Blind and Partially Sighted People: Employment Support

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered employment support for blind and partially sighted people.

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I am really pleased to have secured this debate on what I and others—judging by the number of Members here today—believe is an incredibly important issue. I thank the many organisations that provided briefings ahead of the debate.

In October, the all-party parliamentary group on eye health and visual impairment, which I chair, published its “Changing Attitudes, Changing Lives” report, which looked at employer attitudes towards blind and partially sighted people. I thank the secretariat—the Royal National Institute of Blind People and the Thomas Pocklington Trust—all those who responded to the written consultation, and especially those who shared their experiences at the oral evidence sessions, which I will discuss shortly.

We wanted to know why the number of blind and partially sighted people in employment is still stubbornly low at a time when there are about 900,000 job vacancies, despite the Equality Act 2010, a wealth of diversity and inclusion policies, and more than a decade of welfare-to-work programmes from various Governments. In November 2023, the APPG commissioned YouGov to carry out polling to look at employer attitudes. The findings were shocking, and prompted the APPG to launch its inquiry to look at the issue in more detail. To my knowledge, it is the first parliamentary inquiry to look solely at employer attitudes. We held a series of oral evidence sessions, put out a call for written evidence and held a number of one-to-one meetings with employers, including Apple and Channel 4. We heard from a range of employers, sight loss organisations and, most importantly, blind and partially sighted people themselves.

We found that 48% of employers said that they did not have accessible recruitment processes, so for many the online job application was not accessible, and in many cases it was not compatible with assistive technology. That obviously prevented many people living with sight loss from applying for those jobs in the first place. Some employers were not willing to make reasonable adjustments where possible, for example for psychometric testing, which is part of the recruitment process for many grad schemes, so many of those platforms were also inaccessible. Most worryingly, about a quarter of employers said that they would not be willing to make workplace adjustments or adaptations in order to employ blind and partially sighted people. The problem stems partly from a lack of awareness of where to access support or funding, or just advice and information, but there is also a pattern of outdated attitudes towards visually impaired people.

During the oral evidence sessions, we heard powerful testimony from many blind and partially sighted people. Many expressed a deep sense of frustration and anger at the job market because employers do not understand the importance of ensuring that their recruitment and interview processes are inclusive. Websites were not accessible, and application forms were not provided in alternative formats. Many respondents had to face the dilemma of whether to disclose their disability, or even ask for reasonable adjustments during the interview process.

I know that from my own experience. I have always been in the camp that chooses to declare their visual impairment at the start, but not everybody has the confidence to do that, based on their experiences. Others referred to the time it took to complete applications and said that their request for a reasonable adjustment of extra time had not been granted. One respondent reported that an interviewer seemed more focused on their blindness than their qualifications; they said that it felt as though the assessment of their ability to do the job was treated as a secondary factor, rather than the primary objective.

Although I am speaking a lot about the recruitment process—applications and interviews—many respondents shared their frustrations about being in work and acquiring their sight loss, or being in work and wanting additional aids or adaptations. I hope hon. Members do not mind my speaking from my own lived experience. Throughout my working life—I will not show my age by saying how long that has been—I have known the challenges that many have faced. I have been a Member of Parliament for seven and a half years, and to this day I still face challenges with technology, which cause a lot of stress and worry. There are days when I am not able to do my work as an MP because my IT kit is not working. Recently, I had to go further and lodge a formal complaint. I hope that by doing that I will finally be able to get all the kit I need to do my job and represent my constituents, just as my colleagues can.

Why do we need action and change? The employment rate for people living with sight loss is 42%, compared with 82% for non-disabled people. The disability pay gap is around 17%, which equates to us working unpaid for 54 days a year. The disability employment gap has remained at around 29% to 30% for more than a decade. I think that is hugely disrespectful. Actually, it is a disgrace. Employers are missing out on a wealth of talent. One of the respondents at our oral evidence session, who is quite senior in their workplace, said that they found that their visual impairment became less of a barrier the more senior they became. That is absolutely the right thing, but it should start at the entry level of any job.

We know that not getting the right support has a negative impact on health and wellbeing. There is clear evidence that good work improves health outcomes across people’s lives and protects them against social exclusion. Employment can bring not just better incomes but financial stability, security and a greater sense of purpose, which in turn can lead to healthier diets, increased exercise, higher living standards and, most importantly, better mental health outcomes.

Our report contains some excellent examples of best practice, and I will share a few. Roger told us that in his corporate workplace, screen-reader software and ergonomic equipment enabled him to perform his tasks efficiently, and that having a supportive team who understood his needs made him feel valued and included in his workplace. Another person told us that about a member of an interview panel who guided a visually impaired person through the process, taking them to the interview room and explaining its layout; then, as they sat down, the panel described themselves and gave information about who they were. Those are examples of small adjustments that can be made. They are not complicated or costly. As one respondent put it,

“It’s not just about providing the tools; it’s about creating a supportive environment where blind and partially sighted employees can thrive.”

Our “Changing Attitudes, Changing Lives” report makes a series of recommendations that aim to fix what we believe is a broken system. The key element is the need for a disability employment strategy that sets out measures to improve employer attitudes and increase the number of blind and partially sighted people finding and retaining work. Does my right hon. Friend the Minister agree that we need a clear strategy, and that this must be a watershed moment in how we improve employment opportunities and support?

Another recommendation is for the Government to partner with sight loss organisations to develop best practice on recruiting blind and partially sighted people and supporting them to enter work, as well as on supporting them in work. I hope that the Minister will agree to look at how he can do that. Other recommendations include reviewing the Equality Act to ensure that it is fit for the 21st century and our modern labour market. This is not just about the Government taking action; it is about employers taking action. We want them to take practical steps to ensure that their workplaces are inclusive, including by preparing documents and information in accessible formats. Naturally, we need to address the issues in the Government’s Access to Work scheme, including the delays and backlogs. When Access to Work is working efficiently, it is probably the best form of employment support.

I hope that the Minister will look carefully at the recommendations in the report, which I know he has had sight of. I welcome the fresh approach from the Government, who are taking a serious look at this issue, and thank the Minister for agreeing to meet me later today—it is interesting that the debate came on the same day. I also thank my hon. Friend the Minister for Employment, who gave a speech at the report launch. She said that it was an opportunity for “big change”, which was

“needed so that all blind and partially sighted people can play their full role in society”.

She kindly said that the report would be considered as an early submission to the upcoming employment White Paper, so I look forward to seeing what the White Paper includes in relation to a disability employment strategy.

Does the Minister agree that this issue is not just about the Department for Work and Pensions? We need a cross-Government approach that incorporates the Department for Business and Trade, the equalities office and others to ensure that we have a strategy that helps to shift employer attitudes. Will he commit to working with the Department for Business and Trade to ensure that we take an approach that truly supports employers to snap up all the amazing talent that is waiting for them and that they are currently missing out on?

The report recommends looking at practical steps to ensure that workplaces are inclusive. However, there is already brilliant guidance and best practice available, so in many cases this is not about reinventing the wheel, but about working collaboratively with other organisations. At the moment, we subscribe to accessibility standards for online spaces. I am keen to know whether the Government will look at legislating to ensure that all websites meet an accessibility standard requirement.

Finally—I raised this issue previously—will the Government look again at the Sense charity’s recommendation for a jobcentre technology fund? Such a fund would equip jobcentres with specialist assistive technology, such as screen-reading software, so that some disabled people are able to look for work in jobcentres. At the moment, no computers in jobcentres have specialist assistive technology. The recommendation seems like a nice, quick fix that could ensure that those spaces are inclusive for people who are looking for work.

I look forward to working with the Minister and his colleagues in implementing the recommendations and ensuring that Labour will deliver for all disabled people. At the end of the day, ensuring that recruitment practices are accessible and workplaces are supportive is not about charity; it is about doing what is right and just. It is also about helping employers and our economy to benefit from the skills and talent they are missing out on.

I will end by quoting an individual who appeared before the APPG. They said:

“The more blind and partially sighted people there are in the workforce, the more public assumptions and attitudes will be challenged. This will benefit blind and partially sighted people of all ages, and ultimately change…attitudes, which is the biggest barrier to thriving for all.”

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)]

It is great to see you in the Chair, Dr Huq, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) on securing this hugely important debate.

I speak today from personal experience. My lovely wife has retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye condition that has no cure or treatment. Julie has reached the stage where she uses a white cane and eventually, like her mum and uncle, she will probably need a guide dog to assist her. Those who watch “Strictly” may know that retinitis pigmentosa is the condition that comedian Chris McCausland has. Like Chris, Julie is an inspiration, not a gimmick, having recently learned to ski blind.

Julie has never let her disability define her; instead, she excels with the abilities that she does have. What we have learned together over 30 years, as our careers have progressed, is how those abilities can allow her to thrive, and I have to say that her workplaces have been enormously supportive of her.

I will focus on the use of technology and the importance of awareness, because the use of artificial intelligence is a game changer. Apps such as Seeing AI can narrate the world around the user. It harnesses the power of AI to open up the visual world, and describes nearby people, texts and objects. In the world of work, it supports people to identify colleagues and helps to facilitate a team culture. As long as those colleagues do not take offence at being taken for a 55-year-old man, as happened to me when the camera was held up to my face—I am in my mid-40s—it is an absolute gem of a research project.

Maximising the use of existing functionality is also important and remarkably useful. Adobe will read out pages of text, and people can ask ChatGPT to find those texts with a simple verbal instruction. My one ask is that when people use hashtags, they should use a capital letter for each new word because that ensures that the hashtag makes sense when read out.

The ability to work from home has opened up a world of opportunity, as meetings and conferences can be accessed from an environment that does not require travel. Although I often witness the kindness of the majority of people when Julie travels on buses or the underground to visit me or work in London, I also witness people who just barge into her as she gets on to an escalator slowly, or who tut because they cannot get past her. I get upset by that. Julie takes no notice because it has become her norm.

There is a broader need in society for people to better understand disabilities, and that starts with education and awareness in school. Will the Minister speak to the relevant Education Minister about how that can be raised as part of the curriculum review?

Future transport technology is also exciting. It may be that when we travel in future, we will jump into our own driverless vehicles and travel to our destinations. When Julie and I visited San Francisco, we saw a driverless taxi for the first time. At the moment, that can be a scary thought, culturally, but it offers a different kind of hope for travel independence in the future, and we should start to embrace what is out there across the globe.

It is great to have all those technologies and the ability to work from anywhere in any part of the world. It is also great to hear that the world is changing.

[Marsha De Cordova]

My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech, and I am pleased that he is talking about technology. Does he agree that many technology companies have cottoned on to the fact that if they make their products inclusive, it is better business for them? Companies such as Apple, Microsoft and others are leading the way by ensuring that their apps and devices such as iPads are accessible, which will help not just blind and partially sighted people, but disabled people in general into work.

[Lee Pitcher]

I could not agree more. There is a whole world of innovation out there, involving companies such as Apple and Microsoft, and we need to embrace that and find a way to channel it into everyday society and use.

As I was saying, it is great to have those technologies, but having them out there is not enough. We need to find a way for people to know about them and use them. The amazing work of organisations such as the RNIB, Guide Dogs, and the Partially Sighted Society in my area of Doncaster is just incredible. They make us aware of what can be done at home and at work through the use of technology.

The challenge for us, and for the 2 million Julies out there in the UK, is how to amplify the work of those organisations to improve employment support for blind and partially sighted people even more, to help employers to understand the technologies and processes that give opportunities for all and allow everyone to thrive. I ask the Minister how he might raise awareness of AI use in the workplace to support adjustments to maximise those opportunities.

I finish with this: I ask you, Dr Huq, to imagine Julie on that slope for the first time, carefully traversing the snow, the ice and the undulations with her white cane, then ditching that cane for ski poles, and hurtling down the mountainside with skill, talent and ability. The “Wow!” that you see on our children’s faces says it all. She is a role model and an inspiration. Anything is achievable with determination and the right support and resources. Let us make sure that everyone gets the opportunity to apply those abilities at home, when travelling to and from work, and at work. I want to see a world where that “Wow!” is visible every day in the workplace.

[Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)]

Thank you for your sterling chairmanship, Dr Huq. I thank the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for securing this debate on an issue that is extremely important, particularly in the light of the recent report. It is extremely helpful that we have the opportunity to debate this matter and engage with the Minister. As the Liberal Democrats work and pensions spokesperson, and as someone who is registered blind, I hope I can bring something to the table.

I am sorry to say that, as has been said, there is sadly still significant discrimination against blind and partially sighted people. Taxis, hotels and restaurants are pinch points where disabled people going about their business often hit hurdles. Hon. Members have alluded to the kindness of strangers, however, and before I had my guide dog, I would occasionally try to use the underground in London. My belief in humanity would always be reaffirmed, as there was much kindness from strangers—the milk of human kindness is out there.

As the Liberal Democrats spokesman, I endorse the findings of the report that we are debating. The most important thing is to ensure that we do things with people, rather than to people, so co-design is extremely important. Tackling discrimination must be part of our agenda, because sadly it is alive and well, and we must strengthen the legislation on it.

Part of the challenge is the legacy of more than a decade of Conservative-led Governments, who have not tacked these issues. Mental health is a particularly challenging area. People who are blind or partially sighted face challenges and hurdles in their lives, so we need to be alive to the fact that the black dog of depression and mental health issues may not be very far away from them. Enhancing our mental health services as part of our general approach would be a real step change in support.

Once upon a time—in the ’80s—I went to the Royal National College for the Blind in Hereford, so I belong to the 1980s Royal National College Facebook page. When I became aware that this debate was coming up, I reached out to people who had gone to the college to see how the world treats them now that they are 50-something, as I am. Although a number of them had positive employment experiences, others had experienced real challenges. Somebody in their 50s told me that they had had less than a year’s gainful employment during their life, which is shocking. They said that they were able to find voluntary work, but that there were blockages in the way to longer-term employment.

Access to Work is a significant issue, as delays to it have doubled to more than 55,000. We must tackle that issue to drive the positive change that we want to see. People from the Royal National College also spoke to me about the Disability Confident employer scheme, as they are not sure whether it is just virtue signalling and not worth the paper it is written on.

[Marsha De Cordova]

The hon. Member touches on the Disability Confident scheme. Does he agree that for the scheme to be worth the paper it is written on, it needs to have proper quality frameworks in place, so that those who become Disability Confident employers actually employ disabled people? Currently, some employers with that status do not employ a single disabled person.

[Steve Darling]

The hon. Member has clearly been reading my notes, because my next point was that someone cannot be a Disability Confident employer and not employ anyone disabled—she is spot on. I have made some inquiries in this area since getting elected in July, and the problem is that the Government do not measure Disability Confident employers. When I went to my local jobcentre, it said that it did not have to report up to top shop at all, and the Library was not aware of any monitoring by the Government. If we do not measure it, it does not count, so that is a real issue.

Going back to my trip down memory lane to the Royal National College for the Blind, one of the issues I heard from former college friends was that we should not have to go out and champion the Access to Work scheme ourselves; Government should be doing that. It should not be one of Government’s best kept secrets, but sadly it sometimes is. People also described it as an overcomplicated system that had resulted in their not being able to employ support workers as agents. They said it was too complicated and there were too many delays in obtaining support through that scheme.

I represent Torbay, and a resident there tells me that after 30 years of solid work for the national health service, she decided to change employment to Devon in Sight, an outstanding local charity that supports blind and visually impaired people across Devon. Sadly, though, it took three months for payments to come through from Access to Work, which left her with significant financial liabilities. Fortunately she had flexibility in her own finances, but if the next person was coming out of a period of employment and faced financially straitened circumstances, it could have resulted in their not being able to continue with their employment.

I am also aware of a lady from the midlands who was recently made redundant by a large national charity, for which she was a rehabilitation officer. She is now looking to change to a local charity undertaking similar work, but Access to Work is only offering her a support worker one day a week. That is impacting on her personal wellbeing, as she is having to take up the cudgels and battle the scheme over what seems a bizarre offer of help. I would like to challenge the Minister on how we ensure that, when we design new schemes, we are working with people; I would welcome some assurances on that.

I would also like assurances around a project plan for Access to Work. I mentioned that there are 55,000 people in the backlog. I would welcome assurances from the Minister on how we are going to tackle that, with a project plan to do so within a reasonable length of time. Have they done the sums around that? What assurance can the Minister give that it will be up to a 28-day turnaround? Finally, I would like some assurances around Disability Confident, so that it can be a scheme that is valuable, drives positive change and, most of all, drives positive culture change in our society, so that people who are blind or partially sighted can play the active part in our communities that they should be undertaking.

--- Later in debate ---

[Marsha De Cordova]

First, I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for their contributions. That includes the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), my hon. Friends the Members for Glenrothes and Mid Fife (Richard Baker) and for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher), the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling), and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger).

I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disability on his response to this important debate. His commitment to this issue really came across, as did his drive to make the change. It has been a good debate; every contribution brought something different and important, particularly on the opportunities of technology. I am a big advocate—forgive me—of Apple. Apple changed my life. When the iPhone and the iPad came out, they enabled me to read newspapers, finally. There are other providers out there, obviously, but it did really change my life.

Making use of AI is also important. I recently met representatives of a company called Be My Eyes, and I was bowled over by how its AI worked: you put these pretty swanky glasses on and look down, and the glasses read everything in front of you or describe what is around you. That will be game changing once they are available to everybody.

I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme for his skiing tips. I will have to have a proper chat with him, because I have always wanted to ski, but I was held back. Hearing that my hon. Friend’s wife is doing it, I am absolutely up for it now.

On a more serious point, it is a shame that, in 2024, we are still debating this issue. However, after 14 years, it is truly amazing that we now have a Labour Government who are committed to changing the experience, not only of blind and partially sighted people, but more importantly of disabled people as a whole, when it comes to engaging with the labour market.

I thank the Minister for Social Security and Disability. He is a friend, and I know he is a good listener, because I talk his ear off on these issues a lot. None the less, he is also a man of action, so I look forward to working with him and his colleagues.

I want to press my final point: this is not just about the Department for Work and Pensions; it is about working cross-Government, in particular with the Department for Business and Trade, the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care, so that we can bring about the transformative change that will lead to changing attitudes and, most importantly, changing lives.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered employment support for blind and partially sighted people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

The hon. Lady raises an extremely important question, which I have discussed with a hospice and other organisations such as Marie Curie and Sue Ryder in my own constituency. I want to look at how the system can be made to work as quickly and swiftly as possible, particularly for people at this very difficult time in life, and I would be happy for the Social Security Minister and my office to contact her directly to get more information.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

T7. Research by Sense has found that none of the computers in jobcentres across Britain are equipped with specialist assistive technology, and it has estimated that it would cost £5 million to ensure that every jobcentre had that specialist assistive technology. Will the Minister commit to introducing a jobcentre assistive technology fund in order to aid disabled people in their quest to look for work?

[The Minister for Employment (Alison McGovern)]

My hon. Friend is an absolute expert on this kind of inclusive change that we need to make to our employment support system so that we can help everybody, and I look forward to working with her on ideas just like that when we bring forward our White Paper in the autumn.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Work is essential and is at the heart of the reforms we are bringing through. Indeed the Office for Budget Responsibility has assessed the impact of our measures with the work capability assessment reforms, for example, as leading to over 400,000 fewer people on those benefits by the end of the forecast period. I am very proud of that achievement because, as he highlights, that will mean more people have work and the benefits of it.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State claims that his work capability assessment reforms are to encourage more people to get into work, yet the independent Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that just 3% of the 424,000 people who would be denied financial support would actually move into work in the next four years. So the evidence is clear that these reforms are codes for cuts. Will the Secretary of State finally come clean and admit that welfare reforms are about denying vital protections and support for people with serious mental and physical health conditions?

[Mel Stride]

The reforms we are bringing in are not a code for cuts; they are a clear, well thought through set of reforms for putting work right at the centre of people’s existence. The hon. Lady quotes the Office for Budget Responsibility. She will be aware that it believes that the measures that the Chancellor has brought in over the past three fiscal events will overall mean 300,000 more people in the labour market.

Women’s State Pension Age

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

Whether there will be an autumn statement at all, and the date thereof, is not within my remit—indeed, I am not certain whether an autumn statement is pencilled in for any particular date, or otherwise. The most important thing is that we recognise—this message should go out loud and clear from the Dispatch Box today—that there should be no undue delay in coming to the appropriate conclusions on this matter.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

The WASPI scandal has been a huge injustice for millions of women, including women in my constituency. The Secretary of State has said that he wants to continue to look in detail at the findings of the report, but surely he should be able to make an unambiguous commitment to compensation for these women. The ombudsman had to take the rare step of laying this before Parliament, due to the Department for Work and Pensions refusing to comply. Will the Secretary of State today set out a timeline for when he will come back to this House and say how he intends to ensure that these women are compensated fully?

[Mel Stride]

The hon. Lady is attempting to draw me into coming to premature conclusions on some of the findings in the report, which I am afraid I not going to do for the reasons I have already given. Once again on the issue of timing, there will be no undue delay.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

Data in responses to my written questions on PIP appeals shows that more than 50,000 ill or disabled people had their appeals upheld at tribunal without the need for new evidence. Given that the UK Government will be examined today by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities following its 2016 special inquiry that found that the threshold had been met for grave and systematic violations, is it not time to replace the flawed and outdated PIP system with a framework that is fit for purpose?

[Mel Stride]

Of course, we always keep all benefits under review at the Department, including PIP and the assessment processes. As the hon. Lady points out, there is rightly an appeals process for those who are not happy with the conclusions of those assessments. We keep those under review, and I can reassure her that they represent a relatively small proportion of the total number of applications.

Cost of Living Support

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Tuesday 20th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for his nifty way of getting that important question into the proceedings this afternoon. If he could share those details with me, I will gladly make sure that that reaches the Minister responsible at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

It is worth noting that the UK Government were the first Government to be investigated by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for their treatment of disabled people. We all know the additional costs that disabled people face—they are a fact—with higher energy bills and so forth. The disability price tag is around £975 extra a month. The woeful support of the cost of living payments will not go anywhere near meeting those additional needs, so why on earth does the Minister think it is enough? We do not need any more analysis—the evidence is there, so why can he not take action now?

[Tom Pursglove]

I reiterate the point that people often receive multiple parts of the comprehensive cost of living support that we are providing. The hon. Lady also made a point about the UN, but my experience from speaking to counterparts from across the world at the UN last week and being involved in the discussions there was that people often look to the United Kingdom as being a world leader on these matters. It is important to make that point in the context of the comment she just made. The fact is that we are continuing to keep under review the package of support that is provided, but it is worth recognising that people often receive multiple parts of the package alongside the disability cost of living payment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I say to the hon. Lady, who of course raises the most serious and important of issues, that we had a good debate on this the week before last, when I was able to place on record the significant work that officials have been undertaking with Ministers to address these matters. We continue to be open to proper engagement around these processes, to ensure that they are the best they can be and are fit for purpose. What we want to do is to support claimants on the basis of an individual, tailored approach to make sure that their needs are properly met and safeguarding support is provided from a whole host of relevant agencies.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

7. What progress his Department has made on the disability action plan.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Tom Pursglove)]

We are planning to consult on the disability action plan this summer. The consultation will be published in accessible formats, and we will publish the final plan once we have fully considered the consultation responses.

[Marsha De Cordova]

The Conservatives have consistently failed disabled people throughout the past 13 years. They promised a national disability strategy, which was ruled unlawful, and now they have promised a disability action plan. The European Accessibility Act will improve access to digital products and services, and reduce barriers to accessing transport, education and the labour market for disabled people throughout Europe. When do the Government plan to consult and publish their action plan, and will they follow the lead of our friends in the European Union by removing those accessibility barriers?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the opportunity to set out our ongoing commitment to have this disability action plan, and I am disappointed by the tone that she takes on that. There is a real opportunity for the House and our country to come together in welcoming this, and to shape it, get it right, and ensure that it addresses many of the issues that disabled people tell us are important, with the right answers to those questions. I hope she will engage with that in such a spirit.

Cost of Living: Financial Support for Disabled People

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 22nd May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petitions 610300 and 617425, relating to the cost of living and financial support for disabled people.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. I congratulate Rachel Curtis, Abigail Broomfield and Katy Styles for creating the petitions. Abigail and Katy are here today, and more than 40,000 people have signed the petitions. I put on the record my thanks to the Petitions Committee staff for all their work, Inclusion London and Disability Rights UK for meeting me last week, and the many organisations that sent briefings and provided advice, including Oxfam, Scope, Mencap, the Royal National Institute of Blind People and Citizens Advice.

Ahead of today’s debate, the Petitions Committee launched a survey, which 10,854 people completed—one of the biggest responses to a Petitions Committee survey. The plight of disabled people should concern every Member, as the proportion of the UK population reporting a disability has risen to 20% over the past decade. As a disabled person myself, I know how intense it can be for someone to share their story, so I thank each and every person who completed the survey for sharing their experience. In response to the ongoing cost of living emergency and energy crisis, 93% of respondents have had to limit their use of energy, 76% are limiting their use of transport, and 60% have limited their use of specialist equipment. Over half have had to reduce their use of medication.

Those results are shocking. Unsurprisingly, testimony of poor mental health was apparent. Some respondents described feelings of despair. Others even reported being pushed to consider suicide. One respondent wrote:

“My life is hard. I survived childhood cancer to become a disabled adult. I had so many hopes for my life but now each day I regret not dying of cancer. My life is not dignified.”

A mother wrote:

“My son…is allergic to the cold. He has EpiPens and I have had to use them this winter as I can’t afford the heating on all the time or I can’t afford special clothing for him. I feel like a failed mother.”

A person who regrets not dying of cancer, and a mother who feels like she is a failure; I ask the Minister how that is acceptable in the UK in 2023. Nearly half of those living in poverty in the UK are disabled or live with somebody who is disabled.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. She is right about the figures around poverty: one in three disabled people live in poverty—twice that of non-disabled people. While I applaud the petitions’ aims, particularly the call for one-off payments as a temporary measure, does she agree that the real issue is the adequacy of social security support for disabled people, which has become emaciated over the last 12 years, and that we need to incorporate the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities into law? We have been a signatory to it since 2009, but are failing to provide adequate social protection.

[Marsha De Cordova]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She is absolutely spot on. We need a wholesale review of social security but, more importantly, the Government should commit, as Labour has done, to fully incorporate the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, so that we are protecting their civil and human rights.

It is a fact that disabled people incur extra costs. Scope’s latest Disability Price Tag report found that the average disabled household faces an extra £975 a month in costs, with that figure rising to over £1,200 if accommodating the inflationary costs for the period from 2022 to 2023. The Resolution Foundation found that the gap in household income between adults with a disability and adults without a disability was 30%, including disability social security, and that the gap rises to 44% if disability social security is not included. That was across the period from 2020 to 2021. Citizens Advice data for May 2023 shows that since the first quarter of 2022 the largest cohort helped was either permanently sick people or disabled people. The Trussell Trust has reported that disabled people are hugely over-represented in food poverty demographics. And 73% of families who took part in the recent survey by the Disabled Children’s Partnership said that the cost of living crisis will have a significant impact on their disabled children.

The spending of disabled households is particularly exposed to the ongoing energy crisis, given that energy bills for medical issues, and spending on specialist equipment and food, make up a disproportionate share of all spending. In response to the Petitions Committee’s survey, 48% of respondents said that they had extra costs due to the use of specialist equipment.

In my view, there is no question that the blame lies with the successive years of a Conservative Government, whereby they have created a hostile environment for disabled people. That was compounded by the pandemic and the current cost of living crisis.

Government support has barely scratched the surface. The paltry support is woefully insufficient and the very definition of what we would call sticking-plaster politics. Of the disabled people surveyed who received the £150 cost of living payment, 80% said that it would not be enough to cover their increased costs for essentials. That prompts the question: how do the Government think that the payment will be sufficient when inflation is around 10% and official figures show the fastest annual increases in food and drink prices because of inflation in the last 40 years, at around 19% as of March this year?

The reality is that even cost of living payments are not always reaching people, for instance those on the new style employment and support allowance who do not qualify for any Government cost of living payment support. There was also the cruel decision to change the warm homes discount criteria during the cost of living crisis, despite the Government’s own impact assessment finding that 290,000 disabled people would no longer receive the discount. For them, the £150 disability cost of living payment only offsets the loss of the warm homes discount. Why?

More worryingly, the Government have not provided specific support for disabled households incurring high energy costs. Many disabled people have told me that it is pointless to prescribe medicine if a person cannot afford to run the equipment they need to stay alive.

NHS schemes in place to cover the electricity costs of oxygen concentrators and dialysis machines are currently beset with issues and the Retail Energy Code Company has argued for establishing a service tailored for those using medical equipment. On prepayment meters, 60% of the people supported by Citizens Advice between January 2022 and February 2023 who could not afford to top up were disabled people, compared with the 40% who were not disabled or who did not have a long-term health condition.

UK household energy suppliers have agreed to a new code of practice, which means that force-fitting prepayment meters will be subject to a set of voluntary restrictions, but the industry needs to go further by banning prepayment meters for disabled people and providing more help with energy debt. Why will the Government not call for an industry-wide ban of forced installations in disabled households?

The political choice of austerity has gutted our social security system, and the consequences are real. Government-funded research suggests that cuts to social care and public health caused 57,500 more deaths in England than would have been expected if spending had continued at pre-2010 trends. The long-overdue health and disability White Paper focuses on getting disabled people into work and ramping up the use of sanctions, but the Government should be focusing on improving schemes such as Access to Work, getting rid of the delays and dealing with the outstanding applications. Access to Work is one of the best mechanisms for helping disabled people—especially those living with sight loss—to stay in work. Evidence suggests that sanctions do not work and have a negative impact on disabled people’s health.

The White Paper rightly suggests scrapping the work capability assessment, but replacing it with the personal independence payment assessment is absurd, given that PIP has a totally different function. It is an extra benefit, and it does not actually meet the additional costs. We know, because we have debated this previously, that the PIP assessment is flawed and that the support that PIP offers is in many cases inadequate. The Government’s own statistics show that more than 60% of PIP decisions that are appealed are overturned in favour of the claimant. The Government have never carried out an assessment of the adequacy of PIP and whether it is fit for purpose. Will they commit to assessing its adequacy and whether it works, and make improvements to the assessment?

Disabled people who receive social care can be asked to give up to 40% of their social security income to pay for social care. That leaves many in deep poverty and forces them to make the impossible choice between meeting their basic needs such as heating or eating and essential care. Research by the BBC found that more than 60,000 people are in social care debt.

There are clear actions that the Government can take to address the situation. They must increase the disability cost of living payment, and frankly they should be making those payments now; I do not understand why people have to wait until June to receive the second payment. They should extend the cost of living payments to everybody, especially those on new-style ESA. They should bring in the universal credit uplift, remove the social security benefit cap and reverse the changes to the eligibility criteria for the warm home discount.

The Government could also push the energy industry to introduce an energy debt waiver or some sort of social tariff. We know, however it is designed, that a social tariff is in isolation unlikely to meet the needs of disabled people, so it should be developed alongside a tailored cost support policy. The Government should also look at the feasibility of the warm home prescription, which aims to help people on low incomes and those with severe health conditions that are made worse by bad weather.

Energy suppliers must improve access to information for disabled people, especially blind and partially sighted people and those with a learning disability. It is their legal duty to do so, so what pressure can the Government put on them to ensure they are compliant?

The changes outlined in the White Paper are designed to get more disabled people into work, but are the Government removing barriers to help disabled people access the labour market? Are they addressing the disability employment pay gap? Disabled people are paid an average of 21% less than their non-disabled colleagues.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) outlined, changes need to be made to the social security system to make it less cruel, unfair and hostile, and to restore it to its original purpose, which was to provide a safety net for those in need. Disabled people are not asking for more; they are asking for equity. The Government should be ashamed that disabled people are dying or reporting that they want to commit suicide. Today should be a watershed moment for the Government.

Many are angry and frustrated. They feel that the Government have abandoned them, letting down the very people they should be seeking to protect the most. An example of that was the long overdue, or late, national disability strategy, which was ruled unlawful last year. Many of us did not believe that it was credible in the first place, but what have the Government replaced it with? There needs to be a fundamental rethink and change in the Government’s approach to serving disabled people. The approach must be about making their lives better and not about causing preventable harm.

As I close, I thank the petitioners. I encourage hon. Members to say hello to Abigail and Katy after the debate. I had the opportunity to meet them last week, and hearing about the experiences that led them to start the petition was pretty harrowing. As I said, I hope that today can be a moment when the Government acknowledge their flaws and failures on the part of disabled people, seek to draw a line and bring about changes that will improve their lives.

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert, to follow the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) and, indeed, to have a second bite of the cherry in speaking about this topic, given that last Tuesday I could not make it to the debate secured by the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows). It is always good to have a second coming, I have to say—although in my case perhaps not. We have had an eloquent debate so far.

I am sure that we will hear many numbers in the course of the debate. Two stick out to me. One comes from Kidney Care UK, which cites the average annual extra cost to an individual facing dialysis as £1,918. The second big figure comes from the charity Contact a Family, which works with disabled children. It says that the average cost of the energy needs for the disabled children that the charity works with is £1,596. That covers such matters as pumps, monitors, hoists and electric wheelchairs, all of which are related to an individual’s health condition. That is one type of extra cost that the disabled face in regard to energy needs.

The second type of cost does not really relate to health needs but is a consequence of a person’s disability. I chair the all-party parliamentary group for assistive technology. Many people with profound and severe disabilities, particularly cerebral palsy, rely on computer or some sort of IT aids to engage with the wider world. They are vital to their quality of life. Such aids can be voice recognition software, eyeball-controlled software and so on. All that relies on electricity, which of course costs money as well. Those needs are a consequence of their disability but are not health needs per se.

The third sort of extra cost is that those with any sort of disability need to maintain their home at a higher temperature than might otherwise be the case merely to keep themselves warm. On that point, I give a small plug to my Westminster Hall debate at 4 pm on Wednesday, which is about furniture poverty and affordability. One area that I will focus on is the fact that all too often new tenants move into social housing and find that floor coverings have been removed, and they cannot afford to replace them. They end up with a much less well-insulated property, which for many of them affects their health. Those are the three areas that we need to consider.

Having read the Hansard report of last week’s debate online in preparation for this debate, and listening to questions, I think a consensus is emerging. The phrase “social tariff” crops up time and again, and there is much discussion about the role of personal independence payments and a recognition of the £150 that the Government have made available. There is also a lot of talk about the lump sum of £650, which one of the petitions refers to. There are positives and negatives with all of those, in my view.

I am always interested in how the personal independence payment works. It clearly has an important role to play, and is designed to meet the additional costs that people face due to their disability in their day-to-day lives. There has been a long-term debate over the extent to which it fulfils that goal. The purple pound—the premium that so many people face—is not always reflected in PIP. Whether a non-means tested benefit, which PIP is, is the right avenue to support the energy needs of the most vulnerable in society is a debate worth having. We should not automatically assume that PIP is the answer to every problem. If that is the argument, Members have to justify to me why millionaires should benefit equally to some of my poorest constituents, and why those constituents should not get more intense and focused support.

The second issue is around the social tariff. Social tariffs sound all well and good; everyone thinks they are a wonderful idea. A social tariff has to be paid for, and that subsidy is often taken from other bill payers’ accounts, where it often ends up on a standing charge. What we risk doing by our continual focus on solving every problem with a social tariff is that it then gets put on a standing charge, and there is an ever decreasing circle where more people will see their standing charges go up and then have cause to revert to a social tariff themselves because they cannot afford their bills, thereby increasing the standing charges. In reality, that would not occur, but it is a logical inference. Once again, we cannot keep solving every problem in our energy system and our cost of living crisis by placing them on a standing charge—other ways have to be found.

I accept that the intention behind the £650 payment is a good one. My point is that it is an arbitrary figure. It certainly does not reflect the overall costs experienced by many of the people I just mentioned, which go far above £650. While good, I do not think it is necessary the answer either.

The hon. Member for Battersea briefly made mention of the Retail Energy Code Company, and its report. I am going to give it a bit more of a plug, because I think it is much more exciting than the hon. Member suggested.

[Marsha De Cordova]

What?

[Paul Maynard]

The hon. Member mentioned the Retail Energy Code Company only briefly, and I wanted to talk a little more about it because the detail in it is actually quite interesting. I am not mocking the hon. Member at all, I just have the time to cover it in more detail, whereas she had more to cover. I urge her not to take offence unnecessarily.

The Retail Energy Code Company advises energy companies on the code of conduct they must adopt towards their customers. Given some of my casework, I am not sure how much the energy companies are listening to it, but that is its role within the energy sector. Andrew Mower, who has been working with it on a set of proposals on how to deal with energy costs for disabled people, has done a superb job in exploring this area and finding some of the flaws in the proposals that have been made in recent months.

In particular, it is worth looking at the NHS schemes that exist at the moment for those on oxygen concentrators and dialysis machines. It is a perfectly good model; I am glad to see the NHS recognising that it has to help people meet energy costs, but it is not universal. It goes back to my old friend the postcode lottery. In addition, the subsidy does not go up when energy prices go up, so people are always playing catch-up. People are paid in arrears, so they have to stump up the cash to pay their bills in the hope that they will get the money back at some future date. That money may not actually reflect the bill they have to pay.

It is interesting how the NHS model, which we think may be the answer to many things, actually causes as many problems as it solves. Similarly, with social tariffs, Mr Mower points out the immense difficulty they have found in the broadband sector when trying to come up with a social tariff that actually works and does not disrupt the market in perverse ways with unintended consequences that could see social tariffs costing more than the one that is available on the market to families now. Social tariffs by themselves are quite difficult to get right and need to be extremely flexible. I am not convinced that Ofgem spending hours each week reinventing what this week’s social tariff should look like every time the energy cap changes is actually the answer either.

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[Tom Pursglove]

Again, I am happy to deal directly with that point, but I want to touch on the longer-term thinking around energy costs, which is led by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

[Marsha De Cordova]

I want to take the Minister back very briefly to what he said about priority customers and those who are elderly or disabled. In my speech, I mentioned that accessible information is not being provided to a number of disabled people, whether those who have a learning disability or those who are blind or partially sighted. What analysis or work is the Department doing on that? Providers have a legal duty to ensure that information is being provided to people in the right format. There is no point in having a priority scheme if providers are not meeting the needs of those they are prioritising.

[Tom Pursglove]

I will ask the Minister who was here earlier to provide an update to the hon. Lady on that particular point. Given that it relates to interaction with energy companies, it is important that the Minister is given the opportunity to comment on the point in question.

Before I move on to energy costs, I want to touch on the point that the  hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) made about water schemes. Again, I am happy to take that away. I recognise that, as she said, water companies provide support, and I am happy to raise that issue with ministerial colleagues with a direct responsibility for water policy.

The hon. Lady mentioned the work that Marie Curie is doing and spoke about people at the end of life. I want to put on the record my thanks to Marie Curie for its brilliant advocacy and campaigning, and the work it did with my Department and officials at the DWP to help us get the changes to the special rules for end of life right. That will be a significant help to many families across the country; they should be spending that time with their loved ones—their family and friends—not worrying about their finances. The changes to the special rules for end of life, which allow the fast-tracked help to be provided for longer, are important. Members of this House and the charitable sector campaigned for them—I am proud that we introduced them collaboratively —and gave us fantastic insight, guidance and support to help us get that policy right. The changes were introduced a few weeks ago, and will be helping families across the country today. The second tranche of benefits is now subject to the changes. I am pleased to say that when those applications come in, they are dealt with very quickly—within a matter of days—so that people can get that important help. I am grateful for the opportunity to highlight that.

Looking to the future, the Government recognise that we need to consider energy affordability in the longer term, and as part of that we intend to move away from universal energy bill support and towards better targeted support for those most in need. As set out in the 2022 autumn statement, we are working with consumer groups, charities and industry to explore possible options for a new approach to consumer protection, such as a social tariff from April 2024 onwards as part of wider retail market reforms. There is ongoing engagement between Ministers and disabled people’s organisations and representative groups to understand what that might look like. We will ensure those views are included as we do that work.

That work includes thorough engagement with disability organisations to consider the costs for people with medical equipment and assess the potential need for specific support for vulnerable and disabled people using energy-intensive medical equipment in the home. That new approach will be aligned with our objectives of delivering a fair deal for consumers, ensuring the energy market is resilient and attractive to investors over the long term, and supporting an efficient and flexible energy system. Any new approach will also need to promote competition within the energy markets and be consistent with our wider objectives of improving energy security and delivering net zero.

We are looking at medical equipment on a cross-Government basis. The Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England are supporting the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s review of the energy rebates and refund schemes that are currently available for users of medical equipment at home. They are also supporting the Department’s policy development work in this area, which they plan to publish for low-income, vulnerable energy consumers post April 2024. I understand that there are arrangements in place involving specialised NHS services and integrated care boards, which we will no doubt want to consider carefully as we move forward with the energy reforms I have described.

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[Tom Pursglove]

I entirely recognise the challenge of identifying that figure because inevitably people’s circumstances will differ, which is exactly why, as I explained earlier, we introduced the discretionary household support fund to ensure there was that discretionary support in place in the wider health landscape to capture those circumstances. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a specific figure today, but I go back to the point that this is exactly why the engagement piece is so important. These are issues we will no doubt want to explore in conversations to work out precisely what people need, what the average cost is and how costs above that average might best be met.

There are also other variables at play. We talked about how the situation in Ukraine has played into the higher costs that people are experiencing, particularly around energy. All of us hope the conflict will come to an end in short order, but inevitably the timings and nature of the conflict play into the levels at which those costs come through and the ways in which they are presented to people here in the UK. They are reflected in the energy bills turning up in people’s letterboxes or in their emails, which people are often worried about and, of course, are having to find the money to pay. We need to look carefully at these issues in a way that tracks the nature of the energy market and how it is being affected by what is going on in the world. It speaks to the Prime Minister’s determination to get inflation down and, as a Minister in his Government, I absolutely support him in that because, again, that plays into the costs people are experiencing.

I want to touch on the warm home discount scheme, which has been mentioned. We reformed the scheme in England and Wales to provide more rebates automatically and to focus the support on households in fuel poverty and on the lowest incomes. As the overall funding for the scheme is limited, we have focused support towards those on the lowest incomes and those who receive means-tested benefits. Disability benefits are not means-tested.

Overall, our analysis showed that 160,000 more households where a person is disabled or has a long-term illness would receive a rebate. In addition, the proportion of rebates received by households where someone has a disability or a long-term illness would remain higher than the proportion of the fuel-poor population with a disability and higher than the proportion of the overall population with a disability. Again, I will happily take away and reflect on the views expressed in the debate and will ensure that Ministers elsewhere in Government are aware of them.

On prepayment meters, which were briefly touched on, Ofgem published a new code of practice on 18 April. That has been agreed with energy suppliers to improve protections for customers being moved to a prepayment meter involuntarily. That is, of course, a step in the right direction, with better protections for vulnerable households, but the code of practice is not the end of this process. We have always been clear that action is needed to crack down on the practice of forcing people, especially the most vulnerable people, on to prepayment meters. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero will continue to work closely with Ofgem and the industry to see that the code leads to positive changes for vulnerable consumers and will not hesitate to intervene again if necessary. And I have no doubt that if we do not see the progress that we want, we will have more debates in this House around this issue. I know it is of real concern to people, having seen egregious cases reported in the media, which is also reflected in our inboxes as constituency MPs.

I also want to say something about energy efficiency, because the best way of protecting households is by lowering the costs of the energy that we consume and reducing our usage, and that means taking further steps on energy efficiency. This Government have set a new and ambitious target to reduce final energy demand from buildings and industry by 15% by 2030, and we have created the new energy efficiency taskforce, which is charged with driving improvements to bring down energy bills for households and businesses.

Based on proposals announced last year as ECO+, our new energy companies obligation scheme will deliver £1 billion of additional investment by March 2026 in energy efficiency upgrades, such as loft and cavity wall insulation. It will extend help to a wider group of households in the least efficient homes in the lower council tax bands, as well as boosting help for those on the lowest incomes.

[Marsha De Cordova]

The Minister is absolutely right to talk about energy efficiency in one context. On the other hand, however, it is important to truly acknowledge that disabled people face additional energy costs because of their disability. Energy efficiency is one thing, but really this issue is about addressing the challenge faced by disabled people right now in relation to the costs of living, in particular energy costs.

[Tom Pursglove]

I entirely accept that, and I do not think that I have suggested otherwise, but of course where we can help with people’s energy costs in the whole, we should do that. It is right that as a Government we do our bit to try to help, through those schemes, to provide that insulation support, which inevitably assists with some of those challenging costs that we are dealing with through the wider support that I have described.

We plan to lay legislation by the summer to take forward those measures that I have just set out. Energy efficiency measures in the fabric of our buildings, such as loft and cavity wall insulation, will lead to less demand on the electricity and gas grids, which in turn could help us to mitigate the impact of high and volatile international gas prices. This could also reduce energy bills for consumers, as well as helping vulnerable households out of fuel poverty.

Finally, I wanted to say something about the White Paper reforms that the Government proposed six weeks or so ago. It is absolutely right that we unlock the potential of those who wish to work and to do that with the right support. I mention this issue because there have been a few comments about it and I was able to say that we will be providing that statistical release, which I think will give colour to those reforms and allow people to make judgments about them and understand the rationale behind the direction of our proposals.

However, I regularly hear from disabled people who would like the opportunity to work, but that structural barrier within the system—that worry, or jeopardy, about trying work and it not working out, and then having to go through reapplication and reassessment processes—just cannot be right. Undoubtedly, though, that is getting in the way of so many people unlocking their potential and taking on work, if that is something they want to do.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) touched on opportunities for part-time work. Those are exactly the sort of opportunities that we want to unlock for people. Getting rid of the jeopardy that people feel is in the system and, undoubtedly, that work opportunity will help with households’ resilience when it comes to the costs that they experience more generally.

The hon. Gentleman asked specifically what sort of support we are putting in place around that. For example, there was the announcement that the Chancellor made around universal support. The pioneers for that are the individual placement and support in primary care. We know that works; it has a 68% success rate with the supported employment model of identifying an employment opportunity that is right for someone, supporting them into that role and then helping them to retain it.

Schemes such as Access to Work Plus are also exciting and provide great opportunities. We are currently evaluating some of our initial testing of that scheme, but it is about crafting a job role and working with an employer that is keen to take on a disabled person, ensuring they are able to unlock that opportunity in a way that is right for that individual. It is about working with them on a tailored, personalised basis, which is exactly the basis that I am determined we will progress the White Paper reforms on. The overarching sentiment, and the fundamental safety net, is that we would never ask anyone to do something that is inappropriate for them.

Alongside those measures, we also want a better journey through the benefits system for people who need support. I am not complacent about that. There have been contributions today that touched on PIP journey times, and I can confirm that they are down to 14 weeks. That is where we wanted to get to. Previously, people were experiencing unacceptable waits. I am also asking officials to stretch and see what more we can do to take that further and get certainty for people as early in that journey as possible.

Some of the measures we talked about in the White Paper speak to the wider effort we want to make to improve experiences of the benefits system. With the severe disability group, for example, I hope to be able to say more about the work we will do to kick that on and test that model. We think the model is right, because it reduces the assessment burden on people, particularly where their conditions are unlikely to improve. I would argue that scrapping the work capability assessment provides a good opportunity. We have many debates in this House on that over the years. I am also thinking back to debates before my time here—that was a very controversial issue. Scrapping that assessment is the right thing to do, and it allows us an opportunity to focus on quality decision making over and above the current picture.

We want to better gauge fluctuating conditions in the benefits systems, and we want to test that to see what we could do to provide better-quality support and help for people navigating the benefit system with fluctuating conditions. That is as well as the feedback that came through loud and clear in the responses to the Green Paper: they said that they wanted to see the Department matching expert assessors with their particular conditions, because they think that greater understanding will lead to better outcomes. I am looking forward to the opportunity to debate those issues in the weeks and months ahead.

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[Tom Pursglove]

Where we are at the moment is that the journey time for PIP is 14 weeks. I am happy to provide the hon. Lady with some more information separately, and I will gladly write to her, but the whole thrust of the reforms that we are seeking to introduce is about trying to get journey times down as much as possible and getting more decisions right the first time. I think all of us would want to see greater certainty for people as quicky as possible, and I am keen to hear people’s experiences and expertise about how we can best do that, which is precisely why the tests and trials were included in the White Paper package. The package features a holistic set of reforms and is undoubtedly the largest welfare reform that we have seen for over a decade, but we have to get it right, because there is such an opportunity here. I really hope that over the course of the coming weeks, months and years, we can have a constructive debate in the House about how we take such opportunities forward. I think that would be a valuable insight as we progress with that work.

[Marsha De Cordova]

Can the Minister elaborate a bit more? We all know that an personal independence payment is an extra costs benefit, but under the proposals in the White Paper, the Government are seeking to use that assessment framework as a replacement for the WCA. We have called for it to be scrapped for years, and we are really pleased that the Government have finally listened to disabled people, the Opposition and others, but does he recognise that PIP is an extra costs element of support? Therefore, using it to try to replace an income replacement form of social security cannot be right.

[Tom Pursglove]

The feedback that we hear time and again is that people want to see the assessment burden considerably reduced. I would like to hope that all of us can rally round and say that we think that is the right thing to do, so that we can respond to the feedback and act on it. I am not envisaging fundamental change to the PIP assessment being required but, again, what we will do within the new system—we will come forward with more detail about the specifics and the mechanics of how it will work—is to see greater tailoring and a greater opportunity to work with people to understand their needs, aspirations and requirements.

Where work is appropriate, we will work with people to try to explore that work outcome. Things such as universal support and IPSPC—individual placement and support in primary care—are important parts of that. The additional work coach time commitment that we have made, which has just gone live in the second third of jobcentres and will go live in the final third in very short order, is really important in helping to set out the direction of travel that we are looking to take, and it will give a feel for the system that will be in place. But we obviously require primary legislation to deal with the fundamental challenge, which is the jeopardy that people feel within the current system around trying work, it not working out and then having to go back through reassessment and reapplication processes, which is highly undesirable. It is right that we address that, but I am not anticipating there being fundamental reform to the PIP assessment.

I want to add a bit more on carers before concluding, because it is a theme that came up consistently during the course of the debate. We are focusing support on the carers who need it most, and about 380,000 carer households on UC can already receive around £2,000 extra through the carer element. Where a household is in receipt of UC with a carer element, they will be entitled to up to £900 in cost of living payments and, if the disabled person lives in the same household, a £150 disability cost of living payment. For carers who can undertake some part-time work, we increased the carer’s allowance earnings limit to £139 a week from April.

But I hear the arguments that the hon. Lady makes. I made a commitment last week that I would go away and really think hard about the thresholds and the levels at which they are set. I will consider the wider context of these debates and also the structural reforms and the wider picture. Undoubtedly, the learning from covid and opportunities for people around work are perhaps markedly different from what they were prior to the pandemic, and different people’s care and responsibilities will take a different form. Fundamentally, I am willing to look at that issue. There is a lot of cross-Government work going on around a host of issues relating to disabled people and people with health conditions. I am very willing to raise her wider points with DHSC colleagues.

I agree with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys: there is a lot more consensus in these debates than is often credited. All of us want to see the same outcome, which is that people are properly supported and receive the help that they need to get them through these difficult times. As I said earlier, it is right that the Prime Minister wants our Government to focus on getting inflation down, because inflation is playing a significant part in the costs that people are experiencing.

We have been responsive to date in the support that we have provided, but our minds are not closed. We continue to engage and will continue to keep under review the package of support. There are some important measures coming down the track and there will be a lot of opportunity for colleagues and disabled people and their organisations to help influence that to make sure we get it right.

[Marsha De Cordova]

I start by briefly thanking all of the speakers. It has been a good debate. I thank my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson), my hon. Friends the Members for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), for Blaydon (Liz Twist), and for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), and the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for East Dunbartonshire (Amy Callaghan), and for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). I thank them all for their contributions.

The Minister outlined a lot in his response. He mentioned a lot of work that he is looking into, taking back or that is being done, but what has been overwhelming in this debate is that disabled people need support now and any further delay will not help them. If he has not read the survey responses, I ask him to please take time to read them because they really signify the urgency of this debate and the urgency of the support that disabled people need. I highlighted in my speech that this is on the back of 13 years of austerity and the hostile environment that his Government have unfortunately created, compounded by the pandemic and now the cost of living crisis. Although I appreciate some of his words, it is really important that he takes that on board.

Everybody has mentioned the warm home discount, but the Government’s impact assessment highlighted that nearly 300,000 disabled people will lose out. What about those people? We did not hear anything about how we are going to support them. We all know the challenges that disabled people face. I hope that the Government will use this debate as an opportunity to think hard and fast and introduce proposals to provide immediate financial support.

The Minister did not acknowledge the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, which was signed by the previous Labour Government and will be implemented, but why will his Government not implement it now, given that they no longer have any strategy in place to support disabled people?

I want to thank our petitioners Katy and Abigail, who are here this afternoon, for their tireless hard work and for sharing their own experiences. I know the challenges that they face and how difficult it is to live independently with a disability, so I thank them once again.

Finally, we need to look at the social model of disability as opposed to looking at the medical context. If we think about it from a social model perspective, we recognise that it is the societal barriers that need to be broken down to enable disabled people to live an independent life with their human rights preserved.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petitions 610300 and 617425, relating to the cost of living and financial support for disabled people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott]

Labour put up pensions by 75p. We put them up by nearly £20. We are doing all that we can to support pensioners, and they know that we have got their backs.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

13. What steps he is taking to help ensure disabled jobseekers can access specialist support at jobcentres.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

16. What steps he is taking to help ensure disabled jobseekers can access specialist support at jobcentres.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Tom Pursglove)]

Disability employment advisers have expertise on how to help disabled jobseekers into work and build work coach skills to help these claimants. That is in addition to broader support, including our increased work coach support, the Work and Health programme and intensive, personalised employment support.

[Marsha De Cordova]

Successive Tory Governments have failed to reduce the multiple barriers facing disabled people entering work. Research by Sense has found that disabled jobseekers say that they do not have the support and equipment they need to look for work, and it is vital that every jobcentre across this country is accessible and has essential pieces of assistive technology so that disabled people can find and apply for work. If this Government want to finally get serious about reducing the disability employment gap, which remains at about 30%, will they commit today to a jobcentre assistive technology fund to support disabled people to look for work?

[Tom Pursglove]

I categorically reject the initial point made in the hon. Lady’s question. The fact is that this Government set a target of getting 1 million more disabled people into work and we met it five years early, but now we must go further. That is precisely why we have brought forward the reforms in the White Paper, which we genuinely believe will remove that structural barrier to work. We will have the packages of support alongside this, which I believe people will want to engage with, because they are aspirational and want to enter the workplace. We will never ask people to do anything that is not appropriate for them. We will work on an individualised, case-by-case basis to support customers. Of course, it is absolutely right that we make sure that our services are as accessible as possible, and that is the whole thrust of the reform. The health model officers are helping us to test what works, and we will continue to work along those lines. I hope she will want to work with me, in the spirit of partnership, to make this a success.

Health and Disability White Paper

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will make a statement on “Transforming Support: The Health and Disability White Paper” published by the Government.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Tom Pursglove)]

Yesterday, the Secretary of State published “Transforming Support: The Health and Disability White Paper”. This White Paper is a significant milestone, demonstrating the Government’s commitment to ensuring that disabled people and people with health conditions can lead independent lives and fulfil their potential. It sets out an ambitious policy reform package that will transform the health and disability benefits system, and help disabled people and people with health conditions to start, stay in and succeed in work.

We will deliver action in three ways. First, we will transform the future benefits system so that it focuses on what people can do, rather than on what they cannot, including by removing the work capability assessment. In our new system, there will be no need to be found to have limited capability for work or work-related activity in order to receive additional income-related support for a disability or health condition. We will introduce a new universal credit health element that people receiving both personal independence payment and universal credit will be entitled to, which will enable people to try work without the fear of losing their benefits. We will roll this out carefully from 2026-27, and we will ensure that no one currently on universal credit and with limited capability for work or work-related activity will lose out once they move on to the new system.

Secondly, while de-risking work is one side of the coin in supporting disabled people and people with health conditions into work, we know that we also need to provide more employment and health support for this group. The White Paper sets out how we will introduce a new personalised approach to employment support and engagement, with the aim of helping people to reach their potential and live a more independent life. We are investing in additional work coach time and tailored support. The Chancellor also set out yesterday that we will introduce a new programme called universal support, which will provide wraparound support for individuals and employers, as well as additional money to provide more mental health and musculoskeletal treatment for this group.

Finally, we will ensure that people can access the right support at the right time, and have a better overall experience, by testing new initiatives to make it easier to apply for and receive health and disability benefits. I am certain that our White Paper reforms will support more people to reach their full potential and reap the health and wellbeing advantages of work.

[Marsha De Cordova]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question.

Although we know that most of the proposals set out in the White Paper will not be implemented until the next Parliament, a significant number of ill and disabled people will be impacted. We see the Government using a carrot-and-stick approach, which will leave many sick and disabled people with the stick and the real threat of the ramping up of sanctions, as indicated by the Chancellor during his Budget statement yesterday. Just this week the Information Commissioner’s Office ruled that the Department for Work and Pensions must release “sensitive” research into its sanctions regime following the Work and Pensions Committee report, which found that there is very little evidence that the sanctions work. Instead, it found that they have a significant impact on the health and finances of those who have been sanctioned. There are real consequences to some of the Government’s actions.

Nobody is arguing that scrapping the work capability assessment is not welcome. However, relying solely on the PIP assessment is not the solution, given the current experiences of PIP assessments, which show that they are deeply flawed; the DWP is losing or conceding in four out of five appeals. Moreover, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said yesterday that up to 1 million people currently on incapacity benefits could lose out as a result of scrapping the work capability assessment and relying on using PIP only. Also under the new proposals disabled people will not automatically be in the “no work-related requirements” conditionality group and will now be subject to the decisions of a work coach.

We also did not hear any additional investment in the Access to Work scheme, so can the Minister say how many people will be impacted and what the cost is of these new proposals? It is estimated that 1 million people will lose out. How are the Government intending to mitigate that? Will the PIP assessment framework change or stay as it currently is? Given the poor decision making on so many PIP assessments, what action is being taken to fix the flawed decision-making process and the assessment itself? How will the DWP ensure that the policy proposals do not remove vital protections against sanctions and risk pushing people further into poverty? Finally, when are the Government intending to publish the sensitive research into the sanctions regime?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am hugely appreciative of the hon. Lady, who always speaks with great passion on these issues. I welcome the cautious welcome from her about the broad thrust of the reform we are trying to deliver, which is to remove the structural disincentive to work. That manifests itself in the many conversations I have with disabled people and their representative groups, when they tell me that many disabled people would like to try to work, but fear doing so and then losing their entitlement if it does not work out. That is not an acceptable situation, and it is right that we change it. I hope that as a House, as we move forward with these reforms, we can come together and deliver something that achieves that objective, which is plainly the right thing to do.

It was before my time in the House, but I well remember debates in previous years about the work capability assessment. It is welcome that we are scrapping the work capability assessment through these reforms. The reforms also offer an opportunity to focus on quality when it comes to the PIP assessment and on making sure that we get the right decisions first time. The hon. Lady will note, for example, that one of the commitments we have made in the White Paper is trying to match specialist assessors with people’s conditions. That is another thing people have regularly been asking for, and we are determined to test that and see what difference it can make. Again, this is all about being responsive to the feedback we have received.

On the issue of sanctions that the hon. Lady mentioned, I know that the legal case she touched on is under consideration by Ministers elsewhere in the Department at the moment. No doubt we will come forward and say more about that in due course, but I want to be clear that it is not my intention or the Department’s intention to force anyone to do something that is not right for them. We are committed to personalised, tailored support that meets individual needs and aspirations. The Secretary of State will talk about that in more detail during the Budget debate later. A lot of that will be voluntary. I would hope that people will want to engage with universal support and will want to engage with Work Well, because this is about trying to help and support people. For people with health conditions, for example, this is a way in which we can work harder and tirelessly with them to help them get better. Work is of course an important determinant of better health outcomes. The White Paper is explicit in saying that we will move forward with this in a way that is appropriate for individuals. For those where work is not appropriate, they will not be expected to do it.

It is also important to set out for the House that there will be transitional cash protection in place. No one who currently has limited capability for work or work-related activity will lose out as they move to the new system. We are specifically protecting those with pregnancy risk or who are undergoing cancer treatment, and we are also keeping a contributory health and disability benefit. Of course, what I really want to do—this is key to all of the work I do in this role—is to work constructively with the hon. Lady and with disabled people and their representative groups to make sure that we get this reform right. This is the biggest welfare reform for over a decade, and we have to get this absolutely right.