Social Security and Employment Support for Disabled People

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. This builds on some of the work he started when he was in the Department. It is very much based on listening to people and their experience of the current benefit system. I could not agree more that we need to have a much more streamlined, simplified process under which people tell us the information once, we gather it once, and we are able to make the best possible accurate decisions the first time.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) on securing this urgent question.

As we saw yesterday, the Secretary of State announced changes to social security, disability and health. By my calculations, she made no fewer than nine different announcements in her statement. The Government will now hand over more money to the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments, better known as Maximus, to continue to carry out the work capability assessments. This is despite the failure, year on year, to meet the Department’s own performance standards and no fewer than 36,000 ill and disabled people wrongly deprived of social security as a result of WCAs. Can the Minister therefore say why the Government have decided to extend the contract for another 16 months? Will the Minister finally consider bringing these assessments back in-house?

The Government have announced that they are looking to merge the assessments for PIP and ESA into an integrated assessment service and use a digital platform to do so. Does the Minister not agree that there is serious risk involved in combining both assessments when the standard of decision making for PIP and ESA is the subject of so many failures? Given the consistent failures with the online platform for universal credit, what confidence should ill and disabled people have that this will not happen to them when they go through a process to access vital social security support?

Over 1 million sanctions have been imposed on disabled people since 2010, and those sanctions have been shown to be counterproductive and cruel. But so far the Government have committed to only a small “test” review of conditionality and sanctions. Why will the Government not follow Labour in pledging to scrap the punitive sanctions regime?

The Government have once again moved the goalposts on employing disabled people. First they wanted to halve the disability employment gap and now they are going to review it yet again. It is time for the Government to consider expanding Access to Work, rather than simply reviewing their employment targets. There are currently seven reviews being conducted into disabled people being wrongly deprived of social security support. These changes are just a drop in the ocean, so will the Minister finally accept that there needs to be fundamental reform, not just tinkering around the edges?

[Sarah Newton]

I really would have hoped that, today of all days, the hon. Lady could have found it in her heart to welcome the changes that have been asked for by so many people inside and outside this Chamber, and to recognise the great work that has been done by disabled people, and those who work with them, to engage with us so constructively and enable us to move forward and tackle the issues that she is describing.

The hon. Lady is right to say that we said yesterday that we were going to be more ambitious in enabling more disabled people into work, because we have made such good progress. Since 2013, over 930,000 more disabled people are now in work. Over that time, the disability employment rate has increased from 7.4% to 51.5%, and the gap between the disabled employment rate and the overall employment rate has been reduced to 30.2%. I do not want to see any disabled person out of work when they would like to be in work, but we have made progress and that is why we have committed to reviewing our targets and to being more ambitious. Access to Work is a great scheme, as we all agree, and it supported record numbers of people last year, including more people with mental health conditions and more young people with learning disabilities. The Access to Work fund is demand-led, and it grows every year because every year we are seeing more disabled people into work, and that is what we want to do.

Returning to the hon. Lady’s questions about the contracts, it is really important to me that, while we are going through such a fundamental transformation of our assessment process, we have safe and stable delivery for people who are applying for benefits. That is why we have extended the contracts to 2021, to align with the PIP contracts. We have not just accepted the existing situation, as the hon. Lady knows, and I am grateful for the work undertaken by the Select Committee on this. We have been pushing for continuous improvement within those contracts. The new contracts have higher standards for service delivery, and I would be happy to put a letter in the Library so that people can see the terms of the new contracts and see that they are driving forward improvement. We all want to see the right decisions being made at the first opportunity. We do not want to see people having to go through mandatory reconsideration and then on to appeals in the courts, and we have a whole series of reforms to ensure that that does not happen.

Employment and Support Allowance: Underpayments

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab) (Urgent Question)]

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if she will make a statement on the employment and support allowance underpayments.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Sarah Newton)]

The Department is correcting some past underpayments of ESA that arose when people moved from incapacity benefit on to ESA. We realise how important it is to get this matter fixed. Clearly, the mistakes should never have happened, but we know that it is vital that it is sorted as quickly as possible. Last Thursday, I tabled a written statement that updated the House on progress since the previous written statement in October last year. We are on track to complete work on the majority of the original 320,000 cases by the end of April this year. As of 11 February, 310,000 of that overall number have started the reassessment journey. We have paid arrears of over £328 million to 58,000 people, which is significant progress. The Department has also increased the number of staff working on putting these cases right from about 400 staff to approximately 1,200 staff, which will enable us to continue to complete this important activity at pace.

Following the announcement in July last year to pay cases back to the point of conversion, I confirmed in October that this will require us to review an additional 250,000 cases. We have started this activity and will aim to complete this phase by the end of the year. Last Thursday, the Department published an ad hoc statistical publication on gov.uk that sets out further detail on the progress it has made on processing the cases, including an updated estimate on forecast expenditure and the number of people affected. The Department now estimates that about 600,000 cases require review and that by the end of the exercise about 210,000 arrears payments will have been made. The increase, compared with the previous estimate of 180,000, is based on additional sampling and very careful, thorough checking. Alongside the written statement that was published last Thursday, I also published an updated version of the frequently asked questions, and this has been deposited in the House Library.

[Marsha De Cordova]

Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker.

On 21 February, the Department for Work and Pensions published a statement saying that 210,000 ill and disabled people could have been underpaid vital employment and support allowance after a grave error by the Department dating back to 2011, when it wrongly migrated them from incapacity benefit on to contributions-based ESA, denying them essential social security, such as the severe disability premium, to which income-based ESA would have entitled them.

The Government initially estimated that 70,000 ill and disabled people were underpaid. In October 2018 that number increased to 180,000 people, and now it has emerged that up to 210,000 ill and disabled people were underpaid, on average, £6,000 in social security. How can we trust that the number will not increase?

Thus far, 20,000 people have died before receiving the social security to which they were entitled. That is 20,000 people who will never be repaid what they were owed by the DWP. The Department estimates that more than £1 billion will be spent to rectify this catastrophic error, and we have now learned that it will employ up to 1,200 staff to do so.

How many people have been pushed into rent arrears, council tax arrears, debt and destitution? Will the Department listen to Labour’s demands and pay compensation to those who have been pushed into debt? What support will the Department provide to the estates of the 20,000 ill and disabled people who tragically died before they received their payment?

Given the scale of the issue in transferring to ESA, how will the Government avoid repeating this error when they transfer ill and disabled people from legacy social security on to universal credit? Given that there are currently seven reviews into ill and disabled people being underpaid, how much of the Government’s total expenditure is spent on underpayments? Finally, will the Minister apologise to the additional 30,000 disabled people, and their families, who have been denied thousands of pounds in social security, and to the 20,000 people who died before justice was done?

[Sarah Newton]

I thank the hon. Lady for her questions. Let me make it absolutely clear that, each and every time I have addressed the House, I have thoroughly apologised on behalf of the Department for these administrative errors. This should never have happened, and I am very happy to apologise again today. Although I wish this had never happened, we are working at pace to make sure that people receive the payments to which they are entitled.

The hon. Lady is right to say that we have reviewed the cases of people who have subsequently deceased, but she is not right about the quantities of people who would have actually benefited from this exercise. We are only part of the way through, and we do not know, as yet, the total number of deceased people who, having reviewed their case, would have been eligible for additional payments. Where we review the cases of deceased people—of course, we are reviewing all of the cases—we make the payments to their family. We are working carefully and urgently to find the families so that we can make the payments.

On the additional resources that we have made available to complete this exercise, I am sure the whole House would agree it is vital that we get on and sort this out as swiftly as possible so that people can benefit from the additional sums of ESA and other disability premiums to which they might be entitled. I am pleased that we have been able to find the additional resources to enable us to do this. I made the commitment to the House that we would complete the exercise this year, and that is what we are going to do.

The hon. Lady rightly asks what lessons we are learning, especially as we are now planning for the managed migration of people from ESA on to UC. The key lesson we have learned is to make sure that the claimant is involved in that decision. For all the right reasons I am sure, it was decided to migrate people from incapacity benefit on to ESA without contacting them—just passporting them over. I have heard Opposition Members make that call to me as we approach the managed migration, and that is the key mistake that was made. The opportunity was missed to check in with people claiming the benefit to make sure that their circumstances had not changed and that there were not additional payments to which they might be entitled, and that was the cause of this particular problem. I am determined that those lessons are learned so that, as we do the managed migration in a measured and careful way, the mistake is not made again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

It is absolutely right that we should be focused on making the right decision first time. We have had independent reviews of both the work capability assessment and the PIP assessments, and we are working rigorously to implement each of the steps that have been identified.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

Under schedule 2 to the Universal Credit (Managed Migration) Regulations 2018, the compensation for severely disabled people who have moved on to universal credit for the loss of premiums is a flat rate of £80 per month if they have been placed in the limited capability for work group. This is considerably less than the actual loss of income, which is approximately £180 per month. Will the Minister give a full breakdown of how that figure was reached, and will she listen to Labour’s demands and commit to ensuring that the compensation reflects the real loss of those premiums?

[Sarah Newton]

I fear that you, Mr Speaker, will not allow me the time I need to answer such a detailed question, so I am very happy to write to the hon. Lady. I do want to say, because I think the whole House will be pleased, that we have now enabled people who have single-tier pensions to be held back on the legacy benefits until the managed migration regulations come into effect.

[Marsha De Cordova]

Under universal credit, for working disabled people to qualify for in-work support, such as the work allowance, one must be found unfit for work under the work capability assessment. This is unlike the legacy social security system, under which a disabled person will qualify for in-work support, such as the disability element of working tax credit, by being in receipt of disability living allowance or PIP. Does the Minister agree with me that it is absurd that a disabled worker must be found unfit for work to qualify for in-work support, and will she commit today to reviewing this?

[Sarah Newton]

Universal credit provides tailor-made support for all people, including those with disabilities. Once somebody meets their work coach, they will have a personalised journey to support them into work and to make progress into work, and that can happen even before the work capability assessment is taken.

Mental Health: Assessment

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ryan.

I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) on securing this debate and on making a truly powerful speech, in which she shared some of the evidence that she has received as a result of the call she put out for accounts of people’s harrowing experiences of their mental distress and of accessing the social security system. She highlighted that it was actually down to a number of voluntary sector organisations—charities and other bodies—to help those individuals through the claim process, and many of those organisations rely on funding they receive from the European Union.

The hon. Lady said that what is lacking in the whole process is adequate training of the healthcare professionals involved. It is vital that they be trained adequately. We know that there are meant to be mental distress champions, but ultimately their influence is not being felt by those going through the assessment.

Many Members, in speeches or interventions, spoke about the appeals process. It is recognised that there is concern about it, as there is such a high success rate for appeals, which I will come to later.

The hon. Lady absolutely hit the nail on the head when she talked about the change from the disability living allowance to the personal independent payment, and the impact that change has had on so many claimants. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) highlighted in an intervention the report published today by York University, which shows that people with psychological conditions were 2.4 times more likely than claimants without such a condition to have their DLA award stopped when they were being assessed for PIP, so there is clearly a problem. Many people assume that the policy intention behind PIP was to reduce the number of people in receipt of such support. There should be parity of esteem for those with physical conditions and those with mental health conditions, because PIP is there to contribute towards the extra costs of living with such an illness or condition.

We know that disabled people, particularly those who experience mental distress, have been let down by the assessment framework. Many people would say that the framework is innately flawed. As of May 2017, half of those claiming ESA and a third of those claiming PIP were described as having “mental or behavioural disorders”.

The Department for Work and Pensions has spent more than £1 billion on outsourcing the assessments for these benefits to providers such as Capita and Atos. However, those providers are falling woefully short of the DWP’s own performance standards. More than half of the assessment reports by Capita have been graded as unacceptable, so we know that there are clear problems with the way that the assessment framework is being used by these providers, which has obviously had a great impact on those experiencing mental distress.

Many Members have today shared—as Members have done constantly throughout their time in Parliament—the heart-wrenching accounts of constituents whose assessment left them in deep despair and distress. If anyone has not heard such accounts, they should think back to February last year, when the Work and Pensions Committee received an unprecedented amount of evidence from individuals sharing their experiences of the PIP and ESA assessment and framework, and of the distress that they caused them.

There have even been reports of people who have admitted being suicidal being asked why they had not killed themselves yet. Like the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton, I do not know how an assessor could ask somebody that. I would like to think that the Minister will ensure that that does not happen again; it really should not.

There have been reports of assessors overlooking someone’s mental distress, and asking inappropriate and offensive questions. I will give just one example. An individual diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, depression and anxiety lost his job and had a mental-health breakdown, so he applied for PIP twice, but was turned down twice. Obviously, the process began with his filling out the claim form, collecting all the medical evidence requested of him, and finally having to endure the humiliating face-to-face assessment. The process of trying to claim PIP caused that individual—David—great anxiety. He spiralled out of control into self-harm, and eventually overdosed on drugs.

No assessment for essential social security support should lead to anyone spiralling toward self-harm. The Minister will agree that we have to consider whether it is right for the burden of providing medical evidence to fall on the claimant. Will she commit to removing the burden of collecting medical evidence from the person claiming PIP and ESA?

When David went to a tribunal, he was awarded PIP, based on the same evidence that the DWP had previously deemed insufficient. However, we know that David’s story is not a one-off; it is all too common. Since 2013, 71% of PIP decisions have been overturned on appeal, which is a clear indication that there is inaccuracy and poor decision making in the assessment process. Denying more than 100,000 disabled people PIP will obviously have a negative impact on whether people can go on and live independently. The DWP spent over £100 million in administering reviews and appeals between 2016 and 2018. Much of the evidence would have been “inadmissible” in a normal court of law; that was said by a senior judge.

The Minister must consider all recommendations, particularly those of the Social Security Advisory Committee around mandatory reconsiderations, decision making, and ensuring that assessments are recorded. The High Court last year ruled that the negative changes regarding those who experience psychological distress were unlawfully discriminatory. Obviously, that has led to the review of 1.6 million PIP awards.

When does the Minister anticipate that the reviews of the system will be completed, and has a timetable for them been published, so we can see that they are completed? It will be important to know that all those people have got their back payment in a timely fashion.

The DWP is undergoing seven reviews of disabled people who are wrongly being deprived of social security. Five of those reviews are of flawed PIP and ESA assessments. So it is really important that the DWP gets this right. The failings of the assessment framework go way beyond discrimination; they contribute to, or even cause, individuals’ mental distress. In the words of one person,

“Going through the WCA process is the biggest source of worry in my life”.

That is how we are treating some of our most vulnerable people in society.

Labour recognises that there needs to be a radical overhaul of the assessment framework. It was labelled “superficial” and “dismissive” by the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty. It should be replaced by a holistic, personalised and tailored single assessment, which would treat all disabled people, whether they have a physical or mental health condition, with the dignity and respect that they so desperately deserve.

Recognition of Fibromyalgia as a Disability

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bailey. I am afraid that my stop clock has just died, so do help me with the time and bear with me as I will not be able to see a clock.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) on securing the debate. I think that all of us across the Chamber would agree that he has done an excellent a job of raising the matter on behalf of his constituents and fibromyalgia sufferers across the UK. He made some powerful points. He talked about the desperate need for more research, stressing the point that although this debate is about the work of the Department for Work and Pensions, the subject crosses over into the work of the Department of Health and Social Care. I am sure that the Minister will take that forward and work with her colleagues in that Department on the issue.

My hon. Friend spoke about the impact that fibromyalgia has on sufferers, and how it affects all aspects of their everyday lives. We are focusing on social security matters, but there are also issues with work, as many colleagues have expressed today. Obviously, the huge challenges with access to social security should not go unnoticed. Many Members have made that point today, and I am sure that the Minister will address it when she responds.

Many hon. Members—some are no longer in the Chamber—made some really valid contributions and interventions. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) intervened to highlight the lack of understanding of the effect of fibromyalgia on day-to-day living and, in particular, on accessing social security. Members highlighted the challenges that fibromyalgia presents and the problems it brings, including in being assessed and qualifying for personal independence payment. My hon. Friend spoke about fibromyalgia being a fluctuating condition, which it is.

I agree with the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) that my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield is a champion for people with fibromyalgia; he has certainly brought it to my attention. My hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) shared her experience of cases of fibromyalgia and recognised the impact that the condition can have in the area of work.

I thank the hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Andrea Jenkyns) for sharing her personal experiences, particularly in relation to memory and fibro-fog, as well as the fatigue that fibromyalgia causes. I commend her for being so open about the condition and for the way she is just getting on with life, as many people with a long-term disability do, including me.

I congratulate Adrienne, the constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield, as well as Fibromyalgia Action UK and Versus Arthritis, on all the work they are doing to raise awareness of the condition. Fibromyalgia was first recognised by the World Health Organisation back in the 1970s, and we know that in the UK up to 2 million people are affected by it and that as many as one in 20 people suffer from it. Yet it remains a condition that is still often unrecognised, under-diagnosed and, in many cases, totally invisible.

As we have heard, the symptoms associated with fibromyalgia include widespread pain across the entire body. In the words of one sufferer, it is a

“generalised pain that can be anything from a shooting pain in my arms, hands, fingers, legs, feet, toes, back and shoulders.”

It can also cause headaches. Another sufferer has said:

“Sometimes it feels like I’m hitting a brick wall...I get irritated easily and am quick to get frustrated and angry”.

The symptoms include an increased sensitivity to pain, fatigue and difficulties in sleeping. There are often also problems with memory and concentration, which is sometimes known as fibro-fog. Many Members mentioned those problems today.

For those who suffer from fibromyalgia, the symptoms are life-altering and the pain they experience is very real, but to the rest of the world—including the general population—the condition can sometimes seem invisible. We also know that many healthcare professionals find it extremely difficult to diagnose fibromyalgia, which helps explain why it is only on a case-by-case basis that the condition is recognised under the Equality Act. Many people face constantly having to go back to get diagnosed, making visit after visit to their GP practice, and the fact that the condition has many different symptoms relating to different areas of the body makes it even more challenging for sufferers.

There is no specific diagnostic test for fibromyalgia. Instead, there have been many accounts of sufferers facing years of referrals, MRI scans and so forth. Even if people are diagnosed with the condition, they are forced to wait for months, if not years, to receive treatment. Many hon. Members spoke about the urgent need for more research. One hon. Member—I am not sure whether they are still here—mentioned the research taking place in Sweden and the US, and called on the Minister to look again at how we can commit to more research into fibromyalgia, because we know that the condition affects so many people.

We know that there are many difficulties in diagnosing fibromyalgia. In response to the petition that my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield presented last April, the Government pointed towards the National Institute for Health Research. However, we know that fibromyalgia affects all aspects of life, so I will now turn to the impact it can have on employment. Fibromyalgia sufferers face difficulties in being able to stay in work and in getting the right support while they are in work. We know that the disability employment gap has remained at 30% over the last year. However, one of the best employment support programmes is the Access to Work programme. It ensures that those who suffer from fibromyalgia are actually aware of the programme, but it also raises awareness of its work among employers, because it can be a valuable resource for employers making reasonable adjustments for employees and for sufferers. Many sufferers want to stay in work and can stay in work. I will continue to press the Minister to ensure that the Access to Work programme is adequately funded, so that more funding is available for those suffering from fibromyalgia.

We have heard many accounts from many Members today that show that it is not only employment but social security that is a huge problem for people suffering from fibromyalgia. We know that 3% of PIP claimants have fibromyalgia, of whom the vast majority are women. Assessments for PIP are carried out by private companies, and in some cases they have insufficient knowledge of fibromyalgia and the impact it has on daily life, because it is one of the “invisible” conditions. That is really important.

We know that the framework for the current assessment process, not only for PIP but for employment and support allowance, is flawed. Fibromyalgia, because it is a fluctuating condition, is not being picked up in PIP assessments, and we know that the assessment framework is failing far too many people. That presents challenges for sufferers when it comes to accessing that essential additional payment, which contributes towards meeting the extra costs of living with fibromyalgia. I say to the Minister again that we must listen to all the testimonies about how PIP affects people and we must recognise that the assessment framework is not fit for purpose. She must commit to reviewing it.

Finally, I will talk briefly about the Equality Act. Because of my own disability, I come under it, and there is no reason why fibromyalgia cannot also be seen as a disability under it. We know that fibromyalgia is assessed on a case-by-case basis, but in the future it is fundamental that the Act begins to recognise the impact that fibromyalgia has on people’s daily lives.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I am very sorry to hear about that individual case. I would of course be more than happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to see what more we can do to help. The work capability assessment and PIP assessment process has been subject to a series of independent reviews, which we welcome, and we work vigorously to make sure that we make continuous improvements. For the vast majority of people, the processes work well.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

Just before Christmas, the Minister announced yet another review of disabled people being wrong denied vital social security, after 4,600 disabled people had their disability living allowance wrongly stopped and were deprived of PIP. It is the seventh review of its kind in the past year and provides yet another example of the devastating impact of the chaotic shambles at the heart of the DWP. Does the Minister agree that this latest review is the result of institutional indifference to the suffering of disabled people? Or is it simply the result of a Department in utter chaos?

[Sarah Newton]

Well, happy new year to the shadow Minister.

I utterly refute the idea that the Department for Work and Pensions and its staff, who work so hard, day in, day out—well, I will not even dignify those comments by repeating the allegations. The Department is there to make sure that people in our society get the benefits that they—[Interruption.] I am very happy to answer the question if the hon. Lady will refrain from chuntering so distractingly from sedentary position. We are utterly determined to make sure we have a benefits system that is compassionate, fair and fit for purpose. We are proceeding at pace to review the PIP claimant cases to make sure that people get all the benefits to which they are entitled.

Disability Support

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) for securing this important debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for initiating a similar debate four years ago and pay tribute to his hard work in championing the rights of disabled people. I thank the War on Welfare campaigners for their work over the past six years in making the voices of disabled people heard in the House, along with other disabled people’s organisations and campaigners. More than 100,000 people signed the WOW petition which first brought the debate to the House.

Today, we have heard accounts from Members on both sides of the House. Let me mention just a few. My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) described the devastating impact of social security cuts and, in particular, the impact of cuts in the Motability scheme. Many disabled people have lost that vital support. She also spoke of the impact of the movement of many recipients of disability living allowance to the personal independence payment. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) shared personal and powerful testimonies from his constituents, but also highlighted the shocking statistics relating to the number of decisions on both employment and support allowance and PIP that were overturned in tribunals.

We are not asking the Government to reveal the truth about the effects of cuts on disabled people; we are asking them to own up to creating a social security system for disabled people that the UN report on extreme poverty described as “callous”, “punitive” and “mean-spirited”; a system that the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has labelled as responsible for “grave” and “systemic” human rights violations; and a system that the Council of Europe concluded does not conform with the European social charter’s guarantee of the right to social security.

We are demanding that the Government own up to the effects of over £40 billion of cuts to disabled people’s social security since 2010, to imposing a sanctions regime on sick and disabled ESA claimants, to a cruel and callous assessment framework for both PIP and ESA and to the human catastrophe that is UC.

In the past eight years, disabled people have been forced to bear the brunt of the Tory austerity programme. They have been consistently and disproportionately impacted by cuts to social care, legal aid, housing, education and social security, as well as cuts to the independent living fund. The Centre for Welfare Reform has found that disabled people have been hit nine times harder by austerity than the rest of the population. Disabled people have been punished by this Government’s austerity agenda. They have been punished by the abolition of the DLA and the introduction of PIP in April 2013, and we know the policy intention for abolishing DLA was to reduce expenditure on disability benefits by 20%, a move that has left hundreds of thousands without the support they need. Those people include a constituent of mine who suffers from chronic kidney disease and has been HIV-positive for 30 years and who was given zero points on his PIP assessment, despite being unable to undress or prepare food by himself and despite being in receipt of DLA for 20 years.

Disabled people have been punished by the gutting of ESA, by introducing the 12-month time-limited payments for those on the contributions-based element, by the tightening of the ESA criteria and by the devastating cut to the ESA work-related activity component, worth £30 per week, introduced in 2017, which has hit over 50,000 people this year. And disabled people have been punished by an inaccurate and callous assessment framework that denies them dignity and respect—an assessment framework that has forced over a quarter of a million disabled people to take the DWP to tribunal to get the social security that they are entitled to and under which 72% of PIP decisions brought to appeal are overturned.

Since 2010, disabled people have been punished by a “pointlessly cruel” sanctions regime, which has hit more than 1 million disabled people in the past eight years and which the Welfare Reform Act 2012 ensured was more severe, more punitive and more long-lasting than ever before, resulting in disabled people facing severe debt, skipping meals and taking out loans because they missed appointments at the jobcentre or did not fill out enough job applications. Figures released by the DWP last month show that 10% of ESA sanctions last longer than 26 weeks, so sick and disabled people are losing six months-worth of their income.

Most importantly, disabled people face the Government’s flagship UC system, which acts as little more than a vehicle for cuts. Today’s Work and Pensions Committee report has confirmed the devastating truth of the impact of UC on disabled people and of the structural problems inherent to UC such as the five-week wait and an online claims system that is inaccessible to many people. Under UC, just one in three disabled people receive their payments on time and in full, with the rest having to wait weeks on end before receiving payment. Severely disabled people moving on to UC are losing vital social security support that they need in the form of disability premiums, including the severe disability premium that they would have had under legacy social security worth £64.40 a week—payments that severely disabled people relied on to cover extra costs for ready meals and help with household tasks.

For one severely disabled person, UC meant that they received no money for six weeks, on top of losing their SDP. The delays in payment and losing the premium meant that they were forced to get help from the council, which gave them food vouchers so that they had something to eat. In their own words, they felt “embarrassed and degraded” by a system that left them destitute. It took a year for their UC payments to be sorted out, with endless calls that

“were too physically and mentally painful to make.”

The Government made a grave error in cutting disability premiums for those who are most in need. The transitional protections that this Government were forced to give as a result of a High Court ruling earlier this year do not apply to new applicants or to those who naturally migrated to universal credit, whose conditions remain the same but who will lose that vital support. So I ask the Minister today to commit to ensuring that no severely disabled person who moves on to universal credit will lose their premiums.

In the words of one WOW petition campaigner, in the past eight years this Government have created

“a hostile environment for sick and disabled people”

that

“has turned life into a living hell”.

They have created a hostile environment in the form of a punitive social security system that is stacked against disabled people. It is a system that is littered with errors such as the underpayment of ESA to almost 200,000 claimants by this Government. Disabled people have had to rely on the High Court to right the terrible wrongs in the social security system. In the past year alone, the High Court found that the Government unlawfully discriminated against hundreds of thousands of PIP claimants and that they unlawfully discriminated against severely disabled people who lost disability premiums.

Conservative Members continue to bury their heads in the sand when it comes to the suffering that they have caused. Over the past months, we have heard Ministers, including the former Secretary of State, label cuts to disabled people as “fake news” and the issues surrounding universal credit as “teething problems”. They dismiss the findings of UN investigations as politically motivated, and they dismiss calls to conduct a cumulative impact assessment that would offer a definitive analysis of the human cost of eight years of austerity for disabled people. The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Social Security Advisory Committee have joined the call for that assessment to be done. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has carried out an impact assessment, and its findings were stark. We know that an impact assessment can be done by the Treasury, and if not, the Institute for Fiscal Studies can carry out an independent assessment.

How many more disabled people have to suffer under this Government’s austerity programme? How many more reports will link the Government’s policies with mental distress and suicide, yet be ignored? The fact that the Government refute the findings of the UN on the effects of austerity on disabled people is shameful, but the fact that they refuse to conduct an assessment of the human impact of their own policies is downright denial.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

A very good question. The regulations will be published before Christmas, and I hope that everyone in the House will vote for them so that people on the severe disability premium will have that protected in universal credit.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

The DWP has repeatedly ignored evidence of the devastating impact of cuts to social security on disabled people. The UN report into extreme poverty found that

“compassion...has been replaced by a punitive, mean-spirited, and...callous approach”

to social security. The Government have a history of dismissing UN recommendations on disabled people, but the Department now has a chance to end that. Will the Minister finally listen and accept the conclusions of the most recent UN report?

[Sarah Newton]

We are putting in place record levels of funding to support people with disabilities. In every single year of this Government we increase our expenditure for people with disabilities. I published a very full response to the previous UN report, and I utterly repudiate the conclusion that this country does not support disabled people. I am determined to make sure that every disabled person in our country has the opportunity to fulfil their potential.

[Marsha De Cordova]

The UN report condemned the Government’s sanctions regime as “debilitating”, “draconian”, “harsh” and “arbitrary”, and urged the Government to conduct an independent review, yet Ministers recently admitted that they broke their promise and failed to carry out such a review. Has the Department learnt its lessons about creating a hostile environment, and will the Minister commit to carrying out an independent review of sanctions and conditionality on disabled people?

[Sarah Newton]

The benefit system is there to provide personalised and tailored support for its recipients. There were factual errors in the reporting by the UN rapporteur. For example, on mandatory reconsiderations, he absolutely denied the fact that decisions were overturned, yet 19% of mandatory reconsiderations found in favour of disabled people. We have undertaken a huge number of independent reviews of our benefit system and we do not hesitate in making improvements when they are identified.

Employment and Support Allowance Underpayments

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if she will make a statement on the updated figures on the employment and support allowance underpayments.

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Sarah Newton)]

The Department is correcting some historical underpayments of ESA that arose while migrating people from incapacity benefit to employment and support allowance. We realise how important it is to get this matter fixed. The mistakes clearly should not have happened and it is vital that the situation is sorted as quickly as possible.

For the initial stage of the exercise, we expect to review around 320,000 cases, of which around 105,000 are likely to be due arrears. We now have a team of more than 400 staff working through these cases and have paid around £120 million of arrears. We expect to complete the vast majority of this part of the exercise by April 2019, and we have to date completed all cases where an individual is terminally ill and has responded to the review, thereby ensuring that they receive due priority. The additional cases will be undertaken throughout the course of 2019.

The announcement in July to pay cases back to the point of conversion requires us to review an additional 250,000 cases, of which we estimate around 75,000 could be due arrears. We will undertake this work throughout the course of 2019. An additional 400 members of staff will be joining the team throughout this month and November, and we will be assigning further staff throughout the review of the 250,000 cases. That will enable us to complete this very important activity at pace.

The Department has prioritised checking the claims of individuals who, from our systems, we know to be terminally ill. To date, we have completed all cases from the initial 320,000. Where an individual is terminally ill and has responded to the review, we want to ensure that they get that money as soon as possible. We are therefore now contacting cases identified as most likely to be have been underpaid according to our systems. Some of those cases will undoubtedly be the most complex ones.

The Department yesterday published an ad hoc statistical publication, setting out further detail on the progress we have made in processing cases, and revised estimates of the impacts of the exercise, including details on the number of claimants due arrears and the amounts likely to be paid. Yesterday, I also updated the frequently asked questions guide and deposited it in the Library, and I will continue to update the House.

[Marsha De Cordova]

I thank Mr Speaker for granting this urgent question.

Yesterday, it emerged that up to 180,000 ill and disabled people have been underpaid vital social security dating back to 2011. In July this year, the Government initially estimated that 70,000 ill and disabled people were underpaid, but it is now clear that more than double that amount were underpaid £5,000 on average, after having been wrongly migrated from incapacity benefit to contributions-based ESA, thereby denying them the additional social security support payments such as the severe disability premium. It has taken the Government six years to acknowledge these mistakes and seven years to find out how many disabled people have actually been affected. Some disabled people will wait 10 years to receive back payments.

The Department for Work and Pensions now estimates that it will pay up to £1 billion as a result of this shambolic error, so will the Minister tell us what mechanisms the Department has in place to ensure that the timeline for repayment is followed? Will she ensure that she will keep this House updated? Will her Department pay compensation to those who have been pushed into rent arrears, debt and destitution? What support will the Department provide to the estates of the ill and disabled people who have tragically passed away before receiving their back payment? How much of the Government’s total expenditure on social security is spent on underpayments, and what actions are the Government taking to put this right? Given the scale of the error made transferring people to ESA, how can the Government ensure that they will get it right when transferring up to 1 million disabled people on to universal credit? Perhaps the most important question is this: will the Minister apologise to the almost 200,000 disabled people and their families who have been denied vital social security support?

[Sarah Newton]

We first came to the House to talk about this issue last December, and we have regularly updated the House since. I myself have already apologised. Clearly, this was a dreadful administrative error in the Department and should not have happened. The permanent secretary has also apologised to the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office for the administrative mistakes.

It is important to recognise that, when people were transferring across from IB to ESA, a very paternalistic approach was taken, meaning the claimant was not involved in the transfer at all. All the funding they were receiving from the Department was transferred across, so nobody had anything taken away from them; rather, people missed the opportunity to receive additional support by way of an additional premium. We are now making sure, by reviewing these cases, that people get everything they are entitled to, because it is important that our benefits system benefits those who are entitled to it.

The hon. Lady raises important questions about what we have learned. We have learned a great deal from this exercise. As we have regularly told the House and Select Committees—the permanent secretary was before the Work and Pensions Select Committee only yesterday answering questions—the culture and mechanisms in the Department for spotting errors have been fundamentally reviewed. As we have discussed at length—this is a matter of public record—people in the Department and stakeholders came forward and pointed out some of the problems with the migration, but the Department responded in the belief that they were a series of one-off errors.

By 2014, it was recognised that some people were not being migrated accurately, and guidance was put in place. These were administrative errors that occurred in the Department, and officials took the appropriate action to the best of their ability. In fact, it was thanks to the good housekeeping of the DWP that the scale of the error was spotted. It was during the routine work undertaken on fraud and error that it was detected. At that point, Ministers were told, and they then undertook the administrative exercises that have led to the situation today.

As the Minister responsible now, I am looking towards the next huge migration of people—from ESA to universal credit—and the Secretary of State has made it absolutely clear that we will take an extremely careful test-and-learn approach and make sure that this time we involve the claimant in the migration. That is how we will avoid the situation reoccurring.

Oral Answers to Questions

Marsha De Cordova Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

Something clearly has gone terribly wrong in that situation and of course I would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

NHS survey data show that, under the Conservatives, 43% of those in receipt of ESA have attempted suicide. Leading academics, disabled people’s organisations and clinicians have raised concerns that the work capability assessment is causing a mental health crisis. The WCA is not fit for the 21st century—it is outdated and is causing preventable harm—so I ask the Minister: is it not time that the Government scrap the WCA that is pushing so many people to suicide?

[Sarah Newton]

First, I remind the hon. Lady that it was the Labour party in 2008 that introduced the work capability assessment. Ever since then, we have been using independent advice to reform the work capability assessment.

[Marsha De Cordova]

It is shocking.

[Sarah Newton]

What is absolutely shocking is to misuse—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms McVey]

My hon. Friend is right. Work coaches are saying that this is the best system that they have ever had. It has been helping 1,000 people into work each and every day since 2010. My hon. Friend is also right to say that when we see that things need to be improved and adapted, we listen, we learn, and we change it as it goes.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

Under universal credit, severely disabled people will lose out on disability premiums worth up to £80 per week, and will also lose the £30 “limited capability for work” component. Last week, the Secretary of State said that 1 million disabled people would be “significantly better off” under universal credit. Let me ask her now whether that is really the case. Is not the reality that after the premiums and the £30 component have been scrapped, disabled people will in fact be worse off overall under universal credit?

[The Minister for Employment (Alok Sharma)]

The Secretary of State has made it absolutely clear that we will be protecting people who currently receive the severe disability premium. [Interruption.] Will the hon. Lady just listen? A million disabled households who are now receiving legacy benefits will gain, on average, £110 a month on universal credit. Those are the facts, and the hon. Lady should try to accept them.