Welfare Reform (Sick and Disabled People)

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ian Mearns]

I will not give way for the moment.

How else can we explain the fact that of the £63.4 billion of public expenditure cuts forecast by 2015, 29% of them fall on disabled people who make up only 8% of the population? Even worse, how else can we explain the fact that those with the most severe disabilities, who make up only 2% of the population, have to endure 15% of the cuts? In the face of that, can we continue to regard ourselves as a civilised society? What kind of civilised society seeks to finance its deficit recovery programme out of the suffering of the poorest and most vulnerable while managing to target tax cuts to the most privileged?

Thirty-one people died in the three years to October 2011 waiting for their appeals against the assessments which said that they were able to work. The BBC’s “Panorama” programme reported in July 2012 that, on average, 32 people died every week whom the Government had declared could be helped into work in the medium term.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making some excellent and powerful points. Does he agree that the work capability test is not fit for purpose and that taking a template from an American health care model on the descriptors is absolute nonsense?

[Ian Mearns]

I am about to discuss that, and I could not agree with my hon. Friend more.

Put bluntly, this Government, the Department for Work and Pensions and their agencies are telling us, repeatedly, that people who are dying are fit for work. Between January 2011 and November 2011, some 10,600 employment and support allowance claims ended and a date of death was recorded within six weeks of the claim end. This Government have repeatedly refused to release updated 2013 statistics on deaths within six weeks of the end of an ESA claim, calling such requests for information “vexatious”. Four people a day are dying within six weeks of being declared fit for work under the WCA—it is scandalous and an indictment of this place. Some might consider this bad taste, but I am told that there was a story doing the rounds that when the bones of Richard III were discovered in Leicester, Atos carried out an assessment and judged him fit for work. It would be funny if it was not so sad. It is a sad truth faced by 12,000-plus families who every year face their own personal tragedies of this nature—it is a reality.

As if not bad enough, workfare and welfare reforms are of course only part of the impact; cuts to local government expenditure also have the heaviest impact on the most vulnerable. The largest share of adult social care users—older people, people with physical disabilities and people with mental health problems—have to bear the brunt of reductions in social care. The recent joint inquiry by the all-party groups on local government and on disability showed that four in 10 disabled people are failing to have their basic social care needs met and that nearly half of disabled people say that services are not supporting them to get out and about in the community. Three quarters of the 4,500 respondents to “The Tipping Point” survey said that losing some of their disability living allowance income would mean they would require more social care support from their local council, at a time when the councils with the largest numbers of chronically sick and disabled people are suffering the largest cuts in grant funding from central Government.

In my youth I was actively involved in many Amnesty International campaigns, such as those on Chile and South Africa, and those against oppressive regimes in central and Latin America. I never would have imagined then that in 2014 the UK would be the subject of an Amnesty campaign, yet at its annual general meeting in 2013 Amnesty UK passed a resolution recognising that the human rights of sick and disabled people in the UK had been dreadfully compromised.

The convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, which the UK ratified in 2009, makes provisions for access to support services, personal assistance access to social protection, and poverty reduction programmes for disabled people and their families. The Government’s cold and callous welfare changes are in direct contravention of all those stipulations. The time has come for a grown-up debate, to move beyond the smearing of poor, disabled and chronically sick people—demonising them should stop. We need to move to a debate on how we design a society where all UK citizens are supported and given opportunities to contribute. I utterly support today’s debate and I will vote in favour of the motion.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this very important subject, and it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns).

As a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, I understand that the benefit system is an extraordinarily complex one. The system was born out of a desire to provide support to those who need it the most. However, years of mismanagement, and well-intentioned but ill-thought-out additions and changes, have left the system in a shocking mess. Listening to accounts of mismanagement, wrong payments and the relegation of people who are taught that there is no role for them in the workplace has shown me that reform is not only important but essential.

This Government’s reforms offer responsible protection for those who need it the most, while supporting those who can move back to work. First, let me say that this Government are committed to supporting those with disabilities. Here in the UK, we are committed to spending more than £40 billion a year, which is more than Italy, Germany or France spend, and is a fifth more than the European average.

We have taken the strategic view that it is not enough to think of disability as a singular issue. Instead, we have chosen to work across Departments to look at transport, employment and social involvement. The Opposition enjoy flashing big figures; they go for the headline and do not fill in the detail. Let me give them a few figures to consider while we look at the rationale. The amount of disability living allowance underpaid per year is £190 million; the amount of DLA lost through fraud and error between 1997 and 2010 was £10 billion; and the amount that welfare payment increases between 1997 and 2010 cost the average hard-working family per year is £3,000. These stark figures show that something has gone seriously wrong in our support system.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I note the figures that the hon. Gentleman has given, but does he recognise that in the UK in 2009 we spent 2.9% of our GDP on disability and sickness while nine of our OECD neighbours spent an average of 3.2% of their GDP? Far from spending more than our OECD partners, we spend less.

[Graham Evans]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I was talking about the current spending. I also point out to him that in 2009, 1 million more people were in relative poverty; 500,000 more children were in relative poverty; 200,000 more pensioners were in relative poverty; 150,000 more people were unemployed; 25,000 more young people were unemployed; and 1.3 million fewer people were in work. These figures show that the Government’s policies are working.

I will return to my original point. When 71% of claimants are given indefinite awards, with no need for reassessment, it is no surprise that changes in conditions are not picked up. In fact, a third of people with an impairment or a long-term health condition in one year report that they do not have it a year later, according to the Office for National Statistics. People’s conditions and needs change all the time. It is no surprise that people feel that they have been paid off and forgotten when no one takes the time to look at how their lives have changed; it is no surprise that those with deteriorating conditions do not receive the support that they are entitled to; and it is no surprise that those who have conditions that are improving are not helped out of a state of dependency and back into work.

The personal independence payment, which is being introduced gradually to ensure that there is a responsible change to protect disabled people, will involve regular assessments. This means that people will receive funding that is tailored to their individual changing needs. In actuality, this will result in the proportion of people receiving the highest rate for both components increasing to 20%, and the proportion of people receiving at least one component at the highest rate increasing to 56%.

The Government’s Work Choice programme has already helped 9,500 people to move into employment. The new enterprise allowance will support disabled people moving into self-employment, and my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery), who is no longer in his place, gave us some good examples of that. The £15 million investment in the Access to Work scheme will ensure that small businesses do not have to bear the costs of additional aids or equipment when taking on disabled staff. This programme helps more than 30,000 disabled people to gain mainstream employment, and stay in employment, every year.

The steps taken by this Government bring back the core principles of the welfare system: to provide support where it is needed; and, just as importantly, to enable those who can go back to work to do so. I am proud to be a member of a Government who are taking logical steps to address the fact that each person is individual, that conditions change over time and that each person in Great Britain has a place in our society.

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[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

I want to humanise the debate somewhat. I spoke to a number of disabled people this morning and what they had to say was amazing. Over the past couple of years or so, my surgeries, like those of most Members present, have been visited by lots and lots of disabled people who want to discuss the benefits system. The reality is that many disabled people have given up. A lady said to me this morning, “Mr Lavery, do you understand what it’s like to be treated like an animal?” That rocked me. Why are disabled people being made to feel as if they are being herded into a corner and treated like animals?

That is how they feel. They do not even feel that they are counted as a statistic in life anymore, other than as being an embarrassment to society. They feel as if they are personal rejects—total outcasts from society—because they are disabled and unwell. We should not be making people feel like that in one of the richest countries in the world.

The attack on the disabled and the vulnerable is relentless. Disabled people, the sick, people who have been sick for many years and those who might have just become sick or disabled in the past few years need a voice. We should not forget that it is fantastic being able-bodied and well in health, but some of us are just around the corner from being poorly, disabled, sick, unwell or perhaps terminally ill. We should not forget that when we make decisions in this place to hammer the disabled and the vulnerable, because we could be next.

We should put ourselves in some of these people’s shoes: they become ill or have been ill; they attend test after test; and they attend the Atos centres, which are like the scene in “Little Britain” where “Computer says no.” There is no flexibility and they have to try to explain their problems to somebody who is not even medically qualified.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I apologise for interrupting a very passionate speech, but is my hon. Friend aware that the Department for Work and Pensions is facing a court case because of its failure to provide proper information and support to blind and partially sighted people whom they are supposed to be helping to get into employment?

[Ian Lavery]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I am very much aware of the fact that there are a number of cases proceeding through the courts, but as we have seen over the past couple of weeks the courts do not seem to be terribly in favour of the disabled or the disadvantaged.

I want us to put ourselves in the shoes of the people who face these tests. After they leave the test centre, they wait for weeks and weeks—in fact, they wait for months and months—for the envelope to drop through the door and tell them whether they have been accepted for benefits or not. Can Members imagine how these people, particularly those with mental health problems, feel every morning, waiting for that envelope?

People who are looking for employment and support allowance or jobseeker’s allowance are being sanctioned for different reasons. A constituent of mine was sanctioned by the DWP after he attended a hospital appointment because he has a severe heart condition. As a result of being sanctioned, he did not have any money to put food on the table for months. It has been suggested that people have been sanctioned when they are in a coma in a hospital bed in intensive care. Is that any way to treat ordinary human beings? The answer is, of course not.

Let us look at the other legislation that has been introduced. Just in the past few weeks, up to 50,000 people in this country had to pay the bedroom tax. A lady committed suicide because of the bedroom tax and then her family got a letter from this Government saying they were sorry, but she should not have had to pay because she was covered by the pre-1996 housing benefit regulations.

Universal credit is a failure. It has been rolled out in two or three places and is an absolute car crash, but it is not the DWP or Members of Parliament who are suffering; it is the disabled people who rely on these benefits who are anxious and suffering as a result of this Government’s absolute nonsense and chaotic organisation.

People who make ESA applications have to wait to learn whether they are in one group or the other. How many have appealed? I believe that 40% have appealed successfully, and others are waiting to appeal. The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid) mentioned how long they are waiting. People’s conditions change before their appeal is heard. It is utter nonsense. The way in which we are treating these people is an absolute disgrace.

A lot of facts and figures have been mentioned today. The 11.3 million disabled people—8% of the population—are bearing 29% of the cuts. Those with the severest disabilities—2% of the population—are bearing 15% of them. It is an absolute outrage.

To sum this up, people are dying as a result of the Welfare Reform Act 2012. Disabled people are being evicted from their homes and people are being forced into the arms of unscrupulous lenders. Is this really the sort of country we want to leave to the next generation? This is IDS UK.

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[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I congratulate all right hon. and hon. Members who have participated in this debate, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for introducing it. I also thank the many groups and individuals who have taken the trouble to lobby their MPs and come to Parliament today and earlier this week. I give a special mention to Jason Roche from the Royal National Institute of Blind People in my constituency, who does such sterling work raising issues for the blind and partially sighted, to Simon Duffy from the Centre for Welfare Reform, and to Philip Connolly from Disability Rights UK. They have done a terrific job and we should acknowledge the efforts of disability activists and supporters in this campaign in collecting such a huge number of signatures to secure the debate.

The dedication shown by members of the public in getting this debate held in Parliament’s main Chamber indicates the strength of feeling and the widespread concern about the extent of the Government’s cuts. We are short of time, but there are issues such as housing, the bedroom tax, income cuts, policies such as changing RPI to CPI, the social care cuts highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), and the general cuts to public services that directly impact on people with disabilities. People with disabilities tend to rely more heavily on libraries and other public services, and it is ironic that in my constituency an organisation called EDPIP—the East Durham Positive Inclusion Partnership—which is a charity set up some years ago to support some of the most disadvantaged families, is closing today. That is another indicator of the pressure that disabled people, their families and carers are under.

This is a trust issue, and I hope the Minister will take note of that because the Prime Minister pledged that the cuts would be made fairly. He said that those with the broadest shoulders would bear the greatest burden, and that people who are sick, vulnerable and elderly would always be looked after. We must remember that the sick, the vulnerable and the disabled were not responsible for the economic crash, yet they seem to be bearing the brunt of the economic burden.

We have heard from other Members about the impact of the loss of income and services. Disabled people are suffering nine times more than those who are not disabled, and disabled people who require social care 19 times more. If the cuts had been made fairly, they would have fallen on the better off, and the changes contradict the promise made by the Prime Minister that those in greatest need of help would not suffer under austerity.

A measure of the civilisation of any nation is how well it treats the weakest members of society, and by that standard the Government are failing miserably. Rather than being protected in a time of hardship, sick and disabled people seem to have been targeted. The services they rely on are being attacked from all directions, resulting in greater inequalities, poorer health and a growing sense of anxiety, fear and trepidation over their future. The cuts have not been made fairly, and they are not spread evenly across public services or entitlements. The cuts have been targeted, with more than 50% falling in just two areas—benefits and local government—affecting sick and disabled people disproportionately.

[Ian Mearns]

Does my hon. Friend share my massive concern that the company that has been delivering the flawed—as we have heard many times today—work capability assessment, has now been given the job by the Government of harvesting the whole population’s health data from their GP practices?

[Grahame M. Morris]

I think that is cause for alarm. It certainly alarms me that Atos, which has been involved in the debacle of the work capability assessments, and which has raised concerns and asked to be released from its contract, is apparently being awarded the contract for the collection of highly sensitive care data from GPs, but that is another Minister’s responsibility.

Social care for children and adults makes up 60% of all spending over which local authorities have any control. The huge 40% reduction in local government funding spells disaster and will have a huge impact on adults and children who depend on vital public services. An interesting statistic is that by 2015 and the next general election, £8 billion will have been cut from social care in England—about 33% of the total. Last year, 320,000 fewer people received local authority brokered social care compared with 2005. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington said, one reason for that is the change in the eligibility thresholds that many local authorities have been forced to make. As well as being unjust and denying people adequate social care, that has unsustainable consequences. It is a false economy. By removing care in the community, we are putting pressure on other public services, for example accident and emergency.

At the same time, changes to benefits are having an appalling impact on those who rely on them. Other hon. Members have touched on the consequences of the abolition at the end of the year of the independent living fund, which currently supports more than 21,000 people with severe disabilities. Funding cuts already mean that in many areas services for sick and disabled people are reduced to a minimum.

With such large-scale and rapid change to the services that disabled people depend on, the Government owe it to those who have been affected to have an understanding of what the impact is. That is why I support the War on Welfare campaign’s call for the Government to commission an independent cumulative assessment of the impact of the changes in the welfare system on sick and disabled people and their families. We were not elected to this House to represent and fight for the interests of the powerful and privileged. Without a cumulative impact assessment, the Government will be failing in their responsibilities.

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[Kate Green]

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that exactly the same is happening in my constituency. I am glad that he mentioned training and skills, because this Government are placing the future of residential training colleges in jeopardy. They closed 33 Remploy factories last year, and 12 months later two thirds of former Remploy employees were still out of work. Funds from the closures were promised to help those former workers into jobs, but they seem to have disappeared.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I am sorry to interrupt the flow of my hon. Friend’s speech. She is presenting some excellent arguments. She mentioned specialist support. Northern Rights provides bespoke support in my constituency, but it cannot secure a contract from the DWP because of the prime contractors who are operating in the area.

[Kate Green]

It is so often the way that organisations which have a specialised knowledge and understanding of the labour market barriers that confront disabled people, and can identify with those people, are themselves shut out and deprived of the opportunity to set up post-Remploy work settings or provide support through the Work programme.

Damaging changes in the benefits system have also had a devastating effect. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), that applies both to cuts in benefits provided specifically for disabled people and to other cuts that affect them disproportionately. Employment and support allowance is in trouble—decisions are taking longer—and problems with the work capability assessment persist. About one in 10 decisions are appealed against successfully. The hon. Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery), who is no longer in the Chamber, appeared to think that the fact that people could appeal was a sign of the success of the system, but surely it would be better to get the decisions right in the first place.

It is clear that Atos cannot cope. I know that the Minister will say that Labour made the contract, but four years and four independent reviews later—independent reviews which, I should tell the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid), are required under Labour’s legislation—things are going from bad to worse.