Covid-19: Disability-Inclusive Response
Mike Wood Excerpts(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) on securing the debate on this very important issue. I know she has worked tirelessly on the issue for many years, since she was elected to the House, both as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for disability and through the all-party parliamentary group on learning disability.
I declare an interest as my wife works providing support and tutoring to a child with special educational needs in Birmingham, who receives support through the welfare system.
The covid pandemic has had a severe impact on many children around the country—on their education, their development and their welfare—but it has had a particular effect on many children with speech, language and learning disabilities. Understandably, some of the legal obligations on local authorities and on the national health service were eased earlier in the year with respect to the availability of staff during the heavier stages of lockdown. That was a necessary step, but it must not be a signal that necessary and vital support, particularly for children and young people with disabilities, is in some way discretionary. It is pleasing that no local authorities at all are currently using the easement provisions, which must be triggered only where absolutely necessary. Even then, all public authorities and agencies must ensure that appropriate and suitable provision can be made with the available staff.
Many local authority and national health service workers did heroic work throughout the first wave of the pandemic, particularly in the period between late March, when lockdown started and schools closed, and the end of the summer term in July. It was a time when an awful lot was expected of relatively few people, who did amazingly well, but far too many children received no specialist support during that time. It is almost worse that they did not even receive any explanation from the various agencies involved about why support was being withdrawn and when it might return.
Although it is clearly right for the Government to be doing everything possible to keep schools open and to be taking the measures available to ensure that children can continue going to school, we need to recognise that many children, particularly those with the most severe and complex special educational needs, have not been able to return to school. Many are still being educated at home, so it is important that a disability-inclusive covid response must involve thinking about how agencies can evolve to support SEND children who are stuck at home, and considering the parents and families of those children.
I see that my four minutes are up, so I will draw my remarks to a close. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak, and I congratulate the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow on securing the debate.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mike Wood Excerpts(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
Dominic Raab
The reason the measure is being introduced now is that the advice that we have always had is that there was little point, if any, in introducing quarantine at the border with the R level—the level of the prevalence of the virus—at a high level, particularly above R1. Now that it has come down, and is still coming down even further, it makes sense, as we reduce the level of coronavirus in the UK, to introduce the measure to stop reinfection coming in from people carrying it from abroad, particularly those who would not necessarily be showing symptoms. There will be some flexibility in the detailed arrangements set out, but this will cover, in principle, all people coming in, whether it is to ports or to airports.
Mike Wood [V]
A number of my constituents were overseas when this pandemic struck and are now unable to get together the money they need to pay for new flights home. What action is my right hon. Friend’s Department taking to financially support British nationals who are unable to get home and have no access to funds?
Dominic Raab
We have, in the first instance, worked with insurance companies to make sure that they extend travel policies by 60 days when emergency support is needed. I can also tell the House that the Foreign Office has introduced a special package to make sure that those who are stranded and cannot get back can receive support with food, accommodation and other essentials of up to £3,000 for individuals, £4,000 for a couple, and £5,000 for families. That is a last-resort option, but we are making sure that those who are hunkered down or stranded and cannot get back have the support that they need.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mike Wood Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)
Amber Rudd
I thank my hon. Friend for drawing this to my attention. I thank the Witney jobcentre for the work that it does in helping people into work, and I also thank him for his work on this as a Member of Parliament. Of course it is essential that we make advanced digital equipment available to our work coaches to ensure that the service they deliver really is first class, and we will always ensure that they do.
Mike Wood
At the Stourbridge jobcentre, the work coaches are evangelical about how the flexibility of universal credit allows them to better support the most vulnerable and the hardest-to-help claimants. Will the Secretary of State ensure that this best practice is shared around the country so that more people can find sustainable work for the first time?
Amber Rudd
I thank my hon. Friend for drawing my attention to the good work being done by the Stourbridge jobcentre and its work coaches. He really highlights the other true benefit of universal credit, which is the personalised approach. It is no longer about signing on; it is about individuals going to the jobcentres and being offered real, tailored support to help them to deal with their challenges and to get into work. This is a revolutionary system.
Universal Credit
Mike Wood Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
I am particularly pleased to see the Minister for financial inclusion, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), in the Chamber. He joined me in my constituency over the summer to meet a range of agencies involved in the day-to-day work with people claiming universal credit, which was rolled out there in the middle of last year. What was particularly striking was the evangelism of the jobcentre staff, particularly the work coaches, and the transformation in morale in the jobcentres. That is because the staff, particularly the work coaches, are now finding that they can make a real positive difference to people’s lives by getting them into work.
I do not have time to give the House many case studies, but one involves a gentleman who had returned to this country after working abroad. At his first appointment with the jobcentre, staff identified the fact that his mental health was an issue and that his debt worries were leading to him no longer opening his post. As well as offering work coaching, they were able to ensure that he saw his GP to get his mental health issues addressed, and that he got debt advice and used strategies to deal with those problems. As a result of all that—although not as a result of his first interview—he is now in full-time employment. He has a new confidence and is working in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), the Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary.
We will all have seen the problems with some of the implementation and execution of universal credit, and it is good to see that that has, to an extent, been addressed since the roll-out began. I hope that the Government will use the time through to the roll-out to look at how universal credit can be improved further. To scrap it now would be a gross betrayal of those whose lives have been turned around.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mike Wood Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)
An industry-led pensions dashboard, facilitated by Government, will harness industry innovation and provide an opportunity for the pensions industry to step up and take a leading role. We have engaged with the industry and are assessing the feasibility of a dashboard. We will report shortly on the findings.
Mr Speaker
If the Minister could be good enough to face the House, it would be hugely appreciated.
Guy Opperman
It was a pleasure to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency in the summer and to meet many of the 10,000-plus people there who are auto-enrolled. We are in daily contact with industry figures as we prepare our feasibility report and plan for the roll-out of the dashboard.
Alok Sharma
It is absolutely clear that under universal credit work is paying. That is why we have over 3 million more people in jobs than in 2010.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Alok Sharma
Through Citizens Advice, which we are rolling out across the country, it will be possible particularly for the most vulnerable to get support in terms of budgeting help and also digital support.
Universal Credit (Liverpool)
Mike Wood Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Dan Carden
It is absolutely unacceptable, and Ministers know that the system has major structural problems. Payment of universal credit is 35 days in arrears, which results in the common requirement for an advance payment. One local member of Department for Work and Pensions staff called the five-week wait a “scandal in itself”, and in practice it can take up to 12 weeks before claimants are paid the correct amount. That staff member also told me that the so-called advance payments put claimants even further in debt, because future payments are reduced by up to 40% to claw the money back. That corresponds with data released by Citizens Advice, which shows that more than half its clients who receive universal credit were forced to borrow money while waiting for their first payment. Other problems include payment as a single lump sum, including housing costs, which causes households to choose between rent or food, especially at the outset of the claim.
There is also the online system. We know that 17% of people who earn less than £20,000 never use the internet—I have met people in that situation. One in five disabled people, and two in five of those with learning disabilities, do not have access to the internet, and the DWP’s own analysis shows that just under half of all claimants are unable to register their claim online. How have the Government prepared for the online roll-out in Liverpool? By closing four jobcentres—including two in my constituency—and eight across Merseyside, in the very areas where claimant rates are highest. It beggars belief to take away the very facilities that were established to support those seeking work.
Despite cuts, our local authority has set aside £50 million to protect the most vulnerable people. We have, I believe, one of the best benefit support services in the country, so that when people are in crisis, they can at least access emergency financial support such as discretionary housing payments, the mayoral hardship fund and crisis payments. Liverpool’s benefit maximisation scheme costs £3 million a year, and its specialist advisers last year helped to secure an extra £10.5 million for Liverpool’s families. No ring-fenced money has been provided by the Government for that—the money comes from general funds and reserves. In the last two years, £1 million has been spent topping up discretionary housing payments, and stopping countless people losing their homes before the roll-out of universal credit has even taken place.
Austerity has decimated our local council services, yet for years the local authority has acted as a sticking plaster for the worst effects of austerity. This autumn’s roll-out of universal credit is expected to rip that away, and I am told that it will simply no longer be able to cope. One problem is that the DWP does not currently share data with local authorities, which means that it is impossible to identify and support people with differing needs for support. It shifts the burden of responsibility on to vulnerable people to seek out support services themselves, and the tragic reality is that we simply will not find those people until it is too late—until they have lost their home, until they are on the streets, until we find them in A&E, or until they simply become one more suicide statistic.
We know that nearly three quarters of housing association tenants on universal credit are in debt, compared with less than a third of all other tenants. Riverside Housing Association told me:
“The time of planned rollout is particularly worrying as it comes ahead of Christmas, a time when historically our tenants often struggle financially due to the additional heating costs and the festive season—with debt and arrears increasing.”
The Trussell Trust reports that in the past year food bank referrals rose by 52% in areas where the full service of universal credit was introduced in the previous 12 months, compared with a 13% rise across the UK as a whole. North Liverpool Foodbank says that changes to benefits are the most common crisis suffered by families, and that is before the full service has been rolled out.
In the local private rented sector the situation is even more critical. I spoke to a letting agent based in my constituency who told me that 100% of the agency’s tenants who are on universal credit are now in rent arrears—every one of them. Letting agents complain of ongoing issues in securing direct payment of housing costs under universal credit, even when the tenant has given explicit consent. I was told that one tenant on live service universal credit was £700 in arrears and was moved on to direct payment; then, as soon as full service was rolled out in Bootle, a neighbouring constituency, the direct payments stopped again. The tenant is now £2,500 in arrears. The letting agency told me, as others have, that it is at the point of refusing universal credit claimants altogether.
I do not need a crystal ball to tell the Minister that if the roll-out continues and the Government press ahead, there will be even more people living on the streets. More than 90% of local authorities surveyed by Crisis said they expected the roll-out of universal credit to increase homelessness. Rough sleeping in England has already more than doubled under the present Government. Let us remember that the first claimants to move on to universal credit were single unemployed jobseekers—the so-called easy cases. This autumn people with much more complex circumstances will transfer on to the system. It is a sobering thought that the worst is yet to come. It is a scandal for Ministers to proceed when basic failures in the system have not been fixed.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s quite legitimate concerns, but perhaps I can offer a little reassurance following the roll-out that has already happened in Dudley. Many claimants and the jobcentre—particularly in Stourbridge—are seeing that universal credit gives extra flexibility to help cases that simply would not have received the help and appropriate support they needed under the old system. More people—precisely the kind of difficult cases that he refers to—are getting into work and staying in work.
Dan Carden
I can tell the hon. Gentleman categorically that that is not the experience of people moving on to universal credit. The evidence I am giving in my speech does not back it up.
Analysis by Citizens Advice shows that a self-employed worker earning £9,750 a year would be £630 worse off under universal credit than an employee with an identical annual income but paid a regular monthly salary. It is astounding that the Government have overseen an increasingly insecure jobs market, based on bogus self-employment and agency and zero-hours jobs, while putting in place a welfare system that leaves the workers who do those very jobs hundreds of pounds worse off each year.
There are also changes to the work allowance. Mary is a hard-working single parent of three children in Liverpool and under the old system her income was topped up with £48 child benefit each week and a universal credit payment of £885 a month. After the changes, Mary’s salary and child benefit remained the same but her universal credit was cut by £219 a month. It is just another family pushed into hardship.
Yesterday I visited a constituent called Ann, who went on to universal credit when she lost her job as a cleaning supervisor in New Brighton in July 2015. She phoned the Department for Work and Pensions the next day to register a claim and was asked to attend a local jobcentre in Everton. She attended and was advised that she would need to go online to register, but she explained she had never had access to a computer or training in the use of one. She was asked whether she had a relative she could get assistance from. She was never once offered assistance in completing the application, even after she admitted lacking the skills to do so.
Ann attended a universal credit appointment on 18 August and received her first payment on 21 September. She went 10 weeks without receiving any payments and when she was in distress was told to attend the local food bank. She sought the support of local councillors in their surgery, because of the humiliation she felt at her situation and her lack of food. After her claim was live, she had three consecutive months of sanctions because of bewilderment at the system, and lack of understanding of the digital diary. She was then informed that she had to travel to look for jobs, but without any offer of travel expenses up front—all expenses had to be claimed back through receipts.
Ann summed up the experience as humiliating, degrading and utterly confusing—and she was one of the easy claimants selected for live roll-out. She was one of thousands in the city who will have followed a similar path from factory work decades ago to low-skilled work more recently, and who are now on the jobs market with no computer skills to enable them to navigate the system. I am sick of living in a society where we punish people because a broken economy does not provide them with decent jobs. What looks good to Ministers on paper is in reality asking a 60-year-old woman who has worked all her life to spend hours each day walking around a city handing in CVs in shops, begging for jobs. I do not think it is humane or worthwhile for society to be in that position.
I am here today to ask the Minister to apply the brakes—to stop the roll-out of universal credit in Liverpool and fix the flaws in its design and delivery. Outside Whitehall there is total acceptance that the current system will cause untold misery and push communities to breaking point across Liverpool. The Government have thrown away cross-party support for a new benefits model that would simplify the welfare state, and instead have caused chaos. Universal credit could be accepted, but only if it worked as originally intended. Ministers must remove the mandatory waiting period of 35 days; provide additional ring-fenced funding for local authorities based on local need; reverse the cuts to the work allowance and family premium; make sure that families making a claim for universal credit are at least as well off as they were under the previous system; remove the freeze on the benefit allowance and make sure welfare support reflects the needs of families; withdraw the disastrous two-child policy; and carry out a full cumulative impact assessment on the impact of welfare reforms at a local level. Finally, they must ensure that universal credit really does “make work pay”, while also carrying out the statutory duty of care to citizens.
The director general for the universal credit programme is Neil Couling. According to the ministerial code, he has responsibility for its implementation and has the power to pause it. I call on him urgently to use that power. He and Ministers have been warned about the impending crisis if they push ahead. I ask the Minister to step back and evaluate: what is the policy trying to achieve? I understand the predicament that the Department is in. It would cause a headache in Whitehall to pause the roll-out. Changes are deeply embedded, and it would be complex and expensive to stop, but that cannot mean, “Shut your eyes and hope for the best.”
Seven years ago there was cross-party agreement on the principle of simplifying the benefits system and helping people into work. However, the policy has unravelled because it was built on deeply flawed assumptions about what causes unemployment, designed in Whitehall by people who have never experienced poverty. It has become part of an agenda to undermine welfare provision and force the vulnerable and disabled to pay for an economic crisis caused by an elite. It is a joke that the Government talk about making work pay at a time when real wages are lower than they were 10 years ago. The Government have already been forced into a series of changes on universal credit. They backtracked on charging for the claimant helpline, they rolled back the six-week minimum wait—albeit only to five weeks—and they backtracked on 18 to 21-year-olds being excluded from the housing allowance. The Government know that the system is not working.
We urgently need to change the culture of the social security system from one that demonises people who are not in work to one that supports people and communities, that lifts people up rather than kicking them while they are down, and that seeks to improve the pay and conditions of those in work rather than punishing those who are not. Decent wages, lifelong learning and a patient strategy of long-term investment are how we will achieve a prosperous society. I shall continue to make those arguments in this House, but right now I have only one ask for the Minister: pause the roll-out of universal credit in Liverpool; fix it and save my constituents from the inevitable suffering it will unleash.
Guy Opperman
I cannot comment on the individual case, but it is unquestionably the case that the old system had inherent flaws and, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton very fairly said in his speech, it was right for it to be reformed at that particular time. We may have a debate and a discussion about the quality of the system thereafter, but the reform of the old system was unquestionably the right thing.
Under UC, claimants are better off when they move into work and better off when they progress in work; the payment is gradually reduced as earnings increase, so claimants will not lose all their benefits at once if they are on a low income. There is no 16-hour ceiling, no 16-hour floor and no risk to people’s benefit as they move into work. It also means that the more people work, the more money they get in their pocket. We believe that universal credit lies at the heart of our reforms to transform the welfare system, because it supports those who can work and cares for those who cannot.
The UC full service is available in approximately 63% of jobcentres in Liverpool, with those remaining to be rolled out by December, as the hon. Gentleman outlined. I would urge all hon. Members to visit their local jobcentres and to speak to the staff in charge of the system, the work coaches and the claimants who are attending. I myself have visited a number of jobcentres and sat in on randomly selected interviews with dedicated work coaches. I held a jobs fair last Friday in Hexham with my Jobcentre Plus, and I am going to another jobcentre this week.
Mike Wood
I thank the Minister for visiting my constituency and meeting with local advocacy organisations, representative groups and local charities, who deal with people claiming universal credit on a daily basis. What lessons and messages did he receive from those organisations in Dudley, where the roll-out was completed over a year ago, about how the system has changed and improved with the tweaks that have been made?
Guy Opperman
The reality of the situation is that, as the roll-out takes place across the country, there are good examples, as was seen when I visited Brierley Hill in my hon. Friend’s constituency, of excellent integration—
State Pension Age: Women
Mike Wood Excerpts(6 years, 11 months ago)
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Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
Over the past two and a half years I have met many constituents who have been directly affected by the various changes to the state pension age. Listening to them, it is impossible not to feel every sympathy, given the circumstances in which many find themselves. If I suddenly found out that I would not be able to retire at the age I had expected, I am not sure that I could say how I felt—actually, I probably could, but I fear my language would not be parliamentary.
As a teenage boy in the early 1990s, I probably did not pay as much attention to women’s pensions as many other people did, but I do remember the announcement in 1993 that the state pension age would have to be equalised upwards. There was widespread publicity at the time, through the media and the leaflets that have been referred to. None the less, it is clear that many women, for one reason or another, were genuinely unaware of that. As late as 2012, 6% of the women affected still expected to retire at 60, despite the Department for Work and Pensions having sent out 11 million leaflets and letters. However, that was significant progress since 2004, when just 73% of the women affected were aware of the 1995 reforms.
Clearly there are solid reasons why successive Governments here and in many other developed economies have been increasing and equalising the state pension age. The fact that even a relatively small proportion of people affected were unaware of changes that will have such a large impact on their retirement raises broader issues about how public authorities communicate pension matters, and Government at all levels need to consider that.
The truth is that the state pension age will not be reduced to 60—arguably, that would be illegal under anti-discrimination legislation—so we must look at what can be done not only to help those women born in the 1950s back into work, but to help all those who will find themselves working later in life. I hope that the Government can come up with further suggestions on what support can be provided.
Supported Housing: Benefit
Mike Wood Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
There is a clear need to get the cost of housing benefits under control, but it is also vital that the needs of the most vulnerable are met. These costs have continued to rise, even at times when the number of people receiving housing benefits has reduced. Unless the spiralling cost can be controlled, the system would soon become unviable, severely limiting our ability to support many of the people who need our help the most.
All parts of the housing market that receive public funding must bear a share of the need for greater efficiency, and supported housing is no different. However, we must also recognise that providing supported housing involves additional costs. Many of those additional costs might in the past have been covered through social services, rather than through housing benefits, but if changes to housing benefits are not implemented in the right way, many of the existing supported housing facilities would be seriously threatened.
I would like to thank the former Housing Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), for the positive and constructive way in which he responded to concerns raised by me and other Members. The Government’s review of supported housing is a welcome opportunity to review this crucial issue, and I welcome this opportunity to give voice again to some of the issues that I hope the review will consider.
I would like to talk about one of my constituents, a Black Country Housing Group tenant who has had her life transformed thanks to first-class supported housing. DW was diagnosed with a learning disability and schizophrenia at the age of seven. She is also partially sighted due to cataracts in both eyes. At the age of 14 her mother died, but DW continued to live at home until her father also died. DW became a hoarder and was suffering from self-neglect; she was very isolated, did not socialise and became very aggressive. In March 2013, DW became very ill and was taken to hospital, where she stayed for one month. After a stay in a re-enablement centre, DW moved into Chapel Street, Black Country Housing Group’s supported living service. Here, she was provided with excellent support, with personal care, social interaction and peer support from other residents, as well as from a team of skilled, experienced support workers.
Through a working knowledge of DW and of her anxieties and needs, the staff worked with health professionals to deliver a support plan and to ensure that she got appropriate ongoing treatment for her eyes. I am pleased to say that she is now much happier, her mental health has improved dramatically and she is able to get involved in her community. She maintains her home and her tenancy, she undertakes household duties in the home and she is no longer at risk of self-neglect or homelessness. As a result of supported housing, DW has become much more independent, aware and involved.
DW’s case is just one of any number that I could have picked, but it clearly illustrates all the work and additional costs that come with providing that level of care, and that must be recognised through the social care and welfare systems. It does not really matter whether the higher costs intrinsic to effective supported housing continue to be funded from the housing budget or whether they are funded through social services. What matters is that those costs are very real and very necessary and that they must be met. I wholeheartedly support the review of supported housing and the commitment to a permanent funding solution for supported housing. We must continue to do what we can to reduce the spiralling costs of housing benefit bills, but we must make sure that the vital services provided to vulnerable people such as DW in my constituency can continue, and that means finding a way to pay for them.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mike Wood Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Justin Tomlinson
First of all, the £870 million discretionary housing payments fund has been set aside for this Parliament. The one in four looking to downsize will be welcome news to the 241,000 families in overcrowded accommodation and the 1.7 million on the housing waiting list.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
What guidance is being made available to local authorities on the use of discretionary housing payments so that we can make sure that in exceptional cases, such as when homes have been adapted for disability, they can benefit from the additional money that has been made available?
Justin Tomlinson
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point, which goes to the very heart of it: it provides the flexibility to allow local authorities to work with organisations such as the police, social services and medical professionals. The Local Government Association recently said:
“Councils can bring local services together in a way central government will never be able to in order to ensure no-one falls through the cracks.”
Oral Answers to Questions
Mike Wood Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Duncan Smith
Actually, that has not happened. Taxpayers have not lost money. What we have done is to go on rolling out a system, and unlike what happened when tax credits were rolled out under the last Labour Government and hundreds of thousands of people lost money, nobody is losing money as universal credit rolls out.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
T2. Despite being diagnosed with neuromyelitis optica mid-way through her degree course, my constituent Amy Green successfully completed her course and now hopes to set up her own business. What support is available for people with disabilities who want to start their own business?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Justin Tomlinson)
As someone who ran my own business for 10 years, I wish my hon. Friend’s constituent the very best of luck. The Government have helped over 28,000 people through the new enterprise allowance, and through the Access to Work scheme specific training and specialist support can be provided to people with disabilities.