prospective future tenants, the only alternative safe forms of accommodation would be care homes or long-term hospitalisation. That would make us feel like we were turning the clock back. In my local area, finding care home places is extremely difficult, and I know that that is the case in many parts of the UK. Our hospitals cannot cope as it is with the problems of delayed discharges: having people in hospital who do not need to be there. That would become a hugely problematic issue if we lost the ability to place people in supported living.

The critical point is that either option—care homes or hospitals—is significantly more costly than a measly £12 a week for vulnerable people, which could make the difference between retaining and losing a tenancy. Money spent to keep people living in their community is money well spent and it is a false economy, and quite mean-spirited, to squeeze the already low incomes of economically deprived people, as the Government’s original policy proposed.

Before I conclude, what discussions has the Minister had with the Scottish Government about this issue? I welcome the plans to devolve funding in the area, but I hope she will confirm that it will continue at the current level. I am keen to know what engagement she has had with stakeholders in Scotland, most notably supported housing providers such as housing associations and local authorities but also the organisations that support tenants in those homes to live independently.

It is just wrong to target cuts on some of the poorest, most disadvantaged and, in some cases, very vulnerable people in our communities. It is also extremely short-sighted, economically counterproductive and socially retrograde. I appreciate that the Government are rethinking their approach. Sometimes the best thing is to accept that a previous ministerial team got it wrong and to recognise that the easiest, least bureaucratic and most cost-effective and compassionate way out is to back away from the cuts and exempt supported housing from the cap altogether.

Oral Answers to Questions

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I would point out that more people now have access to Motability than before, but I understand the problems that the hon. Gentleman raises, and we are looking at this in the Department.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

May I put on record congratulations to Andy Murray on his magnificent achievement and also congratulate his brother, Jamie Murray, who will end the year as doubles world No. 1? What Scotland lacks in football prowess, we more than make up for in tennis, and we are immensely proud of both Murray brothers.

Last week, Members on both sides of the House made it clear to Ministers that cutting employment and support allowance for those who are in the work-related activity group by nearly £30 a week, with corresponding cuts to universal credit, is not acceptable when the Government are still consulting on their Green Paper on closing the disability employment gap and do not have adequate support in place. Has the Minister discussed the outcome of last week’s debate with the Chancellor ahead of the autumn statement and impressed on him the need to postpone these punitive cuts?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I point out to the hon. Lady that the support that needs to be in place for those members of WRAG will be in place, and I gave the detail of exactly when that would be in place—before new claims come online—but I must stress that, as well as enabling people to endure and cope with such situations and the associated costs of living, we have an obligation to help them to get out of those situations. I have given assurances to the House that we will do both.

[Dr Whiteford]

The loss of the limited capability for work element of universal credit will mean that thousands of working disabled people will be about £1,500 a year worse off. Does the Minister think that slashing the incomes of working disabled people sends the right message about the Government’s commitment to those who are just about managing?

Employment and Support Allowance and Universal Credit

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

This debate could not be more timely, given that we are a week away from the autumn statement. It speaks volumes that the motion has been supported by Members from nine parties represented in this House. I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) on his persistence in pursuing this issue and on marshalling such broad cross-party support.

As we have heard, Members on both sides of the House know that it is just not right to cut employment and support allowance for sick and disabled people in the work-related activity group by almost £30 a week. It is just not right to cut the corresponding limited capability for work component for those on universal credit. It is especially not right to press ahead with these punitive cuts, which are due to come into effect for new claimants from next April, when the Government have acknowledged that their efforts to address disability employment have failed to date, and their system of employment support for sick and disabled people of working age has been wholly inadequate.

Earlier this month, the Government finally brought forward their long-awaited Green Paper on the disability employment gap, which I have welcomed and we all hope will initiate comprehensive improvements. We have heard a very different tone from Ministers in recent weeks. There have been serious attempts by senior Ministers to distance themselves from their predecessors, not least with the Prime Minister’s early commitment to a

“country that works for everyone”.

They will be judged by their actions, not their words, and that is precisely why we need to hit the pause button on these cuts to ESA and universal credit that will cause hardship and distress to thousands of people who are not fit for work. The exchanges between the hon. Members for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) and for Twickenham (Dr Mathias) captured this point succinctly when they said that we need to pause to allow the support infrastructure to catch up.

Ministers know that we in the SNP have been deeply critical of the Government’s willingness to allow the most disadvantaged sick and disabled people to bear the brunt of austerity cuts. We will continue to hold them to account for the adverse consequences of their actions—those consequences are already writ large among sick and disabled people in all our communities and constituencies—but I and my colleagues have also tried to be constructive by offering ideas, solutions and better ways forward. We will continue to do that, because it is in everyone’s interest that we get this right.

We should not forget that when these cuts were first announced, the then Chancellor argued that they were intended to remove “perverse incentives” in the system. That point has been made by several hon. Members today. I hope that the new incumbents in the DWP and the Treasury now recognise that taking away necessary financial support from sick and disabled people who have been assessed as unfit for work does not make them get better any more quickly. Quite the reverse: there is a growing body of evidence that poverty exacerbates illness, hinders recovery, and makes it harder for people with long- term conditions to secure and sustain employment.

As we have heard, what is actually perverse is to reduce the resources available for sick and disabled people that enable them to work. I hope the Government will ditch the prejudices and stereotypes that have fed the poor policy decisions of the past, and will listen not only to disabled people and those who represent them, but to MPs on their own Benches who have expressed severe disquiet about the consequences of these cuts.

I am reluctant to break the consensual tone of this debate, but I must respond to the question that the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) asked my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts about whether he thought that the Scottish Government should plug the gap, using new devolved powers in Scotland. Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman has not stayed for the rest of the debate, but I suspect that he knows as well as I do that both ESA and universal credit are not areas of devolved competence. They are fully reserved, despite my best efforts last year, when I tabled and spoke to amendments to the Scotland Bill that would have devolved all working-age benefits. Obviously, we failed to win the backing of the House for those proposals.

It is a wee bit rich for Members to oppose the devolution of those powers yet to demand that the Scottish Government plug the gap. The Scottish Government have already committed an extra £20 million for disability employment support, but they cannot be expected to plug every hole in the bucket of poor Westminster policy making. The hon. Gentleman should take a long, hard look to his own conscience and perhaps his own voting record.

[Kate Green]

As the hon. Lady will remember, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) pointed out that the Scottish Government were able to provide additional support in relation to the bedroom tax, so it has such a power regarding reserved benefits. His question was: would they use that power in relation to this cut?

[Dr Whiteford]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point, but she should remember that the Scottish Government’s steps to mitigate the bedroom tax have had to be paid for out of money earmarked for our responsibilities in devolved areas. We need to take a responsible approach to make sure that we get this policy right in the long term. We have committed an extra £20 million. I do not know whether she was one of the 20 Labour MPs who marched through the Lobby like the Tories’ little helpers last year to support the fiscal charter on austerity, but as the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) pointed out earlier, we would not even be having this discussion if the Labour party had been the effective Opposition it could be. I urge Labour Members to work with all of us on these Benches to stop the austerity that is hurting disabled people, to rise to the occasion, and to be a better and more effective Opposition.

Let me come back to the main point of the debate. I want to highlight a number of reasons why the cuts to ESA WRAG and the universal credit limited capability for work component are harming people and are counterproductive. The first is that ESA should not be considered an equivalent of jobseekers’ allowance. People in the ESA WRAG are assessed as not fit for work, whereas with jobseekers’ allowance, the clue is in the name. However, the key point is that, for the most part, JSA is a short-term benefit. Most claimants come off it in a matter of weeks or months, so it is not designed to support people over long periods. By contrast, ESA is for people with serious health problems and disabilities. It is designed to cover some of the additional costs associated with serious illness and disability, and it recognises the reality that many claimants are likely to be in receipt of the benefit for a longer period—in over half of cases, for more than two years.

In my part of the world, one of the most obvious additional costs is heating for people who are likely to be at home all day, who might not be able to move about so much and who need to keep warm. People on low incomes already spend a huge proportion of their money on essentials such as energy and food. We know from the debt charities referred to earlier that a large proportion of people on ESA are already in debt, running a domestic budget deficit and living from hand to mouth. They have already experienced substantial real-terms cuts to their incomes due to austerity.

Getting by on a low income for a long time is hard. It entrenches poverty among sick and disabled people, who end up using all their savings and eroding their assets over time. Illness and disability also take a heavy financial toll on wider family members, who often find their own earning potential limited because they are providing unpaid care, and who try to support loved ones out of their own limited financial resources.

The Government are quite right to say that the disability employment gap is unacceptable, but they need to recognise that those disabled people who are in work are more likely to be in low-paid jobs and are at higher risk of in-work poverty. They also often move in and out of work more frequently than those who do not have health problems.

Less has been said in the debate about the parts of the motion relating to universal credit. The disabled worker element of working tax credit, which is due to disappear under the shift to universal credit, is the very component that actually makes work pay for many disabled workers. The loss of the limited capability for work element for everyone except those in the support group means that many working disabled people will be around £1,500 a year worse off. That will make it harder for disabled people to sustain employment, and it actively undermines efforts to support sick and disabled people into work.

The Government have pointed out in the past that these cuts will apply only to new claimants, but the reality is that people with serious fluctuating conditions often move in and out of work. That is particularly true of people with persistent and serious mental health conditions, who make up such a large proportion of the ESA case load. The fluctuations of these and other conditions that change over time are often compounded by fluctuations in the labour market and by the trend towards more temporary, fixed-term employment and zero-hours contracts.

The cuts we are debating actually create significant disincentives for those with fluctuating conditions to move into work, because if they do, they become sick again, and if they try to get back into work too early in their recovery and they relapse, they know they will be back on ESA at a significantly reduced rate. That is punitive and counterproductive.

That is at the heart of why we are calling on the Government to hit the brake on these cuts until they have had time to get their act together on the Green Paper and to come forward with more comprehensive and effective support measures for sick and disabled adults of working age. That has been a consistent refrain from Members this afternoon, who have shared moving testimonies from their constituencies.

Cuts to the already low incomes of sick and disabled people who are not fit for work or who are in precarious, low-paid employment are completely unjustifiable. They will damage the health and wellbeing of ordinary people whose lives are already hard enough because of serious health problems. These cuts will push people into deeper poverty and further away from sustainable employment.

The distress and anger of sick and disabled people can be seen and heard in communities across these islands, and those concerns are articulated clearly in the open letters published today. These people are citizens with rights, citizens with needs and people with a contribution to make. It is time that the Government started listening, and I urge them today to do the right thing.

State Pension Age: Women

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Ian Blackford]

I want to make a little progress, and will take interventions later.

Just as workers pay into occupational schemes, men and women pay national insurance in return for a state pension. Why should women be treated so shoddily? It is little wonder that WASPI women are considering legal action. For too long women have suffered injustices as far as equal pay is concerned. They tend to have much poorer workplace pension protection than men and are now facing state pension inequality. Why do we not stop, take stock and put in place mitigation? Let us have equalisation, but let us do so fairly. When we consider what has been done as far as communication is concerned, it is dismal. Women should have been written to at the earliest opportunity, letting them know what was changing and allowing them to consider their options. Yet in 2011, the Government said their approach was to inform women through leaflets and publicity campaigns. That was a failure of responsibility to act and inform appropriately.

It was only in 2009 that the DWP began to take responsibility and proactively write to women to tell them about the 1995 Act. They started to tell women in 2009, but it took the DWP years to issue all the letters. Last night I was given the response to a freedom of information request on the timeline of the letters—perhaps the most damning thing about this whole debate. Women born between April 1953 and December 1953 were formally told of the increased pensionable age only in January 2012. Women born between December 1953 and April 1955 were told only in February 2012. A woman born in April 1953 under the old regime of retiring at 60 would have expected to retire in April 2013. She was given just one year of formal notice of her new retirement date of July 2016. It was 17 years after the 1995 legislation before the DWP could be bothered to formally tell the women involved—too little notice; too little, too late. We should all hang our heads in shame at the way the WASPI women have been treated. If there is one issue that should force the Government to agree to change now, it is that new information and the timeline of notice given.

Why have we been able to find this out through a freedom of information request from the WASPI women? Why have the Government not come clean about this before? Who knew about this in Government? Did the Minister know? I have had many letters on this issue from the women affected. Rosina wrote to me:

“When the 2011 Pensions Bill was announced, it accelerated these changes, so that Women’s SPA would be 65 by November 2018 and then both Men’s & Women’s SPA would rise together to 66 by 5th April...Letters began to be sent out...but many never received them. I received my letter in early 2013, just before my 58th Birthday and just 2 years before my expected retirement age of 60. The letter advising me that I would now have to wait until I was 66 before I could draw my pension! How can I be expected to plan for a 6 year increase with just 2 years notice? How can this be acceptable? I had already made plans for my retirement. I will lose over £40,000 of pension because of this. I have paid into the system in good faith and the system has now failed me. I want the Government to stand up and admit that they have ‘wronged’ us Women of the 50’s by their gross mismanagement and...that they will now do the right thing and pay us what we are due.”

I cannot put it any better than Rosina. Will the Minister now accept that we have a responsibility to Rosina and the 2.6 million women who have been cheated out of their entitlement?

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend has come forward with a shocking revelation today, thanks to the WASPI women who made the FOI request. Nearly half a million women had only a year’s notice to change their retirement plans. I do not think that is acceptable, particularly given everything we have heard about why women are more likely to be dependent on a state pension and likely to be in poverty in old age. Does he agree that it puts an absolute moral imperative on the Government to take responsibility for their failure to let women know before a year in advance that they were going to lose out in such a way?

[Ian Blackford]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. I know that the Minister is a decent and honourable man. I hope he listens to the evidence and will go back to his colleagues in Government and recognise that the surplus we talked about is there in the national insurance fund. He would make us all happy, but more importantly he would make the WASPI women happy, if the Government showed they were prepared to act.