Oral Answers to Questions
Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
A constituent of mine who lives in Haddington was recently asked to attend a tribunal for her disability living allowance in Glasgow, which, because she had to use public transport, would have meant a round trip of six hours. That is not only unacceptable for her but places a strain on welfare rights in my constituency. Does the Minister think that that is acceptable?
Esther McVey
No, I do not think that a round trip of that long is acceptable. I will look into that case.
Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill
Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson
I am afraid that the Labour party’s proposals on so many matters are completely inconsistent. The greatest shame is that there are no ideas coming from Labour Members. They have no ideas about how to deal with the legacy that they left, in relation to welfare reform or in relation to the many billions of pounds of debts with which they have saddled the country.
Gavin Williamson
I will happily give way to the hon. Lady if she explains to the House what she will cut. I assume that she will be voting for the amendment. Will she shut schools in her constituency? Will she close hospitals? Will she sack teachers? Will she get rid of nurses? I want to hear what the hon. Lady is going to do.
Fiona O’Donnell
What I want to do is return the hon. Gentleman to the subject of the Bill. Does he agree with Disability Rights UK, which has said that 1 million disabled people will be affected by the 1% uprating, and that more disabled people will be living in poverty? Is he proud of that?
Gavin Williamson
I am taking a lead from the Labour Front Benchers and touching on some of the reasons why we are in this position, and having to make highly difficult decisions. We are not scared to take difficult decisions, but perhaps if the Labour party had made some of the tough choices that we have made—if it had reformed welfare earlier, and had not trapped so many people in welfare dependency—the decisions that the present Government are having to make would be far, far easier.
I am afraid that the hon. Lady is not facing up to the reality, and nor is her party doing so. This Government are committed to giving a hand up, not a handout. What we want to see is people getting into work. What we want to see is people doing well, and not constantly depending on the state.
Oral Answers to Questions
Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Hoban)
My hon. Friend makes an important point. That is exactly why we have been working with Professor Harrington to implement the findings set out in his report. One of his findings relates to cancer sufferers, which is why we published new guidance last month on how they should be treated under the work capability assessment.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
T6. Many of my constituents who devote a great deal of effort to providing Atos with detailed medical supporting evidence will be deeply disappointed with the Minister’s earlier answer. What steps is he taking to ensure that Atos takes full account of medical evidence when determining work capability assessments—
Fiona O'Donnell
I appreciate that the Minister is eager to answer and look forward to hearing from him. I ask that because at the moment Atos is simply ignoring that evidence.
Mr Hoban
What the work capability assessment does is assess people’s ability to work. It is a review of their capability and functionality, not a diagnostic assessment. That is why the assessment takes place. Of course, it is right that claimants bring along medical evidence, but it must be read in conjunction with the Atos assessment. Decisions about eligibility for employment and support allowance are made by DWP staff, not Atos.
Work Capability Assessments
Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Cathy Jamieson
The point about fluctuating conditions is well made. That is exactly the problem. Some people with such conditions, in some circumstances, will be able, with the right support, to hold down employment, but others will not be able to do so, perhaps because of the cycle of their condition or because their mental health is affected. I am concerned that the process in question appears to be a tick-box exercise.
One more example from my case work involved a gentleman who lost a leg and badly damaged the other in a childhood accident. Clearly he suffered as a result of that disability. He was awarded zero points. If the system is to have the confidence of the public and the people being assessed, it must be seen as fair. My constituents tell me that there are so many inconsistencies that they feel that they are not treated fairly, that their individual circumstances are not taken into account, and that the procedure is indeed a tick-box exercise.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent contribution to the debate. The information in question is in the public domain, and part of the problem is that that means people facing the process have no confidence in it. It causes such stress, particularly for people with mental health problems, that it has even driven some to take their own lives. How can that be defended?
Cathy Jamieson
I hope that my hon. Friend will understand that I take such issues seriously. I am very concerned to hear that she is aware of people being driven to such drastic action as taking their own lives. Going by the correspondence and contact that I have with constituents, I can say only that I know just how difficult it is for people, and that many feel they cannot face the appeal process—particularly those who have suffered from a condition for years and who feel that the process is undignified and that they do not get the right help and support, and who perhaps do not know to whom to turn.
Unemployment
Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
The right hon. Gentleman and other Members can read the OBR forecasts, which state that at the end of a difficult economic period unemployment will start to fall again. I remind him that we are dealing with international circumstances that the Governor of the Bank of England described as being among the most difficult in modern times, if not the most difficult.
Of course, alongside the measures that we need to take to support and encourage business growth, we need high-quality support for the unemployed to ensure that we can get them back into work as quickly as possible.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
The Minister has been on his feet for what feels quite a long time, and he has attacked the public sector and talked about how he will support the private sector but not once mentioned the third sector. That shows the Government’s real attitude to that sector’s role in supporting people into employment, which was what made the future jobs fund work.
Chris Grayling
If the hon. Lady will allow me, I will finish explaining what we are doing. Last night, we published figures showing that 20% of referrals taking place through the Work programme are being handled by the voluntary sector, so it is playing an extremely important part in our work. It is also helping us to deliver a number of other programmes, and it is an integral part of supporting both the short and long-term unemployed.
There are a number of elements to the package that we have put in place. The first is support for the shorter-term unemployed, with a particular focus on the young, through our work experience programme and sector-based work academies. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill would know, had he read the figures that we published, that the first statistics, for the period up until August, showed that more than 50% of the young people going through our work experience programme moved off benefits quickly afterwards. Indeed, we know that many of those young people are staying in employment with the employers who gave them their work experience place. The scheme is a great success, and we are doubling its size as part of the youth contract.
I should like to put it on record that I am very grateful to all the employers up and down the country, large and small, that are offering young people work experience and helping to break the vicious circle whereby people cannot get a job unless they have experience, but they cannot get experience unless they have a job. The scheme is cost-effective, costing one twentieth of what was spent on the future jobs fund for a broadly similar outcome. It is a great initiative, and I pay tribute to all the Jobcentre Plus staff who are working on it.
Jenny Willott (Cardiff Central) (LD)
Of course it is right that we are debating this important issue today. Everybody knows that unemployment is a serious problem across the country. We seem, however, to have had the same Opposition day debate over and over again. The same people have been in the Chamber repeatedly over the last few months, and every debate follows the same pattern. Labour never accepts responsibility for the economic mess in which we find ourselves and no new ideas on how to tackle the problem are offered; the same old failed ideas are repeated in every debate.
Jenny Willott
No, I will not. There will be plenty of opportunities for others to speak later. I hope that by not giving way, as many Back Benchers as possible will have the opportunity to contribute.
The Government are trying to rebalance the economy left to us by Labour. Labour relied on the public sector for far too long to make up for declining growth elsewhere, and it did not support the private sector in the good times. Some areas have stratospheric levels of public sector employment. In Merthyr Tydfil, for example, more than 40% of people—more than four in 10—are employed in the public sector. That is clearly not sustainable across the country as a whole. We must work to increase employment in other sectors—the private sector has already been mentioned and other Members have mentioned the voluntary or third sector—to reduce our reliance on the public sector and ensure that we have a much better balanced economy that is better able to absorb shocks from the global economy and future recessions.
There is some evidence that we are starting to see progress. I would take issue with the figures of the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron). My understanding is that public sector employment fell last year by 276,000, but that employment in the private sector increased by 262,000—a difference of only 14,000 jobs. Almost all the jobs lost in the public sector have been replaced by an increase in jobs in the private sector.
Jenny Willott
I am not going to give way.
There are problems in the eurozone, problems with bank lending and so forth, which have a serious impact on job creation in the private sector, but we can say that we are starting to see some progress, and the Government are trying to encourage even more progress. The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), who is responsible for employment, announced in the autumn statement measures to stimulate growth. Rather than try to borrow their way out of a debt crisis, the Government are being more pragmatic and sensible. I welcome some innovative ideas for raising money—working with pension funds, for example, to unlock £20 billion of investment. That is better than the Government simply borrowing more and more money, which has been shown not to work.
I share the concerns of some Labour and Government Members about the level of youth unemployment. I know that this is a concern across the House. Under Labour, youth unemployment rose nearly 75% between 2001 and 2010, so it was a serious problem before this Government came to power. There has been an increase, however, in the number of young people who are unemployed, and I know that Ministers, too, are deeply concerned about that. I am glad that the Government are investing in trying to tackle it. We need to recognise that it is going to be tough for young people in the near future, and we need to do more to make them as employable as possible so that when jobs are created and become available, they can take them up.
We know from past experience, and from the experience of unemployed people today, that people who are seeking work and spending all their time going to the job centre and applying for jobs can find the experience hugely demoralising, and it can lead to depression and mental health problems. For decades, that has been a problem for people facing unemployment. We need to make it easier for younger and older people facing unemployment to volunteer in order to build their skills, to learn what they enjoy doing, to get useful information for their CVs, to get good references and to help keep them closer to the job market.
Jobcentre Plus and the Work programme providers could work with the local voluntary sector and others in many areas to identify more opportunities for those on jobseeker’s allowance to volunteer. There are already many opportunities across the third sector, which we have heard about in various debates on this theme. There are other ways in which unemployed people of whatever age can volunteer and build up their skills. For example, it is possible to become a magistrate at 21. That is a good way in which people can gain experience in an area about which they would not necessarily know anything otherwise, while also learning skills that they can transfer to employment. Charity shops are always looking for volunteers, who will have the opportunity to gain retail experience that they too can transfer to employment. The retail sector in my constituency still has a significant number of vacancies, and it is one of the sectors that are most willing to take on those who are furthest from the jobs market.
There are plenty of ways in which we can help people to develop the habit of working by getting up at the same time each day, finding out what they enjoy, learning people skills, and acquiring new skills that they can take into work when jobs are created. Some may be inspired to set up their own businesses—older people who have experience and skills that they can take into entrepreneurship, and young people who are brimming with ideas.
I accept that the unemployment figures are an individual tragedy for all the people affected, and I am sure that we all feel the same, but relying on the ability to borrow more money will not help us to find a way out of this situation. We need to see investment, and to see the Government putting their money where their mouth is.
Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Listening to the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), one would have thought, “Oh, the Labour Government did a marvellous job. Then along came this coalition and they mucked it up.” One would never have thought it was the Labour Government who beggared this country, who borrowed and borrowed and borrowed again, who gave us the worst deficit in the G20, who doubled national debt, who sold our gold at a record low price—£23 billion down the drain—who took £5 billion a year out of our pension funds, and who gave back our EU rebate of £7 billion a year and got nothing in return. Then, there was the moment of salvation—the last general election. A moderate coalition Government came in and started to make the sort of decisions that needed to be made in the national interest—the sort of decisions Labour ducked. Now, though, we are told, “The consequences of those difficult decisions—they’re all your fault.” They certainly are not.
If we look at the Labour years, we see that, as always happens with Labour, unemployment went up—to 2.5 million by the time they left office. We see that youth unemployment rose by 270,000 under the Labour Government. Theirs was not a successful Government, but a Government who led Britain to the brink of bankruptcy. It is our Government—the coalition Government—who are rescuing this country. Of course it is not easy. It is right to say that every redundancy is a personal tragedy—of course it is. We must try to do all we can as a country to help people back into work, but my goodness, this Government cannot be blamed for the situation from which they are trying to rescue the country.
That Labour Government were also the Government who tried to hide from the realities. Take the vast number of people claiming incapacity benefit: it is this Government who are testing and ensuring that those who receive incapacity benefit are genuinely entitled to it, and that it is not being used to mask unemployment in areas where there is a particular labour market problem. Take Labour’s measures on long-term youth unemployment, where a training scheme was introduced after 12 months and the clock was started again, to mask what was happening in this country. Although 2.5 million extra jobs—half of them were part-time, of course—were created in the Labour years, they did not seriously affect unemployment, which was reduced by about 300,000. That is because the Labour Government were not really tackling the underlying problem of the 5 million people of working age who were not engaged in the labour market.
Fiona O'Donnell
Given that is now clear that the benefits bill will rise by £29 billion—higher than the Government predicted—does the hon. Gentleman think that the plan is working?
Oliver Heald
I think that this Government are making a serious, determined and honest effort to help people in very difficult times. The hon. Lady talks as though there is no eurozone crisis and the world is not experiencing the problems it is experiencing, but those problems are out there. This is a difficult time politically and economically, yet this Government are trying to help people.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
Today’s employment statistics make extremely sobering reading. They spell out more clearly than any of our speeches today just how much our economy is struggling and how the recovery is faltering. We know from the Office for Budget Responsibility that the UK economy is already contracting in the final quarter of this year and we can predict with some confidence that there will be more turbulent times in 2012.
Fiona O'Donnell
Has the hon. Lady seen the latest statistics showing that Scotland had the second-worst unemployment in the UK in the last quarter? Does she think that her Government in Holyrood have any responsibility for those figures?
Dr Whiteford
I am certainly happy to look at that because the sharp increase in unemployment in Scotland is very concerning. However, over the past year as a whole, unemployment in Scotland has fallen and employment has risen. That compares very favourably with the record of the hon. Lady’s Administration. For most of the past few years, employment in Scotland has outperformed employment in the rest of the UK. That record contrasts sharply with the situation when Labour and the Liberal Democrats were in coalition in Scotland.
We have to look at the big picture and remember that when the Government set us down the path of austerity a year and a half ago, many of us warned that taking the feet out from under the public sector was not the way to boost employment and growth in the private sector. We said that the cuts went too far too quickly and it gives me no pleasure whatever to be proved right on that front. It is now abundantly clear that the medicine is not working and is not achieving the results we want. I accept that the Government have not been in control of some of the external circumstances, but nevertheless those risks were always apparent. The Government need to acknowledge that their plan is not working and that it is time for a change of direction.
What has been disappointing this afternoon is the very ideological and doctrinaire approach taken by Members on the Government Benches to their prescriptions. It would be helpful if we acknowledged the interdependence of the public and the private sectors. The bottom line is that the UK as a whole is losing public sector jobs faster than the private sector can create them. We all know that borrowing is still very difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises, which is a major source of potential growth. We know that business confidence is low, but in that circumstance it makes no sense at all to punish the public sector when the private sector just cannot keep up.
Paradoxically, that is the opposite of what has been happening in Scotland. One of the interesting things—
Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
I want to begin by answering some of the accusations made by the hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke). I do not think that it is a price worth paying to see the failure of this Government just so that we can get any kind of political advantage. He should have withdrawn his remarks—Members were not laughing, we were saying that the Government’s plan is not working.
Jobs and employment are the biggest issue in my constituency and the latest figures now show that just under 2,000 people are claiming jobseeker’s allowance and chasing 191 vacancies in East Lothian. That means that if every Member sitting on the Government Benches went for a job, only one would stand a chance of getting one.
I also want to address the comments made by the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott). She spoke about the voluntary sector and her contribution contained a lot of sense and value. I concede that Government Members care about unemployment. I have no doubt that when the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions went to Glasgow East and saw what poverty and deprivation did that he was genuinely moved, but I think there is a real gap when it comes to introducing policies and systems that help and support people in getting out of poverty and long-term unemployment. The Government talk about the voluntary sector playing a role when they are cutting the public sector, but the voluntary sector, which played such an important role in the future jobs fund, is now less able to respond to people’s needs.
The hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) made the most unhelpful remark in the entire debate when she said that the Prime Minister went to Europe to stand up for London. I remind her—even the Prime Minister knew this—that there are financial services sector jobs across the United Kingdom, not only in London.
Fiona O’Donnell
I will give way, but I am going to try to be disciplined and not take the extra time.
Fiona O’Donnell
What I had really hoped for was a little humility. We have been preached to about humility, but the hon. Lady completely failed to recognise that there are financial services sector jobs in other parts of the country. My constituency is heavily dependent on the financial services sector in Edinburgh, and we will see what happens. The signs since this Government came into office have not been good.
The Government offer us the Work programme. I have been to visit the providers in my constituency. A woman opened up a spreadsheet and said she was not sure whether she was meant to show me it. It was, in effect, a profit and loss account showing at each quarter how many people the providers need to help into work to get a return on the payments from the Government. The most depressing thing was seeing the percentage they expected not to find their way in to work at the end of the two years.
My fear is that providers will not invest the resources in supporting that percentage, whom we could probably all identify when they walk in the door, when they are the very people who need more help and support to take them back into work. This is where the Government do not get it.
I remember during the 1997 general election knocking on a door and meeting a woman who was still in her pyjamas in the early afternoon and trying to convince her that she could get out, vote Labour and make a difference. She did not even have a reason to get dressed. When Government Members hear of a case like that, they think in terms of a drain on resources, and resentment and a grudging feeling come over them. They do not think about how to support someone like that and what it might mean for someone to have reached that low point in their life when they do not think that they have any contribution to make to society.
I am also particularly concerned about the increase of 55% in the number of young people in my constituency who have faced no prospect of finding work since this Government came into power. The future jobs fund gave them hope. Government Members keep yelling that it did not lead to real jobs, but the hon. Member for Cardiff Central, to give her credit again for bringing some reason into the debate, talked about the elements of the fund. She described eloquently how it helped young people to break the habit of not getting up in the morning, to gain self-esteem and to feel not only supported but understood.
We take no joy in the Government’s failure to address the needs of people who are seeking work, or to create the jobs that could lift them out of poverty. It is not a price worth paying for the political advantage that we are benefiting from.
Living Standards
Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
I am grateful to be called to speak in the debate. The Government’s failure in economic policy is having a profound effect on our nation, but it is also having a disproportionate impact on regions such as the north-east and the poorest in our society. I have every sympathy for the squeezed middle, and many of my constituents are part of it, but I have much greater sympathy for the people who are the battered base in our economy, the very poorest in our society, who the Government’s policies are attacking the worst.
In March the Government launched their much-heralded “The Plan for Growth”. In the foreword, the Business Secretary and his new friend the Chancellor stated:
“This Plan for Growth is an urgent call for action. Britain has lost ground in the world’s economy, and needs to catch up. If we do not act now, jobs will be lost, our country will become poorer and we will find it difficult to afford the public services we all want. If we do not wake up to the world around us, our standard of living will fall, not rise.”
Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that one area where we are missing an opportunity for growth is green growth, and that yesterday the Government finally shed any claim to be the greenest Government ever by threatening investment in green technologies and green jobs?
Ian Mearns
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her comments, which are absolutely true. Certainly, companies in the north-east that have invested heavily in plant to develop photovoltaic cells for household generation and microgeneration have had the base of their work cut away by the Government’s slashing of input tariffs, which will have a disastrous effect on them.
The warning from the Business Secretary and his new friend the Chancellor was a call to action—fine words, but we all know that actions speak much louder. In my constituency and in the wider north-east the impact of the Government’s failure has been, and will be, enormous. Even before their economic sabotage, the Local Knowledge public sector employment survey predicted more than 287,000 public sector job losses in the north-east alone. As a consequence of the Chancellor’s statement yesterday, that figure will probably be higher. The Government claim that we are all in this together, but they know, as they knew before embarking on their failed economic experiment, that it will be the poorest and most vulnerable regions and people who will pay the greatest relative cost.
Oral Answers to Questions
Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Maria Miller
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. As she will doubtless be aware from her own constituency, the aspirations of young disabled people are no different from those of any other people. That is why, through the Work programme, the Work Choice programme and the access to work scheme, we will give young disabled people all the opportunities they need to progress into work.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
T3. The Secretary of State seemed surprised that we do not share his love of statistics. I wonder whether it was he who briefed the Prime Minister last week, leading to the Prime Minister claiming at Prime Minister’s questions“that 500,000 people have jobs who did not have one at the time of the election.”—[Official Report, 19 October 2011; Vol. 533, c. 893.] The Prime Minister was not at his most eloquent last week. However, according to official figures, between April to June 2010 and the most recent figures—June to August 2011—employment is up by just 87,000. We do not like the Secretary of State’s statistics when they are wrong. Does this not prove that the Government do not have a plan for tackling unemployment?
Chris Grayling
The hon. Lady is missing something out. One of the most regular refrains from the Opposition over the past few months has been that, as we have had to make necessary changes in the public sector as a result of the financial mess they left behind, the private sector would not be able to take up the slack. The truth is that although we have had a bad quarter for unemployment, we have seen more than 500,000 extra jobs in the private sector since the election and more jobs created in the private sector over the past year than have been lost in the public sector.
Pensions Bill [Lords]
Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Jenny Willott
Later in my speech I will move on to comments that relate to the hon. Lady’s point.
Capping the state pension age increase to a maximum of 18 months will protect 250,000 women, as we have heard, and 250,000 men. Therefore, 500,000 people will be better off as a result of the Government amendments. As we have heard, that is costing more than £1 billion. I am grateful to the Secretary of State and the Minister for managing to get £1 billion out of the Treasury. That is no mean feat. A problem with any change to the state pension is that the costs are in the billions, not the millions.
Jenny Willott
I will make some progress first.
That problem makes it extremely difficult for small changes to be made. Given the financial circumstances, with the issues of debt and deficit that we have discussed, and the fact that other Departments are asking for money in the millions rather than the billions, convincing Treasury officials to be more generous cannot be easy. I hope that all hon. Members appreciate that the £1 billion going to these 500,000 people is a significant amount of money that has been found by the Government.
Richard Graham
I am delighted to be called to speak in the debate. I welcome amendments 13 and 14, which show that the Government have listened to their people, and I congratulate the Secretary of State and the Pensions Minister on successfully providing some relief to women in their 50s in my constituency. I pay tribute to all those from Gloucester who came to see me about this issue, led by Patsy Toleman, and to those who were encouraged by the campaign led by Age UK to write to me about it.
Like others on both sides of the coalition Government, I have been very active in writing to and making the case personally to the Secretary of State and the Chancellor, and I am sorry that the Opposition have been less than generous in their recognition of the value of capping at 18 months the increase in the wait for their pension for 250,000 women. They should perhaps be reminded that Age UK has said that
“we can’t emphasise enough the great achievement that this change represents as it will cost the Government £1 billion in lost cuts to expenditure.”
Richard Graham
I will be more generous than the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Gregg McClymont) was earlier; I will give way.
Fiona O’Donnell
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his generosity. He might find us ungenerous, but I wonder how many of those women who came to see him have been in touch over the past few days to tell him that the Government have gone far enough.
Richard Graham
I have not heard specifically from any of those who originally lobbied me on this issue. No doubt they will be hearing this debate, and I think that they will recognise, as all Members should do, that the Government cannot simply brush aside the issue of expenditure as those on the Opposition Front Bench did when they were in government. The interest that all our families are having to pay on the mountain of national debt built up by the hon. Lady’s party over the past 13 years means that an amount greater than the entire education budget is being spent on debt interest alone. That affects every woman in her constituency and in mine.
Dame Anne Begg
I may be Chair of the Select Committee, but I am afraid that I have no direct say in what should be in a Labour or any other manifesto. However, common sense tells us that whoever is in power after the next election—the Liberal Democrats might have a majority then, and might want to reverse the arrangement—voting against the amendment tonight will remove any chance of our ever finding a solution for this group of women. Events will have moved on, the timetable will have been set, and the pension age will have already changed by the time of the next election. That is what I mean about the lack of time in which to plan.
I hope that Members will accept that it is wrong that this anomaly has been created. I hope that those who have listened to the women in their constituencies will do the right thing tonight, and will vote for the Opposition amendment. That is what I shall be doing.
Fiona O’Donnell
I am genuinely grateful for the opportunity to support the amendment to which my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Gregg McClymont) spoke so eloquently. I welcome him to the Dispatch Box.
Many women in my constituency have contacted me about this issue, and none of those who have contacted me over the weekend, yesterday or today have expressed the view that the Government have gone far enough; they all support the amendment. I found it almost stomach-turning to hear the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) congratulate herself on winning this concession from the Government. I do not think that even Labour Members should take credit for the achievement—lacking though it is in ambition—and I certainly do not think that the Liberal Democrats should do so. I wish that some of the honourable and good Liberal Democrat members of the Bill Committee mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Malcolm Wicks) had had the guts and the principle to propose similar amendments when they had the opportunity. This feels a bit like Groundhog Day: it is the Health and Social Care Bill all over again.
Credit for the victory, such as it is, lies with all the women who have written to us, e-mailed us, telephoned us, and come to the House to make their case. They have said, “We will not sit back and let the Government do this to us.” Every evening as I leave this place, I see a touching reminder in the poster in the tube station showing those women, although I must confess that at first I considered it rather strange that there was also a man in the photograph, and wondered what that could be about. The fact is that this change will have an impact not just on the women concerned, but on the families for whom they have made plans. In the light of the rising cost of child care, they have asked themselves, “When can I help my sons and daughters to make better lives for themselves and their families?” I have to say that I think my sons and my daughter have similar plans for me, which I intend to resist for as long as possible.
The Government, particularly the Liberal Democrats, have not just broken their promise to women; they have broken their promise to their families as well. What an appalling lack of ambition from a Government! They have repeatedly called on Labour Members to say how we would pay for our proposals, so let me give them a couple of examples. Through the future jobs fund, they could take a million young people off the dole queue so that they were back at work and contributing to the system. They could scrap their top-down reorganisation of the NHS. They could ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether he has any money left in the pocket where he found the bin money. This is not about arithmetic; it is about political will. It is about the Government saying, “We believe that this is something worth doing, and it is something to which we will commit ourselves.”
Steve Webb
I am very grateful. We let a lot of things past, but will the hon. Lady clarify one point? She mentioned—I think I quote her accurately—getting a million young people back to work through the future jobs fund. Can she tell the House how many permanent jobs young people actually got when Labour ran the future jobs fund?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I think the hon. Lady knows—and the Minister certainly does—that the debate has nothing to do with the future jobs fund.
Fiona O’Donnell
Perhaps we can have that conversation another time. The point is that the Government do not have the political will to do something about this. In opening for the Opposition, my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East mentioned that it is not just the Prime Minister of this Government who does not “get” women; the whole team do not “get” women.
At Prime Minister’s questions two weeks ago, I watched the Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary gathering—almost dragging—women from their seats in order to create a female halo around the Prime Minister. He and his Government need to understand that the reason he is turning women off has nothing to do with stage management or presentation. The reason is the policies—such as the one we are discussing—which are adversely and unfairly impacting on women. I urge Liberal Democrat Members in particular, who have at times pushed the Government on this issue, to go the whole hog tonight and back the amendment.
When a Government consider an inequality impact assessment, that is not political correctness gone mad—it is not just something the previous Labour Government left for the current Government. Rather, it is about good government and good decision making, so that when a Government make a decision, they are in full possession of the facts about how that decision will impact on people.
Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)
I would have some sympathy for the hon. Lady’s cause if she could explain where we might find the money to fund what she wants. [Interruption.] This is not about the future jobs fund. Will the hon. Lady tell us where the Labour party would find the cash?
Fiona O’Donnell
The hon. Gentleman should be extremely grateful to me for giving way, as he has not had the courtesy to be present for the entire debate. The fact is that when this Government want to find money, they can do so.
This decision betrays an appalling lack of ambition. I understand that the Government are not doing well in growing the economy, and they are probably a little disappointed in themselves—as, indeed, others are disappointed in them. Perhaps they have little faith in this country’s ability to recover and come out of the recession, with people back in work and contributing to the state. However, none of that serves to explain why this group of 500,000 women have to pay the price. Why do they have to pay for the Government’s plan to reduce debt?
For every one of those 500,000 women who will work for longer—300,000 of them for the full 18 months—there is a real story, such as that of a woman who works in the care service and who wrote to me. If she had known a few years ago that she was going to have to work extra time, she would have got out of the care sector while she could. She thinks she can struggle on until her retirement age as it stands now, but given the physical demands of her job, she does not think she can do another 18 months of lifting and handling.
Unfortunately, the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) has left the Chamber. He talked about women retiring at 40 and 50 and living another 60 years of retirement. He is not talking about the women we are talking about. The women who need this money most are the women this Government are hurting most.
I urge Members to consider fairness, and to consider giving these women a fair chance. This is our one opportunity to stand up for those 500,000 women—the women who have been contacting us, appealing for justice. I hope we will all do the right thing tonight.
Sheila Gilmore
We are talking about a spending period over 10 years, so it is not equivalent to the budget in a given year. Even in those terms, we are always making choices, and I will not accept lessons from a party with many members who are publicly saying that, as quickly as possible, they want to reduce or take away the 50% tax rate. That is something they are keen to do and that is their choice. They can make the case for it, but if they bring that proposal forward, I for one will certainly oppose it. That is another way of deciding how money is going to be spent and how money is going to be collected—and that is only one example.
In an earlier intervention, I mentioned the pension tax relief system, which gives a huge amount of money to people who already have a lot of money. If someone wants to save £100 into their pension pot and they are on 20% tax, in order to get £200 tax relief they have to find £800 from their pocket, but if someone is on 50% tax, they have to find only half the amount they want to save. That is unfair; it is a subsidy to those who already have a lot of income and assets. If at the end of this decade we are finding it difficult to make ends meet and we cannot help the group of women we are talking about, perhaps we should be thinking about that system.
The women who are affected by the measure will be making exactly those comparisons. They know that choices are made in politics and that choices are made by Governments, and they know that it is not impossible for the Government to change their mind on this proposal. They did not campaign for it during the election; indeed one of my hon. Friends has suggested that it was probably drawn up in a great hurry and seemed like a good wheeze at the time, but it puts a particular burden on a group of women many of whom cannot easily afford the changes. I want to emphasise, as several of my colleagues have done, that it should not be assumed that these women have a job and can just go on doing that job, or that they will still be in that job in three, four or five years’ time.
Fiona O’Donnell
Does my hon. Friend agree that those 500,000 women will also be asking, “Why us? Why not the banks or the bankers?” Why are they being made to pay? This is not just a question of economics but a question of right and wrong—and this is clearly wrong.
Sheila Gilmore
I could not have put it better myself.
Another question that the Minister has to answer is whether the Government, in looking for the savings they plan to make by going down this road, have put into the mix the additional costs that might arise in relation to some of these women, some of whom will not be able to work and might claim benefits. Some might claim jobseeker’s allowance for a period and others might claim employment and support allowance if they are in ill health, although some of them will find that those benefits are cut off very quickly in certain circumstances because of other Government proposals. They will then be thrown back to spending any savings they may have made towards retirement.
A woman in her 50s or early 60s who finds herself in that position may not be able to claim benefit for very long. If she has a partner or has savings of any sort she will not be eligible for the means-tested benefits that come in after six months in the case of JSA and that, under Government proposals, will be lost after a year even for people who are unfit to work and are in a work-related activity group. They will find themselves eating up—literally in some cases—their savings to make it through to their postponed retirement date. Of course, at that stage, those women will no doubt have to claim additional top-ups to help their financial situation. I would like to be satisfied that the Government have taken those costs into account. The women themselves will have to meet extra costs, and so will the Government. The proposal is ill-thought-out and there has been a lot of time to rethink it. Like all the women who have been campaigning on this, I am extremely disappointed that the Government are not prepared to support our amendment tonight.
Fiona O’Donnell
Will the Minister also advise those women of their right to employment and support allowance? Will he confirm that, if they claim ESA, are turned down, wait seven months—as some have in my constituency—for an appeal, and that period crosses over their entitlement date to the state pension, their appeal will still be heard and any benefits backdated?
Steve Webb
Perhaps the hon. Lady does not understand what I am saying. I am talking about people who will reach state pension age in seven or eight years’ time, so I am not sure that writing a letter, stating, “In the event you are on a certain benefit in seven or eight years’ time, and the delay in tribunals in such and such,” is germane to my point.
The Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), in a characteristically balanced contribution—[Interruption]—I spotted the balance even if nobody else did. She described the changes we are making today as a huge achievement, then said, “Well why don’t we go the whole hog,” but there are 11.1 billion reasons why we are not going to go the whole hog, and I am sure she understands that point.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh East said, “Well, I wouldn’t start from here”—and so say all of us. I do not think that any one of us would have chosen to inherit an annual deficit of £150 billion that had to be cleared up—[Interruption.] Members say from a sedentary position, “This isn’t about the deficit,” but a sequence of deficits creates a debt, which will be £1.4 trillion at the end of this Parliament, and that is both a capital sum and the interest that our children and grandchildren will have to pay, so we should take responsibility for it and tackle it.
The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) said that the Work programme does not do anything for older women, but its beauty is that providers do not get paid unless they tailor what they do to the individual in front of them. For example, we find that the biggest barrier for many potential older workers is IT skills; they are entirely job-ready but not necessarily up to speed with technology. So, if that is the barrier, the Work programme provider does not need to come to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for approval, as in the old days, asking whether it is on a departmental checklist; they just get on with it, help the person obtain the skills and are rewarded only if they get that individual a job.
Welfare Reform Bill
Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Margaret Curran
We have reached a vital stage in our consideration of the Bill. Government proposals for the reform of benefits for disabled people have been mired in controversy and bogged down by issues that the Government have failed to address, and they have alienated many organisations of and for disabled people. Sadly, instead of listening to and attempting to understand those concerns, the Government have dismissed them and undermined the traction that they command throughout the country. So much for the new politics! Instead of continuing the previous policy and the new approach of co-production practised with care and consideration by my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire) when she was the Minister with responsibility for disabled people, the Under-Secretary has been steadfast in her refusal to appreciate the issues brought to her, which I will detail. I fear that her approach has alienated the voices for reform in the disability movement and in this House. As a result, we are debating a huge missed opportunity for meaningful reform. However, we are where we are, and we will debate the proposals before us and our amendments to improve them.
Let me say a few words to provide some context. Although disability living allowance is a much respected and much valued benefit, it was designed in a different time, well before measures such as the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 and the Equality Act 2010, which were introduced by the last Labour Government and which have profoundly changed the way in which disabled people participate and are recognised in society today. I acknowledge that the application procedure to make a new DLA claim—the process of self-assessment whereby somebody has to fill out a long, and at times complicated, form—is not one that many people believe to be suitable in a modern welfare state. We therefore believe, and have said consistently throughout our deliberations, that it is right to reform DLA. We welcome the Government’s decision to keep DLA as a non-means-tested, in-work benefit, and we think it is right to introduce a new, objective gateway.
Notwithstanding that, we feel that this Government have made profound mistakes and have missed opportunities in their approach to DLA reform. The whole process was kick-started by a rushed consultation. Apparently, according to the DWP website, it was one of the biggest of its kind, yet despite all those representations it yielded very few changes following the introduction of the Bill. The consultation was carried out over the Christmas and new period and was cut short. Perhaps most disappointingly of all, the Government chose to publish their proposals before it had even closed. No wonder this Minister, in particular, has a reputation for not listening. She will know that charities and the disabled people whom they represent have been highly critical of the process of reform. It did not have to be like that, and it is very disappointing that the Government did not undertake more groundwork to ensure that key stakeholders were a key part of the reform process.
While we take issue with the process of reform, we also have major concerns about its substance, and that will be the focus of my remarks. We now know that universal credit will halve support for disabled children and take away the severe disability premium for disabled people who live alone without a carer, yet put nothing appropriate in its place. Furthermore, part 4 outlines details of the new personal independence payment, with proposals to make disabled people wait half a year before they receive support and to take away the right of automatic entitlement for those with severely disabling conditions. The proposals are plainly chaotic and confused as regards the future of DLA mobility component for those in residential care homes.
Fiona O’Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has referred to the Government not listening and not understanding. Does she share my utter dismay at what the Prime Minister said at Prime Minister’s questions, when, on at least four occasions, he failed to acknowledge and understand what the Bill means, or even to see the difference between those who are terminally ill and those with cancer?
Margaret Curran
I could not agree more. It was staggering how ill-informed the Prime Minister seemed to be about the impact that the Bill will have on cancer patients. I will make reference to further experiences that cancer victims will have as a result of these proposals. There is worse news for them, as we will find out.
Our amendments seek to put right the wrongs in the Bill. They would make the personal independence payment a fairer, more effective and more workable component of welfare reform. That is incredibly important given the scale of the reform, with 1.8 million working-age people being assessed in just three short years. Let me begin with one of the most controversial elements of the Government’s proposals and explain the key arguments behind our amendments to clause 83, which deals with the mobility component for those in residential care homes. That policy has attracted much attention and has been the subject of much debate inside and outside the House, yet the Government’s position remains, I am sorry to say, far from clear.
The blanket cut to those living in residential care was first announced by the Chancellor in the comprehensive spending review: it is there on page 12 of the documentation that I have here beside me. For the record, that position has not changed. The cut was in the first Budget document, and it remains in today’s Budget document. Granted, it has been delayed by six months, but it is still there. The proposal was met with an outcry from disabled people, disability organisations and the Opposition. Where was the Government’s much vaunted compassionate welfare reform? Why single out this particular group? Why select perhaps one of the most vulnerable sections of society? We have heard much talk of reviews and overlaps, but let there be no mistake—unless clause 83 is amended, people living in residential care homes can have their DLA mobility taken away from them.
Let me draw to the attention of Members who may be thinking about how they will vote a briefing submitted by several charitable organisations, which says that while the Government are no longer planning to remove DLA mobility from people living in residential care, they are planning to remove PIP mobility. Members should be careful to remember that if the Government say they are not removing DLA mobility, the Bill as it stands will remove PIP mobility.
Margaret Curran
The hon. Gentleman makes a very strong point. The Macmillan cancer charity, which has already had an airing in the Chamber today, makes strong representations about the impact that financial worries can have on health, including leading to a deterioration in health. It is therefore especially pernicious that the Government have come forward with this policy. Cancer and stroke victims will suffer severely from this, because they can have major changes in costs very early in their conditions. Cancer and stroke victims may not be terminal, but they can still have great needs and society needs to support them in working through the terrible and difficult circumstances they are experiencing.
Fiona O’Donnell
Does my hon. Friend agree that this is about more than the entitlement to DLA or PIP: it is about all the other benefits that that triggers, including carer’s allowance so that a whole family can be supported through that difficult time?
Margaret Curran
Indeed, and for those of us who have experience of how families struggle through family illness on lower incomes, we know how important that is. We do not want to have a society in which people who are struggling with major illnesses have to worry about how they will meet their family bills.
Cancer and stroke victims usually require help early in their conditions. As of August 2010, some 195,000 people were receiving DLA for a malignant disease or a stroke-related condition. Many in this group who are of working age may well be the very individuals who will be affected by clause 79 and the decision to lengthen the qualifying period to six months.
The extra costs will vary from individual to individual, but we can safely assume that they include key criteria such as extra fuel costs, costs associated with aids, adaptations and special diets, and extra costs of washing clothes and such like.
Fiona O'Donnell
Under the hon. Lady’s definition of overlapping provision for mobility needs, would she settle only for what we would expect anyone living in the wider community to have—namely, complete freedom of choice and access to transport to assist them when it suits them?
Jenny Willott
I am about to come to my understanding of that point. Obviously, it is up to the Minister to determine her definition, and I am sure that the hon. Lady will be able to comment on what the Minister has to say later.
I am also glad that the Government have put on hold the plan to introduce this change while comprehensive research is carried out. Any decision needs to be based on solid evidence, and it has become clear that no research has been done in the past, so no such evidence has been available so far.
Jenny Willott
I have no idea whether the review will be published. I was commenting on the fact that the options on PIPs and DLA for the future should be consulted on. The Bill simply states that that will be decided in regulations, which is one reason I tabled an amendment requiring them to be subject to an affirmative resolution. The decisions will be made by regulations, which means that there is a further decision-making point. The Government will be able to publish their regulations and their intentions once they have done the information gathering and considered the funding situation across the board. At that point, I would like to see some broader involvement of people who are affected by these decisions. We will then have the information when we make a decision.
Fiona O'Donnell
The hon. Lady is very generous in giving way. How will this review, report and gathering of information apply to the devolved Governments of the country? How can the Minister possibly influence social care policy and NHS policy in the devolved Governments?
Jenny Willott
I am afraid that I shall disappoint the hon. Lady, but that is an issue for the Minister. I do not know what discussions the Minister has had with the devolved Administrations. I am a Member of Parliament for a Welsh constituency, so the issue clearly affects my constituents, too. I am sure that some discussion is going on, but the hon. Lady can ask the Minister to respond to that question.
A number of other issues are covered by the amendments before the House and have already been raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran), including how the Government handle fluctuating conditions and the assessment requirements for PIPs. We have had a number of debates about fluctuating conditions, not least in a Delegated Legislation Committee yesterday afternoon which was attended by many Members who are in the Chamber this afternoon. Fluctuating conditions are hard to manage in the benefits system. As has been mentioned, Professor Harrington is doing work on descriptors for the work capability assessment for fluctuating and mental health conditions and on how the assessments can be improved to take them into account. I hope that the Minister can reassure us that the Government are learning the lessons from the mistakes made in the work capability assessment and that we do not replicate them when the new PIP assessment is introduced.
Dame Anne Begg
I suspect that many hon. Members will want to speak particularly about the removal of the higher-rate mobility allowance from residential care, so I shall not talk about that in any detail, but I think it is merely the top of a very pernicious iceberg, and the proposed amendments attempt to allay our concerns on that. This issue has captured the public imagination because it seems so grossly unfair and because people cannot understand what kind of Government would take away the independence of the, by definition, most disabled people in our community because they happen to live in a residential home or, for those whose families might lose access to an adapted vehicle, because they happen to go to a residential school.
I want to look more widely at the Government’s reasons for seeing fit to wipe away everything that was the DLA and bring in a new benefit called the personal independence payment. Let me address the Government’s analysis, or rather their argument—I should not have said analysis because part of the problem is that there has been no proper analysis and it is very difficult to get any data to suggest that some of what they have said is true; that might be the case for individual cases, but it is not widespread. The fact that the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) had to ask for some of those data may show that the Government lumbered into the whole area without knowing the details, and that their proposals were based on some perception of prejudice, or the need to save money, a point to which I shall return.
What were the criticisms that the Government laid at the door of DLA? They said there were no regular reassessments. That is easy to sort. We can put in regular reassessments for certain people. The Government said that too many people were getting DLA for life. Is that too much of a problem? If a person is quadriplegic after a cataclysmic accident, I am not sure they will get better. The reason many people who at present depend on DLA are so frightened by the changes is that they have an award for life; they do not have to worry about more reassessments. They have gone through assessments. They know they are profoundly disabled. Anybody looking at them can tell they are profoundly disabled, so why on earth do they yet again have to go through an assessment?
Another criticism of DLA was that some people were getting it automatically based on their condition. I challenge the Minister to tell us what it is about the condition of people who cannot feed themselves, cannot dress themselves, cannot move from one seated position to another, cannot walk or go to the toilet themselves that means they have to be assessed for their need for extra costs for care and mobility. I cannot think of a reason. Why should there not be an assumption that those individuals have their extra costs for care and mobility covered by DLA? That is what it was all about.
The Government’s main argument was that DLA was not well understood. That is not my experience from talking to people who receive DLA. It was one of the few benefits they did understand. DLA was for the extra mobility and care costs associated with disability. Compare that to the confusing rules for tax credits, or the in-work benefits or disability premiums associated with jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance or incapacity benefit. We could look at contributory ESA as well. Those are confusing. The one benefit for disabled people that was clear—they knew what it was for—was disability living allowance. That is what they tell me and I am sure it is what they have told the Government. The vast majority of responses to the Government’s consultation made exactly that point: people valued DLA so greatly that they were frightened they might lose it.
Another criticism the Government have made of DLA is that the form was too long and complicated. That would be easy to sort. Make it shorter, make it less complicated and maybe put it online. There were solutions.
Those are the main criticisms of DLA that the Government have come up with, but none of them could not have been solved by some changes to the existing allowance. It did not require the sweeping away of DLA and its replacement with a new benefit, with new criteria. If the criteria were out of date, some of them could have been changed, but there was and is no need to change all of them. People who depend on DLA at present as a large part of their income are terrified, because they do not know what lies ahead. If the system is as bad as, according to the Government, it is at the moment, those people are worried that whatever the Government come up with will not be suitable for their needs. I have to tell the hon. Member for Cardiff Central that the previous Government did not collect data on double-funding mobility allowance in care homes, because they were not advocating the removal of DLA from that group of people.
The things that are particularly good but often forgotten about DLA include the fact that it is an in-work and out-of-work benefit. That element will become increasingly important as the Government proceed with their welfare reforms to put work obligations on people with profound disabilities. Anyone who is not assessed as being in the support group for ESA will have a work obligation. However, if those who end up in the work-related activity group find that they no longer qualify for DLA, it will be all the harder for them to find a job or to do the work-related activity that the Government expect them to do, because the extra financing to make that possible will have been removed.
The best thing about DLA was that we had for the first time in this country a benefit that followed the social model of disability, rather than the medical model. There is a worry that the clock will be turned back. The Government call their new benefit the personal independence payment, but DLA was a personal independence payment, so they did not need to change the benefit. DLA is personalised and represents what the Government say they want the benefit system to be because it is a dynamic benefit, which means that it helps people to lead an independent life by going out to work, visiting friends and doing all the things that everyone else takes for granted. Such independence includes the ability to live in the community, which can be achieved if a person can buy in care and get someone to come in to look after their care needs. All those things exist under DLA, so why is there a need to make a fundamental change to something that was not broken? Why fix something that was working reasonably well? No one would have complained if the Government had done a bit of tweaking, but such a fundamental change makes people especially worried.
The Red Book states that the Government want to cut 20% from the DLA budget. That means that the pot will be 20% smaller, but given the cost of reassessing everyone, about which we have heard today, the reduction in payments will be more than 20%, because some of the money that would have gone to disabled people so that they could live their lives will be invested into the private company that will carry out the reassessments. Given the difficulties of the ESA, there is suspicion about the accuracy of the reassessments. Even though Professor Harrington has made recommendations, there are still fears and worries about the way in which the work capability assessment is working, and disabled people’s experience of that assessment makes them especially worried about what will happen under PIP.
Fiona O'Donnell
Does my hon. Friend agree that anxiety is especially high among people with mental health problems? We have recently heard reports of a number of suicides, so we need to be able to offer people reassurance about the process.
Fiona O'Donnell
I am delighted to contribute to the debate. I want to speak in particular about the review and possible removal of the mobility component of DLA, or PIP as it has become, and the extension of the qualifying period for PIP from three to six months.
I listened carefully to the Minister during the whole debate. I also attended a debate in Westminster Hall where many of the issues that came up today were raised, yet it appears that we are no further on in finding an answer to our questions. The Minister seemed to think that she weakened the Opposition’s case by saying that we agreed with the need for reform of DLA, but the point Opposition Members and our Front-Bench team have consistently made is that, yes, reform is needed but the Government have got it wrong in the Bill. I often understand the rationale and politics in some of the Government’s decisions and proposals, but I really feel that the proposals in the Bill that the amendments address are actually cruel. I thought long and hard about those words.
Constituents have contacted me from cancer, mental health and disability organisations, including the Disability Benefits Consortium, which represents 50 charities and thousands of people with disabilities and their families. Their mission is clear. The DBC document states that it is to use their combined knowledge, experience and direct contact with disabled individuals, people with long-term conditions and carers to ensure that Government policy reflects and meets the needs of all disabled people. But the Government simply are not listening. When so many people have come together, the Minister should take the time, as others in the Cabinet have done, to pause and reflect. We have seen in the movements to oppose some of the measures a unity and solidarity that has never been seen before. Is it not time to pause?
Cathy Jamieson
Does my hon. Friend agree that the organisations she has listed would have a great deal to contribute if there was a proper official review, instead of the behind-the-scenes unofficial review, or whatever it was that the Minister described?
Fiona O'Donnell
I agree and I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution. I listened with interest to the speech the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) made about her amendment. [Interruption.] She is thanking me now, but she may not thank me when I have made my comments, although I shall again try to be careful. It is extraordinary that a member of the Government should support legislation and an amendment, yet time and again blatantly admit that she did not know what the Government were proposing. The hon. Lady kept pointing us in the direction of the Minister, saying that she would answer our questions. She was not in the Chamber for the whole of the Minister’s speech, so I have to tell her that the Minister did not answer the questions.
Jenny Willott
I want to make it very clear that I was here for the whole of the Minister’s contribution. The questions I referred to the Minister were about what she was doing. Clearly, as a Back-Bench Government Member, I am not privy to that.
Fiona O'Donnell
In that case, I suggest that the hon. Lady holds back her support for the Government until she knows what they are going to do. She spoke to us about the review, but when she looks at the record she will see that she thought it entirely appropriate for disabled people not to play a part in it. The Government ask us to have confidence in this information-gathering review, but its findings will be secret, disabled people will not be part of it and there will be no consultation on it. The hon. Lady thinks those are reasons for us to have confidence. I see Members on the Government Back Benches putting their heads into their hands, and well they may. These are the facts. What is being presented to the House is clearly unacceptable.
Charlie Elphicke
I thank the hon. Lady for her great courtesy and generosity in taking interventions, and for her old-fashioned charm in giving way—[Interruption.] Her modern charm.
The issue is not about taking things from people; it is about double-counting, so that we ensure that our scarce state resources are as well directed as possible. Surely that must be the right approach.
Fiona O'Donnell
As someone who became a Member only recently, I would rather that I was not called old-fashioned just yet. The hon. Gentleman completely misses the point.
On how people will be affected by the change to the mobility component of DLA, there is a genuine and general lack of understanding of what residential care is about and the experiences of the people living in it. I was worried that the Minister used the word “overlap” again and again, because we do not know what that will be or how it will be defined. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) asked, will it be defined on a group basis or individually? We are asked to have confidence that people will have the same choice, flexibility, independence and dignity in their lives, but I do not think that I can do so on the basis of what I have heard from the Minister.
I worked for a number of years in a residential home in Perthshire called Upper Springland, which is owned and run by Capability Scotland. If hon. Members and the Minister in particular want information about what the reform will mean, I suggest they read a report that was commissioned by Capability Scotland and the Margaret Blackwood housing association called “How am I going to put flowers on my dad’s grave?”. I shall not apologise if I become a little sentimental in the next part of my speech because I want to talk about some of the people I met in that residential home.
I do not judge people for not really understanding what a residential home is about because when I arrived at Upper Springland, it was not what I expected. People had not only a front door through which staff could enter after knocking, but a back door. It was entirely appropriate that they came and went without us knowing their movements. Sometimes they did not come home at night, in the way that many of us might have done in our misspent youth, but accessing that kind of information was no business of ours. Many people—I was glad that the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) raised this point—had come from as far away as Wales to live in Perth at Upper Springland because it was such a centre of excellence. This is the point at which I need to know what the Minister means by “overlap” because I remember how important it was to Fiona, that young woman from Wales, that she could attend her father’s funeral service.
Upper Springland had several adapted buses as well as individual cars that residents could use. There were regular trips to Perth so that people could access shops and occasional drivers were on duty at the weekend. However, it did not go as far as to provide a service to Fiona that would allow her to travel back to Wales to be at her father’s funeral. Would the Minister see the service at that residential home as duplication? Would she have removed Fiona’s mobility component, meaning that it would have been virtually impossible for her to attend her father’s funeral?
Stephen Lloyd
I hope the hon. Lady accepts that my determination and passion about, and commitment to, people with disabilities are perhaps equal even to hers. As I have listened to the debate, and especially to the previous few speakers, I have become frustrated by hon. Members’ assumptions that everything that the Government are doing is bad and for the worst reasons. She cites the example of a funeral as if to intimate that that would not be covered. I think that is scaremongering. I ask that she thinks carefully about the language she uses.
Fiona O'Donnell
I absolutely will not withdraw my comment. This is not scaremongering. I am setting out exactly the kind of concern that has been raised in a report commissioned by two of Scotland’s leading disability charities. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that those charities would be as irresponsible as to carry out scaremongering and to frighten the people who form part of their organisations—the people for whom they stand up—it is he who has something to answer for.
Mark Durkan
Does my hon. Friend agree that if people should be scared by anything, it should be not her question but the lack of the right answer from Ministers?
Fiona O'Donnell
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support.
Let me talk about a few of the other people who lived at Upper Springland. David had no voluntary movement of his arms and legs, and a little movement of his head. He had no verbal communication. He was completely dependent but he had an incredibly active mind. He was able to communicate through an auxiliary voice and communication system. When he asked to have some swear words programmed into his computer, it caused some discomfort for the rather old-fashioned manager of the residential home as David wandered around the corridors telling everyone to “Eff off!”
David had come from Edinburgh to Upper Springland because of its excellent reputation. He would love to return home on visits to see his family. I personally accompanied David on his last visit to his father before his father died and also to the funeral. I have genuine concerns about that. The Secretary of State shakes his head, but unless we get a definition of what the overlap means, how can we have any confidence? The organisations out there representing people with disabilities do not have confidence in the proposal, so the Secretary of State has no reason to shake his head.
There was another young woman called Joyce who was not only active—she played a sport called boccia and travelled around the world—but had a job for a few hours a week so that she did not lose her benefits, and volunteered in various organisations. To support her to do that, she needed the flexibility to be able to book her own taxi to go to work and to participate in the other activities. There was Maggie, who refused to travel in the transport available at the centre because there was a great big sign up the side of the vehicle which said “Capability Scotland” and she did not see why she should be branded, but going to church every Sunday was very important to Maggie.
These are people I cared about and people I cared for. I fear greatly for what will happen to them and what their future lives will be like if the House does not support the amendments.
I have been critical of the Minister and other Members on the Government Benches, saying that they do not understand what disability and residential care mean. I heard the Prime Minister in one session of Prime Minister’s questions talk about people in residential homes. Then, it was an anomaly between them and people in hospital. Now the Prime Minister seems to acknowledge that residential care is a social model, not a medical model. He has said that the DLA mobility component is not being removed, but the evidence in the Red Book is that it will disappear, so I am not reassured even by a six-month stay of execution.
We must ensure that people continue to have the same choices as people living outside residential care homes. I do not like to talk about people living in the community, because people who live in residential care homes are also part of our community. What evidence is there of an overlap there? Charitable organisations provide access to vehicles, so is the Minister going to assess whether there is an overlap there as well?
People in residential care make the same choices as we do. How many of us do not need a car? We could use public transport, but for those people to buy an outdoor electric wheelchair, which they would not be entitled to under the NHS assessment, makes all the difference to their lives. Why should they not have that choice? It is not just about Motability cars. It is also about people who have entered into contracts and loans to pay for those electric wheelchairs. All these months on from the Westminster Hall debate, we still do not have an answer from the Minister about what will happen to those people.
A further topic that the Minister has not addressed—the hon. Member for Cardiff Central had great hopes that she would talk about it today—is the situation in respect of the devolved Governments of the United Kingdom. If the Minister has any expectation that there will be regulation of residential care homes or a duty placed on them to provide a service to people with disabilities, if she thinks she can compel the NHS to start providing more mobility adaptations to people with disabilities, and if she believes in the universality of the benefit, how can she ensure that people in Scotland will always retain the same benefits as people in the rest of the United Kingdom? She did not clarify that, so I would like to give her the opportunity now to intervene and answer that question. [Interruption.] No?
Mr Alan Reid
(Argyll and Bute) (LD): Surely the hon. Lady, as a Scottish Member, knows that it is up to the Scottish Parliament to decide on devolved matters. That is what devolution is all about. It is up to the Scottish Parliament to decide whether it provides that benefit or not.
Fiona O'Donnell
I know that. I am questioning whether the Minister understands that that is the situation we find ourselves in and the impact it will have. Will the review include Scotland and the other devolved areas of the United Kingdom?
Maria Miller
Yes, we do talk with the devolved Administrations, but I say to the hon. Lady that the point everyone is making is that many other hon. Members would like to speak.
Fiona O'Donnell
I absolutely take heed of that and apologise if I have taken too much of the House’s time, but I feel passionately about this issue. I will bring my remarks to a close by saying that I hope hon. Members will walk through the Lobby with us to vote in favour of the amendments that my colleagues and hon. Friends on the Front Bench have tabled.
Mr Reid
I had wanted to speak tonight on my concerns about the proposal not to make any personal independence payment for the first six months, but I will speak about that later. Further to what the hon. Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) has just said, my understanding of the Government’s position is that there is an overlap, and it is perfectly correct that where an overlap has been identified we ought to have a review. It is also important to stress that we are not abolishing the mobility component for people in care homes by voting against the amendment tonight; we will be voting to give the Government the power to make regulations.
Disability Living Allowance
Fiona O'Donnell Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Like the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), I was present for the previous debate, which was specifically about the mobility component for those in residential care homes. There is a danger in this wider debate today that we will focus too much on that issue. My concerns about that issue are no less than they were before, but I do not want to concentrate on it today, as other hon. Members have adequately done so.
The Government paper that heralded these changes, “Welfare reform: Disability Living Allowance for the 21st century”, discusses focusing on those with the greatest need. We also know that the target is to achieve a 20% cut. I was struck by the comments of the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) about the different people he knows at Agnes Court and the range of conditions that they have. Would any MP be able to say who of such a group of constituents is in greatest need, or where we could make a 20% cut? If we are not prepared to do that or to envisage others doing that, we should not support the Government in this measure and proposal.
Several issues arise. The first is assessment and, of course, reassessment in the future, which will come with it. The fact that particular conditions will not be screened out from assessment and reassessment—everyone will have to go through the process—raises fundamental concerns for those who are currently on benefits and their carers. We need to remember carers as well. They all think that they are facing a grand national, where everyone needs to try to get over and on to the benefit. As we have heard, that will cause great problems for citizens advice bureaux and the many others to whom people are turning for advice on what is likely to happen and the implications for them.
If the Government will not allow any specific conditions to be screened automatically from having to go through the assessment test now, or in the future, we need more clarity about what forms of evidence will be considered particularly telling in the context of the assessment test. What evidence from experts in neuromuscular conditions and so on will tell in that setting, or will the interview setting count more? On the cost of administering the assessment and reassessment process, many of us know that some people will pass every time, because of their circumstances. Should they have to go through the ordeal of assessment and reassessment every time, and should the Government carry the cost of that?
On moving to a six-month qualifying period, the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) referred to cancer patients. We must question whether it is enough to tell people that if their illness is terminal, they will automatically qualify. Many cancer patients do not want to think of themselves or present themselves as terminal cases, and we might send out a dangerous message. If the Government are determined to remove the mobility component as was and to introduce a six-month qualifying period for the personal independence payment, perhaps there should be a distinct allowance for those who have been diagnosed with cancer and have been referred for chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Perhaps there should be a cancer care and support allowance that takes care of such circumstances, instead of cancer patients finding themselves caught up in the pursuit of personal independence payments, particularly as the system will become congested when the changes are introduced.
How will people with variable conditions be measured in the context of assessment and reassessment? Will they be unlucky if they are interviewed on a good day, or lucky to be seen and reported on on a bad day? The Government must tell us more about that.
There will be an impact on other entitlements. For example, currently the mobility allowance is a passport to the blue badge, road tax exemption and disability premium. What thought has been given to the implications of the move to personal independence payments? Will people who lose out in the change also lose out on those other benefits and entitlements? Will the conditionality link between the new benefit and the old benefit remain? If so, have the Government factored into their impact assessment the effect on other entitlements?
As the hon. Member for Arfon has said, there will be an impact on carers. We need to know, for example, whether eligibility for carers allowance will come from both levels of the personal independence payment daily living component, or only from one level. Those who are entitled to carers allowance will see the circumstances not only of the person they care for being jeopardised by the change, but their own. Entitlement to carers allowance may be affected, and we must consider that.
We have not heard enough from the Government about some age-related issues. For example, pensioners who received the mobility component of the disabled living allowance before pension age continue to receive it when they reach pension age. Will that continue to be the case with the personal independence payment?
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we also need clarity on how the changes will impact on children, especially those with sudden impact conditions such as acute myeloid leukaemia? Will they have to wait six months, by which time their treatment will be well and truly finished?
Mark Durkan
I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. I introduced my comments about pensioners by referring to age-related considerations, and I was coming to children, including children in residential care, residential schools, and on holidays. What periods will qualify? Again, there is not enough in the Government’s papers and subsequent answers about those issues. The hon. Lady has rightly pointed to circumstances in which children may suddenly be affected by a condition. Will they have to wait for six months? Will families who receive a disability premium receive the universal credit when their child is in residential care? We do not know what is happening.
We must remember that families must cope with the concerns, needs and often the emotional upset not only of the child who is affected by a condition, but of the other children. Families must not be mired in new difficulties and complexities by the change. We must ensure that people of all ages are supported, not least children and families. The Government must provide more clarification, and I hope that the debate will present the opportunity for the Minister to do so.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Davies. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) for calling the debate, which has given Members from across the House the opportunity to talk about their personal experiences on this issue.
I am sure that everyone here shares a deep concern to ensure that we get provisions right for disabled people in all our communities, and the coalition Government are certainly absolutely committed to doing so. That is why we have taken the Equality Act 2010 through to Royal Assent, put in place the right to control for thousands of people, driven a personalisation agenda and promoted a new project on access to elected office to help more disabled people to be involved in debates such as this, because, all too often, they are not.
I welcome the support across the House for the need for welfare reform. I think the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) supports it—at least, the leader of her party does—and we obviously need to debate some of the details today. I certainly welcome the support of the hon. Members for Arfon and for Caerphilly (Mr David).
When it comes to the Welfare Reform Bill, what is certain is that the Government have inherited a mess after 13 years of Labour, and nowhere is that more evident than with DLA, which is almost a case study in how not to run a benefit. DLA lacks any objective test; it has no in-built system to check people’s continued needs for support; and there is a real chance that some people will continue to claim it when they are no longer entitled to. That is no way to manage a really important means of supporting disabled people, and it is certainly no way to manage the spending of £12 billion of taxpayers’ money—an amount that was never envisaged when DLA was first outlined.
It is good to hear the hon. Lady accept that we need to manage costs, and I welcome that acceptance. The previous Government allowed spending on DLA to spiral unchecked. This Government firmly support the principle behind DLA of providing a non-means-tested benefit to support independent living, but the simple truth is that we cannot let DLA go on as it has, especially at a time when we are committed to making the welfare system fit for the 21st century. DLA reform is long overdue, which is why we are proposing in the Welfare Reform Bill today that the personal independence payment should replace DLA, creating a more transparent benefit that is better targeted and more affordable in the long term.
Fiona O'Donnell
On transparency, the BBC carried a statement from the Government this morning saying that they had no intention of extending the entitlement onset from three months to six months. Can the Minister confirm that that is the case?
Maria Miller
The hon. Lady will know that it is absolutely our intention to make changes so that the new PIP assessment supports people with long-term conditions. That is the—[Interruption.] I cannot possibly comment on something reported in the media that I do not have sight of. It is probably easier for me to get back to the hon. Lady to clarify the point than to debate it today.
As part of the wider DLA reform, we have looked at how the mobility component affects people in care homes. As many hon. Members have indicated, we discovered that, much like DLA, the mobility element is characterised by a lot of uncertainty and red tape, and my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) picked up on that extremely well. Like him, I have talked to care homes, and every one I have been to has had a different experience of trying to tackle what is one of the most fundamental issues for disabled people—how to get about. That is driving me to make sure that we not only reform DLA correctly, but ensure that people living in our care homes get the support that they need.
When it comes to determining care homes’ duties and contractual obligations, the interpretation is very wide. It is not that people thought it was all rosy in the garden in the past, as the hon. Member for Glasgow East perhaps implied, because there is long-term concern about the lack of clarity over these obligations. There has been almost a sticking-plaster, pragmatic approach to trying to ensure that disabled people, who are some of the most vulnerable people in our community, get the support that they need. The situation has not been helped by an array of very different legal duties and contractual responsibilities, which mean that service providers and residents are unclear in practice about where responsibility lies. Indeed, the hon. Lady might pick that up if she talks to even more of her constituents.
My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) picked up on this issue in his contribution. I do not pretend to be able to give him answers to all his questions, but part of the problem is that responsibility for provision of mobility is spread across at least three separate pieces of legislation in a not entirely consistent manner. That is one of the issues that I will be looking at. We have the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2010. We also have the 2008 Act itself, which deals with the registration of care homes. It includes a clear obligation on care homes to promote independence, and mobility is part of that. There is also an important role for the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992, which makes it clear that local authorities should not take account of DLA when assessing people’s needs. All those things mean that care homes and local authorities have a complex set of measures to deal with. The previous Government could have taken time to provide more joined-up thinking on the issue, and we have put our efforts and energies into dealing with the issue.