Welfare Benefit Changes

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Westminster Hall

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

I thank you for calling me a second time, Mr Pritchard. I am pleased to take part in this afternoon’s wide-ranging debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on bringing the issues forward so eloquently. The debate has, however, presented a sorry picture of the impact of the Government’s welfare reforms across the UK. Above all, it has brought home the point that austerity is not working; the Government are simply attacking low-income families, disabled people and those with long-term health conditions, while giving tax breaks to the very wealthiest.

We have heard today that children will be among those most severely impacted by the changes to tax credits in the new Welfare Reform and Work Bill, currently undergoing legislative scrutiny, but it is important to understand that the new measures are only the latest in a long line of assaults on the most disadvantaged people in our society.

Research on the cumulative impact of the reforms that have already been enacted, published by Sheffield Hallam University in February this year, calculated that by 2018 incomes in Scotland will have been reduced by £1.5 billion a year, or £440 for every adult of working age. According to the House of Commons Library, the current round of reforms in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill will take an estimated further £900 million a year from the lowest income households, and the heaviest losses will be sustained by families with children. As my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) said so powerfully, child poverty has long-term consequences. It cannot be fixed some years later with a magic bullet; it has a long-term impact on people’s life chances and life expectancy.

In Scotland, almost 200,000 families and 346,000 children are going to lose out because of changes to tax credits. The Resolution Foundation has pointed out that the vast majority of those children live in working families, and it expects that across the UK the changes to tax credits alone are going to push 200,000 more children into poverty by 2016, rising to 300,000 by 2020. Far from making work pay, the changes to tax credits for people already on low wages are going to entrench in-work poverty, not address it.

It is important to remember that the welfare reforms that have been implemented are having a hugely detrimental impact on thousands of people already hit by earlier reforms. We are seeing some of those effects much more clearly than we have until now—certainly more than we did at the time of their implementation.

Arguably, the most distressing symptom of the failure of welfare reform is the explosion of food bank use right across these islands. In Scotland, food bank use rose by two thirds last year alone. The Trussell Trust distributed 36,000 food parcels to children in Scotland, and that represents only some of the food banks operating in our communities. I do not think that is a sufficient or acceptable safety net for children in 21st-century Scotland —frankly, I do not know how Ministers sleep at night. It is very telling that not a single Back-Bench Tory MP is here today to defend the Government’s record. That is shameful.

The two biggest drivers for the unprecedented growth in food bank use are the changes in support for disabled people and those with long-term health problems, and, connected to that, the changes to the conditionality regime. For years now, serious concerns have repeatedly been raised about the work capability assessment for employment and support allowance. It has been an utter shambles.

According to the DWP’s own recent statistical analysis, over half of appealed fit-for-work ESA decisions are overturned. That is an unsustainable and unacceptable level of poor decision making. Moreover, it has led to protracted and costly appeal and tribunal proceedings—processes that place enormous stress on and cause real hardship to sick and disabled people and those who care for them. In some cases, they have exacerbated people’s health conditions.

The story with personal independence payments is similar, as my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) pointed out. A number of my constituents waited nearly a year for a PIP assessment, and so far, 20% of mandatory reconsiderations of PIP have resulted in a different decision being made. Under the previous contractor, Atos, the Government spent around £60 million a year on around 600,000 appeals against Atos decisions. A new contractor is now in place, but unless the Government actually change what they ask these companies to assess, and how, it is hard to see how Maximus is going to do any better than its predecessor.

A key problem has been that the complex medical histories of some claimants have not been consistently sought or considered adequately in a process that has been focused on functionality.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Given that the hon. Lady is on this point, I should briefly highlight that when there was a movement from the disability living allowance to the personal independence payment, there were instructions out that the Government expected 20% fewer people to be on PIP.

[Dr Whiteford]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. Those people still have those conditions to live with, in many cases, and their condition has not got any better. It is just that it has become more difficult for them to deal with their condition. The problem has been particularly acute for people with fluctuating conditions and mental health problems—illnesses that are perhaps not immediately visible. The Multiple Sclerosis Society has pointed out that 39% of its members who were surveyed said that their ESA assessments had not taken account of additional evidence.

I have raised this issue with Ministers many times, particularly in relation to mental health. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) rightly raised the tragic case of Michael O’Sullivan, following a ruling by the coroner concluding that a decision made in relation to his ESA was a major factor in his death. This man committed suicide after having been found fit for work by the Government’s assessors in 2013, but sadly this is not an isolated case.

Some time ago, I raised the 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 a single word, “depression”, which in her case masked a long and very complicated psychiatric history. Both her general practitioner and her consultant psychiatrist considered her unfit for work at the time of her death, even though she had worked for most of her adult life and wanted to go back to work. The distress caused by her benefits assessment may have played a role in her suicide. The investigation concluded that there was “no other known trigger” for the events that took place.

Those two cases have been properly investigated and fully documented, but they are unlikely to be isolated. I have had to learn to deal with constituents coming to me expressing suicidal feelings because of their experiences in the assessment process, and I am certainly not qualified to give them the kind of support that they clearly need. As an MP, all I can really do is point them in the direction of the appropriate services and try to help them to work their way through state bureaucracy. However, just at a human level, I do not think anyone can fail to be moved or to understand that we have a fundamental problem in this process. It is not treating people with the basic dignity that they require.

The shortcomings of the assessment system are leading directly to the problems experienced with the new sanctions regime. There has been considerable evidence for some time now that, for example, those with mental health conditions are being disproportionately sanctioned. Again, that chimes with the anecdotal evidence that I am sure many MPs here today will have seen at first hand—of very unwell people simply falling through the social safety net.

Recent figures published by the DWP on the sanctions regime show that in nearly 50% of reviewed cases, decisions are being reversed. We see a system that is not working efficiently, and again, we see horrendous social consequences for people who are ill and, in some cases, really very vulnerable. Once again, taking better account of individuals’ medical histories and getting the decisions right in the first place would prevent the stress, hardship and anxiety of sick and vulnerable people falling foul of the sanctions regime and finding themselves stigmatised, vilified and castigated simply for being unwell.

We need a root-and-branch review of the sanctions regime. In the last Parliament, the cross-party Work and Pensions Committee recognised that, as have countless external bodies representing those living with health problems. Will the Minister today please just bite the bullet, go back to the drawing board on the sanctions regime and recognise the links to the inadequacies in the assessment process?

I have already talked about the Government Benches; when I look around the Chamber, I am also struck by the number of Members who have spoken from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland this afternoon. I think that reflects the differential impact that welfare reform is having on the devolved Administrations. I also think it probably reflects a very different political ethos, but we will leave that for another day.

The Scottish Government have tried to protect those most affected by welfare reforms, providing over £300 million to mitigate the worst excesses of the changes; notably, that has mitigated the bedroom tax, maintained council tax benefit for half a million people and established the welfare fund. However, what we really need are economic powers and the powers over social security fully in the hands of our Parliament so that we can tackle the causes, not just the symptoms, of poverty and disadvantage.

I am sorry that so far the Government have voted against any moves to devolve really meaningful powers, betraying the promises made just over a year ago, but I hope that when we do have chance very shortly to debate these matters again, the Government will take the opportunity to accept some amendments that have been proposed, if only to reverse the damage that is going to be done to poor households through changes to tax credits.

The Government’s welfare reforms have bitten very deep already into the incomes of very poor people. It is important to remember that this Parliament has a responsibility to all its citizens—not just the rich people and those old enough to vote. We have to make sure that we do not abandon those people, because we have a responsibility to them, and we need a fairer social security system.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard.

The dynamics of this debate have said a great deal. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) spoke with huge passion and absolutely from the heart. We could hear the voice of Swansea in what she was saying, and it was important to hear an authentic voice explaining the real effects of these changes to social security and what they mean to real communities and real people. We are not talking rhetoric; we are not talking learned lines that are copied down throughout the Conservative party. We are talking about what happens to people in their homes and communities—people who, as has been pointed out, feel demeaned by what has happened to them. It is difficult for people to discuss it and, as my hon. Friend said, she wanted this to be an opportunity for the voices of victims of the benefit changes to be heard. I congratulate all hon. Members who have had the opportunity to be heard and who have spoken authentically on behalf of their communities.

We heard the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) saying that we are punishing workers on the lowest wages and that that is unbearable for many families. We then heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), and the voice from Birmingham said that the people who are using our food banks are in work. We heard from the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), who said we need regionalised figures to explain the impact of the changes on our communities. Then we heard from the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), who gave many examples of people who had been assessed as being fit for work, including a man who had had a second stroke. He discussed those constituents’ pain and suffering and how degrading Atos assessments have been—they are degrading, inhuman and disgraceful. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on that, because he spoke not only for people in Inverness, but for those across the country who have been assessed by Atos and feel the same.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on securing this important debate. The Government’s study identified that more than 330,000 children from low-income families in England will be hit by the benefits cap and that a couple with two children will be priced out of being able to rent a two-bedroom property in almost all areas of the south of England and across much of the midlands too. Does my hon. Friend agree that this state of affairs will have a potentially devastating effect on the lives of hundreds of thousands of children, who may be forced out of their homes and away from their communities, and that it is likely to have a particularly severe impact on single parents, who rely strongly on the local communities around them for support in bringing up their children?

[Emily Thornberry]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Many communities, particularly in inner London, have already been affected by the first benefit cap. We have already seen young children ripped out of primary schools and moved out of London, as families try desperately to find somewhere they will be able to afford under the benefit cap.

Introducing a benefit cap makes a profound change to the way we pay benefits. The social security system used to be, and had always been, a safety net available to everyone, but introducing a benefit cap disconnects need from the amount that we are prepared to pay. Larger families, which are in most need, will be affected most. It is not their fault that they live in inner London or that they cannot live in public rented housing because there is not enough affordable public rented housing so they must live in the private sector. The Government have introduced an arbitrary, politically motivated cap that will have a devastating effect on communities.

[Steve McCabe]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, as well as the impact on working people on low wages and the poor, another surprising aspect of Government policy is its total disregard for those with long-term, progressive, degenerative conditions such as muscular dystrophy?

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

I fully understand, Mr Pritchard. Given the number of people who have not been able to speak in this debate, I made the decision that I would encourage them to intervene. There is a huge amount I would like to say, but I am reflecting many hon. Members here today who want to speak.

We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) about increasing inequality and attempts to downgrade the welfare state, which is being attacking like a wrecking ball—I thought that was an important way of putting it. We then heard from the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) about the difficulty of assessing people with variable conditions, and it is perhaps even worse for those with degenerative conditions.

Two thirds of children in poverty have a parent in work. That is an important point; indeed, it should be written on the shaving mirrors and make-up mirrors of every Tory MP. If we are seeing an economic miracle, why is that happening? The Government and their Back Benchers should be thinking about that.

We heard from the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) about parents of three and four-year-olds and the expected gap between the time when childcare is supposed to be delivered and the time when they will be expected to go to work. It is obviously nonsense, and the amount of money the Government have provided for that childcare is also clearly nonsense. The Childcare Bill has only four pages and says little more than the Conservative party manifesto. There is no delivery mechanism for this wonderful childcare they claim they will provide, so we wait to see whether it happens.

We heard from the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) about the tax credit cut. The obvious question is: why is that happening when the inheritance tax threshold is being increased and from a Prime Minister who says we have an all-out war on poverty? Ha, ha, ha. In what way does that work exactly? My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) talked very movingly about working people who used to be able to pay their mortgage and their bills generally, but who now, after years of a pay freeze, are only one meal away from disaster. He also talked about the increasingly Dickensian conditions. We then heard from my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) about how the Conservatives’ policy seems to be based entirely on rhetoric, not evidence.

The best social policy comes from looking at what is happening, how it will work and what its effect will be. The fact that we do not have an equality impact assessment for the Welfare Reform and Work Bill says it all. We know those who will be affected most: it will be women and people from ethnic minority backgrounds. Why is there not an equality impact assessment to help to spell that out? If the Government want to make proper social policy, why do they not base it on evidence? What a shame it is that we hear all these voices—it is like alarm bells going off across the country—saying, “Do not do this. Do not introduce these welfare changes. You are increasing child poverty. You are increasing poverty in this country. Stop, think, pause,” and yet there is no one in the Chamber from the Conservative party, with the honourable exceptions of the Minister and his Parliamentary Private Secretary.

Where are all the others? Is it that those who are against the Bill dare not speak out, but just want to whisper behind their hands or give unattributable briefings? Where are those who really believe that what the Government are doing is correct? Where are the troops loyally coming out and saying what a great thing this is? It is not a great thing. The Government are ashamed of themselves, but they continue to keep going, hiding behind rhetoric and their friends in the right-wing media, when those who are voices for real people in this country know that what the Government are doing is devastating this country.