Disabled People

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

I am pleased to hear the right hon. Gentleman announce his intention to abolish the spare room subsidy. He also praised to the skies the Australian insurance model that has just been introduced. Is he therefore committing to the payroll tax increases funding that model in Australia? Have we just heard yet another spending commitment?

[Mr Byrne]

Of course not. We are saying that the idea of introducing holistic care, in the way the hon. Gentleman’s Department of Health colleague implies in the Care Bill, is something the Secretary of State could learn from.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate—a debate that the Labour party has been running away from for far too long. For all its praise of Pat’s petition, which was placed on 1 November 2011, it took until 6 February 2013 for the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), to have the courage even to meet them. When he met them, what did their website say? It said that he had promised them an Opposition day debate as soon as possible, before the Budget. The Budget and the spending review have been and gone, and now what do we see? It is a press release from the shadow Secretary of State claiming that he has dragged Ministers to the Chamber, but it is he and his Front Benchers who have been dragged to this Chamber by Pat’s petition, We are Spartacus and other extremist disability groups that do not speak for the overall majority.

Let me explain to Labour Front Benchers why I might have sympathy with their reluctance. The cumulative impact assessment is a very narrow tool by which to judge the contribution of the disabled community in this country, their potential and what they can achieve. I think that it borders on the offensive and would suggest that Labour look a little more widely.

Just last week the Minister for the disabled, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), published the final set of documents of the “Fulfilling Potential” report. I urge those who want a proper cumulative impact assessment to look at the technical annexe, which is a far more challenging set of indicators than a cumulative impact assessment would provide and a far more nuanced, reasoned view of what being disabled means in Great Britain today.

Labour’s empty rhetoric and its sole focus on benefits as a measure of the quality of life of disabled people do a disservice to the wider disabled community. We often hear Labour Members talk of their desire for welfare reform. When we drill down to what they mean, as we have tried to today, it is very clear that they want more money for more people. The do not understand the nature of reform.

Let me quote what one of our eminent Paralympians, Jonnie Peacock, who won so many medals last year, said on 8 September 2012:

“I did not think I should be taking DLA from people who should be getting it. There are people who should not be on it and are getting it, and there are people who should be getting it and are receiving nothing. The testing could be more secure and then they could award the benefits to the right people.”

I cite that because it is clearly not a pro-Government press release, but a middle-of-the-road assessment that the vast bulk of disabled people share about what is occurring in this country.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Will the hon. Gentleman at least acknowledge that people with disabilities are being disproportionately hit by the cuts this Government are making?

[Paul Maynard]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. What I will acknowledge is that we are going through a period of profound and challenging change. We as a Government are seeking to edge towards greater recognition of the social model of disability, and that means not paying attention to the labels that too many want to hang around the necks of disabled people.

The personal independence payment, for example, looks at how individuals cope with their own conditions and disabilities. It does not say, “Tick box x for condition y and you will get these benefits.”

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman does not understand what is in the assessment. It asks for very narrow yes or no responses that do not allow people to explain the nature of their abilities and disabilities.

[Paul Maynard]

I think that the hon. Lady misunderstands the actual point of PIP; it is to look at how people cope with their conditions. They are given ample opportunity to submit evidence and we help them to do that in my constituency surgeries. I hope that Labour Members do so, too, rather than store up a treasure trove of Atos scare stories that make people more scared of attending an Atos appointment than they were before.

[Mr Byrne]

rose—

[Paul Maynard]

I have given way enough times and the shadow Secretary of State has had his opportunity. If those on the Opposition Front Benches paid more attention to the “Fulfilling Potential” report, they might be a little chilled by what they read. Page 34 states clearly:

“Young people’s aspirations can decline in response to their growing understanding of the world”.

Listening to Opposition Members, I am sure that young people’s aspirations will decline because of the negative messages they are getting. The report states:

“By the age of 26 disabled people are less confident”

about entering into the world. I think we should be celebrating the fact that this Government are taking steps on a broad range of measures—not merely disability benefits—that the previous Government never had the courage to take.

For example, consider a young person who wishes to go to university. Under the Labour Government they were scared to do so because they could not guarantee that their care package would be made portable. With this Government’s Care Bill, we are doing just that. How can we put a price on aspiration? How can we quantify hope? What do I say to disabled people using an organisation in my constituency that has just introduced a “Safe Journey” card they can show on trams to ensure that it pulls away more slowly and they do not get flung to the ground? How are such things incorporated into the precious cumulative impact assessment? So much that can be done for the disabled community will never appear in any impact assessment, but it can be reflected in what we are doing with the “Fulfilling Potential” initiative.

I begin to despair at so much of what I hear from the Opposition Benches and it makes me truly angry. I pay tribute to the previous Government for their work to try to improve awareness of disability hate crime. However, I react with fury to the reaction of so many Opposition Members when the reporting of incidents of disability hate crime increases because of work done by this Government, and the previous Government, to create an atmosphere in which people are more confident to report such crime. We are told that an increase in the reporting of hate crime is evidence of the Government’s war on the disabled. I find that disgusting. It is personally abhorrent that people should campaign in a partisan way on the backs of those in the most vulnerable section of our society, to make a partisan point. That does nothing.

The contribution of disabled people to this country goes far wider than the amount they receive in benefits. I recognise, however, that we cannot talk of aspiration or fulfilling potential if we do not have a stable system of state support. We are trying to ensure that the right people get the right amount of money to match their needs, abilities and aspirations to work, live their lives and fulfil their ambitions, not match the labels hung around their necks by the Labour party.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in today’s debate. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng). However, I have a sense of “Groundhog Day”, because the last time I rose to speak in a debate on this issue, he and his hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) were again the two poor souls who had been forced to stand up and try to defend the Government’s position. I am grateful for their contributions, although the other reason I have a sense of “Groundhog Day” is that I remember the same accusations being thrown around about extremist disability groups. Let us be clear who we are talking about.

[Paul Maynard]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Fiona O'Donnell]

The hon. Gentleman should first allow me to spell this out for him, then I will be happy to take his intervention. Does he include in his definition of “extremist disability groups” Citizens Advice, the Multiple Sclerosis Society, Margaret Blackwood, Leonard Cheshire, Capability Scotland, Scope and many others that have today supported the call made by Opposition Members? Although I express my gratitude to my right hon. Friends on our Front Bench for giving us the opportunity to debate this issue, the praise should really go to those organisations, which have continued to champion the cause of people with disabilities. I hope the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys will now make it clear whether he thinks those organisations are “extremist”.

[Paul Maynard]

Will the hon. Lady confirm whether she has read the manifesto of the Campaign for a Fair Society, which wants to close down all special schools, all day care centres and most of the other segregated provision? Does she not regard that as extreme?

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona O’Donnell]

I will deal with the question from the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys first.

That wide range of views includes people who think that adults and children with disabilities and special needs should be shut away from society and protected, and those who think the complete opposite—that they should be fully integrated into society. There can also be a degree of tokenism, and we sometimes hear terms such as “real inclusion”, “rehabilitation” and “normalisation” being used. I do not agree with the stand that those people take. I note that the hon. Gentleman, in asking his question, did not answer my question to him.

[Paul Maynard]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Fiona O’Donnell]

No, I have given the hon. Gentleman one opportunity to answer it. He had seven minutes in which to put the record straight, but he did not do so. I am going to make some progress now.

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions does not like it when the human cost of the changes he is making are brought to his attention. We saw just how angry he can get when Owen Jones presented him with some case studies on “Question Time”. That is what this debate is about. I found it incredibly moving when my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash) asked her question of the Prime Minister today and described someone calling her office who was feeling suicidal because of the impact of the changes. I am not for one minute suggesting that Ministers are wilfully causing that kind of suffering and harm, and, at times, I defend them in that regard. However, I get very angry e-mails using language that is inappropriate, even when attacking the Government, and the Government are going to have to acknowledge at some point that there is a very different feeling out there of the kind that we have never seen before. We are hearing that from Welfare Rights, from Citizens Advice and from the people who contact us and come to our surgeries. I would never have believed that, as a Member of Parliament, I would have to put in place procedures for my staff to deal with a constituent whom they believe to be at risk of taking their own life. At some point the Government are going to have to respond to that, not with anger but by taking seriously the impact of these changes on people with mental health problems.

I hope that the Minister will talk today about mental health champions, which were introduced as a result of the review, and that she will tell us what impact they are having. How is she monitoring them? I think that we have two for the whole of Scotland. Is there evidence that they are making a difference?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs McGuire]

I will not be sidetracked.

We have seen the number of people who signed Pat’s petition and the WOW petition. The Government’s response to the WOW petition—that they are limited in what cumulative analysis they are able to undertake because of the complexity of the modelling required—is revealing. There are organisations with limited resources that can put together a reasonable cumulative impact assessment. The Minister of State and the Under-Secretary with responsibility for the disabled have a range of experts they can bring to the fore to put together a cumulative impact assessment. Frankly, some of the excuses we have heard today give us an indication of why they do not want to do that.

I hope I am wrong, but the Under-Secretary will no doubt give us two justifications: that Labour did not undertake an assessment; and that it is impossible to do it. The previous Labour Government did not do it because they did not—no previous Government have—put together such a torrent of changes that will impact on the lives of disabled people. [Interruption.] If the Minister of State is so clear that they are positive changes, why is he running away from a cumulative impact assessment? He undermined the Government case on the impossibility of doing an assessment when he answered my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden). He said that cumulative impacts are a coalition initiative. Where is the initiative? If he is parading on 4 July that it is a coalition initiative, what has happened to it between 4 July and 9 July? Where has it gone? It has disappeared into the ether like some of his words this afternoon.

What we have heard today is the torrent of change, from the bedroom tax that will not provide an extra bedroom to accommodate equipment a disabled child might need, the families of disabled children who will be £1,300 per year less well off than they were under the old system, to the changes in ESA and the abolition of DLA, with no recognition that even those who are not “the most severely disabled”—the words the Minister will always use—still have additional costs because of their disability.

The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) said that he was angry. I was sorely disappointed by his contribution, because he attempted to paint the people who want to talk about a cumulative impact assessment as extremists. I hope he is not saying that Disability Rights UK, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Royal National Institute of Blind People, Mind, Scope, Leonard Cheshire Disability and Carers UK among others, including tens of thousands of people who signed Pat’s petition, are extremists.

[Paul Maynard]

Will the right hon. Lady answer the question her colleague could not answer earlier? Does she believe it is extreme to try to close every special school and every day care centre? Does she not regard that as extreme?

[Mrs McGuire]

With the greatest respect, the hon. Gentleman attempted to put everybody who has asked for a cumulative impact assessment into an extremist box. If he wants to debate exclusive and mainstream education, I suggest we have a debate on that. There are differing opinions, but disagreeing with him does not make someone an extremist. [Interruption.] I make an exception for the Secretary of State; there’s an extremist, on certain issues, if ever there was one! I ask him, is the Children’s Commissioner, who released a report only last month, an extremist? She said that

“families with disabled children are hit harder by the cuts under all disability definitions”.

It is not extremists saying this; it is not even just Opposition Members—a whole swathe of people are saying it.

This is not just about welfare benefits, and on that I almost agree with the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys: this is not about putting disabled people into a benefits box. I agree that the social model is the right model for disability, but we cannot have a social model if people do not know whether they can have a spare bedroom for their wheelchair or if they do not have enough food on the table because money is being taken from them. [Interruption.] I do not know if the Secretary of State is contributing to the debate or just chuntering from the Front Bench. The DWP press office did not do Ministers any credit when it said:

“There’s a lot of alarmist stories about our welfare reforms but the truth is this Government is absolutely committed to supporting disabled people”.

It might look like that from the top of Caxton house, but it does not feel like it in the real world, as some of the testimonies we have heard today verify.

This country has signed up to and ratified the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, which I was delighted my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth raised. Is the Minister truly confident that such an onslaught against disabled people is consistent with our responsibilities under the convention, particularly article 19?

I wish to make a genuine offer to the Government that does not ask for anything more than we would expect from any Government: a true and accurate assessment of what their policies mean for the people they govern. We are not asking for coalition Members to vote against any major policy—although I was delighted to hear the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) say he had strong reservations about certain aspects of the policy—and we are not even asking the Minister or her colleagues to overturn any decisions they have made; we are asking why, if Ministers and coalition Members are so confident that their policies across benefits, social care, access to legal aid and independent living are right, the Government do not do what they should have done months ago and make use of the fantastic policy and analytical capacity in the DWP and the civil service. If it does nothing else, it might help the Prime Minister, who gave a wrong answer this afternoon over the impact of the overnight exemption from the bedroom tax on the families of disabled children. It might help him to understand his own policies.