Disabled People

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House believes that the Government should publish, by October 2013, a cumulative impact assessment of the changes made by the Government that affect disabled people.

Five of my right hon. Friends and I have tabled the words of today’s motion, but the words in our argument were inspired by others and are supported by tens of thousands of people up and down this country.

This afternoon, I pay tribute to Pat Onions and her fellow campaigners, to the authors of the WOW petition and to the thousands of people up and down the country who have supported their campaign and will follow this debate closely. They want to send a message to the Government—the message that we have incorporated in our motion. Today we ask hon. Members on both sides of the House to support us and make sure that the message is heard, not just in the Department for Work and Pensions but in Her Majesty’s Treasury, as clearly as possible.

The Opposition believe that how the Government have systematically ignored and tried to disguise and bury the impact of their reforms on disabled people is a national scandal. Reform that should have been approached with care and finesse has been approached with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop. When people have cried about the combined pain of the changes, the Government’s response has been that of the three wise monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Frankly, we demand better of Her Majesty’s Government.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making his position clear with great power and pugnaciousness. Is it not already clear that the chaos around the work capability assessment and the implementation of the personal independence payment is widespread? In the House last year, I cited dozens of cases of disabled people from my constituency who had awful experiences of revolving assessments. Is it not appalling that so many people are going through that process when almost a third of people are winning their appeals at tribunals?

[Mr Byrne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I shall come back to his point slightly later.

The Opposition believe in reform of the benefits system and of support and care for disabled people, but we also believe in one thing more—that fewer, not more, disabled people should live in poverty in this country. During our time in office, we drove down the number of disabled people living in poverty from 40% to about a quarter. That was not an accident; it was because of the most ambitious series of reforms to help disabled people that we have ever seen.

There was the appointment of the first ever Minister for Disabled People, the Disability Discrimination Act and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. There were great programmes such as Supporting People, the new deal for disabled people, new strategies for disabled children and Valuing People, and, crucially, there was the Equality Act 2010. Poverty in disabled households fell under Labour and now that progress has gone into reverse.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

There is a fundamental difference in how the reforms have been heralded in the media, too. When we were in government and we put those reforms through, we did so in a careful and considered way, whereas because of how the current reforms are being pushed through, the media are characterising people in certain ways. A constituent who is on disability benefit for severe mental health problems came to my office the other day with his head in his hands saying, “I know I’m scum. That’s what I read every day. That’s the way I feel I’m treated.”

[Mr Byrne]

The whole House will have heard my hon. Friend’s powerful story. I am afraid that too often in the past three years we have had not the politics of national unity, but the politics of dividing lines—dividing lines after dividing lines. When has this country ever achieved great things when we have sought to divide one from another? We have only ever achieved great things in this country when we have pulled together, but I am afraid that that is not the policy of reform we see from this Government.

Today we have one third of disabled citizens in our country living in poverty. That proportion has increased every single year this coalition Government have been in power. That is a disgrace, and it is only surpassed by the Government’s attempts to make it worse.

Today I want to set out the great pressures that now confront disabled people and ask, in the words of our motion, that the Government, for the first time, put together

“a cumulative impact assessment of the changes”,

because the Secretary of State has an important duty to fulfil later this year. He has a duty before the autumn statement to set before the Chancellor of the Exchequer the combined concerted impact of the changes he is prosecuting on disabled people. These changes are big and they are well known. They affect the roof over people’s heads, the cash they receive, the care they enjoy, the help for their children and the help for their carers, and, of course, the systems that are currently failing to give disabled people the chance to lift themselves out of poverty by actually going to work.

Let me start with an issue that I know will be much in the news today: the hated bedroom tax. Two thirds of people hit by this tax are disabled. We know that council housing in this country is allocated according to need, and very often disabled people are given accommodation that is suited to their need. They may have a room that is available for a carer or for equipment, but the accommodation they were given was allocated according to need. Now disabled people face a tax on that spare room. Disabled people now face the distress of debt, being torn from their neighbours, and cut off from help very often if they are on disability living allowance. This is a cruel and unusual punishment meted out to the most vulnerable in our society, and this Government should drop it, and drop it now.

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

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Government knew when they first introduced this tax that it would have this disproportionate and devastating effect on disabled people? Originally they had hoped to exempt them from the tax, but when they worked out how many would be affected, they simply buried their principles in the interests of expediency.

[Mr Byrne]

That evidence is now becoming well known, and we have had more evidence circulated by great organisations, such as Carers UK today, about the impact this tax is now having on some of the most vulnerable people in our community, including hundreds in the Minister’s constituency.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Hoban)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Byrne]

In a moment. Perhaps when the Minister intervenes he can justify what Carers UK found:

“Three quarters (75%) of carers having to pay the ‘bedroom tax’ are being forced to cut back on essential spending on food, electricity and heating.”

Will the Minister justify that to the House?

[Mr Hoban]

The Leader of the Opposition has accepted the changes we have made through the spare room subsidy. Is the right hon. Gentleman going against that? Is he going to reverse this policy?

[Mr Byrne]

It ill behoves the Minister to play word games this afternoon on a policy that is affecting hundreds of people and their carers in his own constituency. What is he saying to carers in his constituency who are having to cut back on food, electricity and heating?

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Byrne]

In a moment. What is the Minister going to say to councils up and down the country surveyed by Channel 4 for tonight’s broadcast showing that one third of councils are having to deny help to disabled people because the provision of the discretionary housing payment fund is, frankly, insufficient? What is he going to say to those councils and what is he going to say to those disabled people in his own constituency?

[Mr Hoban]

I am going to be very straight with my constituents about the challenges we face. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will now answer the question I asked him.

[Mr Byrne]

We believe this policy should be dropped and it should be dropped now. Why? Because this is an iniquitous, unjust policy that is going to cost more than it saves.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Byrne]

I will give way to the Secretary of State in a moment, but first I want him to respond to this scenario. His own figures show that 660,000 people will be hit by this hated tax. He said when he came to the House that this would save £490 million. Let us assume that 50% of the people who move go into the private rented sector. That is going to cost his Department an extra £25 a week each. Let us assume the rest get another form of social housing. Every single move costs a registered social landlord £850. Then there is the cost of arrears, which RSLs say will double. Then there is £160 million-worth of discretionary housing payment on top. The truth is that if 40% of people move, this could well cost our country £580 million, which is £100 million more than the Secretary of State promised to save. What is his analysis of that? Does he now admit this will cost more than it saves?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The right hon. Gentleman’s leader said categorically, in terms, that Labour would not reverse the spare room subsidy. [Interruption.] Yes, he has, in an interview. Now, however, the Leader of the Opposition’s spokesman is standing at the Dispatch Box saying Labour will reverse this. That is a commitment to spend £1 billion over two years, rolling out further down the road. That is a spending commitment.

[Mr Byrne]

The Secretary of State has just refused to deny that this iniquitous policy is going to cost £100 million more than it saves. If he wants to refute that, why is he refusing to give our noble Friends in the other place the detailed model his Department used in order to assess this and come to the conclusion it was going to save £490 million? If he wants to have an argument about whether this does indeed cost more than it saves, he should provide that detailed analysis and those figures.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. Friend is making a crucial point about the cost of the bedroom tax, and I can provide him with some figures from Cardiff council. Since 1 April there are now 1,176 people in arrears and the council estimates that 900 of them have never been in arrears before. That is going to cost it £175,000 in additional costs, and its arrears bill has risen to £1.2 million, so the idea that this is going to save money is complete fantasy.

[Mr Byrne]

What is interesting about the Secretary of State’s response is that he cannot defend his Department’s failure, and he cannot defend his own failure of leadership in not giving us a cumulative impact assessment of these cuts because he fears what that will show. He fears it will show that this bedroom tax will cost more than it saves—and it is just one of a number of changes now coming together to hit disabled people, and hit them hard.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree on these two points? First, this dreadful tax is going to cost more than it saves. It is hitting 2,600 households in my constituency, and City West Housing is expecting arrears of at least £1 million this year. Even worse than that is the effect on choice and dignity: week in and week out, I am now seeing cases in which disabled people have to explain why they cannot sleep in the same bedroom as their carers. They are being assessed on the point of “Why can you not sleep in the same bedroom?” Last week I had a letter about some constituents which stated, “We see no reason why you cannot sleep in the same bedroom.” Case studies that Carers UK has provided to Members today, however, explain why for people with disabilities there is very often a really good reason why the carer cannot sleep in the same room or the same bed as the person they are caring for.

[Mr Byrne]

Absolutely, and that is why the Secretary of State must produce the impact assessment. All of us are now meeting people who are under such pressure that they are creating more cost elsewhere in the system. I will probably remember for ever the man I met recently in Redcar. The great Anna Turley introduced us, and this is what was said: “Yes, he has a spare room, and do you know what he puts in it? He puts equipment to help him with renal failure.” Now, because he is having to move, that opportunity for home care is disappearing, and the NHS is saying to him “We’re going to have to take you to and from hospital in an ambulance every single day.” That is not a cost saving for the NHS. That is a new cost. It is a straight cost jump from a failure of policy from this Government.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I just wish to get this clear, so that there is no uncertainty: it is now the policy of a future Labour Government to reverse the bedroom tax. I, like the Secretary of State, was under the impression that the Leader of the Opposition had said that that was not the case. So will the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) provide clarification? Will the Labour party, if elected, abolish the bedroom tax?

[Mr Byrne]

We believe that the bedroom tax should be dropped, and dropped today, because the evidence is mounting that it is going to cost more than it saves. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. These points must be allowed to come out in debate, and right hon. and hon. Members can speak on their feet but not from their seats.

[Mr Byrne]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker.

We have to deal with the issue of the bedroom tax and then the issue of the cash benefits—

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Will right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Byrne]

I am not going to give way to the Secretary of State—

[Mr Duncan Smith]

He has now just said—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We must proceed, on both sides, according to established rules of debate, which include taking interventions or choosing not to do so. A Member cannot intervene, however strongly he or she feels, if the person who has the Floor declines to give way.

[Mr Byrne]

If the Secretary of State is so passionate about speaking, he should be answering for the Minister this afternoon instead of intervening from a sedentary position.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Byrne]

I will give way to the Secretary of State in a moment, because I have a number of other points I want him to answer. The whole House would wish that he, and not the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr Hoban), was answering the debate, because it is his failure of leadership at the Department for Work and Pensions that means that disabled people in this country are in such trouble today.

Let me deal with the cash commitments that we need to move on to. The Secretary of State needs to listen to this, because he cannot pursue this agenda of denial right the way through this afternoon; the power of hon. Members’ contributions demands to be listened to. Let us just consider contributory employment and support allowance, a benefit that people have paid into for years. The Conservative party and, in particular, the Secretary of State, have never believed in the principle of contributory benefits. By the end of this Parliament, such benefits will be no more than a rounding error; 280,000 former workers will by 2014 have completely lost their entitlement to support worth £100 a week—thank heavens we won an exemption for cancer patients. The truth is that those with mental health conditions and stroke sufferers will be very hard hit by this change.

Let us then consider the idea that disability living allowance should be abolished and replaced by the personal independence payment. We believe that reform is important, and we welcome the Secretary of State’s more sensible roll-out plan, but surely it is wrong to take away someone’s DLA without even a passing glance at whether the removal of that benefit will push someone out of work, push them into the NHS or cause a carer to have to give up a job. We are talking about important safeguards that should have been written into the reform of DLA. And we now have the lunacy of a Government forced to consult on issues such as the 20-metre rule after—not before—they introduce the regulations, because they could not organise things properly. It is an utter shambles.

We welcome the idea of strong social care. I wish to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) for the work that she has done and the way in which she has influenced the definition of well-being in the Care Bill, which is passing through the other place. DWP Ministers must know that one third of social care users are disabled adults, and we must avoid changes that take that system backwards rather than forwards.

There will be other changes that affect carers and children. Carers UK tells us that 3 million carers have had to give up work; one in five carers have seen their work badly affected by caring; and four out of 10 fall into debt. Yet, according to the Government’s own figures, botched reform to DLA could see another 10,000 carers lose support. Parents of disabled children will suffer, too. Parents of 100,000 disabled children will suffer from plans for universal credit. I understand from the Secretary of State’s performance before the Select Committee this morning that universal credit is now, after half a billion pounds-worth of spending, going to appear in the grand total of 10 jobcentres from October, which is about 1% of jobcentres. That is a tremendous success for the Secretary of State, topped only by his success in giving us a Work programme that is worse than doing nothing.

Families with disabled children currently receive an extra £54 per week from child tax credit, but that will be reduced by half when universal credit is introduced, which means a loss of about £1,400 a year for a family with a disabled child—or £22,000 over the course of a lifetime. The Prime Minister has told the House that

“we are not cutting benefits for disabled children.”—[Official Report, 14 December 2011; Vol. 537, c. 793.]

I think Channel 4 FactCheck got it right when it said that

“the dial points pretty firmly to fiction on this one”.

The tragedy is that so many disabled people want to work, want to get themselves out of poverty, and the Government will not help. A single person on disability benefits will be under the poverty line by about £600 a year. Even three hours’ work a week lifts a disabled person above the poverty line, and 30 hours’ work a week lifts them above the poverty line by about £5,000 a year. At the moment the situation is so chaotic that someone going along to a work capability assessment is eight times more likely to end up in a tribunal than in a job. As for the Work programme, words simply fail me. It took some doing, but the Government did it: they have produced a Work programme that is three times worse than doing nothing—and that is on their own figures.

Last year, the Chancellor of the Exchequer found the money to hand out a very nice tax cut—a very large tax cut—to some of Britain’s richest citizens. So this year we want to know: what is the Secretary of State going to ask the Chancellor for on behalf of disabled people? We think we should help him get the pitch right. The only way he can get that down accurately is by bringing forward a cumulative impact assessment of the changes now hitting disabled people. How else will he know what to ask for? How many people are losing their homes? How many are losing their DLA? How many are losing their homes, their DLA and their ESA? How many will lose carer’s allowance on top? And how many more disabled people will fall into poverty as a result of these sweeping changes over the next couple of years? Surely the Secretary of State cannot justify proceeding with these reforms blind. Surely he cannot go into negotiations with the Chancellor later in the year, before the autumn statement, oblivious to what is actually going on.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend may be aware of the work that Mind has done and the fact that about 40% of people applying for ESA are doing so because of a mental health problem. Work capability assessments are just not working, as we have all seen in our constituencies, and they need reforming.

[Mr Byrne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course the employment rate among people with a mental health condition is the lowest of all; it is a disgrace and it needs to change. At the moment, however, we do not have a system that actually assesses people’s needs at the same time as we assess what benefits they should be entitled to. There is a complete disconnection at the heart of the system. The point we want to make to the Secretary of State gently this afternoon is that he presides over one of the great Departments of state; about 100,000 civil servants work for him. If this country can organise an Olympic games, help put rockets into space and organise complex armed conflict abroad, he ought to be able to work out a cumulative impact assessment of the changes affecting disabled people.

The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Fareham, who has been forced to answer this debate, has, curiously enough, told the House the following:

“The Government regularly produces analysis of the cumulative impact of all coalition changes…The publication of cumulative impacts is a coalition initiative”.—[Official Report, 5 July 2013; Vol. 565, c. 862W.]

Labour Members welcome that. So can we please have a cumulative impact assessment of the changes hitting disabled people?

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, historically, the Government party has always been against the welfare state? Successive Conservative Governments have tried to weaken the welfare state by making statements that are not really helpful to those who need it.

[Mr Byrne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that, and, worst of all, what he describes comes with a nasty and divisive politics to boot.

If the Secretary of State needs any help with this job of producing cumulative impact assessments, plenty is on hand, as luck would have it. Let me read out the list of people who have half done the job for him: Demos, in its “Destination Unknown” pamphlet; Inclusion Scotland; the Campaign For a Fair Society; the Children’s Commissioner; Contact A Family; and The Hardest Hit. All those organisations have been able to produce cumulative impact assessments, and I am sure that if the Secretary of State asked them nicely, they would lend him a hand.

We believe that there must be vital reform in social security in the future, but that there must be a different way of organising reform. Someone in our country registers with the DWP as disabled every three minutes. The morality of this debate is very simple: disability is an issue that could affect any of us and is therefore something that affects us all. We should be learning from reform such as that pioneered by the Australian Labor party through comprehensive disability insurance, where one personal plan sets out a plan of action for benefits, back-to-work support, social care and help from the national health service and where one partnership comes together to deliver it.

I do not know how often the Secretary of State speaks to his opposite number in the Department of Health, but his right hon. Friend is taking through the other place a Care Bill that creates a definition of well-being that includes the idea that someone should be able to go to work and to get training and an education. The DWP is then missing from the rest of the Bill. The local authority and the NHS are obliged to talk to each other, but where is the DWP? Why is it not coming together with local councils and the NHS to deliver change? We should create a “tell us once” approach to collecting information and, crucially, we should transform back-to-work support by giving people the right to take that support in the form of a personal budget. I know the Secretary of State is still evaluating the “right to control” pilots in Barnsley and elsewhere and we look forward to his bringing forward the conclusions from that work.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

I am pleased to hear the right hon. Gentleman announce his intention to abolish the spare room subsidy. He also praised to the skies the Australian insurance model that has just been introduced. Is he therefore committing to the payroll tax increases funding that model in Australia? Have we just heard yet another spending commitment?

[Mr Byrne]

Of course not. We are saying that the idea of introducing holistic care, in the way the hon. Gentleman’s Department of Health colleague implies in the Care Bill, is something the Secretary of State could learn from.

[Stephen Doughty]

When Lord Freud gave evidence to the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs and was questioned about the mental health impacts on people going through the reforms and the impact they were having on individual lives, he appeared to suggest that few conversations had been had with organisations such as the Samaritans and Mind. That is deeply concerning; does my right hon. Friend agree? A constituent came to me the other week and handed me a letter that said at the end, “I’d rather kill myself and then they will have one less mouth to feed.” That is the daily experience of the people who come to our surgeries.

[Mr Byrne]

That is the tragedy about which we are all hearing in our constituencies. I am sure that the Minister has heard the same thing from his constituents, because we know that some 890 people could lose their disability living allowance in his constituency. If people are in work and lose their DLA, they will lose some of their advantages in the tax credit system. If they are also hit by the uprating legislation and the bedroom tax and also lose their transitional support under universal credit, it will not be long before they are £5,000 a year worse off. How can we in this country, one of the richest nations on earth, justify giving a huge tax cut to millionaires and then saying to 890 people in the Minister’s constituency that if they want to go to work they might be £5,000 a year worse off? How on earth can the Minister justify that to the House?

The Government are putting some our most vulnerable people in the middle of a labyrinth and, frankly, if we are to succeed as a nation in the future we cannot go on like this. We must draw on every ounce of talent that is available to us in these islands. That is the only way we will become a nation that is firing on all cylinders. Today, we offer the Secretary of State no more than a humble step on the road—something that will help him in his negotiations with the Chancellor before the autumn statement. I hope that it is something he will be able to support. No one will be able to understand why he has set his face against it if he votes against it and leads his troops to vote against it this afternoon. I hope he accepts it and, if he does not, I hope this House will force him to.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hoban]

But reform is needed, too, to make sure that we spend money carefully. We need to think about how we deliver services. That is why joining up care and health in a single budget is vital if we are to tackle problems on the ground, enable local authorities and the health service to work together, and really make progress.

[Mr Byrne]

The Minister is being characteristically generous in giving way. If he believes what he has just said, will he explain why the duty to co-operate in the Care Bill does not extend to the Department for Work and Pensions? Will he table Government amendments to the Bill to ensure that those duties to co-operate bite on local authorities, the NHS and his Department?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Byrne]

I think that the Minister would sort of accept that we were not introducing some of the biggest cuts to disabled people’s services or benefits for a generation, so the premium on a cumulative impact assessment was not quite as great then as it is now. He said to the House on 5 July that cumulative impact assessments were “a coalition initiative”, and I assume that they are an initiative of which he is proud. If he is so proud of them, why does he not equip himself with one before the Secretary of State goes to see the Chancellor, as he no doubt will, so that he can argue on behalf of disabled people before the autumn statement?

[Mr Hoban]

I do not want to spoil the excitement that is felt about the later parts of my speech—you are right to pull a wry face, Mr Speaker—but the challenge when one is trying to carry out a cumulative impact assessment that covers a wide range of policy areas for a defined group, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, as he was in the Treasury and in government, is that resources and information are not there to enable people to do it. That is the problem that the last Government faced, and we face the same challenge. Unlike that Government, we have produced a cumulative impact assessment at major fiscal events, but that cannot be disaggregated to the sort of level that the right hon. Gentleman is referring to. He knows that, because he has been through that process.

[Mr Byrne]

The Minister is very generous to give way once again. Will he tell the House which part of the Demos “Destination Unknown” cumulative impact assessment he disagreed with?

[Mr Hoban]

Bodies such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies have said that giving that level of detail is impossible and have stepped away from doing so. I know that the right hon. Gentleman has got into trouble on spending plans; he tried to dig himself out of a hole earlier and did not manage to do it, and there is a bit of chaff for him, but let us be very clear: this was a challenge when he was in government, and it remains a challenge.

Let me move on to employment. We all know that work brings self-esteem and dignity. It enables people, whether disabled or able-bodied, to look after themselves and their families. Nearly half of disabled people are in work. Only one in 10 working-age disabled people have never worked, and for those aged over 25 it is only one in 20. If we want to make a sustainable difference, we must do all that we can to help more disabled people who can work to get into mainstream employment and stay there. The spending review allocated £330 million to programmes and support for disabled people or those with a long-term health condition, so that they can move into and stay in work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hoban]

As I said, the cash benefits for people on transition are protected. We hear the figures published by Citizens Advice but we do not understand where they come from. They are not borne out by our understanding. Let me move on to talk about disability living allowance.

[Mr Byrne]

rose—

[Mr Hoban]

I want to move on. I have been very generous in giving way to the right hon. Gentleman, as he acknowledged.

We all know that some disabled people face extra costs as a result of the impact of their disability. The main source of financial support, disability living allowance, has not been fundamentally reformed since 1992. Our welfare reforms presented an opportunity to start afresh, keeping the best elements of DLA that people value, but bringing the benefit up to date to make it fit for the 21st century. The personal independence payment—PIP—is easy to understand and administer. It is financially sustainable and more objective. It will be better targeted on those in most need. Throughout the whole development, we have consulted widely with disabled people and have used their views to inform policy design. We have continued to listen and consult, ensuring that these reforms continue to be shaped by the views of disabled people themselves. In other words, reform is not static and this Government are committed to listening and acting where change is required.

Instead of simply cutting money from everyone, we chose the more difficult but principled option of modernising the benefit and focusing support where it is most needed. PIP will be awarded on the basis of a fair, consistent and objective assessment which will enable us to target support on those who face the greatest barriers to independent living. More than one fifth of PIP recipients will get both of the highest rates, worth £134.40 each week, compared with only 16% on DLA. That demonstrates that we are focusing support on those in most need.

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[Paul Maynard]

I think that the hon. Lady misunderstands the actual point of PIP; it is to look at how people cope with their conditions. They are given ample opportunity to submit evidence and we help them to do that in my constituency surgeries. I hope that Labour Members do so, too, rather than store up a treasure trove of Atos scare stories that make people more scared of attending an Atos appointment than they were before.

[Mr Byrne]

rose—

[Paul Maynard]

I have given way enough times and the shadow Secretary of State has had his opportunity. If those on the Opposition Front Benches paid more attention to the “Fulfilling Potential” report, they might be a little chilled by what they read. Page 34 states clearly:

“Young people’s aspirations can decline in response to their growing understanding of the world”.

Listening to Opposition Members, I am sure that young people’s aspirations will decline because of the negative messages they are getting. The report states:

“By the age of 26 disabled people are less confident”

about entering into the world. I think we should be celebrating the fact that this Government are taking steps on a broad range of measures—not merely disability benefits—that the previous Government never had the courage to take.

For example, consider a young person who wishes to go to university. Under the Labour Government they were scared to do so because they could not guarantee that their care package would be made portable. With this Government’s Care Bill, we are doing just that. How can we put a price on aspiration? How can we quantify hope? What do I say to disabled people using an organisation in my constituency that has just introduced a “Safe Journey” card they can show on trams to ensure that it pulls away more slowly and they do not get flung to the ground? How are such things incorporated into the precious cumulative impact assessment? So much that can be done for the disabled community will never appear in any impact assessment, but it can be reflected in what we are doing with the “Fulfilling Potential” initiative.

I begin to despair at so much of what I hear from the Opposition Benches and it makes me truly angry. I pay tribute to the previous Government for their work to try to improve awareness of disability hate crime. However, I react with fury to the reaction of so many Opposition Members when the reporting of incidents of disability hate crime increases because of work done by this Government, and the previous Government, to create an atmosphere in which people are more confident to report such crime. We are told that an increase in the reporting of hate crime is evidence of the Government’s war on the disabled. I find that disgusting. It is personally abhorrent that people should campaign in a partisan way on the backs of those in the most vulnerable section of our society, to make a partisan point. That does nothing.

The contribution of disabled people to this country goes far wider than the amount they receive in benefits. I recognise, however, that we cannot talk of aspiration or fulfilling potential if we do not have a stable system of state support. We are trying to ensure that the right people get the right amount of money to match their needs, abilities and aspirations to work, live their lives and fulfil their ambitions, not match the labels hung around their necks by the Labour party.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

I welcome this opportunity to put fact where there has been confusion and information where there has been misinformation from the Opposition; to explain the context of the welfare reforms, the vision and the collaborative work done with disabled people and their organisations; to reply to the points, one by one, that I have heard today; and to explain why the cumulative impact assessment is neither possible nor the correct approach, because doing one would provide inaccurate information—something, surely, that no one in the House would want to support.

To be clear, the Government’s overarching ambition is to enable disabled people to fulfil their ambition to be full and equal members of society. That is what we aim to do, so I am pleased to inform the House that, despite what we have heard today, under this Government, disabled people are already experiencing improved outcomes and reduced inequalities as against non-disabled people. Data published last week show that since 2009-10 disabled people have seen improved achievements at degree and GCSE levels and improved employment rates, and there is a reduced proportion of disabled people in relative income poverty. Inequality has also been reduced in a number of areas. The gap in outcomes compared with non-disabled people has narrowed for GCSE achievements, employment rates, income poverty for families with someone who is disabled, and in reported choice and control over people’s lives—something I would have thought the House would welcome.

[Mr Byrne]

rose—

[Esther McVey]

One thing I am sure we can all agree on is the complexity of disability and the very different life experiences that everyone lives through, so let me talk about the range of people we are dealing with: from people like Stephen Hawking, who has a brain the size of the planet but is very physically disabled, to people who are mentally severely disabled but physically very able, and everybody else in between—from fluctuating to sensory to cognitive. We have to support each one of those. We have to find individual, tailor-made support for each of those people and provide it in an holistic approach, and that is what we are doing, bringing together social care, health, education and all the benefits. What I will say, before—

[Mr Byrne]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Lady is not for giving way. It is up to her whether she wishes to give way, and I think she has signalled often enough.

[Esther McVey]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. As I have been left with limited time and have many answers to give, I will not be giving way to the right hon. Gentleman, but I will raise some of his points. I would like to point out—he overlooked this—that we spend £50 billion a year on support and benefits for disabled people. That is a fifth higher than the average in Europe, double the rate in America spends and six times that in Japan.

The right hon. Gentleman made an unusual speech today, talking about his new single personal budget. As per normal, we heard no details whatever. How would it be funded? Would it be means-tested? Would he abolish PIP? The right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) was asked whether he would reverse the spare rooms subsidy—something he said he would not be doing—but obviously the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) thinks he is above his own leader. He is changing his policy on the hoof.

[Mr Byrne]

rose—

[Esther McVey]

I have said that I will not be giving way to the right hon. Gentleman, because he spoke rubbish for hours. We will go to—[Interruption.] Crikey! Temper, temper!

The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) asked various questions about the work capability assessment and Atos. I really do not get how Labour Members can forget that they introduced it in 2008 or that they gave the contract to Atos until 2015.