Employment and Support Allowance

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Penny Mordaunt)]

I welcome the debate secured by the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) and thank all Members who have attended and intervened on his speech. I shall concentrate my comments on the work-related activity group issue, which is at the heart of the debate. The hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) asked about measures to deal with the disability employment gap. Clearly, we are going through the Green Paper consultation responses, but we want to build on the momentum created on these issues and wish to bring forward a White Paper at the earliest opportunity. Additional working up of those ideas will be done with employers and the third sector, which will be able to continue the momentum.

[Hannah Bardell]

I thank the Minister for dealing with that point, but does she not think that that should have been done before the cuts were made? Would that have been a logical approach, rather than making the cuts, leaving people destitute and devastated, and then thinking about how they are going to be helped?

[Penny Mordaunt]

The WRAG issue was debated heavily last year and voted on in the House. The measures that were put in place to provide additional support to that group, which I will go into in detail, were debated at the time and confirmed in the Green Paper. So the issue was mentioned in the Green Paper, but it had been consulted on extensively beforehand.

On the point about the industrial strategy, we are very much engaged with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and we are looking at what can be secured on this agenda from that strategy.

Help is available to enable people to live independent lives and ensure that those who can work have the opportunity to do so. This includes personal independence payments, the Access to Work scheme; local authority-provided social care support and aids and adaptations; NHS-provided aids; free prescriptions; free or discounted travel, for example to hospital appointments; the blue badge scheme; disabled students allowance; the disabled facilities grant; budgeting loans, cold weather payments through the social fund; and housing benefit. I shall not repeat the arguments that I made, as the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts has quoted me, but I will address some of the points on liquidity before moving on to his questions about the support package.

We have announced some additional funding for the flexible support fund in the coming years, which offers grants to support claimants with the associated costs of returning to work. Through the flexible support fund, Jobcentre Plus has a discretionary fund that is available to claimants. This includes barrier awards for individual claimants. Such awards could include travel and care costs to help people to attend training or the jobcentre itself. The funds can also be allocated to help claimants to move closer towards or into work—for example, for clothes to attend a job interview and start work, and much more. Each district manager is allocated a proportion of the national budget. There are very few national guidelines, and they have considerable freedom as to how to deploy the funds locally. This clearly helps with work and employment support-related costs.

As the hon. Gentleman will know, at Christmas we introduced a new procurement tool, which enables people quickly to purchase things, commission services and so on using the flexible support fund, so I take issue with the allegations he makes. Maybe the process has involved a lot of admin historically, but that is currently not the case.

[Neil Gray]

Will the Minister confirm whether the flexible support fund will be better directed towards recipients of ESA WRAG?

[Penny Mordaunt]

Yes. I will come to that point shortly. I also briefly mention the social fund, which can help with non-work-related costs.

We looked at several ways of potentially ring-fencing funds to this group, but in all cases we felt that it would be subject to legal challenge, so this is by far the simplest thing to do. We can monitor how this is being used and see where the money is going. The flexible support fund and the social fund are the only real route to be able supply additional funding to help people, whether that funding is cost-related to work and moving closer towards getting into work, or whether it is other costs associated with the cost of living.

We have also looked at what we can do to reduce a person’s outgoings. I thank my officials, who have done a huge amount of work with telecoms and energy suppliers to establish what support is on offer, and to encourage new offers and some low tariffs. That work has concluded and the Department for Work and Pensions will signpost claimants—not just WRAG claimants, but others—to services that help to reduce those costs. For example, tariffs are available, particularly to those on ESA, that package up broadband, phone and other costs at a low tariff of £10 a month.

When work coaches meet claimants, they will be able to offer signposting to services that help claimants with budgeting and saving money on household bills. That will be supported by a fact sheet that can be given to claimants. The fact sheet is already in operation and has been distributed through our operations arm. It is a one-stop shop that has all the information in one place, as well as signposting to local services. That is a big step forward. The leaflet, “ESA40”, which is sent to all ESA claimants at the beginning of their claim journey now includes a link to the Money Advice Service and its free support on saving money and household bills. This links into the work that the Department has been doing to follow on from the Extra Costs Commission, and it is a big step forward for the Department.

When ESA was introduced by Labour in 2008 as “a radical reform package”, the work-related activity component was intended to act as an incentive to encourage people to participate in work-related activity and, therefore, return to work quicker.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I do not want to get the Minister up and down on her feet, but I refer her back to what she said about the additional support that will now be available. The Government’s own impact analysis estimated that half a million people would have £30 a week less—£1,500 a year less. What proportion of those 500,000 people will be in receipt of the additional support that her Department is making available, and to what extent?

[Penny Mordaunt]

That very much depends on an individual’s circumstances. We have looked at a range of circumstances that someone might find themselves in—for example, someone who might need also to apply for PIP. We have looked at the time lag between someone, for example, coming on to being a new claimant for ESA and their actually being able to access that benefit. We have looked at a range of scenarios that someone might find themselves in. However, this support is available to anyone in that circumstance. Indeed, some of it is available to all claimants—for example, the social tariffs, which is a big step forward for the Department.

[Neil Gray]

The Minister stated in November:

“When that security—

that is, money and liquidity—

“goes, often so, too, does a person’s dignity and wellbeing.”—[Official Report, 17 November 2016; Vol. 617, c. 462.]

Is she therefore confident that the measures that she is putting in place, and the tariffs that are going to be available, will compensate people for this £50 a week?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I hope that what I have said, and what the hon. Gentleman has quoted me as saying in previous debates, at length, would give him some confidence that I really do understand that we have to do both things. We have to ensure that people are able to pay their bills. If we want them to focus on getting well and on moving closer to, or going back into, the workplace, then putting additional stresses on them is not remotely helpful. That is why we have undertaken this new work in the Department to see whether we can reduce someone’s outgoings, and why we have worked with our operations arm to ensure that this is not something that just sits in a drawer but is being offered to people. These budgeting conversations are happening. So yes, I am confident that this will be acted on throughout our Jobcentre Plus network, and we can monitor how progress is being made.

I mentioned the original intent of the work-related activity component in acting as an incentive. The hon. Gentleman will know that we have recently consulted on radical reform of the work capability assessment. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned, it is deeply flawed. We have had many consultation responses on that area, and it will be a major focus of the forthcoming White Paper.

I want to provide some reassurance about the additional support that will be in place, and is in place. All the support that is outlined in the Green Paper is currently in place. That includes recruiting 300 disability employment advisers; the capacity to have one-to-one health and work conversations with a Jobcentre Plus work coach to raise someone’s confidence and help them to manage their health condition; additional places on Work Choice and the work and health programme for all eligible and suitable claimants who wish to volunteer for it; additional places on our specialist employability support programme to support those, in particular, who are furthest away from the jobs market; increased funding for the access to work mental health support service to provide support for in-work claimants; jobcentres reaching out to small employers to identify opportunities and to help match people to jobs with the new small employment offer; and the community partners, who are now all recruited and in place.

[Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I am conscious that all the things I am hearing are excellent in terms of getting people into work, but so much of this £30 is about, for example, “Can I turn my heating on because I am in long-term recovery from cancer chemotherapy and I am at home a lot.” Would it be possible for the Department to give us some case studies so that we can see how the £30 is made up—what specific funds, whether a broadband deal or whatever it might be, are in place for Joe Bloggs? I know that the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), has written to the Minister about this.

[Penny Mordaunt]

Yes. As I have said, in the work we have done we have tried to look at people who may be in different circumstances. They may have additional costs or there may be a gap between them and the ability to attain those costs. Clearly, the amount of benefits that someone might receive from the additional funds—whether they be in-work support, cost-of-living support or social tariffs—will depend on the individual, but we could certainly create some case studies. We could also, as time rolls on, give some real-life case studies of how this is working and how the flexible support fund and other provisions are being used.

We have recruited some very high calibre individuals to the multidisciplinary teams, including specialists in mental health and community support. We received more than 2,500 applications for those posts. Many other areas of support are available and I would be happy, although this is going ahead, to continue the dialogue with colleagues who may still have concerns.

Question put and agreed to.