Welfare Reform Bill

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. She clearly has cause to represent people in relation to social fund issues and has a good understanding of the financial crisis they face.

Many of the people who come to me in my office have health problems. If they are unable to work, possibly because of an injury at work or an accident at home, they are left facing a financial crisis. Intimidation is not rife in Northern Ireland and nowhere else; it happens in other parts of the United Kingdom as well, and there are occasions when someone has to leave home quickly, and they face financial crisis. Most of those who come to me are single people, maybe a single parent with a young child, or sometimes they are people coming out of care or out of prison, or people who have experienced family break-ups.

The hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) described the situation well, and I share her experiences as a representative. Those people are under great financial pressure and are worried about where they are going to go. They look for alternatives to borrowing money. Sometimes, as a result of their inability to pay back their loans on time, they end up in hospital. Loan sharks are probably the only people willing to lend them money but at an extortionate rate, which puts them under great pressure. I am sure other hon. Members have seen that.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Is my colleague, like me, at a loss to understand how some hon. Members who are prepared to commend the social fund measures are the same people who, in relation to parliamentary expenses, argue for the operational principles of clarity, predictability, responsiveness, consistency and the right to query or appeal? They demand those operational principles where it affects themselves, but they are prepared to mangle them where they affect their most marginal constituents when it comes to the social fund.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his passion and his commitment. I would find it difficult to argue against those points. I should like to hear from the Minister what measures the Government intend to put in place to ensure that the people whom I have described—the single people facing financial problems or those experiencing health problems, marital break-ups or intimidation, who clearly have problems at home—will fit into the system. I do not see that they will. I see extreme difficulties for them in future.

The hon. Lady spoke about those managing debt. Not everybody has the ability to manage their financial circumstances. We meet people in my office who unfortunately fit into that category. We try to advise them or send them to someone who can give them advice and help, but in many cases they are unable to manage their financial circumstances. The crisis loan enables them to borrow and get out of the crisis that they face, and agreeing a direct debit helps them to manage their money.

For those who come to me in financial crisis, the crisis loan is their only way out. I would love to be the Northern bank or the Ulster bank and be able to lend all those people money personally, but unfortunately my resources do not go that far and it is not my responsibility to do that singly and individually. That is the responsibility of Government.

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[Mark Durkan]

Does the hon. Lady agree that many people will be perturbed and confused by the fact that the Government are derelict on the real crisis affecting care homes in funding, ownership and stability, but are diligent in trying to claw back the pittance that some people in those care homes receive, based on the myth that there is some financial West Lothian question whereby people are being paid out of one fund and also getting money out of another?

[Margaret Curran]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point with great passion. We must bear in mind the context in which this decision is being taken and the scale of resource that is involved. I have to say to him that we have found no evidence of great concerns about the practice of care homes and local authorities on the matter. The Minister has not presented any such evidence to us or to charities, and we cannot see where the great worry or cause for concern is.

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[Margaret Curran]

Yes, absolutely, and we have an opportunity here to minimise that stress and to address the problems. I strongly believe that we should take that opportunity.

[Mark Durkan]

Does the hon. Lady recognise that many people are concerned that as the costs of administering the assessments emerge and escalate, they will be met not by scaling back the arrangements, but by tightening the criteria and reducing the benefits awarded?

[Margaret Curran]

I acknowledge that many disabled people and disability organisations are extremely concerned about that, given the Government’s track record on this. We cannot underestimate or brush aside the level of anxiety of many people in this country about the reform of DLA. Many people find incredibly stressful and worrying the prospect of having to go through a new face-to-face assessment to prove their disability, despite it being abundantly clear, in order to receive help.

It is the Government’s job to assure disabled people that the introduction of PIPs—I know that the Minister tries to do this—will not mean the end of financial support for disabled people. Given the Minister’s efforts on that, I plead with the Government to go that extra mile to assure disabled people that the process is about meaningful reform of an important benefit, rather than an attempt to remove it from those whom they can get away with removing it from. One way the Government can do that is by ensuring that the most severely disabled members of our society do not face needless upheaval and uncertainty over the future of support following the introduction of PIPs.

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Given what we know, these proposals are in all candour absolutely cruel and stand to the disadvantage of tens of thousands of vulnerable people. No further clarity has emerged today to suggest otherwise and one reason I shall support amendments 41 and 42 is that the Government have been given so many opportunities—from the debate in November to the Budget debate and from questions in the House to this debate today—to make their position clear, but they have failed abysmally to do so. I am therefore obliged to reach the conclusion that these welfare reforms are not meant to take us forward, they are not part of a progressive society and they are not addressing the real problems of the millennium. They are taking us back to the ’20s and the ’30s. The expression “Out of sight, out of mind” came into my head again and again during today’s debate.

[Mark Durkan]

rose—

[Mr Clarke]

I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, because he has shown an interest in these matters.

[Mark Durkan]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way and commend him for his contribution. Is not the situation he describes not even more grotesquely surreal when one considers that, whatever form the review takes, people in local government and those running care homes are being questioned by the Government not about the funding crisis undermining the financial certainty for those care homes, which has people suffocating with worry and dread about what will happen to them, to their relatives and to the staff, but in pursuit of a mythical notion that duplicate payments are being made in respect of the mobility component and contracts with care homes? Should not the Government be addressing the real crisis that is facing care homes and not the nonsense with which they have obsessed themselves?

[Mr Clarke]

As always, the hon. Gentleman has put his case beautifully.

As we head for the Division Lobby tonight, we are asked to choose between the interests of people with disabilities, many of whom have been in residential care for more than 20 years, the concerns of their families and the support of their communities, and the Government’s wish to rush through legislation that in all candour is completely indefensible. Tonight is a real test for the House, and by that I also mean Members of the Liberal Democrat party. I understand that they did not take part in the vote on this in Committee, but they are free to do so tonight. If the Government do what they seek to do and interfere with the lives of the most vulnerable of our fellow citizens in the way that the Bill intends, they do not deserve support and, frankly, people outwith the House, including disability organisations, will be asking about the standing of this Parliament if we allow such a monstrosity to be endorsed in the Lobby. It does not deserve support and I hope that the House will support my hon. Friends’ amendment. I hope also that the Government will think again. I hope that they will think of the shame with which they have burdened themselves and try to redeem themselves from the situation in which they alone have placed themselves.

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[Fiona O'Donnell]

I absolutely will not withdraw my comment. This is not scaremongering. I am setting out exactly the kind of concern that has been raised in a report commissioned by two of Scotland’s leading disability charities. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that those charities would be as irresponsible as to carry out scaremongering and to frighten the people who form part of their organisations—the people for whom they stand up—it is he who has something to answer for.

[Mark Durkan]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if people should be scared by anything, it should be not her question but the lack of the right answer from Ministers?

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support.

Let me talk about a few of the other people who lived at Upper Springland. David had no voluntary movement of his arms and legs, and a little movement of his head. He had no verbal communication. He was completely dependent but he had an incredibly active mind. He was able to communicate through an auxiliary voice and communication system. When he asked to have some swear words programmed into his computer, it caused some discomfort for the rather old-fashioned manager of the residential home as David wandered around the corridors telling everyone to “Eff off!”

David had come from Edinburgh to Upper Springland because of its excellent reputation. He would love to return home on visits to see his family. I personally accompanied David on his last visit to his father before his father died and also to the funeral. I have genuine concerns about that. The Secretary of State shakes his head, but unless we get a definition of what the overlap means, how can we have any confidence? The organisations out there representing people with disabilities do not have confidence in the proposal, so the Secretary of State has no reason to shake his head.

There was another young woman called Joyce who was not only active—she played a sport called boccia and travelled around the world—but had a job for a few hours a week so that she did not lose her benefits, and volunteered in various organisations. To support her to do that, she needed the flexibility to be able to book her own taxi to go to work and to participate in the other activities. There was Maggie, who refused to travel in the transport available at the centre because there was a great big sign up the side of the vehicle which said “Capability Scotland” and she did not see why she should be branded, but going to church every Sunday was very important to Maggie.

These are people I cared about and people I cared for. I fear greatly for what will happen to them and what their future lives will be like if the House does not support the amendments.

I have been critical of the Minister and other Members on the Government Benches, saying that they do not understand what disability and residential care mean. I heard the Prime Minister in one session of Prime Minister’s questions talk about people in residential homes. Then, it was an anomaly between them and people in hospital. Now the Prime Minister seems to acknowledge that residential care is a social model, not a medical model. He has said that the DLA mobility component is not being removed, but the evidence in the Red Book is that it will disappear, so I am not reassured even by a six-month stay of execution.

We must ensure that people continue to have the same choices as people living outside residential care homes. I do not like to talk about people living in the community, because people who live in residential care homes are also part of our community. What evidence is there of an overlap there? Charitable organisations provide access to vehicles, so is the Minister going to assess whether there is an overlap there as well?

People in residential care make the same choices as we do. How many of us do not need a car? We could use public transport, but for those people to buy an outdoor electric wheelchair, which they would not be entitled to under the NHS assessment, makes all the difference to their lives. Why should they not have that choice? It is not just about Motability cars. It is also about people who have entered into contracts and loans to pay for those electric wheelchairs. All these months on from the Westminster Hall debate, we still do not have an answer from the Minister about what will happen to those people.

A further topic that the Minister has not addressed—the hon. Member for Cardiff Central had great hopes that she would talk about it today—is the situation in respect of the devolved Governments of the United Kingdom. If the Minister has any expectation that there will be regulation of residential care homes or a duty placed on them to provide a service to people with disabilities, if she thinks she can compel the NHS to start providing more mobility adaptations to people with disabilities, and if she believes in the universality of the benefit, how can she ensure that people in Scotland will always retain the same benefits as people in the rest of the United Kingdom? She did not clarify that, so I would like to give her the opportunity now to intervene and answer that question. [Interruption.] No?