Welfare Reform (Sick and Disabled People)

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

I agree completely. The figures in Brighton are echoed around the country and have been reported for a number of years.

We met some of the disabled campaigners this morning. One of them said, referring to Ministers, “Do they realise that many of us feel terrorised by what the Government are doing?” Another disabled campaigner said to me this morning, “Can you tell them that they call their programme fulfilling our potential, but we feel that many of us simply won’t survive this round of cuts? A generation is going to be lost.” The central demand of the petition is straightforward: the motion is, in essence, a call for a cumulative impact assessment of all the welfare changes that have been introduced by this Government. The argument that campaigners put forward is that if politicians and society only knew the full effect of all the changes on the lives of disabled people and their families, surely they would not let that happen in a civilised society. Let us see whether we can move hearts and change minds in this debate.

Let us run through some of the figures. There are 11.3 million people with a disability in the UK, 4.5 million of whom have a significant disability that entitles them to a disability benefit such as the disability living allowance or the attendance allowance. The group the welfare cuts are hurting the most is the 2.7 million people with disabilities who live in poverty.

I remember the Prime Minister’s statements in 2010 when the Government launched their austerity programme to cut public spending. In October 2010, he said that

“it is fair that those with broader shoulders should bear a greater load”,

that the greatest burden would be placed on the better off, and that the cuts would be fair. Well, the reverse is the case.

I urge Members to read at least one of the relevant reports. In “Counting the Cuts”, Simon Duffy, the director of the Centre for Welfare Reform, explains that disabled people in poverty are bearing the cuts four times worse than the average, while the burden on people using social care is nearly six times that on the average person. Other reports escalate the figure and say that the burden on people with disabilities is perhaps 20 times the average. The reason for that is that disabled people are being hit by a combination of cuts in funding for social care and support and by wave after wave of cuts—almost annually—in welfare benefits.

Let us look at the cuts in care and support. Many disabled people rely on local authority social care and support. By next month, £2.68 billion will have been cut out of adult social care budgets across the country. In 2012-13, 320,000 fewer disabled people and 37,000 fewer adults aged between 18 and 64 with physical impairments received local authority care and support than in 2005-06. The number of adults with mental health issues receiving care and support has reduced by 30,000.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that decent social care is about not just helping people cope with their disabilities, but helping them live an ordinary life that the rest of us take for granted—being able to get up, wash, dressed and fed, spend time with their families and go out into the community, as well as being able to work, if they can? Is that not why the cuts in social care have been so devastating?

[John McDonnell]

That is exactly why people feel that the impact is so harsh. Many local authorities have changed the eligibility criteria—that is the problem—to cover only those with substantial needs, which automatically cuts out about 100,000 people from receiving any form of social care whatever.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Kendall]

Why does the hon. Gentleman support the bedroom tax, which has affected 2,300 people in Leicester? The council has overspent the discretionary fund by £100,000 this year because there has been such demand for it, and it had to increase it from £212,000 last year to £813,000 this year because of a tax that he supported. Why does he support it?

[Mr Reid]

The hon. Lady’s question is based on the wrong premise. I actually voted against the bedroom tax. As I said in my introduction, I did not support every detail of the Government’s proposals.

It is interesting to note all the opposition from Labour Members to everything the Government are doing. I look forward to hearing what the Opposition spokesperson says about this later, because I understand that Labour do not propose to spend any more on welfare payments than the Government are doing. It will therefore be interesting to hear what the official Labour line is, as opposed to all the complaints that we are hearing from its Back Benchers.

As well as tackling the economic mess that Labour left behind, Liberal Democrats in government have blocked the excesses that a Conservative-only Government would have implemented. For example, we prevented the Conservatives from freezing disability benefits. Instead, they are going up by 2.7% this year. Assessment of applications for disability benefits is an integral part of welfare reform, and this Government have improved on the system left behind by Labour. Thanks to Liberal Democrat amendments to Labour’s Welfare Reform Act 2007, the Government are required to conduct five annual independent reviews of the work capability assessment. In government, we are now acting on those reviews to improve the system. Professor Harrington completed the first three reviews, and found that our efforts to improve the WCA were making a difference.