ESA and Personal Independence Payments

Natalie McGarry Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson]

I am being pressed by the Chair to conclude my remarks.

Everyone welcomes the Green Paper. What we do not welcome is the headlong rush to cuts before there can be proper analysis, which could be used to correct the system. We need an evidence-based and compassionate approach. Frankly, I do not see that. We should all want the same thing: we should all want to support people with disabilities into work, and to support those who cannot work. We need to make sure that we do that properly, and I urge the Minister to reflect on that and on all the suggestions made today.

[Natalie McGarry (Glasgow East) (Ind)]

rose—

[Nadine Dorries (in the Chair)]

Ms McGarry, I did not get notification that you put in a request to speak, but I could call you for a few minutes if you concluded in three or four minutes.

[Natalie McGarry]

Thank you, Ms Dorries; that was an oversight, and I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. I thank the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) for securing the debate. She made an excellent speech, in which she articulated her constituency case well. She opened the debate in good style, with a lot of information.

Two weeks ago, there were two lengthy debates in the House of Commons on the Government’s punitive welfare reforms—specifically cuts to the ESA work-related activity group; 127 MPs laid down a marker and said that the Government must pause, reflect and reconsider the cuts. The Government did not oppose the motion, and some would be forgiven for thinking that it was a sign that they were listening to our concerns. It feels as if we have debates such as this one week in, week out; but if we have to keep bringing the matter back to the Chamber we will. The time for conciliatory debate that does not powerfully challenge the Government is over. It is right for constituents and Members to be angry, especially when there is no evidence that cutting ESA WRAG incentivises people into work.

The people of Glasgow East—like people across Scotland and throughout the UK—listened to the Prime Minister speaking on the steps of Downing Street when she promised to fight injustice and lead a Government for the many, not the few. However, by the time the Chancellor stepped away from the Dispatch Box on Wednesday, the benefit of the doubt had evaporated. Sometimes what a person does not say is more telling—or more damning—than what they do say. The Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke at length—6,092 words—but failed to mention ESA once. He could even find the time and words to ask whether the shadow Chancellor could dance, but no words could be found for disabled people or ESA.

Since the Government announcement of punishing cuts, MPs of all colours and stripes have railed against them. The matter is so important that it keeps being brought back to the Chamber, and the Minister is constantly called back to answer. I appreciate that the Minister of State is present to do that today. The case seems to be devoid of logic and compassion. Reducing ESA to the rate of jobseeker’s allowance is wrong for a number of reasons. People on ESA are already assessed as unfit for work, whereas people on jobseeker’s can actively seek work. It is therefore unsurprising that ESA recipients should need more support, for longer, than JSA recipients. Indeed, more than half of ESA WRAG recipients are on welfare support for more than two years. Such long time periods are linked to higher associated costs of illness and disability.

It is extraordinarily perverse and callous to expect those with illness and disability to suffer on £73 a week for a prolonged period of two years. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made that point forcefully: why would someone with a job at £500 a week want to go down to £73 a week, if they could help it? I cannot, and I never will, understand how any elected representative or Government could support proposals that serve no purpose other than picking the pockets of the sick and disabled, and putting them through the trauma of a broken and unfair PIP or ESA assessment. Where is the humanity in that? Like other hon. Members, I look forward to seeing the Green Paper; but before then it is time for the Government to rethink the assessments, and to pause the cuts to ESA WRAG.