Bedroom Tax (Scotland)

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2014 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. When discussing the report today, the key issue that we should not lose sight of is that the bedroom tax should never have happened in Scotland. There has been a broad cross-party consensus that it is a regressive measure and it should be abolished. However, the truth is that it should never have been introduced in the first place. It was brought to us by a Tory Government—propped up by their Liberal Democrat allies—for whom people in Scotland did not vote, and it reflects the same Tory values that brought us the poll tax 25 years ago, and which have been rejected time and again at the ballot box.

The bedroom tax has caused enormous hardship for some of the most disadvantaged tenants in Scotland, the vast majority of them disabled. It has created problems for social landlords and it has cost more than it has saved. The problems created by the bedroom tax were entirely predictable, and were in fact predicted by local authorities, housing associations and organisations representing tenants, as well as by Members of Parliament here and in Edinburgh.

To a large extent, the report we are debating today has been overtaken by events, given that a few days ago the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland said that the UK Government would provide Scottish Ministers with a power to set the statutory cap on discretionary housing payments in Scotland, using section 63 of the Scotland Act 1998. The Deputy First Minister made a statement in the Scottish Parliament yesterday and, I believe, met the Under-Secretary earlier today to discuss the process from here. That is a very welcome, if belated development, and follows several months of silence from the UK Government on the issue.

Yesterday’s announcement paves the way for discretionary housing payment to be made to everyone affected by the bedroom tax in Scotland. As the law stands, the only legal way to make regular and ongoing payments directly to tenants to make up for their loss of housing benefit is through discretionary housing payments. The UK Government has allocated Scottish local authorities £15 million for discretionary housing payments, but that is less than a third of the £50 million needed to mitigate the penalty for everyone affected.

[Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Lady accept that local authorities in Scotland have found other ways to give money to their tenants and residents to mitigate the impact of the bedroom tax, without using DHP? Can the Scottish Government not also use that, as the UK Government have confirmed?

[Dr Whiteford]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that point. It is something that parties in Scotland have looked at very closely, and I know that senior Labour MSPs such as Jackie Baillie and Iain Gray have very much been part of discussions with the Scottish Government about those issues. Even they have agreed with the Scottish Government about the way to distribute the extra money, in compliance with the law as it stands. They agree that DHPs are the only clear legal route to provide funding for bedroom tax arrears directly to the people affected on a regular and ongoing basis. We are having to jump through a lot of legal loopholes. It is clear there are some solutions—the Scottish Government, certainly, were looking at them very carefully—but it seems that the clearest way forward is through discretionary housing payments and the challenge for all of us is to make sure that they are made.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

rose—

[Dr Whiteford]

I will not give way just now, because I have quite a lot to say and I need to make some progress.

The Scottish Government have made an explicit commitment to mitigate fully the impact by making £35 million available in this year’s budget for councils to distribute through discretionary housing payments. I believe that agreement has been reached with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to ensure that funding is targeted according to need, and much of the funding has already been allocated. My understanding is that councils in Scotland have been allocated extra funding up to the limit of the Westminster cap on how much an individual local authority is allowed to spend on discretionary housing payments. Across Scotland, however, that still leaves a £15 million shortfall, which can be allocated only once the cap is lifted.

I have raised the issue of the cap on several occasions both with Department for Work and Pensions Ministers and with Scotland Office Ministers. The Deputy First Minister wrote six letters, and I raised the issue personally with the Deputy Prime Minister. COSLA wrote, as did the Scottish Parliament’s Welfare Reform Committee. It has taken much longer than it should have. It is also worth making the point that the UK Government have not committed to lifting the cap, but will transfer powers to Scottish Ministers to allow them to do so. Inevitably, that two-stage process will take longer than if the UK Government had agreed simply to raise the cap.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

That is exactly why East Lothian housing association in my constituency took action to write off arrears. Is the hon. Lady saying that it has acted illegally?

[Dr Whiteford]

By no means. I commend the work that has happened in some local authority areas and with some housing associations, but that is perhaps a more feasible option for some than for others. The agreement that has been reached among the parties in Scotland, on a cross-party basis, is that the discretionary housing payment system offers the clearest legal route to do that in a way that can be regular and ongoing. It is a bit of a legal quagmire, as far as I understand it, and it is not as straightforward as it might first appear. It is also not always easy to disentangle what are bedroom tax arrears and what are arrears due to another financial hardship such as losing one’s job, other welfare reforms or other loss of income. It is not entirely straightforward. Nevertheless, it is a very serious issue and I absolutely share the hon. Lady’s concerns.

I am glad that we have a commitment to proceed under section 63 of the Scotland Act. I pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who has succeeded where the DWP has failed over the past five months. I hope that the Minister will use this opportunity today to outline a speedy timetable for that process to be enacted. It means that local authorities can plan ahead on the basis that the shortfall will be met in full and that they will have funding to ensure that every single tenant subject to the under-occupancy penalty can receive a discretionary housing payment. Twelve of our local authorities already have a full funding allocation to mitigate the bedroom tax in their areas. The rest have extra funding up to the level of the cap and can now be assured that the rest is coming, just as soon as the relevant orders can be laid in Parliament.

The challenge for all of us is to make sure that tenants apply for their discretionary housing payment. I will certainly be going back to every constituent who has been in touch with me about the bedroom tax, including those who applied unsuccessfully for DHPs in the past, and urging them to reapply. I will also ask my local authority what it will be doing proactively to ensure that everyone who is entitled to discretionary housing payments gets them, now that the policy has been fully funded and there is no excuse for anyone who is subject to the bedroom tax to be left without the support that they need.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady will be aware that different local authorities are taking very different approaches. For example, in Renfrewshire, which is adjacent to my constituency, staff are employed to go around proactively and get people to apply for discretionary payments. In my area of North Ayrshire, that does not happen. Does she think that the resources need to be put in to ensure that that happens, if we are going to follow the path that she is suggesting?

[Dr Whiteford]

The hon. Lady makes a really important point, because there are a range of practices across local authorities. However, this is very much their responsibility, and I hope that they will be putting in place a more proactive approach across the board. I know that some have already done that in dealing with other aspects of welfare reform, but I also know that the Scottish Government have made it very clear to every local authority that that money is to be used for the purpose for which it is intended—to mitigate the effects of the bedroom tax—and they need to ensure that everyone gets it. It is incumbent on us all to ensure that our constituents know that and to encourage them to get their forms in. After all, it is in the interest of local authorities to ensure that people do not fall into arrears, because that just creates further problems for them down the line. I am confident that most local authorities in Scotland will be keen to ensure that that policy is properly implemented.

The mitigation measures mean that no one should fall into arrears or face eviction because of the bedroom tax, but we cannot ignore the fact that it is still on the statute book. The Scottish Parliament does not have the power to abolish it. That means that tenants are still legally responsible for the shortfall in their rent caused by the cut to housing benefit. We should not lose sight of the fact that in order to mitigate the worst impacts of Westminster’s bedroom tax, money has had to be diverted from other devolved spending priorities.

The bedroom tax and the other changes to housing benefit are only one aspect of the UK Government’s assault on people in low-income households. By the end of this financial year, about £4.5 billion will have been taken out of the pockets of people on low and middle incomes in Scotland through welfare reforms and other changes to the tax and benefits system. The figure will rise to £6 billion by 2015-16. Apart from in the bedroom tax itself, that is most evident in the changes to tax credits, which have cost 110,000 households in Scotland an average of £700 each, and of course the uprating of working-age benefits at a level substantially below inflation, which has meant real-term cuts in the value of support. The freezing of child benefit means that, cumulatively, a family with two children will be more than £1,000 worse off by next year. In many cases, the people who have been hit by the bedroom tax are the same people being affected by those other changes. It is those people whom the mitigation measures will help, but we must recognise that we cannot fill a black hole of £6 billion without the powers and the budgets to do so.

The Scottish Government have invested £258 million to temper the worst aspects of welfare reform, but we need to be clear that it is a damage limitation exercise, not a solution. As well as the extra £50 million for the bedroom tax, the Scottish Government have put in place arrangements to ensure that 500,000 people in Scotland still get council tax benefit, and have introduced the Scottish welfare fund, which so far has helped 35,000 people.

However, the Scottish Government do not at the moment have the powers or the budget to plug a £6 billion cut in public spending. People would think, listening to the earlier comments today, that the bedroom tax was dreamt up in Scotland and was being imposed by the Scottish Government. The truth is that the bedroom tax is the brainchild of a callous Tory-Liberal coalition Government whom people in Scotland simply did not elect. Responsibility for the bedroom tax rests right here in Westminster. The fact is that housing benefit is a reserved issue and this House has the power to scrap the bedroom tax.

[Katy Clark]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Whiteford]

I will give way one last time.

[Katy Clark]

Does the hon. Lady not believe that the Scottish Parliament should be looking to raise the amount of money that it receives through taxation? Can she explain why her party will not support measures such as raising the higher rate of income tax to ensure that we have more money to spend on welfare?

[Dr Whiteford]

I am very much looking forward to the referendum in September, when people in Scotland will have a say on whether they want control of their own affairs and responsibility for setting income tax levels. I led an Opposition day debate on this issue back in February last year, when I called on the Government to end the policy, but we have had a number of opportunities in the House since then to voice our opposition, which includes opposition on the Government’s own Back Benches. The best chance we had to get rid of the bedroom tax was in November last year, when the Government came tantalisingly close to being defeated in the Commons in a vote following a Labour Opposition day debate. A defeat in the Commons would have forced the Government to rethink their approach, because it would have shown that even their own Back Benchers in the coalition—

[Pamela Nash]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Whiteford]

I said that I would not take any more interventions, so I will not. [Interruption.] Well, I did say that earlier.

A defeat in the Commons would have forced the Government to rethink their approach, because it would have shown that even their own Back Benchers in the coalition recognised the manifest injustice of the bedroom tax, but that vote was lost by a margin of 26 votes, and 47 Labour MPs did not vote for their own motion. They included 10 Scottish Labour MPs, who apparently were in cosy pairing arrangements with their Tory counterparts. That was the best real chance we had at Westminster to sink the bedroom tax, and it was wasted.

I am well aware that there are often very legitimate reasons why Members of the House of Commons cannot attend votes. At times, all of us will have to deal with illness, bereavement, caring responsibilities or competing demands from our constituencies, but for matters of importance, most of us will move heaven and earth to be in the Lobby when we need to be. Those who missed that vote need to ask themselves whether what they were doing was really more important than voting down the bedroom tax.

[Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Whiteford]

I am winding up my speech, so I will not give way. The bedroom tax and the other changes to our tax and benefits system that are fuelling poverty and hardship in communities across Scotland are the price that we pay for being governed by people we did not vote for. Scottish MPs overwhelmingly opposed the bedroom tax, but we have it anyway, and even now we cannot get rid of it; we can only seek to limit the damage that it is causing. The bedroom tax illustrates perfectly why Scotland needs decision-making powers on these issues. I am looking forward to the day when the people of Scotland have a Parliament with the normal powers of a normal state, a Parliament that is elected by us, responsive to us and accountable to us and that can consign the bedroom tax to history once and for all.

[Fiona O’ Donnell]

On a point of order, Mr Bone. Could you advise me on whether it is in order for the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) to attack Labour Members for not being present for votes on the bedroom tax when in fact members of her own party have missed several votes on—

--- Later in debate ---

[Graeme Morrice]

rose—

[Dr Whiteford]

Will the Minister give way?

[Esther McVey]

I have always made it clear that this is not merely about saving money. It is about the use of housing stock, going forward, and about fairness for all those people paying into the system and all those needing homes. It is not just about money, but money is part of that, too.

Before I give way again—

Employment and Support Allowance Application

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this short debate on the employment and support allowance application process for those with mental health problems, Mrs Main. We may be a small, select company this afternoon, but I am sure that I am not the only MP to have seen over the past couple of years a steady and increasing stream of people with quite serious mental illnesses falling through our social safety net, which is now very frayed because of welfare reforms. Despite modifications, the work capability assessment is still failing too many people.

It goes without saying that most people with a mental illness will never need to depend on the benefits system, but some of those with more severe or persistent illnesses do require support, and some of them are extremely vulnerable. In the time we have for this debate, I want to focus on the shortcomings of work capability assessments with regard to mental health conditions and make some concrete suggestions about how the process might be improved.

The issue is by no means new. Ever since the introduction of the work capability assessment, mental health care professionals and representative organisations have expressed concerns that it does not capture the impact of more serious mental illnesses on a person’s capacity to function in a working environment and consequently leads to poor decision making. A core problem is that too often assessors and decision makers have little or no relevant background information about claimants’ complex medical histories and too rarely seek input or opinions from claimants’ clinicians.

The problems were clearly acknowledged at the time of the first Harrington review, when Professor Harrington said that decision makers should be

“able to seek appropriate chosen healthcare professional advice”.

In his third review, he recommended that they

“should actively consider the need to seek further documentary evidence in every claimant’s case”.

The fourth review, led by Paul Litchfield, devoted significant attention to the assessment of mental function and made a number of recommendations, some of which the Government have accepted. However, the Royal College of Psychiatrists said this week that

“there is little evidence of any significant increase in the collection of evidence by either ATOS HCPs or DWP Decision Makers.”

The issue is not going away; indeed, it is being compounded by the new Department for Work and Pensions sanctions regime, which is having an acute effect on people with mental health conditions. According to a freedom of information request, in 2013, 58%—almost six out of 10—ESA claimants sanctioned were people with a mental health condition or learning difficulty. That is an increase from 35% of sanctioned claimants in 2009, and it suggests that people with mental health problems are being inappropriately sanctioned.

There is a growing body of evidence from a range of sources that, in spite of the changes that have been implemented along the way, the work capability assessment is still failing people with serious mental health problems. However, I want to highlight the report published recently by the Scottish Association for Mental Health, or SAMH, which details findings on how experiences of living in poverty affect peoples’ mental health, and how SAMH service users have been affected by welfare reforms.

SAMH has been a leading mental health charity in Scotland for many decades and works directly with thousands of people across the country, helping them to recover from mental illness and offering support and training. It also works to improve policy and practice in relation to mental health, reduce stigma, raise awareness and promote well-being. SAMH undertook a major survey of its service users in 2013. The truly shocking finding was that 98% of respondents said that welfare reforms were negatively affecting their mental health, including increasing stress and anxiety, while 79% were also facing financial problems. Of SAMH staff, 85% said that they were having to provide additional support to service users as a direct result of the welfare reforms, and, in six cases, SAMH staff had to carry out suicide interventions directly related to welfare reforms.

I know that the Minister will be well aware of the tragic case of a woman known as Ms DE, whose suicide in 2011 was the subject of an investigation by the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland. Ms DE took her own life after scoring zero points in a work capability assessment made in the absence of an ESA50 form and without any additional information from her clinicians. The only information her assessor had about her condition was the single word “depression”, a word that in her case masked a long and difficult psychiatric history. Both her general practitioner and consultant psychiatrist considered Ms DE unfit for work at the time of her death, even though she had worked for most of her adult life. Indeed, the significant event review after her death noted that

“Ms DE was hoping to return to employment at some point.”

However, it also noted the distress caused by her benefits assessment and the role that it may have played in her suicide, concluding that there was “no other known trigger”.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way, and for her permission to make an intervention. Just this week my office has dealt with two ESA appeals and four inquiries on the subject. Each one of those six cases relates to addiction or mental health problems. I am very aware of the far-reaching impact that the process has on people, which the hon. Lady outlined. Does she agree—she probably will—that if there is no compassion and understanding in the system, as there seems not to be, many other people will come to the same point as the lady whose case she is describing?

[Dr Whiteford]

I think that is right. On reading the evidence produced by organisations that support people with mental health problems, it is very clear that the increased anxiety and stress can contribute to ill health and make people more ill than they were to start with.

The report makes upsetting reading, and we should all express condolences to the unnamed woman’s family. Her death is a sobering reminder to all of us of the very real impact that Government decisions and state bureaucracies have on people’s lives. However, I was also struck by the very robust terms in which the Mental Welfare Commission, a statutory body, questioned the effectiveness and appropriateness of the work capability assessment and how it was working. As part of its investigation, the Mental Welfare Commission conducted a survey of responsible medical officers working in health boards across Scotland, most of whom are consultant psychiatrists, and 80% of respondents had patients who had undergone work capability assessments. Of those 80%, most had been asked to provide medical evidence, either before or after the assessments. However, three quarters had never been asked for their opinion at any point in the Atos or DWP process. Only 25% had had a request—some before the assessment, some after—and 96% said that their patients had been distressed by the assessment process; 93% reported patients distressed at the outcome of an assessment; and 80% reported patients who had successfully appealed decisions.

What also gave me great cause for concern was the impact on clinical care provision: 85% of the RMOs reported an increased frequency of appointments; 65% had had at least one patient who required an increased dose of medication; 35% had at least one patient who had been admitted to hospital as a consequence of a work capability assessment; 40% had at least one patient who had self-harmed after the assessment; 13% reported that a patient had attempted suicide; and two psychiatrists reported patients actually taking their own lives. In the light of the anecdotal evidence from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), I can say that various sources show that this is not just hearsay; evidence is coming from reliable and credible people who are involved in the process, and who understand that the systems are having real and difficult consequences for people.

It is critical that greater use of expertise is drawn into the assessment process for claimants with mental health conditions. I acknowledge the conclusions of the Litchfield review on this point, which were that it may not be necessary in every case, but there seems to be an enormous gulf between a universal approach and current practice. It is a chasm into which large numbers of very ill and vulnerable people seem to be falling. SAMH found that 56% of its service users did not receive any supporting information from a health care professional in their ESA application, which, in the wake of the tragedies we have heard about, should shake us out of any sense of complacency that we are doing enough.

The DWP’s most recent quarterly statistical bulletin, published in March, outlined the total caseload to date. With regard to completed claims, 52% of people who made new applications for ESA on the grounds of mental or behavioural disorders were found fit for work, so the high numbers of people awarded ESA on grounds of mental ill health represent less than half of applications made because of these conditions. Too many people are falling through cracks in the assessment process. I have alluded to the increased pressure that this creates in the NHS, but it also brings attendant costs in social care, policing and homelessness, which outstrip the cost savings that the DWP might be making.

Throughout the work of the Harrington and Litchfield reviews, there is an implicit acknowledgment that the work capability assessment is not working as it should and not working well enough for people with mental health problems. My request to the Minister today is simple: will he meet me and representatives of SAMH to discuss some of the ways in which the recommended improvements might be integrated into the work capability assessment?

I know some changes have been instigated since 2010, and I note Professor Harrington’s evidence-based review of December 2013, which considered whether a more specialised test developed with disability organisations might be more effective. Although that test was found to be less effective than the work capability assessment in determining fitness for work, it proved more effective in determining limited capability for work. Lessons could be learned from the scoring approach used in each assessment, so I want to ask the Minister whether he can provide an update on how the Government are using those insights to improve the work capability assessment.

It was announced in March that Atos Healthcare will leave its contract early, with new contractors commencing in 2015. The renegotiation of the contract presents an ideal opportunity for the DWP to reconsider how the right information and expert opinions can be brought into the assessment and decision-making processes. SAMH is of the view that claimants should be asked at the beginning of their application to nominate relevant health care professionals to provide supporting statements. That would significantly reduce the stress on individuals, improve input from professionals, and, we have to conclude, lead to better decisions the first time round, reducing the need for costly and stressful appeals. With the DWP in the process of reviewing and updating its contract, surely this is a prime opportunity—the ideal moment—to introduce a process by which the statements could be secured. What practical steps might the Minister take to move this forward?

Lastly, the SAMH report highlights the increased stress and anxiety for claimants who face lengthy waits for assessments, often have to live on a reduced income, and fear that they will not get a fair assessment. That has come out in the past few years as people see what happens to those in their support groups and social networks, who have come through the system and feel that the assessment concentrated on their physical health, not their mental health. Sometimes their physical symptoms can be connected to their mental health problems, but they are often more easy to cope with in day-to-day life than the debilitating effects of mental illness.

The reduction in support services as a result of austerity cuts has left some very unwell people unsupported. The DWP could minimise such distress by providing clear, accessible information to applicants at the outset of the process, signposting them to organisations that can provide advice on welfare rights, finances and well-being, and setting out the process by which health care professionals can be contacted regarding supporting statements.

[Jim Shannon]

Problems have come to my attention relating to correspondence with those who have mental health issues. Often, correspondence is mislaid or inappropriately addressed, which means that people with mental health issues are not aware of the process and how they should respond to it. The Minister always responds positively to the issues, but does the hon. Lady feel that one of the things that could be done better, when dealing with people with addiction and mental health issues, is ensuring a follow-up whenever responses are not made directly to the Department?

[Dr Whiteford]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point. Indeed, that was one of the key recommendations of the report by the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland in the case of Ms DE. Attempts had been made to contact her, but there were no repeat attempts and no one managed to get hold of her. It is easy to envisage somebody who is suffering from severe depression not answering the phone and not opening the mail in the way that someone in a healthier situation was more able and minded to. Those points have been well made, and I am sure that the Minister is already cognisant of them, but I will be interested in his response on the process, particularly in the DWP, going forward.

Relatively small steps could have a marked impact on people’s lives, and could help ensure that the process does not actively contribute to people’s mental health problems, but helps set them on the road to recovery. Will the Minister consider what he can do in terms of signposting, explaining to people their rights in the process, and making sure that we are not making things worse for people who are already very ill? It is in everyone’s interests to achieve a work capability assessment that is fit for purpose. I hope that the Minister will take the time to read the SAMH report and hear the perspectives of those with most at stake in the process and who badly need our support, and I hope he will meet us in the not-too-distant future.

Sanctioning of Benefit Recipients

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) and the Members on both sides of the House who secured today’s debate. Like other Members who have spoken today, I have been disturbed by the surge in constituents coming to me because they have been sanctioned in circumstances they consider unfair, and I am profoundly concerned about the way in which the new sanctions regime is working in practice. There is a broad consensus that there is a role for sanctions in those cases where an individual is determined not to comply with requirements, but sanctions need to be proportionate, consistently and properly applied and, if they are to act as any kind of deterrent, the last resort, not the first recourse. It is clear to me from what we have already heard today, from cases in my own constituency and from the evidence collected by Citizens Advice Scotland that the sanctions regime is not functioning as it should. In the time available, I will focus on just a few of the most pertinent issues.

The first is that sanctions are being applied in ways that are not always proportionate to the infringement, and do not adequately take into account claimants’ personal circumstances. Like the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Dame Angela Watkinson), I have personal knowledge of a case in which a claimant was sanctioned because they were attending a job interview at the time when they were supposed be at the jobcentre appointment. Citizens Advice has highlighted a string of similar cases. That is just nonsense—it is absolutely crazy. There are also instances of people being sanctioned who had hospital appointments or family funerals to attend. Most of us in work would expect our employer to be flexible about allowing leave of absence in such circumstances; it is only reasonable to allow jobseekers a similar degree of flexibility to deal with unavoidable personal circumstances such as hospital appointments or illness.

Some of my biggest concerns are about people who are living with health conditions or disabilities. Mental health problems or mild learning disabilities in particular are sometimes invisible—indeed, they might not even be diagnosed—but they can play a huge role in why someone struggles to find and stay in work, or why they may be struggling to comply with jobseeking requirements. I have encountered a number of people sanctioned who have low levels of comprehension, and in some cases cognitive impairment and very limited literacy. They have not deliberately flouted requirements; they have failed to understand them. It has been hard for my staff to explain the situation to them and it is very difficult for them to comply with what is expected of them.

Frankly, some of the people I have dealt with are very vulnerable individuals. Sanctioning has only exacerbated that vulnerability, in some cases pushing people into severe hardship and reliance on assistance from local food banks. Food bank use has soared in my constituency, which is one of the wealthiest parts of Scotland, and one of the main drivers of that has been the malfunctioning of the sanctions regime. We need to do a much better job of identifying disabled people, including those with mental health problems and learning disabilities, and should make sure not just that they have the necessary support to find suitable employment but that communication with them takes account of their ability to comprehend and process the information they are getting, and takes account of their health.

Another major concern that has not been dwelt on today relates to the challenges of job searching in rural areas. I am very fortunate to represent an area where unemployment is among the lowest in Scotland, but it is also one of the most rural parts of Scotland, with a very high proportion of people living in the countryside or in small villages. Public transport is very limited and there is a shortage of affordable housing. Those on the lowest incomes, who have the least choice about where they live, often find themselves in the most rural parts, where both the rents and the demand for housing tend to be lower. They may or may not have access to a bus service, but if they do it is likely to be fairly infrequent, there may be no direct route to where they have to attend interviews, and fares are really expensive. As of next week, a day bus ticket will be £7.70 for the Buchan area and £9 for Banffshire. For somebody living on benefits, that is a huge proportion of their spending power—money that they really need to be spending on heating, food and other essentials of daily life. If we expect people to attend interviews some distance from their homes, we need to understand that it could be expensive and difficult for them to do that.

Many parts of my constituency do not have broadband access, and even where it is available it costs significantly more than comparable services in urban areas. That makes it very difficult for claimants: it means they may have to travel to a public library to do even the most rudimentary job search. That costs them a lot of money—money that they just do not have. Citizens Advice Scotland has highlighted cases where sanctions have been applied to people in rural areas who then find themselves with no money to enable them to travel to jobcentres or libraries, thus compounding their original offence and leaving them facing further sanction. That seems entirely counter-productive and it compounds the rural isolation and poverty already faced by people on very low incomes.

The sanctions regime is not working as it should. There is significant evidence of sanctions being applied incorrectly, inconsistently, inappropriately and disproportionately. Looking ahead to the introduction of universal credit and a single household payment, I am worried about the significant potential for the situation to get a lot worse. Whole families could be pushed unnecessarily into severe hardship and destitution by all the extra costs and unintended consequences. Unless we deal with these problems now, we will store up much greater problems for the future, so I urge the Government to look at their guidance, review it and make sure that their regime is actually fit for purpose.

Oral Answers to Questions

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The Financial Conduct Authority will limit continuous payment authorities, which allow payday lenders to take money out of people’s bank accounts, to two payments. The FCA will keep that under review. It is also preventing CPAs if a person would be left without money to buy essentials or for priority debts. We have already seen some payday lenders leave the market because it is being restricted in the right way. It is worth saying that before the last Government came to power, payday lending did not exist, but it spiralled to £1 billion-worth under them.

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

Has not the source of the pressure on family budgets been policies such as the freeze in child benefit and the cuts to tax credits, which have left families hundreds of pounds worse off?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The biggest pressure on family budgets was the fact that far too many people lost their jobs as a result of the crash in the economy, in which GDP fell by 7.2%. Since then, we have reformed welfare. It is difficult when people are out of work, but we are doing huge amounts to get them back into work. As my hon. Friend the Minister of State has said, more people are in work, more women are in work and more young people are beginning to get into work, so we are getting more people into a position to look after themselves.

Inherited Social Housing Tenancies

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Monday 24th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

My right hon. Friend is quite right. At the moment, the Opposition say that they would like there to be a difference between the people in the private sector and those in the social rented sector. Actually, they had had discussions about introducing this policy too, so they were going to align the policies and do exactly the same as we have done. The only question that they have never asked, as they have sought to reverse what is happening in the social rented sector, is this: should there be a legal challenge by those in the private rented sector against whom they were discriminating, would they reverse the rules for those people too, so as to have fairness and equality for everyone?

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

Scottish ministers have written to Lord Freud five times since January regarding discretionary housing payments, including for those with transitional tenancies, but they have yet to receive a reply. The Deputy First Minister will be in London on Wednesday. Will Ministers from the Department for Work and Pensions commit to meeting her to discuss these issues and will she give me that commitment today?

[Esther McVey]

I know that the Secretary of State is in discussions with the Deputy First Minister, and obviously we will do the right thing and speak with her.

Welfare Reform (Sick and Disabled People)

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) on securing this debate.

I pay special tribute to the campaigners who are with us today, particularly John McArdle and Susan Archibald, who have travelled from Scotland and who have done so much over a long period for disabled people’s rights and well-being. The main thing we talked about this morning at the breakfast meeting was the ongoing Atos debacle and the consequences for the lives of sick and disabled people of the abject failure of the work capability assessment. I was told that in 2011 over 10,000 people died within six weeks of being placed in the work-related activity group or being found fit for work.

We have known for a long time that there are major problems with the assessment process, and I am sure that all MPs have seen constituents in their surgeries about it, but to get it so very wrong so many thousands of times frankly beggars belief. The Government need to take their head out of the sand and start listening to the experiences of very sick and disabled people whose lives are being made worse by the callous disregard of the system.

The other key issue is the roll-out of personal independence payments and the expected reduction in the number of eligible claimants. The Government are looking at this through the wrong end of the telescope. Raising the bar on eligibility will not make anyone any less sick or any less disabled; it will just make it more difficult for them to function in society and place more pressure on those on whom they rely for their care and support.

Several times now I have met a great group of young people with learning disabilities in Fraserburgh. They call themselves People First, they are very vocal, and they are very concerned about the impact of welfare reform on their lives. A number of them have had problems with Atos assessments and the benefits system more generally. Most of them have at various times been on courses to improve their employability, some have done work experience placements, and some have had supported employment, but the challenge is to find employers who can take them on and give them a proper job. I have been working with employers and talking to social enterprises, but the number of opportunities does not match the number of adults looking for work, and the work capability assessment does not cut them any slack. It is all very well to place adults with learning difficulties in the work-related activity group, but we need to be honest with them about the real barriers they face in the workplace.

Almost all the adults I meet in this context are living at home with older parents or living in supported accommodation with a lot of family support. Carers are having to attend assessments, fill out forms, and answer questions. If people find a work placement, they have to get support in doing so, yet carers are also having to pick up the tab if people are sanctioned. Research by the Scottish Government on the sanctions regime shows that the most vulnerable claimants are the most likely to be sanctioned, and that is very worrying.

In Scotland, a cumulative impact assessment has already been carried out. It shows that £4.5 billion of cuts are resulting from welfare reform, but it is much harder to assess how much of that is falling directly and indirectly on disabled people. Citizens Advice Scotland estimates that disabled people stand to lose £1 billion in benefits payments alone, but, in a sense, that is the easy bit to calculate. It is important to understand that it is not just changes to disability benefits that affect disabled people. We debated the bedroom tax at length yesterday, and I will not dwell on that, except to repeat that 80% of households in Scotland affected by the bedroom tax are the home of a disabled person. The vast majority of people paying the bedroom tax are disabled, so the steps we have taken in Scotland to mitigate its impact will primarily benefit disabled people. Similarly, the decision to mitigate the cut in council tax benefit for over 500,000 households will be helping disabled people, along with other low-income households. However, working disabled people—probably about half the working-age disabled population—are also likely to have been badly affected by changes to tax credits, especially if they have children. Disabled people are more likely to be in part-time or low-paid jobs and therefore more likely to depend on extra support, and they are likely to be worse off overall because of changes to the tax and benefits system.

Citizenship and dignity need to be at the heart of our tax and benefits system. No one in this room today can say with any certainty that the relative affluence that we enjoy might not end at any time due to unforeseen health problems. We do know, though, that the majority of us will become carers at some point in our lives. In that respect, we are all stakeholders in this debate, and we all want to know that there is a safety net should we need it. Over recent years, that safety net has been eroded to the point that it is no longer functioning.

One of the most profoundly disheartening experiences for me as an MP since being elected in 2010 has been the relentless way in which disabled and sick people have been vilified and stigmatised in the public discourse about welfare reform. Those who had very little responsibility for the financial collapse and subsequent economic problems have nevertheless had to carry the can. The attempt to discredit disabled people in order to justify harsh and punitive cuts in their already fairly paltry incomes is quite shameful. It appals me that the most disadvantaged have been asked to pick up the tab disproportionately for the profligacy of others. As we look to the future, we see further cuts of £12 billion, at least, promised in the years ahead. For disabled people in Scotland, the choice between two very different futures is opening up before them: one with decisions on welfare made in Scotland, or one where further cuts slash their incomes even more. That choice must seem very stark indeed.

If this motion passes, it will be the third time this year that the Government have been defeated on a welfare-related motion. On two previous occasions, the Government have ignored Parliament in this respect; perhaps today it will be third time lucky. The cumulative impact assessment that the motion calls for is just the first step. I urge the Government to listen.

Housing Benefit

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

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

I am pleased to be able to contribute to the debate. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) for all that she has done to bring this issue to public attention.

The loophole in the regulations that we are discussing exposes just how poorly thought through the bedroom tax legislation has been from the start, and affords us a timely opportunity to take stock of how the legislation has been working in practice since its introduction last year. Today’s debate has revealed that the policy was, from the start, nothing more than a cash grab from those on the lowest incomes who were already living in the cheapest houses.

In Scotland, 80% of the homes affected by the bedroom tax are the homes of people with recognised disabilities, who already have the least choice about where and how they live. There is a broad political consensus in Scotland that the tax is proving to be unworkable, and that it is only harming disadvantaged tenants but damaging councils and local housing associations, undermining social cohesion in our communities, and harming the social fabric as a whole. Under the terms of the Scotland Act 1998 this area of policy is reserved to Westminster, so we have been stuck with Ministers whom we did not elect, imposing a policy for which we did not vote. Nevertheless, Scottish local authorities, the Scottish Government, and our housing associations and advice bureaux have had to mop up the mess over the last 10 months.

There is now clear evidence that the bedroom tax is costing taxpayers more than it is saving. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has analysed the cost of implementing the policy in relation to its projected savings, and concluded that a policy that was supposed to save about £50 million a year in Scotland is actually costing about £60 million a year to implement. Detailed research undertaken by COSLA with six councils also revealed disturbing trends in the patterns of arrears accruing in the social rented sector. In the first six months of the policy, an additional 31% of tenants affected by the tax were in rent arrears, and many of them had never been in debt before. Squeezing the bedroom tax from people on very low incomes who just cannot afford it is causing huge distress and worry to tenants, including those who are managing to pay, but it also has serious implications for social landlords and for the solvency of housing associations in particular.

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful case but does she agree that this is about a lack of affordable housing and, until we address that, the things that we are talking about will not get solved?

[Dr Whiteford]

I agree that the lack of affordable housing is a core issue, but there is also a chronic mismatch between the needs of prospective social tenants and the available housing stock. I have made the point many times in the House that, across Scotland, over 60% of tenants need a one-bedroom property, yet only 23% of the housing stock is one-bedroom size. Even if everyone were to be allocated a home of the requisite size, there are just not enough smaller houses to go around.

There has been a lot of talk today about the shortage of housing. The Scottish Government have managed to deliver more social housing than any other Administration in the UK, even on a fixed budget—a diminishing budget. It is a matter of political priority. If we understand there is a housing shortage, we need to fix it. There is no excuse.

Local authorities, housing associations and the Scottish Government have all had to take action to minimise the unwanted side effects of the bedroom tax, not least by topping up the budgets for discretionary housing payments by £20 million in the last year, which is the maximum amount allowed under section 70 of the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000, and by this year making available £35 million for discretionary housing payments, which would, in effect, enable councils to mitigate the entire impact of the bedroom tax for everyone affected. However, as I have said, this remains a reserved matter, and the Scottish Government have had to request permission from UK Ministers to increase the DHP budget. As far as I am aware, the Deputy First Minister is still awaiting a reply to her letter of January to Lord Freud making that request, so can I press Ministers today to listen to the Scottish Parliament’s view on this matter—a view supported by four parties, including their own coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats—and impress upon their ministerial colleague in the other place to crack on and signal his consent? Frankly, it is a travesty in the 21st century that a democratically elected Parliament has to ask permission from an unelected peer to spend its own people’s money. I hope that that is one anachronism that we can put right this September.

The money we are having to find to do that in Scotland must be found from budgets for other devolved policy areas, but given the substantial knock-on costs the policy is having for devolved institutions and housing associations, the democratic consensus around the issue and the distress it is causing to disadvantaged people, I do not think standing aside is an option. Although today we are debating a technicality, it is a technicality that exposes deeper flaws in the housing benefit legislation and exposes the warped values and misconceptions that have informed it.

From the start, the bedroom tax was unfair and ill conceived. Now, nearly a year on, it is not only failing to meet its own policy objectives, but creating needless bureaucracy and displacing large costs on to other parts of the public sector. A policy that costs the public purse more than it saves is a bad policy. A policy that harms our most disadvantaged citizens is a bad policy. A policy with big technical loopholes is a bad policy. I urge the Government to do the right thing and abandon the policy today.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I call Sheila Gilmore. If you could end your speech at five minutes past 3 so the Minister may begin her response then, that will be helpful.

Pensions and Benefits Uprating

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

If the arrangements in place before the last election had been maintained, the increases would have been at RPI. If they had been at RPI, we would be debating today a higher value for the basic state pension than the one in the order in front of us.

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

When we have debated such issues in the past, I have been quick to highlight the fact that both CPI and RPI are not particularly good methods of measuring inflation, especially its impact on low-income groups, including pensioners. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the real issue at stake here is that energy prices have increased by 37% in the past 10 years and that food inflation has grown ahead of inflation every year for the past eight years? We should be talking about the impact of inflation on low-income groups and not the technical measure. We should be finding technical measures that reflect that impact of inflation.

[Stephen Timms]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. I hope she will support Labour’s energy price freeze, which will have an important benefit for people on low incomes. She is also right to draw attention to the particular difficulties of pensioners on low incomes. It is for that reason that pension credit is so important. Pension credit, which is in the order in front of us—I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Gregg McClymont) will say more about that when he responds to the debate later—is being uprated at a significantly lower rate in percentage terms than the basic state pension.

I was talking about the history of the triple lock. In the first year, it was overridden, so it failed. In its second year, it was implemented and delivered an increase in line with CPI, along with working age benefits. Last year, it was applied again and, for the first time, it delivered something better than CPI, but that was only by 0.3 percentage points. This year, the Government propose to uprate the basic state pension by CPI, which, as of September last year, was 2.7%. That is only a 0.2 percentage point increase on the absolute bare minimum that would be possible under the triple lock. Had the previous uprating RPI mechanism been in place, there would have been a larger pension increase this year, and in the last two years, than has been delivered.

It was in 2011 that the Government first uprated pensions by CPI rather than RPI. In the debate then I pointed out that this was a direct hit on the income of pensioners, and it still is. In 2011, a contributory deal, understood and signed up to by pensioners, was broken. That was compounded last year, and the Government want to do it again this year. On the other side of the coin, it is worth noting that RPI will continue to be used for the uprating of a great many other things. The Minister has correctly quoted my comments on that in the past. There could well have been a case to uprate by CPI as a deficit reducing measure for a period. However, we do not accept that Ministers should have tied themselves to CPI indefinitely, and that remains our view.

As announced in 2010, the Government have also made a permanent switch to CPI uprating. Thanks to the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Act 2013, most working age benefits were capped at 1%, with provisions for them also to be capped at 1% for the following two years, and so are outside the scope of this order. As we have said in previous years, there would have been a reasonable case for the Government to make a temporary change to the methodology, but unfortunately they went further.

Oral Answers to Questions

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue with me before we came into Question Time. This looks like a case where something should be done. I will wait for the medical professionals to do this; it is a paper-based assessment, not a face-to-face one. I will look into it and come back to my hon. Friend as soon as I can.

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

While the UK Government have resisted calls for a cumulative impact assessment of their welfare reforms, the Scottish Government have undertaken such an assessment. It showed that, overwhelmingly, the £4.5 billion-worth of cuts are falling on disabled people and mothers. Does the Minister accept that the reason he will not carry out such an assessment is because he is scared that it will expose his Government’s priorities and their willingness to punish the poor?

Oral Answers to Questions

Eilidh Whiteford Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I said it all right, and I say it again: the Department is, and I am, absolutely sorry that anybody may have been caught up in this who should not have been. However, what we were left by the last Government was this: 1,000 pages of complex housing benefit regulations. Under universal credit, they will be reduced to 300 pages and we will simplify them. The reality is that this is a problem of the massive complexity of housing benefit that the last Government left us, with a housing benefit bill that has been rising and that doubled in 10 years on the right hon. Gentleman’s watch.

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

Discretionary housing payments simply will not plug the gap for disadvantaged tenants in Scotland. Given that last week the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities published clear evidence showing that the policy is costing more to implement than it saves, will the Secretary of State finally accept that it has been a disaster and abandon it?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

What I never hear about from the other side of the House, including from the hon. Lady, is what was left to us, which is 250,000 people living in overcrowded accommodation. Nobody on the Opposition Benches ever speaks for them or for the 1 million people they left on waiting lists who cannot get into homes while the taxpayer subsidises people to live in homes that they do not fully occupy. I simply put it back to the hon. Lady: I wonder when she or Opposition Front Benchers will ever speak for those they left in terrible conditions in overcrowded accommodation.