Welfare Reform (Sick and Disabled People)

Madeleine Moon Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

I start by declaring an interest. My husband is in receipt of disability allowances.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), in his very powerful speech, said that we can be one day away from a disability. It was not even one day for me. One day, I went home to a husband who was perfectly fit and healthy and who lived an outdoor life—everything one could hope in terms of a fit and healthy man. Within a matter of days he was terminally ill. Life can change, but that change can be softened by knowing that financial security is there for the future. That is why this debate is so important.

I was disappointed when the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), who has not been in his place for most of the debate, commented that I was the only Member from Welsh Labour in the Chamber. If he had stayed in his place he would have seen how many Welsh Labour Members are in the House working. They are not able to take part in the debate because it is time-limited. The comment was made that it was a one-line Whip. This is a Backbench Business debate: there is always a one-line Whip for Backbench Business debates. I want people who are watching this debate to understand that if people are not here today, it is due not to a lack of interest or a lack of understanding, but a lack of time. Those who perhaps are most passionate are the ones in the Chamber today, but those who are not here are giving us the space and time to make the important points we want to make.

We are here to ask for a cumulative impact assessment. People have said that no one knows the cumulative impact. I do not think that is true. I think we do know, because of the people who come through our doors. They are ringing our offices every day to tell us of the horrendous impact on their lives. I think the Government do not want to undertake an assessment because they cannot face the reality and horror of what they have done, and to be in denial gives them grounds to continue. We have been facing cuts to social care, cuts to disability benefits and cuts to housing benefits. What has been created is a climate of fear, a climate of social outcasts and a climate where the understanding of the sick and disabled has gone. They are seen to be the undeservingly ill. We need to focus on the human stories. Some 2% of the population have faced 15% of the cuts brought in by this Government, the same Government that gave tax cuts to the rich, and poverty and fear to the sick and the disabled.

I want to address briefly the work capability assessment. One of my constituents was told that she could work because she could make a shopping list. A lady who was unable to leave her house because she constantly needed to be able to go to the toilet was told that she could work from home making jewellery. The impact of the work capability assessment on people’s lives is horrific. There is a lack of respect for the terror in their lives. The humility they face in just trying to survive every day is being undermined and dismissed by such glib statements.

I want to look briefly at personal independence payment assessments. A lady who came into my surgery on Friday has multiple sclerosis but, because of her age, she will not face an assessment until 2017. She tells me that she wakes up every day with a black cloud of terror over her life. She fears that she will lose the money that allows her to live with some form of dignity. How can we justify that in this place? How can we allow people to live with such terror?

Finally, there is the bedroom tax. I want to talk about one lady, Mrs Evans. In 2009, her son was horrifically injured in a road traffic accident. She was forced to move from the property she had lived in since the 1970s to a specially disabled-adapted property. This has meant that she is no longer eligible for relief from the bedroom tax. To avoid it, she would have had to have lived in the same property since 1996. She has a two-bedroom property. Her son lives downstairs, but she needs to have one of the bedrooms for her daughter, who allows her some relief at night. Because she cares for her son and not her husband, she is not eligible for relief from the bedroom tax.

We are living in a cruel and callous world if we cannot support people’s lives when they have been destroyed by sickness and disability. That has to change.