Disability Support

Debate between Luke Graham and Angela Crawley

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[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.