Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Natalie McGarry and Lord Evans of Rainow

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Natalie McGarry (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this crucial debate. I congratulate and welcome to her place the shadow Minister for disabled people. She made a fantastic contribution.

I support amendment 56, which was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford). The proposed changes to the employment and support allowance and the potentially devastating cuts to the work-related activity group are of particular interest to me as the disability spokesperson for the SNP.

This Government say that the Bill will support our economy and improve support for those who need it, but it is clear that it is a deeply damaging and divisive piece of legislation which will harm workers, families and communities and will exceed even the worst excesses of the Thatcher Government. The Tories’ approach to social security has been deeply destructive, and has damaged the vital social fabric that binds our society together. Liz Sayle of Disability Rights UK says that the language used in this context conveys a sense of suspicion of disabled people, as though they were trying it on to get free transport and handouts. That suspicion is completely misplaced, but is reinforced by the policy and rhetoric of this Government.

This Government’s cuts are systematically undermining the life chances of working people, especially children and young people across the UK. It is an ideological attack on the most disadvantaged—a war not on poverty, but on the poor. But despite my fervent opposition to the Bill, and my vocal opposition to this Government’s policies, I want to take the opportunity to reach out to Members right across the House. I understand the desire to support people into work, and to create a system where social security supports those in need and encourages those who can work to do so. That ambition, I believe, is shared by all of us across the House. However, I cannot see how Members on the Government Benches can say with any integrity that this Bill furthers our common aim.

We already know that many people who are currently unfit for work are dubiously placed in the ESA work-related activity group, and that DWP policies already force WRAG claimants to meet arduous bureaucratic requirements simply to receive the financial support they rely on. We already know that the UK Government’s austerity programme is impacting disproportionately on those living with disabilities and sicknesses and that it impairs their ability to work. We also know that there is absolutely no evidence that these policies of cuts will have a positive impact on moving those in the WRAG group into work. There is no evidence from the Government, despite repeated requests for it to be produced. It is therefore absolutely shameful that, without any evidence, the Conservatives should have disabled people in their sights yet again, promising to cut nearly a third of ESA support for new claimants in the work-related activity group.

It is also deeply distressing for many claimants that the Government intend to freeze ESA WRAG support for the next four years, failing to protect this important social security payment against the rising cost of living. When it comes to people with long-term sicknesses and disabilities, however severe, and the support they need, the Government simply do not get it, and for too many it seems that the Government simply do not care. We talk about language, and we have a Secretary of State who has shockingly made a distinction between disabled people and “normal” people. We have a Government that have continually introduced policies that isolate disabled people and distance them from their communities and support, risking institutionalising people in their own homes.

It is quite unfathomable why the Conservatives think that those with illnesses and disabilities should not have their special requirements and challenges recognised in the level of support and care that they receive. By reducing ESA for WRAG claimants to the level of the general jobseeker’s allowance, the UK Government are undermining the entire purpose and principle of ESA, which was always intended to support those with particular challenges in entering employment more gradually than those on jobseeker’s allowance.

By targeting disabled people for the latest cuts, Government Members do nothing more than demonstrate an utter unwillingness to listen to the needs of disabled people and disability organisations. As a disability spokesperson for the SNP, I spent the past few months speaking with and listening to people across the UK. I heard from organisation after organisation, I heard statistic after statistic, and it is clear the harm this Bill will cause. I cannot see him in the Chamber this afternoon, but who has my counterpart on the Government Benches, the Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People, been talking to? An echo chamber?

According to a new survey conducted and released today by the Disability Benefits Consortium, almost one third of people on ESA who were surveyed say that they cannot afford to eat on the levels of ESA that they receive now. Do the Tories intend to starve those people into work? To me, that is not just morally repugnant but economically incoherent and illiterate. Inclusion Scotland has said that the proposals are

“a direct attack on the living standards of disabled people, their families, carers and children and will result in hundreds of thousands more being plunged into poverty and destitution”.

To talk about levels of destitution in 2015 is an outrage and we cannot simply stand by and let these people’s lives be sacrificed on the altar of fiscal responsibility. Surely no civilised society would penalise the disabled and disadvantaged in the pursuit of an ideological austerity obsession.

I know that my constituents will find it difficult to fathom how the Government can introduce such harmful proposals and I sincerely hope that Government Members at least have significant concerns about them, too.

[Graham Evans]

I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. I welcome her to this place; she makes a powerful point and a huge contribution. Disability and carer benefits for working age people in 2014-15 were £11.4 billion and in this new financial year of 2015-16 they are £11.5 billion. The hon. Lady is talking about cuts, but the spending has gone up, not down.

[Natalie McGarry]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point. These are real-term cuts and many people have disappeared from the system because of its complexity and because of their fear of it.

With every Bill in this Session, we have a chance to act in concert, to set out the direction of our country and to make it clear what and who is important. I look to all Members, on both sides of the Chamber, to look to themselves and to their consciences and not just to their Whips. I implore Members from all parts of the House to put themselves in the position of the half million people who will be affected by these cuts—I am talking about those with mental ill health, learning disabilities, autism, Asperger’s and all the families involved—and vote in solidarity with them. They are real people, so Members should vote for amendment 56.