Disabled People in Poverty

Debate between Neil Coyle and Neil Duncan-Jordan

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Neil Duncan-Jordan]

I agree. I will come on to that later in my speech.

Those individuals I mentioned—the 730,000 new claimants who will get the lower rate of universal credit—will see an average loss of £3,000 a year. The health element of universal credit will also be cut for those aged under 22, removing vital support that helps young people into work, education and training. The Government cannot claim to want to help young people into work while taking away their safety net. People in all those groups are already struggling to make ends meet so, in reality, the figures are likely to be an underestimate of the scale of the pain being proposed.

A recent freedom of information request revealed that 1.3 million people who currently get the standard daily living award will no longer qualify, which is significantly higher than the Office for Budget Responsibility’s estimated 800,000 people. As a result, 350,000 people will be pushed below the poverty line. In total, over 3 million households will lose out, with as many as 100,000 children being pushed into poverty.

I have heard Ministers repeat the claim that only one in 10 PIP recipients will be affected by the proposals, but that is based on the false assumption that people will get better at filling in the claim forms and that more people will be successful in scoring four points. There is absolutely no evidence to show that that will be the case. The one in 10 figure also does not take into account the potential new claimants who will lose out.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

On the suggestion that there is no evidence, does the evidence not come from when the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee looked at previous assessment changes?

[Neil Duncan-Jordan]

I have not seen that evidence, but what I have seen points me in a different direction.

We already know that PIP is an underclaimed benefit, as I think my hon. Friend would acknowledge, and that fewer than half of the disabled people who are eligible to make a claim do so. I would therefore argue that the recent increase in the number of claims is largely the result of declining public health in this country combined with the increased financial hardship that disabled people are facing.

The Government have suggested there has been an unsustainable rise in the benefits bill, but as a percentage of GDP, we are spending the same amount on working-age benefits as we were in 2015. Cuts to social security are not an economic necessity; they are a political choice. It has been suggested in the media recently that the transitional arrangements for someone who loses their PIP will be extended from four to 13 weeks, but that only delays the fact that the Government will be making people permanently poorer.

It is right for Ministers to say that work can be a route out of poverty, and that disabled people should be supported to find a job, but the proposed £1 billion of support comes in only at the end of the Parliament—three years after the cuts have been introduced. The Learning and Work Institute estimates that only 45,000 to 90,000 people might find work through that proposed employment support, which cannot possibly offset the 3.2 million people who are having their benefits cut. It is a completely false equivalence.

As hon. Members know, PIP is not an out-of-work benefit, so cutting it is likely to undermine efforts to get people into employment, rather than supporting them into gainful work. Too often, the attitude of employers is the real barrier to disabled people finding a job. Reluctance to offer flexible working patterns, harsh sickness absence policies and disability discrimination are the blockers that many disabled people face. Tackling those would be an important place to start.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Duncan-Jordan]

The hon. Member makes an excellent point, and it is certainly a campaign that I would put my weight behind.

[Neil Coyle]

On the hugely important issue of discrimination that my hon. Friend touched on, does he agree that it is completely unacceptable that the Government inherited a position where the Department for Work and Pensions was being investigated for unlawful discrimination against disabled people? That is another of the issues that the ministerial team and the Government are having to fix—issues that they inherited from the chaotic and incompetent Governments of the previous 14 years, five of which were in coalition with the Lib Dems.

[Neil Duncan-Jordan]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We make a mistake if we say that we can do only one thing and not the other. We can tackle discrimination in the way that he rightly argues, but we do not have to make people poorer in the process. A false argument is being put forward.

There is also a misguided view that cutting expenditure and tightening belts brings savings. We know that that approach shrinks the economy and leaves everybody worse off.

Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill

Debate between Neil Coyle and Neil Duncan-Jordan

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 29th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Neil Duncan-Jordan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I will cover the connection between this piece of legislation and the Green Paper shortly.

[Neil Coyle]

Will the outcome for the individual disabled people my hon. Friend is concerned about—the vast majority of whom commit no fraud—be any different if these measures are implemented? They will not be affected, because they are not committing any crime.

[Neil Duncan-Jordan]

As I have tried to explain, the Bill introduces fundamental changes to the nature of our welfare system and its use.