Disabled People

Kwasi Kwarteng Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I have great respect for the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), and although I do not agree with everything he said, like my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex), he brought some reality to a debate that so far—I am referring to contributions from the Government Benches—does not seem to relate to the world in which I live, the people I meet, or the families I represent.

The Minister read out what seemed to be a civil service briefing, but disabled people watching that are too accustomed to being asked to fill in large forms and all sorts of bureaucracy to be impressed by such an approach. We did not hear from Government Members of organisations such as Save the Children, Mencap, Radar, Enable and so on, which have proof of the cuts the Government are making, and particularly the disproportionate impact of those cuts on disabled people.

Let us return—it is right to do so, Madam Deputy Speaker—to the bedroom tax. The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr Hoban), who has now left the Chamber, basically defended what the Government are proposing, as did the Prime Minister right from the beginning. The Minister did not say, however, that the Government have since done two U-turns.

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

What is the policy of the Labour Front Benchers? Their position regarding the bedroom tax seems to be all over the place. We have heard that the Leader of the Opposition has said that Labour would not repeal it, yet in this debate the Labour Front Benchers have suggested that they would.

[Mr Clarke]

There was a time when I was on the Front Bench and I might have been happy to respond to that point. I am satisfied that the Labour party will present to the British people at the election a manifesto that they will endorse. I will fight and fight again, whatever Government are in power, to ensure that this monstrosity of legislation does not remain on the statute book.

Let us examine what the bedroom tax means to ordinary people in our constituencies. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) said, two thirds of those affected by the bedroom tax have a disability. That is absolutely outrageous. How can the Government have seriously considered putting in place such a proposal? According to an estimate by the National Housing Federation, 2,128 households will be affected in my constituency, and according to the Government’s own estimates 1,419 of them—along with 83,000 in Scotland and more than 400,000 throughout the country—are occupied by someone with a disability.

The Government claim that they are putting the housing market in a more appealing position. However, when we look at statistics—indeed, before we even do so—we know that there are simply not enough houses with the right facilities to which to remove disabled people if they have an extra bedroom. I have thought during the debate about several disabled people in my constituency and others I have met throughout the country. Two or three years ago, a young woman in my constituency was dying of variant CJD. She needed her bedroom, and she also needed another bedroom to accommodate the equipment that she desperately needed, including her supply of oxygen. How can we allow the Government to remove disabled people to smaller houses, when we know that those houses are simply not there?

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[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I am grateful to be called in this debate.

I can assure the House that the Whips have not told me anything about what to say; they have not given me any guidance. What I am going to say comes from my experience as a constituency MP of having to deal with a number of cases that relate to Government policy.

On the so-called bedroom tax—the spare room subsidy—the Government are doing absolutely the right thing. If we consider that about a third of social housing tenants have spare rooms, and that about 1.8 million households remain on the social housing waiting list, we see that there is an imbalance. I saw this last year in a constituency surgery—a 58-year-old lady lived in a house with four bedrooms. She objected, as was her right, to the bedroom subsidy, yet at the same time—I am not divulging any confidences—her daughter and her daughter’s partner and their baby were living in a bedsit in the borough in my constituency. Clearly, there was a mis-match. It did not make sense for the lady to be living in a four-bedroom house at the taxpayers’ expense, while her daughter and granddaughter were living in a bedsit.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I remind the hon. Gentleman that we are talking about disabled people. Approximately one in four disabled people in Scotland in social housing will be liable to pay the bedroom tax, but need that spare room as a direct result of their disability. Does he think that is fair?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I was mindful that we were talking about disability, but I wanted, at the beginning of my speech, to say that the Government were doing the right thing with the spare room subsidy.

When the disability living allowance was introduced in 1992, the number of recipients was one third of what it is today; the number of people has tripled in 20 years. That does not reflect the changing work environment in Great Britain.

[Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate that since 1992 the lives of disabled people have been transformed? In 1992, the expectation was that most disabled people would live in residential care as they got older, but now people are living in the community. Furthermore, the working-age increase has not been as dramatic as Ministers would like us to believe.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I accept that society has changed since 1992, but there has been a marked increase in costs. We cannot pretend, like Labour, that there is not an issue. As the shadow Secretary of State said, we need to have reform; the problem is that too many Opposition Members do not understand what that reform entails. To me, reform means directing funds to the people who are most vulnerable and who most need it.

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

Has my hon. Friend had an opportunity to look at the projected figures and assess what is likely to be spent under the new system in 2015-16 compared with the amount spent in 2009-10?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am happy to have taken that intervention. The projected figure of £13 billion is more in real terms than the figure in 2009-10 provided by the previous Government. That means not just more money, as my hon. Friend suggests, but more money directed at the people who need it the most. We are trying to reform the system, and we will succeed in doing so. We are taking an adult and mature view of the public finances and trying to direct scarce resources to people who most need them.

It is all very well for Opposition Members to howl, holler and cry about cuts—that is what one expects them to do; they are doing their job—but Government Members have to take a mature and responsible approach to the public finances and introduce meaningful reform that we can afford and which can best help the most vulnerable.

[Barbara Keeley]

Will the hon. Gentleman explain the economics of the situation to the 10,000 carers who expect to lose their carer’s allowance and who have probably already given up work to care? If they stop caring, there will be no saving in moving from DLA to PIPs and in all those people losing their DLA, because if their carers stop caring for them, they will end up in much more expensive state care homes.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am happy to have taken that intervention, but I must say that Opposition Members have totally ignored this issue of reform. We cannot continue on the basis that nothing has happened, that there are limitless resources and that we can simply give more money to more people; that is completely unacceptable. It is clear from any engagement with the electorate or any look at the polls or surveys of public opinion that the public have had enough. That is one of the problems with Labour’s political strategy. On welfare reform, it is completely incredible.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

The hon. Gentleman is confusing me slightly. Is it his understanding that the change from DLA to PIP will result in any savings to the Government, or does he think it will keep the budget at the same level?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I fear that that will be the last intervention that I take. In the first instance, it is not about trying to cut how much money people get; its purpose is to direct the funds, recognising the expenditure constraints. The Opposition, in their robotic insistence on very simple, clear messages that are completely false and not based on any sense of reality, have forgotten about that. Considering that the DLA budget has gone up £10 billion in real terms—that is more than the Home Office budget or what we receive from capital gains tax and inheritance tax—it is vital that we are more sensible and intelligent in how we apply those funds.

It is perfectly clear to me that the PIP reform will be much more intelligently applied than the DLA, the costs of which spiralled, as I have suggested. We had a self-regulatory system, whereby people could essentially say that they were eligible for the benefit.

[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—

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[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am not taking any more interventions. I have been perfectly generous enough and time is short.

I am afraid this is not something that Labour Members are taking seriously. They are not taking reform seriously and are wilfully in denial about the scale of the fiscal mess that they made. It is disappointing that any constructive attempt by those of us on the Conservative Benches to reform our welfare system and introduce a measure of added fairness and greater efficiency—in terms of targeting people who need the money—is met by the same old stale cries and hollering from the Opposition. This is not a constructive debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) suggested, in a powerful and compelling speech, that the whole tone of the debate was demeaning to people who are vulnerable. The language is very much that of people who are victims and of trying to apply more money or thinking that money is the solution to everything, but there is a much wider range of criteria against which the issue can be discussed.

Lastly, I want to say something about the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), who represents Labour on this issue. He was the man who wrote that there was no money. It is important that the House is reminded of that. That is the general context in which this debate has to take place. A Government who are trying to reform are doing the right thing.

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[Fiona O’Donnell]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes a valuable contribution to the debate.

I freely admit that I want this Government gone; that is my agenda. It is not a narrow political agenda that has brought all those organisations and disabled people to the House today to make their views heard. They are saying that, as the Government press on with the changes, they need the relevant information. Councils, medical services, social workers and disability organisations also need that information so that they can respond and support people adequately through this process.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

rose—

[Fiona O’Donnell]

I will give way for the last time. I apologise to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) that I shall not have time to give way to him.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The hon. Lady has talked about the Government’s position but, for the benefit of the House, will she clarify the position of the Opposition, particularly on the bedroom tax?

[Fiona O’Donnell]

Our position on that has been stated time and again. If we were in government today, we would axe the bedroom tax. Of course our manifesto has not been written at this time, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman and the people who have e-mailed me that I will be pressing the Labour party to make a commitment to axe the bedroom tax. I want to see such a commitment in our manifesto, because it is a grossly unfair tax on people who are often very vulnerable.