Disability Support

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

Yes, and I shall come to exactly some of the points my hon. Friend raised. He managed to get quite a bit into that intervention.

What CIAs have been done so far? Back in March this year, the Equality and Human Rights Commission published its report on the cumulative impact of tax and welfare reforms. The report looked at the effect, since 2010, of tax, welfare, social security and public spending on people with protected characteristics as set out in the Equality Act 2010. It included assessments of the impact on disabled people. The EHRC looked at the measures introduced in both the 2012 Act and the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, including the move to personal independence payments from disability living allowance; the cuts in support to the employment and support allowance work-related activity group; the introduction of universal credit, which involved the removal of the severe and enhanced disability premiums; the freeze in the uprating of social security support payments; and more. The EHRC analysis found that, by 2021, households with at least one disabled adult and a disabled child will lose more than £6,500 a year—that is 13% of their income. Households with six or more disabilities lose almost £3,150 a year, and disabled lone parents, predominantly women, with at least one disabled child lose almost £10,000 of their net income.

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

My hon. Friend is outlining analysis of the loss of income experienced by disabled people, but I know that she will also want to acknowledge the work of the Social Metrics Commission led by Baroness Stroud from the other place, which has also identified the additional costs that are experienced by disabled people and which has properly, or more accurately therefore, portrayed the poverty that they experience compared with some of the measures that we have been able to use previously. Does she agree that a cumulative assessment is about drawing together many different ways of measuring the impact of cuts, changes and access to public services and the additional costs that disabled people and their families experience?

[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend makes an absolutely essential point. I will come on in a moment to the poverty that disabled people are experiencing by virtue of the additional costs that they face. She is right that a whole range of different methods can be used and we need to look at all of them to ensure that we can fully understand the impacts on disabled people.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Absolutely. Again, my hon. Friend makes an essential point. The UN Committee investigating breaches in the UN convention on the rights of disabled people found those issues as well.

That was the EHRC’s cumulative impact assessment back in March. Although October’s Budget made some changes to universal credit, it restored, as analysis of the Office for Budget Responsibility showed, just half of what was cut in 2015, and only marginally helped those disabled people who are able to work. For those too ill to work, analyses by Policy in Practice shows that they will be financially worse off compared with when they were on legacy benefits. Importantly, today’s Work and Pensions Committee report confirmed the issues that many of us have already raised about the proposed managed migration of disabled people onto universal credit and said that it needs to be stopped. Furthermore, we need to ensure that the so-called natural migration that results when there is a change of circumstances needs to be properly looked at.

Apart from the changes in universal credit, there were absolutely no other measures for disabled people in the Budget. In fact, the OBR report showed that disabled people were set to lose more social security support by 2022. For example, personal independence payment spending is to be £1 billion less in 2022 compared with March this year.

I am sure that the Government will say that they are helping disabled people to improve their living standards by getting them into work. However, just over 51% of 4 million disabled people of working age are in employment compared with 81% of non-disabled people—a disability employment gap of just over 30%, a figure that has barely narrowed since 2015 when the Conservative party manifesto pledged to halve that gap. As we also know, there are more than 8 million households with at least one person in work that are living in poverty. Work is not, as is frequently said by Government Members, a route out of poverty.

Last year, the Government set more modest ambitions with a new target to get 1 million more disabled people into work, but even this needs a radical rethink. There are many reasons why the disability employment gap has hardly been reduced in the last three years, including the lack of information and advice for employers, but we must remember that discrimination against disabled workers is still quite prevalent. In a recent survey, 15% of disabled people revealed that they had been discriminated against when applying for a job, and one in five while they were in work. Information is not enough to address this; it needs leadership and cultural change.

[Kate Green]

Does my hon. Friend therefore agree that a cumulative impact assessment would also identify the lack of access to legal aid when people may need to take forward discrimination cases in employment?

[Debbie Abrahams]

Absolutely. I was going to mention employment tribunals, which I think have fallen by 80% since the cuts to legal aid. A cumulative impact assessment would enable us to see the impacts there.

With the best will in the world, the Disability Confident scheme just does not cut it. There needs to be a commitment to expand and properly resource access to work. Supporting under 34,000 disabled people a year at and into work is a drop in the ocean when there are over 2 million unemployed disabled people who want to work. But as we know, not all disabled people are able to work. The consequence of the inadequate support made available through our social security system is that 4.3 million sick and disabled people are living in poverty. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) mentioned, disabled people are twice as likely to live in persistent poverty as non-disabled people; 80% of disability-related poverty is because of the additional costs that disabled people face by virtue of their disability, and these have been estimated at £570 a month on average.

The cuts to social security mean that more and more disabled people are becoming isolated in their own home as their mobility vehicles or personal support are taken from them. Many are struggling to pay their rent or mortgage. Their health conditions have deteriorated and other conditions have developed, including mental health conditions, as they face the relentless stress and anxiety resulting from a social security system that is hostile, unsupportive and even dehumanising.

The sanctions regime that has affected over 1 million disabled people since 2010, the work capability assessment and personal independence payment assessment processes are all part of this. Quite frankly, it is grotesque that people with progressive conditions such as motor neurone disease have, until last month, been habitually forced through the personal independence payment assessment process. I understand that there are still issues with that, although it was meant to have stopped last month. I would be interested in the Minister’s response to that point.

There is also overwhelming evidence of the inaccuracies—some have called them lies—in these assessment reports. Why have the Government not been able to act on this? With over 70% of assessment appeals successful, whatever contract management processes the Government have in place, are clearly not fit for purpose. All these Government social security changes will have a huge toll on the health, wellbeing and even the longevity of disabled people.

A peer-reviewed study by my former colleague Ben Barr and his colleagues showed the detrimental mental health effects of the work capability assessment, including it being independently associated with an increase in suicides. On top of this, the Government’s own data reveal that the death rates for people on incapacity benefit and employment support allowance are 4.3 times higher than in the general population, people in the ESA support group are 6.3 times more likely to die than the general population, and those in the work-related activity group are twice as likely to die as the general population. I reported these figures back in 2015. People on IB and ESA are poorly; they are not feckless as too many people have tried to suggest. But again, the Government did not listen and went on to push disabled people in the support group and originally assessed as not fit for work through another work capability assessment process into the WRAG, and then cut their support by £1,500 a year in 2016.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Graham]

We are looking at a 38% increase in cash terms, but if the compound inflation rate over the same period is taken into account, this would come out as less than 38%. I am happy to go through the calculations with the hon. Lady separately, but we would still find a real-terms increase in the benefits that are being paid out.

On all these policies, we, as constituency MPs, see people who come into our offices. They come to see me and my staff in my Alloa office and in my Crieff office, and we see some of the human impact of the changes made in welfare. I support looking at how we assess the impacts on disabled people, because we are putting in a considerable amount of money. My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) made the point about the amount being spent on disabled benefits, and we are one of the highest spenders in the developed world, which should be applauded, but if the money is not getting to the right people at the right time, we need to see exactly how it is being administered and how our services are being delivered on the frontline right across our country.

Like other Members here, I have hosted debates on Disability Confident, which is a fantastic scheme. The hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) talked about how MPs should be signing up for that. My office is a member of the scheme and the same applies to colleagues from right across the House. The Minister visited the Glenalmond Timber Company in my constituency, and I hope everyone will be able to join me in congratulating Jed Gardner, its production manager, who now has Disability Confident leader status—the first in Scotland. I hope everyone will congratulate him on the fantastic work being done in Methven to give people with disabilities opportunities to work. When I visited the company and when the Minister did, too, we could clearly see the impact this has on not only individuals, but their family and friends. So some incredibly positive work is being done by this Government, although there are also areas where we need to review and assess continually.

Furthermore, in my constituency, we recently held a joint event with my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) on Disability Confident in Alloa, which the local community and the DWP attended. It was hosted in Inglewood House, which, I am glad to say, signed up to the Disability Confident scheme immediately following that event. Again, that is an incredibly positive action, showing that companies in Clackmannanshire, Perth and Kinross are taking Government initiatives from the green Benches here and applying them in a daily way where we can see real improvement in our constituents’ lives.

As I said, I have a number of concerns about how the assessment is taking place, and I would support looking at having an assessment of how these things are being delivered. I hope to work with my Government colleagues on how that would be done. I hope that such an assessment would be independent, or certainly objective, to make sure that our constituents, our Government and ourselves will have the best possible view on how these disability benefits are being delivered.

[Kate Green]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the recommendation in the Work and Pensions Committee’s report published this week that, while someone is waiting for a work capability assessment, it is unreasonable of the Department not to pay universal credit, because that is leaving people high and dry?

[Luke Graham]

The short answer is yes. I led the inquiry on universal credit in the Public Accounts Committee, and I refer all Members to the inquiry and subsequent report, where we identified the strengths and shortfalls of the UC system. I hope that Government colleagues have read that report and taken those recommendations into account.

I wish to make one or two final points before summarising. We have talked a lot about statistics. One concern I have—this is often not appreciated in this House—is that the devolution of certain levels of statistics around the country means we often have different levels of government in the UK producing different statistics, which makes like-for-like comparisons quite difficult. When preparing for this debate and for the mental health debate that was pulled, I struggled to get figures from the Library, because in Scotland we are now not going along with certain NHS quality-for-delivery frameworks. Even if different parts of the United Kingdom and different levels of government use different methods, we have to find a statistical method to find a uniform measure so that we can have a meaningful debate in this place. Otherwise, we are not comparing apples with apples and we cannot get a real view of how services are being delivered for our constituents.

In that same vein, the devolution of welfare powers has been debated in the past, and I am sure that the debate will be ongoing in this place in the coming years. I have a real concern about the devolution of welfare powers—not because I think that all powers should remain here and I want to sit on the green-Bench throne, but because when we speak to the most vulnerable people in our constituencies, as I know every Member does, we find out that adding another agency or two into the equation would make it even more difficult for them to get the help that they need.

I support this issue, because we should have an objective assessment of what these changes are doing for our constituents and for the most vulnerable people. We are spending the money, but we have to make sure that it goes to the right place. For too long, benefits have been a party political issue. When it comes to disability and helping the most vulnerable people in society, we can look past our party affiliation and deliver for our constituents.