Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

We have already had a review. Specifically with regard to the statistics, the trend is that the number of people dying, as a proportion of the population, is going down. I bring the House back to my point that any attempt to extrapolate anything beyond the figures is completely wrong.

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

On Second Reading of the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, the Secretary of State said that if someone is in the work-related activity group, they should be

“capable of doing some work very soon.”—[Official Report, 20 July 2015; Vol. 598, c. 1260.]

But in July 2014, the Select Committee on Work and Pensions said that 80,000 people had been placed in the WRAG with a prognosis that a change in their condition was unlikely in the long term. Does the Minister agree that those people should not be in the WRAG?

[Priti Patel]

Of course, all claimants in the WRAG are assessed, and that assessment determines that they should be in that group. Importantly, people in that group who need more support to prepare for work receive employment and support allowance. I emphasise that that support helps them to prepare to go back to work, whether in the short or medium term. Importantly, claimants are asked to participate in activities that are both appropriate and reasonable for each individual claimant.

[Kate Green]

But 80,000 people who are not expected to get better have been placed in the WRAG, including 8,000 with degenerative conditions, which by definition mean they will become less well. Cutting £30 a week from such people’s benefit will not make them better or help them work; surely it will just make them poorer.

[Priti Patel]

I reiterate what has been said previously: no one will lose out in financial support. [Interruption.] This is for those who are already on the benefit. Importantly, those in the WRAG will be given support to prepare for a return to work in the short or medium term. It is wrong to assume that their condition will automatically deteriorate. Everyone who participates in that group will have the appropriate support, and the expectation on them is both appropriate and reasonable for the individual claimant, with their circumstances taken into account.