Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Mulholland Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We will monitor carefully how the decisions we have taken on universal credit work. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we want to encourage and support self-employment, and we cannot allow people to shelter themselves on benefits under the false excuse that they are self-employed. In order to encourage people and to make sure that claimants are genuine, we are putting in place new rules. However, as I have said to him in Committee, every individual will have the right to self-assess or self-refer each month, so that we always get amounts right and do not penalise people who are trying to do the right thing.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

3. What steps he is taking to improve public understanding of benefits available for people with (a) a hidden disability and (b) other forms of disability.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

5. What steps he has taken to improve public understanding of benefits available for people with (a) a hidden disability and (b) other forms of disability.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier, the Government’s welfare reform programme will help to make our benefits system more understandable, less complex and better focused on those who really need help to live an independent life, so restoring trust in benefit provision, which has been so badly eroded in recent years. The Government also provide support for better understanding through Jobcentre Plus and work to support user-led organisations.

[Greg Mulholland]

I thank the Minister for that answer. The Government are right to tackle benefit fraud, but is she aware of the “Bad News for Disabled People” report by the university of Glasgow, which showed that the public dramatically overestimate the level of fraud in disability benefits by as much as 70%, based on inaccurate media reporting? What can the Government do to challenge that?

[Maria Miller]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question on an issue of which many hon. Members are aware. We are very conscious of the language we use when we talk about these issues, because we are clear that it is the system that has trapped people in a spiral of welfare dependency and that there has been a failure to reform benefits such as disability living allowance and to build any sense of reassessment into them. Those are the sorts of things that can create such problems and the Government are tackling them.