Disability Support

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Bill Grant]

I can only relate that to my own experience. We have outreach workers who go and assist these individuals, and that assistance must be given when requested. I am saddened if that is the case in the hon. Lady’s area, but I am proud of the staff in Ayr and other local jobcentres.

Like many Members, I have had concerns that the implementation of such a comprehensive system may lead to errors, human or indeed systemic, in the support given in particular to vulnerable and disabled claimants. Indeed, I have referred to these concerns previously in this very Chamber. However, I have been reassured by recent measures, particularly those announced in the Budget, to ensure support during that transition. The additional £1 billion over five years to support the transition is especially welcome, but I accept that more would be welcome in that regard.

I have likewise been concerned by allegations of failings in the health assessments required under the personal independence payment scheme. However, on inspection of and after a closer look at the figures, this pessimism is not supported. I understand that only 4%—[Interruption.] There is a degree of pessimism. Of initial decisions, only 4% are overturned at appeal. Of course, we have all dealt with specific cases where errors have indeed been made—and, I hope, rectified—but the overall figures are encouraging. I repeat that the overall figures are encouraging. We need to monitor what we are doing to understand what we are doing. Almost 90% are satisfied with the PIP claim process.

Something that is often overlooked, sadly in my view, is the flexibility for those with disabilities returning to work that is encouraged by the revised welfare system. Where previously there were rigid rules—very rigid rules—there is now the flexibility to allow a phased reduction in benefits while a person builds up their hours and their confidence in a new role. This can be a challenging yet rewarding event for the individual. This is a sensible element of the new system in helping people back into work, where appropriate, and one I very much support.

The Disability Confident scheme, which has been with us for a number of years, also assists greatly with this process. I commend employers throughout the length and breadth of the country for embracing this excellent system. At this juncture, I note that disability benefits are not covered by the benefits cap, and rightly so.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

On the Disability Confident scheme, will the hon. Gentleman recommend that MPs should be joining it and trying to ensure that they engage with employment practices that support people with disabilities to come and work in the House of Commons? The Speaker’s internship scheme, which has been extended to include placements for people with disabilities, is an excellent scheme. Will he also suggest that we should be looking at people with disabilities not just as employees, but as employers, and doing all we can to support their progress?

[Bill Grant]

I wholly agree with the hon. Lady. Yes, we should be trailblazers and setting the example by giving employment to those who are seeking employment and want to contribute to society, and broadening that as best we can. We should also be encouraging local employers, as I am sure the hon. Lady does, to take that on board, and to build a bridge between the person who really is employable and wants to work and the opportunity for the employer that, perhaps with a minor adjustment to the workplace, can accommodate a disabled person. I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention.

I am sure hon. Members will be encouraged to note that in the United Kingdom—this proud nation of ours—spending on disability and health conditions is the second highest in the G7.

Universal credit is a comprehensive system, bringing about the much-needed modernisation of a dated and discredited welfare system. I have not found it to represent the draconian approach that some have suggested—their experiences of it are clearly different from mine—and I am encouraged by the much greater flexibility it offers in helping people return, where appropriate, to the dignity and self-esteem that employment must surely bring.

I am optimistic about the future of universal credit, should Ministers continue, as they have thus far, to listen and respond to concerns or suggestions from Members of this House, jobcentre staff and, most importantly, those who themselves rely on the support afforded by the welfare system in the United Kingdom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth George]

I am glad that the Minister is disagreeing and I very much hope that she will put me right and will agree to this.

There are plenty of figures out there. We know that 30% of families including someone with a disability are in poverty. That is 10% higher than the rest of the population. In fact, according to the Social Mobility Commission, half of people in poverty—nearly 7 million people—are in a household with an adult who has a disability. Fixing the problems of poverty for people with disabilities will go a long way to fixing the problems of the UK’s high level of poverty.

Over the last eight years, we have seen successive cuts to benefits that affect people with disabilities. From 2013, we saw a 1% benefit uprating for three years. Employment and support allowance lost over 5% of its value compared to the retail prices index and 3% compared to the consumer prices index. The four-year benefits freeze will take off 6.5% compared to the CPI and a full 10% compared to the RPI; 15% of the value of that benefit will be lost over seven years. These are not generous benefits in the first place.

In addition, many disabled people have had to cope with the cuts to local housing allowance, which is down to 30% of median rents. They therefore have to bulk up their rent out of their meagre ESA. Child tax credit has been frozen. The childcare element in tax credits has been at the same maximum since 2005, and the amount of help people can get with childcare costs has reduced from 80% to 70%. In addition we have the bedroom tax, which affects so many people with disabilities, and £30 a week has been abolished for those in the work-related activity group under ESA.

People with disabilities have been facing all those cuts, even before the cuts under universal credit. That is why people with disabilities feel so strongly that there needs to be a cumulative impact assessment of the full impact of the history of serious cuts to their income. Under universal credit, we are also seeing cuts that affect children with disabilities. The Government claim to support and protect the most vulnerable in society, but my constituent—a single parent with a son with a disability—wrote to me saying, “My son is six years old. He is practically bed-bound, yet the Government want to transfer me on to universal credit because I can no longer work to support him, and his support will be reduced. If my disabled son is not one of the most vulnerable people who needs protection and support, then who is?” I put that question to the Minister today.

The difficulties in claiming universal credit for people with disabilities have been set out in many cases elsewhere, but because roll-out so far has been mostly to people who have been on JSA—not to people with disabilities on employment and support allowance—we have not seen the scale of support that is needed. However, as I mentioned earlier, I am already seeing problems in my constituency with regards to people with disabilities getting the home visits that they feel they need.

Families in particular are feeling the cuts, including parents who are disabled with children who are disabled. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth set out the appalling level of cuts—a reduction in income of nearly £10,000 a year—that those families will see under universal credit. It is no wonder that families fear universal credit. A constituent with a four-year-old son who is autistic and non-verbal wrote to me to say that she has had to give up work to care for him because she cannot get care in the school holidays, so as well as losing her own wage, she has also lost tax credits. The family looked to claim housing benefit, but found that they would need to claim universal credit instead. Given that they have already racked up rent arrears because their income has been so reduced, if they faced five weeks’ wait for support under universal credit, they could end up losing the house they have been tenants in for the last 21 years. I hope that the Government will be listening to these real stories of people who are already suffering. I have had universal credit in my constituency for only two and a half months, and I am already seeing constituents who are suffering under it.

That is on top of all the constituents who are suffering from employment support allowance and PIP assessments. In the Work and Pensions Committee, I set out to the Minister the very harrowing account that I had heard of a group of survivors of sexual violence and their experiences of PIP assessments—how one woman was curled up on the floor crying and sobbing uncontrollably while the assessor simply repeated the questions at her deadpan and offered her no support or understanding whatsoever. I was very pleased that the Minister agreed that that was a disgusting situation that should not be allowed to continue. In response to the Committee’s report on PIP and ESA assessments, the Government promised to look at the recording of those assessments and to bring that in. However, on questioning the permanent secretary today in the Committee, we heard that he had no idea how that was being rolled out, although the commitment to do so was made eight months ago.

A constituent who was looking to claim PIP said that she was forced to purchase her own recording equipment if she wanted her assessment to be recorded, whereas she knows that in the past the assessment centre had used its own equipment. She was also looking to get support with getting to the assessment centre. She was told that she could get there in a taxi but that it would cost £100 up-front and she could only claim that back 30 days after her assessment. People with disabilities are not being treated in the way that they should be treated. I am afraid that this is a culture that we are coming across time and again in what we hear in our constituency surgeries.

The Disability Benefits Consortium found that eight out of 10 people who underwent a PIP assessment found that it made their health worse. Two thirds felt that they had been poorly assessed. Constituents with mental health difficulties, in particular, find that those difficulties are not adequately assessed. One constituent said that, although she presented with serious mental health difficulties, the bulk of the questions she was asked were aimed at her physical health, where she has only minor conditions that do not prevent her from working. Only a third of the time was spent covering her mental health, and those questions were loaded. When she tried to expand and explain her answers, she was told to stick to the questions.

My constituent has been left on the verge of suicide by that assessment and the struggle of waiting for a response as to what will happen as a result. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth set out so starkly, there has been an increase in suicides by people who have been undergoing work capability and PIP assessments. None of us want to see this happen. In Committee, I raised with the Minister the fact that constituents of mine were being asked why they had not yet committed suicide. I was very pleased that she again took up the issue. That question has not come up in the cases that I have received more recently, so I very much hope that that practice is spreading through the privatised companies that do these assessments. However, there is so much more to do, as cases just from my one, very rural and relatively affluent constituency show.

[Dr Cameron]

The hon. Lady is making an extremely powerful speech. I chair the all-party parliamentary group for disability, and we have heard that there are particular difficulties for people with acquired brain injury and epilepsy in relation to the types of questions asked in assessments. Does she agree that assessments should be more sensitive to the different types of disability?

[Ruth George]

The hon. Lady makes a very relevant point. The evidence from my constituents with mental health issues and brain injuries is that assessments are centred on physical health and physical difficulties.

I know from my 20 years working for the shop workers’ union, USDAW, that work is not easy these days, particularly for people with long-term health conditions. Employers now have sickness absence procedures, and employees often cannot have more than three periods of sickness absence, however short, in any six-month period. People with disabilities—particularly those who do not have a union representative to support them under the Equality Act 2010—are simply slipping through the net, not performing and being left out of the workplace.

Unfortunately, universal credit and the cuts to that benefit will trap people who have disabilities more without work, and particularly those who are on a higher-level benefit with premiums and then take up a short period of work. For example, one of my constituents took a job working for Royal Mail for six weeks over the Christmas period, because he felt relatively well and wanted to do it. He has just found out that when he finishes that job, he will be transferred on to universal credit and will lose his transitional protection and support. That is not a message that says to people with disabilities, “Try to work. Try to do your best.”

We see even more problems with the system where people with disabilities are being refused work capability assessments and are not seeing any money at all. One of my constituents was presented to me by a support charity six months ago. It has been trying for six months to get him some money, since he failed his ESA assessment. He had a fit note and should have been getting money. Only with my intervention did he get support. For six months, he was living off friends, family and food bank parcels.