Welfare Reform (Disabled People and Carers)

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Owing to the interest in this debate, it will be necessary to impose a time limit on speeches. I shall decide what that will be after the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) has finished his speech.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I am happy to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Chope.

Today’s debate, I hope, will categorically highlight the unfairness of the Government’s welfare reform agenda on disabled people, their carers and families. I urge the Department for Work and Pensions, in collaboration with the Minister for disabled people, the hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), to conduct a cumulative impact assessment on the real-term effects of welfare reform on some of the most vulnerable people in our society. I was urged by a number of groups to try to secure today’s debate. The importance of the debate and the issues within it is reflected by the number of hon. Members present this afternoon. I am gratified, and I thank my hon. Friends for coming along to support this debate.

The Chancellor and the Prime Minister have repeatedly lectured us about the need for fairness and said that we are all in this together. However, as I hope to demonstrate conclusively in this debate, it is not the richest, most powerful or most able in our society who will pay the price of the Government’s calculation and uncaring disregard, but the least able, most vulnerable and least powerful—the disabled.

I am sure that hon. Members will have read, or at least heard of, the report, “The Tipping Point”, by the Hardest Hit campaign, which concluded:

“Many disabled people feel that they are living on the edge, and that the loss of even a small amount of income could tip their already complex lives into greater dependence and insecurity.”

This summer, the Hardest Hit coalition surveyed more than 4,500 disabled people on their views and experiences of the welfare and social care systems. It also conducted a series of 50 in-depth interviews with disabled people and a poll of more than 350 independent welfare advisers. From the study, it discovered that disabled people and their families are struggling to make ends meet and feel increasingly nervous about the future. The Government need to act urgently to arrest the slide of disabled people into entrenched isolation and poverty.

Disabled people have experienced a massive drop in income—about £500 million—since the emergency Budget of 2010. Recent reports have shown that just in the past year, cuts for typical disabled households ranged from £200 to just over £2,000. The latest estimates suggest that disabled people will experience £9 billion of cuts over the lifetime of this Parliament—half the total cuts to the welfare budget.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend touch on the fact that many people who are permanently disabled now have to go through assessment schemes, which cause a lot of anxiety in their families? At the end of the day, there is a long wait to see what those results are and, more importantly, what the effects will be on those people and their families.

[Ian Mearns]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I will reflect on that entirely. Added to the ordinary stresses of life for disabled people and their families, the mental anguish of not knowing the future is piling pressure on to many family circles.

I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber will have heard of Pat’s petition, which closed last month. The petition was signed by 62,693 people, calling on the Government to

“stop and review the cuts to benefits and services which are falling disproportionately on disabled people, their carers and families”.

To appreciate fully the widespread concerns and understand why a cumulative impact assessment is essential, it is vital to look at the specific elements of welfare reform that are affecting disabled people, their carers and families. First, the introduction of universal credit, which will replace six income-based benefits and tax credits for people of working age with a new single benefit, will result in 2 million households seeing a drop in their income, with disabled people being among those worst affected. The Department’s own equality impact assessment from November 2011 predicted that disabled households would lose £37 a week, compared with non-disabled households, which would lose £26 a week. Quite honestly, it almost feels that the malice knows no bounds, as the Government are targeting even disabled children—they are halving support for those children from £52 to £26.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend mentions children. I was recently contacted by a father in my constituency, whose daughter has severe cystic fibrosis. Her claim for disability living allowance has just been refused, and the appeal has also been refused. Given that the Government’s stated aim is to cut spending on disability payments by 20%, and that, in the north-east, where my hon. Friend is also from, Atos has been appointed to deliver the tests for people, does he share my concern that such situations will become more common in the future rather than less?

[Ian Mearns]

Alas, I fear that that is the likely outcome.

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate about an issue that is burning hot in my constituency. Does he agree that Atos is not the problem? Although it has to administer the problem, it has been set certain parameters in which to work. The consequence is that everyone blames Atos, when the Government should be blamed for all that is happening to disabled people.

[Ian Mearns]

That is the case. We can hardly blame Atos for managing a system to its own benefit, because it is on a sort of performance-related pay that relates to the number of assessments it makes.

The cumulative effect on children could be as much as around £1,300 a year. Disabled children are losing that sum.

Another major change occurring through welfare reform is the introduction of the personal independence payment, which will replace disability living allowance. The disability Minister made a statement last week, which I thought was a little odd to say the least. She said:

“By October 2015, we will have reassessed 560,000 claimants. Of those, 160,000 will get a reduced award and 170,000 will get no award, but 230,000 will get the same…support.”—[Official Report, 13 December 2012; Vol. 555, c. 464.]

How could the Minister or the Department have drawn those conclusions before having done a single assessment of any individual? We already know that the outcome will be that 160,000 will get a reduced award, 170,000 will get no award, and 230,000 will get the same sort of support. I hope that I am not the only Member slightly concerned that the Minister, before any assessments have taken place, already has figures of those who will get a reduced award and those who will receive no support. Surely, it is down to the assessment to determine what the outcomes will be, but it seems that the Department has already pre-determined the outcome of the assessments for each individual.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. The interest here today shows how concerned we all are, as are the people we see in our constituencies. I share my hon. Friend’s concern. I wonder whether people will simply be reassessed and reassessed until they no longer qualify for the benefit. I want to raise the case of a constituent of mine, a terminally ill constituent—

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[Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. You cannot, because this is an intervention. I ask you to resume your seat. If we allow interventions to be too long, it will inevitably take time away from other people. The hon. Gentleman introducing the debate is not in a position to comment on individual constituency cases.

[Ian Mearns]

Returning to “The Tipping Point” report, it found that 84% of disabled people believe that losing their DLA would drive them into isolation and into struggling to manage their condition. Nine in 10 disabled people fear that losing their DLA would be detrimental to their health.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate, my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Many disabled people will be pleased to see it happening this afternoon. Does he agree that a further concern and uncertainty about DLA is whether it will be used by local authorities in the calculation of income for determining housing benefit? While the Burnip case remains unresolved—the Government are planning to appeal—we really do not know how much DLA people will have to spend on their needs.

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[Ian Mearns]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. That is why we are asking for a cumulative impact assessment of all the welfare reforms, including the housing benefit reforms.

Some 65% of respondents in work stated that without DLA they would not be able to work; 30% of disabled people stated that without DLA their carer would not be able to work; and 75% of disabled people said that losing DLA would mean that they needed more social care support from their local authority. Cumulatively, we can see a great deal of worry and concern emanating from the households of disabled people.

The Government say that they have to cut spending, but cutting DLA will simply mean that they have to spend more money on other things. It is clearly a false economy. We need to take into account the knock-on and implementation costs of replacing DLA with PIP. The Hardest Hit coalition concludes that the Government have over-estimated the total amount of savings that that will generate by, potentially, £1.6 billion.

Let us consider what is happening with contribution-based employment and support allowance. This is affecting many of my constituents at the moment. The Government’s decision to place a time limit of 365 days on those in the work-related activity group for ESA and to implement that retrospectively is forcing many disabled people on to jobseeker’s allowance. We should bear it in mind that there is no magic tree sprouting jobs at the moment, particularly not in places such as the north-east of England and particularly not with the Government’s economic plan. We talk an awful lot in the House about welfare to work, but it is a two-part equation—welfare and work—and I am sorry to say that, in my constituency, work is hard to come by, and in the north-east of England as a whole it is particularly hard to come by at the moment.

One of my constituents suffers from bronchial pulmonary dysplasia, is too ill for a heart and lung transplant, has been on steroids for 37 years, has osteoporosis, has kidney failure, cannot walk a single step unaided, has a fracture in her right arm, has left arm damage, has osteoarthritis and is diabetic. She was initially placed in the work-related activity group and told that she would need to find work. It should be borne in mind, as I am sure hon. Members have already fathomed, that she is housebound. Only after my intervention did the Department for Work and Pensions realise that a mistake had been made.

I do not want to talk extensively on the topic of Atos or its assessments, because frankly I would need all day. I have been sent a huge amount of information from concerned constituents and lobby groups for this debate, and I could quite easily speak for 10 hours. Unfortunately, I will not have that privilege, but it is a common occurrence in my constituency that people are concerned and genuinely feel harassed by the assessment process.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

This is a very important debate. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the perverse outcomes of the reforms is that the constant reassessment is making sick people even more ill? The financial implications, as well as the health implications, are completely negative. This system simply is not working.

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[Ian Mearns]

I absolutely concur with that. For people who have a physical disability, the added stress that that brings can often mean that their mental health deteriorates and they end up suffering genuine mental illness. That is no laughing matter for anyone affected by such an affliction. Not a week goes by when I do not get a piece of casework because Atos has assessed one of my constituents as fit for work and the decision is somewhat questionable. From my perspective and that of many charities and professionals, the work capability assessment is not fit for purpose and is particularly inept at assessing people suffering from mental health problems.

According to Mind, 40% of people applying for ESA are doing so because of mental health problems, yet it found that a lot of people with mental health problems are waiting for a work capability assessment. Some 87% of respondents said that the prospect of a reassessment was making them unduly anxious. More than one third had increased their medications as a result of anxiety, and 51% reported that it had made them have suicidal thoughts. Those data are shocking. We should not be vilifying the most vulnerable people in our society; they are contemplating taking their own lives.

I am not sure whether many hon. Members have heard of the website Calum’s List. It shows how many suicide deaths have been directly attributed to welfare reform by coroners. So far, there have been 24. How many more cases are there that have not been so attributed by a coroner? Surely the Minister should be looking into the tragedies that the Government’s agenda is causing.

In my constituency, I was provided with an interesting statistic by the local citizens advice bureau. In the last year, it has conducted 1,416 welfare benefit appeals. Of those, 1,201 were successful. That shows that of all benefit appeals that the CAB assisted Gateshead residents with in the last year, more than 80% were won. That prompts the question: why did the system fail in the first place? Surely it is a complete waste of time and money.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

The Government will argue that the system and the process are getting better, but I saw a constituent the other day with a serious brain injury whose benefits had been stopped because he did not go for his reassessment, but he did not go because he has short and long-term memory problems. These cases just keep on coming. Does my hon. Friend agree that that does not fill us with confidence for the introduction of personal independence payments?

[Ian Mearns]

Unfortunately, my forecast is that, in areas such as the one that I represent, with its particular age and disability profile, we MPs can look forward only to a tsunami of casework coming in our direction. We need to reflect on how we will deal with that.

Some figures even suggest that the work capability assessment appeals cost £50 million annually. Does the Minister really think that those assessments are effective and cost-efficient? A lady in my constituency with significant mental health issues tried to claim disability living allowance but was unsuccessful, and subsequently attended a tribunal without representation and lost. She visited the local CAB for help, and it assisted her in appealing again at the tribunal. The decision was overturned, and she was awarded £4,000 in backdated benefit. She also gained an extra £41 a week to live on. She reports that that has made such a difference to her physical and mental well-being, she no longer has to choose whether to “heat or eat”—a dilemma that many families with disabled people now face.

We need to ensure that the assessment criteria take proper account of the full range of barriers faced by people with disabilities and health conditions, make the assessment and reassessment process as simple, transparent and proportionate as possible, and ensure that robust evaluation and monitoring processes are in place.

Let me come on to social funds, which were designed to help people with expenses that are difficult to meet on a low income. The centrally provided social fund has been abolished and replaced with the devolution of discretionary social fund emergency payments, including crisis loans and community care grants, to local authorities. The making of those payments has been delegated to local authorities, and of course we know about the disproportionate cuts that authorities in the north-east have had to make in their mainline budgets.

About one third of the users of crisis loans and community care grants are disabled people. Localising that provision could have a significant impact on them, as there is no statutory duty obliging councils to provide that service or ring-fence funds for that purpose. In other words, local authorities can choose to use that money for other purposes. Given the tight budgets that they are currently overseeing, there is a high likelihood that the money will be injected into other services. The Department for Work and Pensions acknowledged that itself in its research.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on obtaining the debate. Does he agree that Jobcentre Plus in localities such as Scunthorpe is concerned about that transfer of responsibility to local authorities, which are ill prepared to take on that very important task?

[Ian Mearns]

I could not agree more. My local authority has shed about one third of its administrative staff. That prompts the question: how will a local authority with such a huge cut in its capacity to deliver for its people ever be able to come to terms with the demands that will be placed on it?

Another distressing topic at the moment for disabled people and their carers and families is, of course, the bedroom tax. The reduction in housing benefit for social housing tenants whose accommodation is deemed to be too large for their needs will disproportionately hit households with disabled people. Of the 670,000 people estimated by the DWP to be under-occupying accommodation in the social rented sector, two thirds of those affected may be disabled. Many organisations such as Carers UK believe, as do I, that the policy will have a detrimental impact on certain groups of carers and many disabled people. Some families may be unable to cover the shortfall and be forced to move.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

Inclusion Scotland made the point to me that it is not only about financial costs. If the family of a disabled person moves away to get smaller accommodation—if it is available—they will lose support networks and contact with carers and families. If they have to move, due to the tax, they will lose those things, which they need to survive. I am sure that point has been made to many other hon. Members.

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[Ian Mearns]

I could not agree more. I thank my hon. Friend for making that point; it is absolutely true.

Steve Cowen, the chief officer of the Gateshead Carers Association—I cannot ignore it, because its office is next door to mine—has told me about the devastating impact that the proposals will have on carers and their families in Gateshead. Steve says that carers are the glue that holds the health and social care system together. The reforms hit them hard, and hit them again and again.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree that the bedroom tax needs to be promoted? The Government need to raise awareness of it sooner rather than later, so that families can budget and prepare for it. It will be a terrible shock for many.

[Ian Mearns]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He is right, but I need to make some progress, so I will move on swiftly.

A member of a couple could have a disability that means that the couple cannot sleep in the same room, for entirely appropriate reasons. A couple may need an extra room for equipment. A local authority—or a family—may have spent a considerable amount of money adapting a property for a family who are then forced to move, which not only would be distressing and disruptive to care arrangements, but could risk a greater long-term cost, because the adaptations need to be replaced in the new, smaller home. It is clearly daft.

Cuts in disability benefits imposed by the Government will, of course, affect disabled people living across the whole country, but, as with almost every other aspect of the Government’s approach to public policy, the impact is felt most keenly in areas with the greatest number of people living in relative poverty—the areas with the greatest need. Wales has the highest proportion of disabled people in the UK, with one fifth—21%—of working-age people living with a disability. It also has the highest proportion of benefit recipients for all types of benefits—20% of people of working age. Recent statistics show that just over 10% of Northern Ireland’s population are in receipt of disability living allowance.

A report prepared for the DWP by Christina Beatty, Steve Fothergill and Deborah Platts-Fowler listed the regional differences. The 20 areas with the greatest proportion of working-age people receiving DLA include Merthyr Tydfil, Neath, Blaenau Gwent, Easington, Caerphilly, Knowsley, Glasgow, and Liverpool—the list goes on. In my constituency, about 4% of people are affected. Surprise, surprise, the 10 areas with the lowest proportion of working-age people receiving DLA include Runnymede, South Northamptonshire, Kingston upon Thames, south Buckinghamshire, Windsor and Maidenhead, Surrey Heath, and Wokingham. So much for “We’re all in this together.”

The report from the Hardest Hit coalition highlighted the dismay felt by many disabled people on finding that they have become the easy target for cuts. Perhaps more shocking is the fact that the Government’s rhetoric justifying disability benefit cuts is hardening public attitudes. Many disabled people feel that the media portrayal of benefit scroungers is behind the increasing amount of disability hate crime, which is at an all-time high. That is despite the fact that estimated overpayments of DLA due to fraud make up less than 0.5% of total spending. As anyone who reads the Daily Mail will know, there are a lot of myths in the debate about welfare reform, and some are very damaging to disabled people. We need to confront those myths head-on. They are lies.

Official levels of fraud in disability and out-of-work benefits are far lower than public perceptions and polling suggest. The Office for National Statistics highlights that just 0.3% of overpayments for incapacity benefit were due to fraud. Figures on fraud for both DLA and incapacity benefit are outstripped by the figures for official error; in other words, mistakes by officials at the DWP cost the taxpayer more than fraud. Though it is true that the welfare bill grew in 10 years, disability benefits were not the main cause of that expenditure or a ballooning welfare budget.

Disabled people feel that they have been deliberately targeted, even though there is a clear alternative. Although estimates vary, tax evasion and avoidance cost the Government between £50 billion and £100 billion a year. It is estimated that a mansion tax on expensive properties, above a threshold of £2 million, would affect an estimated 74,000 people and, at face value, raise £1.7 billion. A financial transaction tax of about 0.05% on transactions such as those involving stocks, bonds, foreign currency and derivatives is possible. The bank levy introduced in January 2011 raises £2.5 billion annually, but a Robin Hood tax could raise up to 10 times that amount—£20 billion a year.

Whatever one’s view of the trade-offs, the priority should be the need to protect the poorest. In October 2010, the Prime Minister promised always to look after the sick, the vulnerable and elderly. The Chancellor said in his June 2010 emergency Budget:

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

has been

“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.]

Really?

There are practical things that the Government can do over the next year. The first is to learn from the mistakes of the work capability assessments and ensure that the assessment for personal independence payments is as fair as possible. Secondly, they could review the work capability assessment, starting with the WCA descriptors, to ensure that it works consistently and fairly for all individuals with limited capability for work or work-related activity. Thirdly, they could get the fundamentals of universal credit right, ensuring that disabled people do not lose in cash terms due to the transition to universal credit from 2013. Fourthly, and most importantly, as loth as I am to implore the Government to do anything, I implore them to conduct a thorough cumulative impact assessment on the impact of all welfare reforms on disabled people, their carers and families. When the Government collect the results, they must act on them, so that no one is left floundering in unnecessarily deprived circumstances because of a welfare reform Act, the results of which were all too easy to predict.