Disabled People

Debate between Paul Maynard and Anne McGuire

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[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.