Disability Support

Luke Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

I am glad the Minister did as he did, but we do also hear from people who cannot get jobs because of their disabilities and from employers who say it is too expensive to make the adjustments.

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

On the point about it being too expensive, does the hon. Lady recognise the support to work schemes that the Government have introduced and which now can reach up to £57,000 per employee, which can help to negate some of those costs and support disabled people in work?

[Helen Goodman]

If those schemes were so good, the proportion of people with disabilities in work would have gone up, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth, who opened the debate, pointed out, it has not increased one jot in the last eight years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Graham (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), who is clearly well informed on these issues and who shares my love of statistics.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) on securing this debate. Opposition Members have talked about the UN report and the Government’s supposed complacency, and I make it clear that, in the 18 months I have been here, not one of my colleagues or I have been complacent about the welfare policies we see play out in our constituencies every single day. I will elaborate on some of the areas where I think we are doing quite well and on other areas where there is still scope for further reform, on which I am sure colleagues will want to work with me and, of course, with Ministers in trying to deliver.

We are having this debate against the backdrop of significant changes to our welfare policy. DLA is being phased through to PIP, along with attendance allowance for pensioners with care needs. We have seen a big difference in how the money is being spent, too.

Some Opposition Members have criticised the Government, saying that costs have been cut on the backs of the most vulnerable in our society. I have heard that allegation made against Ministers time and again, which is why I went to the Library to look at the overall expenditure within our welfare system. Breaking it down, around £10.3 billion was being spent on DLA in 2009-10—we did not have PIP in 2009-10—and in 2017-18 around £16 billion was being spent on DLA plus PIP. In cash terms, there has not been a reduction in overall expenditure.

The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), who is no longer in her place, said that we are cutting costs on the backs of the most vulnerable, which is neither fair nor accurate. If we are to have a proper debate on how to help the most vulnerable in our society, we should speak to the right facts. The facts and statistics have come up as an issue time and again, including in the House this week. We owe it to all our constituents to speak to the facts, and if Opposition Members dispute the facts, they should take it up with the Library.

In looking at how the policies have come across, not only has the way in which the money is distributed changed, but so has how services are delivered. What has happened with a lot of the welfare reforms—I have seen it, and my constituents have come to my office to speak about it—is that many people on legacy benefits are, for the very first time, having some of the assumptions challenged and are being asked for reassessments. Sometimes that is for the good, but sometimes there has been a detrimental impact where they have fallen through the different changes. They might have had a change of circumstances, or they might have moved between counties or to different parts of the country, which has had a negative impact. I have asked questions of Ministers in the House to try to tackle those issues.

[Debbie Abrahams]

How many disabled people were supported by the social security system in 2009, and how many are supported now? It is important to have the denominator value so that we have a rate, not just cash values.

[Luke Graham]

I could not agree more. I find it interesting that we have had an increase of around 800,000 people aged 16 to 64 who are now being classified as disabled. I understand that they had previous classifications within the welfare system and were receiving different benefits, so a simple change in the denominator would not indicate the impact.

The Government have made commitments to people in receipt of cash benefits. [Interruption.] It is a fair point. The hon. Lady asked me a direct question, and I gave her a direct answer. Again, I would happily debate the number of people who are now being classified as disabled.

There have been some positive movements in the Government’s changes. We have seen the employment rate for disabled people go up from 43% to 51%, which is welcome. I referred to Access to Work earlier, and £104 million went into the scheme in 2016-17, providing support to around 25,000 people.

Again, no Conservative Member is complacent. We are very clear that changes still need to be made. A number of my constituents have talked to me about their experiences of the assessment process, taking me through the paperwork. I have gone through that page by page with them to understand where they are having difficulties. From that, we can see that some of these changes have brought people into our offices; they have brought them into the welfare system. For a long time, they have lagged in the dark, whereas now assumptions are being challenged and new benefits are being offered. As a result, new questions are coming from our constituents, and we should try to answer them as best we can.

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for giving a far more honest portrayal of his experience of his constituents than other Government Members. May I just challenge a point he made earlier about the figures? Of course, when he refers to these figures, he is being somewhat selective. The rate of inflation means costs have risen since 2010, so naturally the costs, output and spend he refers to will be higher, but that does not necessarily mean that people are not being affected disproportionately.

[Luke Graham]

We are looking at a 38% increase in cash terms, but if the compound inflation rate over the same period is taken into account, this would come out as less than 38%. I am happy to go through the calculations with the hon. Lady separately, but we would still find a real-terms increase in the benefits that are being paid out.

On all these policies, we, as constituency MPs, see people who come into our offices. They come to see me and my staff in my Alloa office and in my Crieff office, and we see some of the human impact of the changes made in welfare. I support looking at how we assess the impacts on disabled people, because we are putting in a considerable amount of money. My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Bill Grant) made the point about the amount being spent on disabled benefits, and we are one of the highest spenders in the developed world, which should be applauded, but if the money is not getting to the right people at the right time, we need to see exactly how it is being administered and how our services are being delivered on the frontline right across our country.

Like other Members here, I have hosted debates on Disability Confident, which is a fantastic scheme. The hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) talked about how MPs should be signing up for that. My office is a member of the scheme and the same applies to colleagues from right across the House. The Minister visited the Glenalmond Timber Company in my constituency, and I hope everyone will be able to join me in congratulating Jed Gardner, its production manager, who now has Disability Confident leader status—the first in Scotland. I hope everyone will congratulate him on the fantastic work being done in Methven to give people with disabilities opportunities to work. When I visited the company and when the Minister did, too, we could clearly see the impact this has on not only individuals, but their family and friends. So some incredibly positive work is being done by this Government, although there are also areas where we need to review and assess continually.

Furthermore, in my constituency, we recently held a joint event with my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) on Disability Confident in Alloa, which the local community and the DWP attended. It was hosted in Inglewood House, which, I am glad to say, signed up to the Disability Confident scheme immediately following that event. Again, that is an incredibly positive action, showing that companies in Clackmannanshire, Perth and Kinross are taking Government initiatives from the green Benches here and applying them in a daily way where we can see real improvement in our constituents’ lives.

As I said, I have a number of concerns about how the assessment is taking place, and I would support looking at having an assessment of how these things are being delivered. I hope to work with my Government colleagues on how that would be done. I hope that such an assessment would be independent, or certainly objective, to make sure that our constituents, our Government and ourselves will have the best possible view on how these disability benefits are being delivered.

[Kate Green]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the recommendation in the Work and Pensions Committee’s report published this week that, while someone is waiting for a work capability assessment, it is unreasonable of the Department not to pay universal credit, because that is leaving people high and dry?

[Luke Graham]

The short answer is yes. I led the inquiry on universal credit in the Public Accounts Committee, and I refer all Members to the inquiry and subsequent report, where we identified the strengths and shortfalls of the UC system. I hope that Government colleagues have read that report and taken those recommendations into account.

I wish to make one or two final points before summarising. We have talked a lot about statistics. One concern I have—this is often not appreciated in this House—is that the devolution of certain levels of statistics around the country means we often have different levels of government in the UK producing different statistics, which makes like-for-like comparisons quite difficult. When preparing for this debate and for the mental health debate that was pulled, I struggled to get figures from the Library, because in Scotland we are now not going along with certain NHS quality-for-delivery frameworks. Even if different parts of the United Kingdom and different levels of government use different methods, we have to find a statistical method to find a uniform measure so that we can have a meaningful debate in this place. Otherwise, we are not comparing apples with apples and we cannot get a real view of how services are being delivered for our constituents.

In that same vein, the devolution of welfare powers has been debated in the past, and I am sure that the debate will be ongoing in this place in the coming years. I have a real concern about the devolution of welfare powers—not because I think that all powers should remain here and I want to sit on the green-Bench throne, but because when we speak to the most vulnerable people in our constituencies, as I know every Member does, we find out that adding another agency or two into the equation would make it even more difficult for them to get the help that they need.

I support this issue, because we should have an objective assessment of what these changes are doing for our constituents and for the most vulnerable people. We are spending the money, but we have to make sure that it goes to the right place. For too long, benefits have been a party political issue. When it comes to disability and helping the most vulnerable people in society, we can look past our party affiliation and deliver for our constituents.