Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I support Amendment 43, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Freud, and I also wish to congratulate him on levering a little money out of his Government, or the Treasury, to enable that amendment to be tabled. However, I also want to speak to my Amendment 42A, rather late in the day, which seeks to introduce just a little more humanity into this part of the Bill. It simply extends a little the remit of Amendment 43.

At present, a claimant who has a terminal illness and who is expected to live no more than six months would be placed in a support group, which means that they would have no conditions attached to their benefit entitlement. If they have a few good days when they might be able to work, there is no commitment for them to have to do that although anyone in this position who has a job will no doubt wish to work as far as they possibly can. I am talking about those people who do not have a job and who therefore find themselves in the position of having to look for one, when they have a terminal illness that will deteriorate over time until they finally die.

This amendment applies to a group of people who are suffering from a life-threatening disease, the symptoms of which cannot be controlled by any recognised therapeutic procedure, and where there is reasonable cause for these symptoms not to be able to be controlled by any such procedure. At present, the default position is that these claimants will be allocated to the work-related activity group and will be expected to undertake interviews and activities on this rather wild and ridiculous assumption that they should be finding a brand new job, with a brand new employer, for whatever little bits of time they are able to function. At the same time, of course, they have to prepare themselves mentally for the ever worsening symptoms that will lead to their death.

My question to the Minister is whether he regards such expectations of persons on a downward path towards death as humane and reasonable. I hope very much that he will answer that question rather carefully in his response, in the sense that having accepted the government amendment and put that forward, he will find that this amendment is a very minor shift which brings people in a rather similar position into line. Again, I must emphasise that this amendment would not in any way discourage terminally ill people who can work from doing so. Rather, it is an attempt to remove callous pressures from being applied to people who already have probably far too much to cope with.

The Minister knows that I understand very well the need to reduce the numbers of people on ESA and, most particularly, to reduce the months and years that some people remain on it. We are really of one mind on that. Of course, proper conditions need to be applied so that if people are really sufficiently well to work, they make every effort to do so. However, we are talking about people whose lives are severely curtailed. They will not be around to spend years on ESA, let alone to claim pensions. Are we not in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater here?

I shall leave your Lordships with just one case to illustrate the point. A CAB client had had major surgery for breast cancer, twice. At the time of her assessment for benefit she was suffering severe pain and undergoing tests that revealed some abnormal bone activity. She told the HCP about her condition and the fact that she was due to have a further scan. This lady was found to have metastatic non-curative cancer of her bones, primarily in her pelvis, hips, back and spine, as well as down her legs and in the rib area. She was told that she had three or four years to live, although I have to say that sounds a little unlikely to me, and my guess is that it will be a pretty miserable three or four years.

On appeal, this claimant had her “fit for work” status—which is mind-boggling in itself—removed, but she was placed in the work-related activity group. She became very tearful and had to see a psychologist. She was unable to return to her previous job due to pain from the operations removing the lymph glands under her arms. She got extremely tired, of course—if you have metastatic cancer you are not going to be in a good way to do anything. The CAB adviser was of the view that this client would not be able to work again due to the increasing pain levels that she was going to suffer.

Anyone who has known anyone with metastatic bone cancer will know that this is not a happy thing to have; it is seriously deleterious. That is the point that I want to make: here you have people whose pain, tiredness and general debility cannot be adequately controlled, and there should be some fairly automatic procedure to deal with them. Perhaps the Minister could consider the position of a potential employer. Who would take on an employee with metastatic bone cancer? I have to say that I would not. How reliable would such an employee be, and for how long—for how many days or weeks at a time? Who knows? The prospects, though, are pretty poor.

This client will have to go through the humiliating and endlessly negative experience of writing applications and going for interviews, knowing in her own mind that employers, if they are half sensible, simply will not take her on. It is that aspect that we need to get hold of. Also, she could be accused of wasting employers’ time: why should they be reading these applications and interviewing her when, poor soul, she really is not in a fit state to work?

Noble Lords have mentioned in previous debates that terminally ill claimants will be saving taxpayers substantial amounts of money because of course they will not be living for decades with dementia, as people like myself might be doing. All we are looking for is dignity in those last months and, if they are lucky—although perhaps this might not be lucky after all—years before they die. As the Prime Minister said in his first party conference speech as Prime Minister,

“people who are sick, who are vulnerable, the elderly—I want you to know that we will … look after you. That's the sign of a civilised society and it's what I believe”.

We are really not talking about a lot of money here. I hope that the Minister will consider this matter.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, I would like to make a brief contribution to this debate. Anyone who was part of the collective consideration in Grand Committee would have to acknowledge the very constructive role that the Minister played in this part of the Bill. The Bill is very difficult territory. I think that it was an amendment in the name of noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, that opened the door to some of the changes that the Government are now proposing, but it was palpable to everyone who was watching the Minister that the defence that the department was taking at the time was not adequate to meet the demands that were being made of it in the cross-examination that he was getting. For myself, I think that it was commendable that he was alive enough to what was being said by adult people around him at the time on an important issue. It is not a huge issue; there may be 4,000 or so claimants who might now benefit from this measure, but those who do will get substantial benefit. It is appropriate, particularly from my side of the coalition on this side of the House, to recognise that this is a significant amendment that was won only because the Minister was willing enough to listen and make a constructive response. That is why we have the amendment in front of us today, and I hope that the House will support it unanimously.