Welfare Cap

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justin Tomlinson]

The right hon. Gentleman has been very diligent on this issue, and he is determined to be proactive in supporting disabled people to have such an opportunity. The reality is that the growing economy is benefiting everyone, but perversely, the last time we had a recession, the disability gap actually shrank because non-disabled people came out of work at a quicker rate than the disabled people. If we had a recession, we would not celebrate the closing of the gap if people were also coming out of work.

Greater minds than mine will now have to decide what way to go. For what it is worth, I think the only thing that matters is that, as quickly as possible, more disabled people should have an opportunity for work year on year. We should be looking at ways to do that. When we came to office, the then Prime Minister said that we wanted to halve the disability employment gap, which meant employing about 1 million more disabled people. We should be trying to get to that target as quickly as possible, by looking at it annually. Stakeholders and charities are keen that we can demonstrate on an annual basis that we are making real, tangible progress. So far, with 590,000 more disabled people in work in the past three years, progress has been good, but there is still much more that needs to be done.

The final area I want to mention is disability benefits. As a Government, we now spend £3 billion more a year, which is welcome. That recognises the fact that under the old system of disability living allowance, only 16.5% of claimants accessed the highest rate of benefit, while under PIP, the figure is about 22.5%, because the system recognises hidden impairments better, particularly mental health ones. It is right that we are getting support to the most vulnerable people in society as quickly as we can.

However, I have an ask. Everybody in Parliament recognises that we have a growing challenge with mental health conditions in this country. Whether in relation to people in work, people trying to get into work or people in their everyday lives, about one in four people will have a mental health condition at some point. I suspect whoever was in government would, like our Government, look to committing additional funding to support people with mental health conditions. One of the challenges is that no one has quite resolved the best way to direct and provide such support. There are lots of different pilots, but we have a real opportunity in that the one way in which we are identifying people with mental health conditions is through the PIP benefit. However, we do not do anything with that information: we do not signpost people who have gone through the system and been identified as having a mental health condition to the traditional support offered by the NHS, local charities, support groups and so on. I am not looking to get people off PIP.

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

I am sorry that I came in late and missed the earlier part of the hon. Gentleman’s speech. To be quite frank with him, it is not so easy for people with mental health disabilities to get benefits. I now have a number of cases of people with mental health and other disabilities who have had their benefits stopped without any notice and without a by-your-leave.

[Justin Tomlinson]

The overall picture is that about 20% of those with a mental health condition accessed the highest rate of benefit under DLA, but the figure is now in the region of 80% under PIP. The system is better, although there is still work to be done. We have fantastic organisations, such as Mind, that regularly engage with Ministers and provide proactive suggestions about how to make further improvements.

My point is that when we identify such people, we should then signpost them to the additional support that is available. Through our own casework, we know that people who have experienced a mental health condition often do not know where to turn. There is no guidebook to tell them where to go. If we identify somebody with a mental health condition, we have a duty to do our very best to work with organisations such as Mind to signpost them to the help available, so that they can once again share the same opportunities that all of us take for granted.

This is an important debate. It is right that we are increasing spending on the most vulnerable people in society. We are rightly helping to give people an opportunity to get into work. The statistics are showing that real people are benefiting from our strong economic growth. I urge the Government to keep pressing forward with the positive action we are taking.