Welfare Reform Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I shall return to the issue of domestic violence. Who will be the responsible authority? If people move overnight to interim accommodation, whose policies will prevail? There are problems at the moment with local authorities taking responsibility. I know of situations in which one local authority says, “These people can’t come back to us,” and the other says, “We don’t want to accept them.”

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. This is a serious and acute problem in London. Given that the boroughs are geographically small, people who move at a time of crisis are not aware of what borough they are moving to and from, and the situation can be disastrous for their future housing options. Central Government direction is needed, and there must be complete ring-fencing and a statutory requirement on each local authority because otherwise the most vulnerable will be short-changed as a result of demands for expenditure—albeit understandable demands—in other areas of a local authority.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I completely agree. The Government’s approach seems to be predicated on a view that local management will more accurately assess local people’s needs and use a range of local provision and services to support people in need, but that argument is flawed.

We have heard mention of credit unions and charitable support, as well as recycled furniture outlets and food banks. However, let me cite the example of an individual whose washing machine or cooker breaks down. They might be given a recycled product, but such goods are often much less energy-efficient than new goods, so that person will face higher fuel costs and will have no choice but to pay them with more of their low income. Such goods also lack a guarantee and have questionable reliability, so the approach might well be a false economy.

There is also a question of whether charities will be able to sustain continuing demand and, importantly, of whether the dignity of the individual will be adequately protected. I have heard many people—young and old—say, “I am not asking for charity. I do not want charity.” I fear that people will be deterred from applying to any scheme under which they will be referred to a charity and that they will therefore be forced into the hands of the high-cost lenders and credit companies.

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[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am glad that my hon. Friend brings up the issue of private landlords because the majority of the people about whom we are talking—certainly in London, but possibly in the rest of the country—tend to live in private rented accommodation, which is often unregistered and usually incredibly energy-inefficient, certainly compared with council and housing association accommodation and most owner-occupied properties. These people therefore face higher energy costs and their permanency of accommodation is more vulnerable. We need to take account of the fact that we will be throwing people into the most vulnerable housing sector of all those available.

[Yvonne Fovargue]

I agree. This is no way to treat vulnerable individuals who are trying to obtain life’s necessities. I urge hon. Members not to legislate for the Government’s proposals before a robust, effective and consistent alternative, with a proper right of appeal, has been fully explored.

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[Margaret Curran]

Indeed, and there is often an impact on the wider family, not just the immediate family.

We believe that the Government are misguided in their decision to lengthen the time disabled people must wait before they are given support. The Government are also wrong to remove automatic entitlement for certain severely disabled people who currently have the automatic right to receive the higher rate of DLA. At the moment, the severely mentally impaired—that is the language that is used—double amputees and those who are deaf-blind, undergoing haemodialysis or are severely visually impaired are automatically able to receive higher rates of DLA. Under the Bill, however, only those with a terminal illness will automatically receive PIP. Obviously I welcome the Government’s commitment to protect the terminally ill, but we believe that this obligation does not go far enough. Amendment 43 would ensure that those with a severely disabling condition, who are currently eligible for automatic entitlement, would retain that right following the introduction of PIPs.

It is important that we keep in mind the group of people whom we are talking about in the amendment. Is the Minister planning to inform the House today that an individual who is severely mentally impaired or a double amputee might not now be eligible for the higher rate of PIP? That would be quite an announcement. What reason is there to force this group of severely disabled people to undergo an assessment process of which we can all safely predict the outcome? We now know that the Government plan to spend £675 million on establishing PIP, on the bureaucracy of PIP and on the reassessment of 1.8 million working-age recipients of disability living allowance.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Does my hon. Friend have estimates of the cost of each of these interviews that will have to take place; of how many will be unnecessary; of how many will be appealed successfully; and of the incredible stress and hardship through which individuals will be put while knowing full well that unfortunately they can never get a job or go to work, and that they will have to be in receipt of benefits in the future?

[Margaret Curran]

I am afraid that I do not have specific numbers to hand, but I will make it my business to get that information because it would be very interesting. I am sure that some organisations could help us estimate those numbers and the different categories that my hon. Friend highlighted. He outlined a common-sense approach. It makes no sense to put these people through this stress, or to add to the bureaucratic costs of administering the process, when that money should be going to the disabled people themselves.

In a time of economic restraint, I am sure that everyone on both sides of the House agrees that this is a huge amount of money to spend on administration, so we should consider opportunities to reduce the costs. It is absurd to propose reassessing conditions that will clearly be eligible for the new PIPs. I have asked how much it will cost, and I will try to get answers—perhaps the Minister can give them in her reply. If the argument for retaining automatic entitlement is rooted in the avoidance of needless assessment, it is also grounded in the goal of appeasing the anxiety of many disabled people about having to undergo reassessment for PIP eligibility. As I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) knows, one of the biggest concerns disabled people tell us about is the constant reassessments they have to undergo, despite it being obvious to everybody that they have a disability. They are needless assessments.

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[Jenny Willott]

I am afraid that I shall disappoint the hon. Lady, but that is an issue for the Minister. I do not know what discussions the Minister has had with the devolved Administrations. I am a Member of Parliament for a Welsh constituency, so the issue clearly affects my constituents, too. I am sure that some discussion is going on, but the hon. Lady can ask the Minister to respond to that question.

A number of other issues are covered by the amendments before the House and have already been raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran), including how the Government handle fluctuating conditions and the assessment requirements for PIPs. We have had a number of debates about fluctuating conditions, not least in a Delegated Legislation Committee yesterday afternoon which was attended by many Members who are in the Chamber this afternoon. Fluctuating conditions are hard to manage in the benefits system. As has been mentioned, Professor Harrington is doing work on descriptors for the work capability assessment for fluctuating and mental health conditions and on how the assessments can be improved to take them into account. I hope that the Minister can reassure us that the Government are learning the lessons from the mistakes made in the work capability assessment and that we do not replicate them when the new PIP assessment is introduced.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

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[Maria Miller]

If the hon. Lady will forgive me, we are running very short of time.

Amendment 60 would have the unwelcome effect of allowing the automatic transfer of existing DLA claims on to PIP without any review of entitlement. PIP is a new benefit, with new entitlement criteria and a new assessment of individual need. To transfer people to PIP automatically without first determining whether they are eligible for the benefit would be inherently unfair and would perpetuate the failings of the current system. I cannot therefore accept that amendment.

I hope that I have started to give hon. Members a flavour of the scale of work that is being undertaken by the Department in putting forward a new benefit of this scale. I hear the loud reiteration of many of the arguments that I have had with disabled people and disabled people’s organisations over the previous months in hon. Members’ comments today. I am sure they will be reassured that disabled people and disabled people’s organisations are at the heart of the development of our assessment, which is now fully available for people to look at and comment on online. Some of the amendments proposed today are wholly inconsistent with the principles that I have set out for our reform of PIP, while others are unnecessary. I hope therefore that the hon. Member for Glasgow East will withdraw the amendment.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I will be brief because many other hon. Members wish to speak, and under the timetabling motion we have to conclude by 6 pm, which is very inadequate given the seriousness of the issues. I shall speak specifically to amendments 43, 76 and 77. Amendment 43 was tabled by my Front Bench colleagues and I am happy to support it. I have added my name to it and I hope that they have noted that. Amendments 76 and 77 were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg).

This morning, I was at a commendable place known as Centre 404 in Islington, which provides support and activity for those with physical disabilities and learning difficulties, as well as support for their carers and families. It has been going for 60 years and is a very successful and effective organisation. The large numbers of people there this morning were discussing the introduction of PIPs and the issues surrounding carers week. Before we go into the details of the amendments, we should think for a moment about the enormous amount of work done by carers, who are inadequately recompensed and save the economy vast sums of money. If they were they not doing this work and giving up their careers and lives to care for those who desperately need their help and support, that care would simply not be provided and the costs to the state would be far greater, so we should recognise the economic contribution they make in a decent and humane way.

The Minister said that I conflated the question of jobseeker’s allowance interviews with PIPs. In a sense I did, because I was drawing attention to how people were dragged in for interview. For example, a lady told me—she is a much respected member of the community active on these issues—that her doubly incontinent adult daughter, who has learning difficulties, was told to go to a jobcentre for a jobseeker’s allowance work interview. It is expensive, unpleasant, wasteful, stressful for everyone concerned and an utter waste of time, and considerable damage and humiliation is caused to the individual and their family. That is why amendment 43, which would exempt those with prescribed medical conditions, would be a sensible, important and useful change to the Bill.

The Disability Alliance described to me how PIPs are likely to come in and how the assessments will take place, and the word that kept recurring was “continual”—continual prompting, continual help, continual assistance, continual support—which is interesting, because a person with a sporadic mental health difficulty does not need absolutely continual help and support, yet they do need help and support on a continuing basis. Do they then lose out on PIPs?

[Stephen Lloyd]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that definition also perfectly describes people with multiple sclerosis, which is a fluctuating condition? Someone with multiple sclerosis might need very little support one day, but literally within 24 hours might require substantial support.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South pointed out that there are some conditions that although not terminal or immediately life threatening are nevertheless very debilitating. MS fluctuates in its intensity and the intensity of care and support needed.

People with a long-term, continual and severe disability should be exempt, and should not be forced to go through this interview process. In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran), who sits on the Front Bench, I raised concerns about the costs of taking people in for interview, refusing them and then putting them through an appeals process, only for them to end up, months later, exactly where they started—with lots of costs, lots of time, lots of humiliation and lots of waste at the end of it. Amendment 43 would make a pretty appalling Bill very slightly better by recognising that those with permanent and long-term conditions should not have to go through this process. I therefore hope that the House will recognise the amendment’s importance and be prepared to pass it today.