ESA and Personal Independence Payments

Neil Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to take part in the debate, Ms Dorries. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) for securing the debate and for the way she set out the case, highlighting how pressing the issue is, as our postbags show. She raised a case of great concern—the experiences of her constituent Donna. The assessment notes that my hon. Friend read out struck me as closely mirroring a constituency case that I am now dealing with. A gentleman, who had been in work, suffered mental health problems and as a result of them fell out of work. He was assessed for social security support and failed. Some of the notes from the assessment that my hon. Friend quoted were very similar to his. Sadly, my constituent committed suicide. The harrowing cases that we have heard today are very concerning.

I also note the contributions from other Members today. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) rightly asked why on earth someone who had previously had £500 a week would choose to receive £73 a week. That is not a choice that anyone would make. He also highlighted the apparent dichotomy that is at play: the Government are telling his constituent that they are unable to employ him, while expecting employers to employ people who are in a similar position. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that.

I listened carefully, as I always do, to the contribution of the former Minister, the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson). He gave a stout defence of the Government and of his own record in government. As always, I want to be as constructive and as consensual as possible, but I must remind him that the accounts that we have heard today and in previous debates are personal testimonies from constituents, not just hearsay. I do not know whether that was a slip of the tongue from the former Minister, but the experiences of the constituents that were highlighted today are not just hearsay.

The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) rightly highlighted the disproportionate impact that welfare cuts are having on those with disabilities. They are affected many times more than those without disabilities. That appears to fly in the face of the commitment from the previous Prime Minister, David Cameron, to protect those with disabilities in the social security system.

I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Corri Wilson) to her place as the Scottish National party’s new disability spokesperson. She highlighted another very troubling constituency case; I hope the Minister has taken heed of it and will commit to looking into it.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) is absolutely right that this debate is centrally about social justice. She also rightly highlighted the indignity felt by our constituents when they go through these processes. If the Government are to get this right, they need to look at how people feel they are being treated. Whether the Government agree or not is irrelevant; what is important is what the people who experience the system feel, which is clearly different from what the Government feel.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East (Natalie McGarry) rightly said that, when it comes to ESA WRAG, we are not going away. I will focus on ESA WRAG for the majority of my speech, because this is a further opportunity to quiz the Minister on her plans. On 17 November, a motion on ESA that I moved in a Backbench Business Committee debate with the support of eight other parties was carried by Parliament. In that debate, the Minister took an intervention from the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), who supported the motion. He pressed her on potential financial mechanisms that would

“fully compensate for the loss of the WRAG payments for new claimants”.

The Minister replied:

“Yes. Let me give my hon. Friend that reassurance.”

Perhaps my interpretation of “fully compensated” is different from the Minister’s, but I understood from what she said that new ESA WRAG claimants would be getting equivalent financial support through the mechanisms outlined by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate:

“the hardship fund, the flexible support fund and the third-party deals”.—[Official Report, 17 November 2016; Vol. 617, c. 464.]

I tested that in a written question but I did not get a clear reply, so I hope that today the Minister will take the opportunity to say what she understands “fully compensated” to mean.

The Chancellor appeared in the autumn statement to undermine the Minister’s apparent pledge. The Chancellor said in response to the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), that the savings of £330 million from the ESA WRAG cut would now be invested in a package of support, as opposed to direct financial help. Presumably, he meant the Green Paper package, which is currently being consulted on and which was previously budgeted as £60 million next year. That is as clear as mud to me and to the many others who are looking on and trying to understand what the Government are going to do, how much they will commit and the mechanism by which that will be implemented.

The only thing that the Government have been clear about is that they want to cut ESA WRAG. They have not said what is coming in to replace it. They have really put the cart before the horse. I understand that fresh Ministers are perhaps flogging that horse to catch up, but the plans for halving the disability employment gap appear to be falling away; we do not know whether that is still a commitment. The cuts to ESA WRAG and the system to replace the Work programme should have been consulted on first.

The point has been made across this Chamber today and it has repeatedly been made across the House in previous debates: the Government have it the wrong way round. It is like announcing that they are going to scrap the TV licence in April, but only now going through the process of deciding how it should be replaced, with no guarantee to the BBC of how much financial support it would receive. In fact, this will probably receive a third of the public funds, but get practical support in order to generate better outcomes. That just does not wash. It may be a policy that appeases some people, but it is clearly not the way to treat anyone. It has no evidence of being any fairer or delivering better outcomes, because we have no idea how the system is going to work.

I must critique what appears to be the Government’s main motive, which is that for someone to get an extra £29 per week on top of jobseeker’s allowance is a disincentive to work. Here is what my constituent Janice had to say when she got in touch with me this week:

“Being unemployed and reliant on benefits is demeaning and depressing. Employers need to focus on what people CAN do rather than on what they can’t. There are ways to work around: many can work from home with flexible hours and would jump at that opportunity.”

Does Janice strike the Minister as someone who chooses or wants to be out of work? Of course not. She is like hundreds of thousands of sick and disabled people up and down the land who desperately want to work. Cutting the money they could receive will not change their minds or incentivise them any more than what already motivates them: dignity, self-worth and getting a job that they can sustain. Cutting away that vital support will add an layer of stress and worry and, with additional work search costs, will hinder their ability to find the work that they so desperately crave. The MS Society points to research published last year by Scope’s extra costs commission, which says that living with neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis can cost people an extra £200 a week.

I plead and hope that the Minister will say what she and the Government plan to do to help people by providing additional employment support and financial support. She must realise and accept that people who are in ESA WRAG are in that category because they are currently unfit for work; they have an illness or a disability that means that they cannot currently work. ESA WRAG is often their only income and yet, from April, people on ESA WRAG who are sick or disabled will somehow be expected to sustain themselves on the same rate as jobseeker’s allowance. The Government must think again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Penny Mordaunt]

If the shadow Minister will forgive me, I will make some progress.

We are rolling out that trial. The past presence test will no longer apply to claims for DLA, PIP, attendance allowance and carer’s allowance with regard to refugees, people with humanitarian protection status and their families. We are extending hardship payments. The ESA appeals process has been reformed, with mandatory reconsideration clearance times down from 35 days to nine. The number of weeks and the percentage of case load having to go to appeal to get the right decision are both reducing. Huge strides have been made in identifying hidden impairments, including through training of staff.

The hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East spoke at length about the factors of appearance. Many people might look perfectly together and presentable but have deeply hidden issues. We have done a huge amount in training staff to recognise that, and more is planned. The Secretary of State has announced his focus on the use of sanctions with those with mental health conditions, and the Green Paper gives us the possibility of major reform to different parts of the system in unison. In that consultation, we want to examine how we might simplify and improve the assessment process and how we can use information better to effectively support people, such as sharing data—with claimant consent—with support organisations and other state services. The reform of the work capability assessment—which we have not been able to do to date because it requires primary legislation—is a focus of the Green Paper. We could separate out decisions on entitlement to employment support and entitlement to financial support.

[Neil Gray]

Will the Minister give way?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I will just make a little progress, because I have some announcements to make.

The Green Paper also looks at statutory sick pay and other issues that would have benefited people such as Donna—if I have understood her situation—by enabling a phased return to work, which is obviously what people need. Rather than having someone continually jump through hoops, we want that support to be wrapped around the individual, whatever situation they have been landed in. Not only does that support need to be exactly what they need, when they need it and personalised—whether it is delivered by a jobcentre, a GP practice nurse or another—but their experience of the whole system has to be what they need, when they need it. Having to wait for an assessment to be carried out before someone can have a conversation about their situation and hopes is not smart. We need a joined-up, common-sense approach in all we do. We should not just start thinking about what assistive technology or equipment someone might need when they hit the employment market. We need to think about that when they are at school or college and receiving careers advice.