Disability Support

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) and thanking the Backbench Business Committee for enabling us to hold this important debate.

I was taken aback by the roseate picture that the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) gave us. It does not square with my experience in my constituency, and I want to outline why. The problem of cuts to disability benefit has affected a lot of my constituents very badly indeed. That is largely because, although Durham is no longer a mining area, it has a legacy of heavy industry. Healthy life expectancy across the country as a whole may be 69 years; in County Durham it is 59. That means that many people under pension age are in need of support from the social security system and need disability benefits.

One problem results from the interactions with other parts of the benefit system. Those are serious and complex. Obviously, the bedroom tax—which we debated at length in 2014—has adversely affected those people who needed a spare room for a carer in their family, which they are now financially penalised for using. Another group of people who are badly affected are the WASPI women. I had a fantastic meeting with 300 WASPI women in my constituency. Some people who turned up were hale and hearty, but a considerable number were seriously ill and had a disability. Some of them were working at the age of 15; their bodies are now worn out. The Minister must know that that is an issue because she has noted the significant increase in the number of women over 55 who have had to go on to ESA.

One woman who recently came to see me had to stop work because she had cancer and her doctor said she could no longer do a part-time job. Because her job had been part time, she was not entitled to contributory ESA. Because she has an occupational pension of £60 a week, she is not entitled to any other money from the social security system.

A family came to see me. The mother was disqualified from benefit when she moved from DLA to PIP. At the stroke of a pen she lost that benefit, her son lost carer’s allowance and they lost housing benefit. They were losing £8,000 a year. Their income was halved by the change in assessment.

Then, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth said, we had the problem of the Motability cuts. Everybody wants to help and support people who go out to work when they have a disability. The cuts to Motability have been one of the most destructive, futile and pointless cuts one could possibly dream up. A young woman came to see me. She had dwarfism. She had succeeded in getting a university degree and holding down a job. When her Motability was taken from her, of course her whole life was thrown into chaos. Then we had the benefit freezes, which adversely affect this group of people. We are now seeing people with disabilities and chronic illnesses being moved on to universal credit, gradually at first but there will be more in future. That means there is another group of people who will be suffering from the delays to benefit payments and pushed into debt. When Ministers talk about being fiscally responsible, having a welfare cut and the fantastic savings they have got out of the social security budget, the truth is that those savings have been achieved on the backs of people like my constituents with severe disabilities and health problems.

I want to talk in particular about the move from DLA to PIP and ESA. I cannot think of a worse-named benefit than PIP: it’s not really personal, it doesn’t give people independence and there isn’t much of a payment if they do manage to get it. There is massive confusion among the public, some of whom thought they were entitled to DLA for life. Some people who received higher-level DLA now have zero points and receive no PIP whatever. My constituency caseworker, who has dealt with hundreds of cases over the past couple of years, has an 82% success rate on appeals—82% of decisions are being overturned.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the fact that in Wales 75% of PIP and 74% of ESA decisions were overturned on appeal in 2017? Does that not lead to the conclusion that this is an utterly dysfunctional and shambolic system, which is a huge waste of resources and taxpayers’ money? It is not only callous and cruel—it is not value for money.

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend expresses it very well. I did not know the statistics relating to Wales. Wales and Durham are obviously having a very similar experience, which is perhaps not surprising as Wales is another area where people are coping with a heavy industry legacy.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In Swansea, some of the most vulnerable people are going through the most dreadful anguish and anxiety. They are chronically ill, yet they think they will not end up with benefits. Is that not part of a wider strategy to squeeze the poorest and most vulnerable to pay for the bankers’ greed, which led to the 2008 financial crisis?

[Helen Goodman]

It is extraordinary that the Government have been able to find the money to cut inheritance tax for the richest, but they cannot find money for people with disabilities and mental health problems.

As my hon. Friends have said, the stress and distress caused, particularly to people with mental health problems, are a serious problem. People are put into a situation of tension because they do not know when or whether they are going to be reassessed. I have constituents who are concerned for their family members’ wellbeing, because they get so anxious and cannot face the work capability assessments.

Let me now turn to the problem of ESA. The hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock talked about how we need to encourage and support people back into work. That is indeed true, but the fact is that, from the point of view of an employer, employing people with disabilities means higher employee liability insurance, it very often means adjustments at work and there is simply no incentive for people—[Interruption.] The Minister is saying, “Rubbish” from a sedentary position. Would he like to come to the Dispatch Box and tell me why that is rubbish?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Justin Tomlinson)]

Both as a Member of Parliament in my constituency office and as somebody who ran a business for 10 years, I employed disabled people and I benefited. It takes good employers to have a wide-ranging workforce. If you get it right it is a win-win for everybody. I do not recognise the situation the hon. Lady sets out.

[Helen Goodman]

I am glad the Minister did as he did, but we do also hear from people who cannot get jobs because of their disabilities and from employers who say it is too expensive to make the adjustments.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

On the point about it being too expensive, does the hon. Lady recognise the support to work schemes that the Government have introduced and which now can reach up to £57,000 per employee, which can help to negate some of those costs and support disabled people in work?

[Helen Goodman]

If those schemes were so good, the proportion of people with disabilities in work would have gone up, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth, who opened the debate, pointed out, it has not increased one jot in the last eight years.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is right. She will recall that the gap between the employment rate for disabled people and the overall average was falling steadily until 2010, and she will know that it has flatlined ever since. Does she share my disappointment that the Government no longer have a target for reducing the disability employment gap—the target initially set by David Cameron but since abandoned, unfortunately?

[Helen Goodman]

My right hon. Friend, who had a proud record as a Minister tackling these issues in the previous Labour Government, points out the twists and turns of policy. It is patently ridiculous for Ministers, following the UN report, to be complacent in this area. There is no room for complacency.

I wish to illustrate the problem of ESA with some stories of constituents of mine. Mrs M, 63, had to stop working as a carer because of ill health. She was signed off by her GP. She has Paget’s disease and a tumour on her leg. She sees an oncologist. She needs a new hip. She is seeing a surgeon because she needs a new knee. She has heart arrhythmia on the left side and sees a cardiologist. She was refused ESA at assessment and had to apply for JSA, and she was advised to apply for jobs as a roofer and bouncer or to consider retraining as a social worker. Obviously, we supported her appeal, and ESA was awarded. It is patently ridiculous that people have to go through this sort of thing.

Mr C, 60, had previously been awarded DLA following a series of strokes. He was transferred to PIP in January 2018 and awarded a high rate for both care and mobility. He put in an ESA assessment request in September 2018, but he got confused because all his medical information had been sent to DWP for the PIP assessment, and he was then expected to pay again for the medical evidence for the ESA application. Why can the Department not sort out its administration, instead of putting these financial burdens on to our vulnerable constituents?

Mr I, 64, was previously awarded PIP and was reassessed in 2018. The award was unchanged—eight points for mobility because he cannot walk 50 metres unaided—but his ESA assessment in October 2018 failed because he could move 200 metres using a wheelchair. He is currently awaiting a mandatory reconsideration. One of the confusions is that people cannot understand how they can be awarded a high award in the PIP assessment but then be required to work under the ESA assessment. It does not stack up. One reason it does not stack up is the amateurish and unqualified nature of the staff doing the assessments. This has been a problem from the off. Ministers have had eight years to sort it out, but they have failed.

Let me tell the story of Mr J. Mr J is autistic and has various mental impairments. He had been receiving DLA, but was moved to PIP. He applied for ESA and was placed in the support group. He was unaware that his ESA was contribution-based rather than income-based. When he went to the chemist and was given the prescription form, he ticked the box because he had previously been entitled to free prescriptions, but that was no longer the case. A fine was issued, which the family had to pay. Mr J’s mother had to intervene and become the appointee to deal with the issue, as Mr J was plainly not capable of doing so himself.

Mr J is not a one-off. He is not unusual. Five years ago, 30,000 people were fined for falsely saying that they were entitled to NHS prescriptions. Last year the figure was 1 million, and it was 1 million because the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Work and Pensions are not properly co-ordinated. The Department for Work and Pensions does not give people the information that they need when they receive their benefits, and the Department of Health and Social Care is hounding them for money. For the Minister, on a nice ministerial salary of £98,000 a year, a £100 fine might not be a lot, but for people with incomes of £100-£150, it is a whole week’s income.

This is a complete disgrace. It is utterly careless. We have been raising the issue with Ministers for the last six months and they have still not sorted it out. Of course I am not saying that Ministers set out to fine a million people—that would be a ridiculous assertion—but it is sometimes culpable to be careless, and this Government are careless of disabled people.