Welfare Reform (Disabled People and Carers)

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Westminster Hall

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

This is the first time I have served under your chairmanship, Mr Chope. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) on securing this timely and important debate. The number of Opposition Members here is testament to the importance of this subject. It is excellent that they have come along to express concerns on behalf of their communities and of disabled people, who are up in arms.

I would like to challenge the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), who suggested that Labour Members were somehow scaremongering about the scale and impact of the cuts. For the record, I have done a little research on my area, County Durham, and the impact is absolutely huge: changes to ESA will affect 26,000 people there. The Government’s 20% reduction in DLA funding and the predicted escalation in the case load will cost County Durham £12.83 million. In my constituency alone, £2.76 million of support for disabled people will be withdrawn as the migration to PIP occurs. Overall, County Durham is predicted to lose £11.59 million a year in income just from changes to tax credits. We could contrast that with what is happening in some of the more affluent parts of the country, such as the royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which is predicted to lose just £1.7 million. If we break the figures down according to population, we find that £77.22 is lost per working-age person in County Durham, compared with £17 in Kensington and Chelsea. That has huge implications for the local economy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead mentioned the Chancellor, who said:

“Too often, when countries undertake major consolidations of this kind, it is the poorest—those who had least to do with the cause of the economic misfortunes—who are hit hardest.”

He suggested that that was

“a mistake that our country has made in the past. This coalition Government will be different.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2010; Vol. 512, c. 180.]

However, if we examine what has happened since the emergency Budget in June 2010, we find that disabled people and their carers have experienced a major drop in their income of £500 million. There is a huge credibility gap between the Government’s rhetoric and the practical implications of their policy on the ground.

According to the Scope-Demos report “Destination Unknown”, Britain’s 3.6 million disabled people in receipt of disability benefits will have become £9 billion worse off between 2010 and the end of this Parliament.

[Mrs Hodgson]

I just want to add that Carers UK estimates that 10,000 carers could lose their carer’s allowance as a result of the changes to DLA. Does my hon. Friend think that that is a disgrace?

[Grahame M. Morris]

It is outrageous. Local authorities are struggling to balance their budgets. I thank Easington carers for the information they have provided to me. The number of carers’ centres across my county is going down from five to one, and carers report severe cuts in services, with many now being run using volunteers. So, yes, the issue is a huge concern, and carers are the unsung heroes of the community in many respects.

I will have to curtail my remarks, but there is absolutely no doubt that the Prime Minister’s rhetoric about being led by the views of disabled groups does not hold water. A number of surveys have been carried out, and a commission led by Paralympic gold medallist Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson found that 450,000 disabled people and their families could lose up to £58 a week under the coalition’s universal credit reform—cuts so deep that one in 10 disabled households with children fear they may lose their homes, with many struggling to pay for basic essentials such as food and heating.

There is no doubt the cuts are taking money from people who are already struggling, and disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty as other citizens. I call on the Government urgently to review the impact of their welfare reforms on those who are most in need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) on securing this debate and on the way in which he opened it. In the little time I have, I want to focus on the carers of people with disabilities.

Carers’ organisations have told me that they fear that the welfare reform measures proposed by this Government will seriously undermine the ability of carers to care for people with disabilities and for older family members. On the reform of the disability living allowance, the Government’s original impact assessment said:

“We expect that the introduction of Personal Independence Payment will not affect the overall size of the Carer’s Allowance population”,

but analysis by Carers UK shows that there will undoubtedly be a knock-on effect on those who claim carer’s allowance. If the number of claimants of the allowance falls, as it moves to PIP, in line with the caseload for DLA, Carers UK estimate that 23,800 carers will be unable to claim carer’s allowance.

On the housing benefit cap, it seems clear that around 5,000 households that will be capped in 2013-14 are expected to contain a carer. Those carers will see an average reduction in income of £105 a week. That is quite clearly at odds with the Government’s stated policy for the cap.

Around 1 million carers have either given up work or reduced their working hours in order to care. An average drop in income of £105 per week is a cruel way to treat carers who have given up their careers. It could also be counter-productive, in that it could make caring for a family member financially untenable and force more people into taking up the option of care homes or residential homes.

Many carers already face financial hardship. A survey of carers by Carers UK found that 45% of them were cutting back on essentials such as heating or food, and four in 10 were in debt as a result of caring. Carers are not choosing to give up work, but being forced into doing so by the crisis in social care. Carers UK found in a survey that 31% of working age carers gave up work or reduced their working hours to care because support services were not flexible enough, the person for whom they cared did not qualify for support, there were no suitable services in the area, or the services were too expensive or not reliable enough. There is not time now to go through how care charges have gone up.

In an earlier debate on social care, I talked about the impact of financial issues on the lives of carers. I have heard of one carer who had to take on a part-time cleaning job in the early evening because money was so tight. She puts her husband to bed at 4pm so that he is safe while she is at work. That is the reality.

[Grahame M. Morris]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a case not just of money—pounds and pence—but of the dignity of disabled people?

[Barbara Keeley]

Indeed it is. The House of Commons has received reports that criticise care agencies for putting people to bed at 6 o’clock or 8 o’clock. This carer has to put her husband to bed at 4 o’clock. How must that feel to her? I have had further evidence that shows that that is not an isolated example. It is very common for carers who can no longer afford respite care to have to leave a person, perhaps wearing an incontinence pad, and hope that they will be safe in a chair while the carer has a hospital appointment or goes to work.

I question whether anyone here believes that it is right or fair to hit carers with further cuts to their income when changes already made by this Government are clearly hitting them. The manager of my local carers centre in Salford told me that, this Christmas, the centre’s staff are collecting and distributing food parcels to carers. That is something that they have not had to do since the 1980s. She said, “This does not bode well.” It does not, and it should not be happening to carers, who already give so much. I call on the Minister for a rethink on welfare reform for carers.