Blind and Partially Sighted People: Employment Support

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind Members to bob if they wish to speak. Then we will work out the order of who is going when.

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[Richard Baker (Glenrothes and Mid Fife) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) not only on securing this debate on such an important topic, but on her skill and commitment in leading the all-party parliamentary group on eye health and visual impairment.

The APPG is such an important group for ensuring that the voices of blind and partially sighted people are heard in this Parliament. Having been for many years a member of the cross-party group on visual impairment in the Scottish Parliament, I am delighted to find that the APPG here is also an effective forum for advancing key policy areas for people with visual impairment. Changing employers’ attitudes and increasing employment opportunities for blind and partially sighted people is vital, for all the reasons that my hon. Friend set out in her excellent opening speech and that the hugely important “Changing Attitudes, Changing Lives” report highlights.

As an MP for a Scottish constituency, I am keenly aware that this is as important an issue for people with visual impairment in Scotland as it is in the rest of the UK. In his excellent speech, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) was quite right to point out that there is also important work for the devolved Administrations to do. Only one in four blind and partially sighted people in Scotland is in paid employment. Research by RNIB Scotland shows that there are about 9,000 registered blind and partially sighted people of working age in Scotland, of whom only about 2,000 are in work. As many as 78% are not employed, so for blind and partially sighted people in Scotland the disability employment gap is particularly acute.

My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea rightly highlighted the disability pay gap and the inequality that it creates in our society. There is a huge opportunity cost not only to people with visual impairment who want to work and cannot find work, but to our society as a whole. In my career before my election to this place, I was fortunate to work at the charity Sight Scotland. A number of our services employed blind and partially sighted people. They were valued members of our team, not only as experts by experience but because of their individual skills and their knowledge. They would be assets at any workplace where they were employed.

During my time at the charity, we conducted research into the social isolation that is experienced by too many people with visual impairment. Our research showed that 90% of our respondents had experienced loneliness. It is important to recognise not only that increasing employment opportunities helps to counter low income and poverty, which still affect far too many blind and partially sighted people, but that being in work, having a workplace to go to and working alongside colleagues helps to tackle isolation, promotes inclusion and improves the quality of life for people with visual impairment in so many other ways as well. It is vital that we create far fairer access to employment for blind and partially sighted people and ensure support is in place for them and for potential employers to achieve that.

In my constituency, the charity Seescape supports more than 4,000 people each year through rehabilitation and through aids, equipment and accessible technology. Those kinds of support are essential to achieving inclusion in the workplace. Seescape’s work is transformational for so many blind and partially sighted people, not only in Glenrothes and Mid Fife but throughout the whole Kingdom of Fife. It is hugely valued by our community.

I very much welcome the recommendation in the “Changing Attitudes, Changing Lives” report that the UK Government should partner with sight loss organisations to develop best practice on recruiting blind and partially sighted people and supporting them to enter the labour market. They are the very organisations with the right expertise and knowledge to achieve that goal.

I also endorse the substantive and practical recommendations in that report for the Government and employers. Those recommendations come at an important time, as we look towards the “Get Britain Working” White Paper and the £240 million that will be invested by the Government to promote employability. Following our conversation at Mr Speaker’s excellent event to celebrate Disability History Month, I am encouraged by the fact that the Minister, who I welcome to his place, is seized by the opportunity that the White Paper offers to increase disability employment and to set out an effective strategy.

Sadly, in the last few years, there have been cuts in funding for employability at both the UK level and the Scottish level. Not enough has been done to promote opportunities through Access to Work, a scheme that can make a real difference when it is effectively delivered. We need to change that situation by ensuring that the White Paper leads to an employability strategy that actually works for blind and partially sighted people.

In Scotland, employability programmes such as Fair Start Scotland have certainly not had enough success in including people with visual impairment. That needs to change and it can change. We know what works in promoting the employment of blind and partially sighted people: changing attitudes and changing the approaches of employers, in line with the practical recommendations made in the “Changing Attitudes, Changing Lives” report and more broadly in relation to disability.

I also commend the work of the commission led by Lord Shinkwin for the Institute of Directors and its report, “The Future of Business: harnessing diverse talent for success”. That report makes a series of recommendations to Government to create the most favourable conditions for businesses and directors to flourish, with specific reference to gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and disability.

One member of that commission was Dr Theresa Shearer, the chief executive of Enable, where I worked until I was elected to this House; I declare that interest. The All In programme, led by Enable Works, has formed employability partnerships across Scotland that have brought together specialist third sector organisations so that they can collaborate. Those partnerships have had great success in securing training and employment for many people who face barriers to employment, including blind and partially sighted people. Indeed, they have secured three and a half jobs for every one job delivered by traditional employability schemes.

There are many factors involved in improving employment opportunities for blind and partially sighted people; indeed, we could have a separate debate on education and transitions into employment. However, the many important recommendations in the “Changing Attitudes, Changing Lives” report will result in real progress if they are adopted. The first recommendation is essential, namely that we establish a disability employment strategy that sets out measures to improve employers’ attitudes and increase the number of blind and partially sighted people who find and—crucially—retain work.

I commend that report and its recommendations, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea on all she is doing to ensure that its ambitions are fulfilled. Fulfilling them is vital if we are to achieve genuine inclusion for blind and partially sighted people in our society throughout the UK.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Our final Back Bencher, before we move on to the Lib Dem spokesperson, is Lee Pitcher.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I very much hope that we can, because the hon. Gentleman is right: there is a good deal of anxiety about these overpayment problems. We hope that the alert service will at least inform people when they run into a problem so that they do not then develop a large overpayment, which has happened all too often in the past, but we also need to look at the other arrangements relating to carer’s allowance in order to provide the reassurance for which the hon. Gentleman has rightly called.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

17. What assessment she has made of trends in the number of benefit sanctions in the last five years.

[The Minister for Employment (Alison McGovern)]

In May 2019 the universal credit sanction rate was 3.17%. It reduced considerably during the pandemic, gradually returning to 3.51% by November 2021. It then continued to rise, reaching a peak of 7.29% in October 2023, but it is now falling, with a rate of 6.17% in May 2024.

[Dr Huq]

According to recent research by Gingerbread, a high percentage of sanctions have been misapplied to single parents, not because they have not met the job search requirements but because of missed meetings for reasons connected with childcare. Max, a bereaved single dad of two, had his sanction overturned, which involved a fairly challenging process. Will my hon. Friend please look into the possibility of overhauling the mess of a system that was left behind by that lot over there?

[Alison McGovern]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and, through her, I would like to thank Gingerbread for its work on this issue. There have always been, and always will be, conditions attached to social security, but the past 14 years show what happens when we have a Government who are more interested in blaming people and creating cheap headlines than offering real help. In our manifesto, Labour committed to review universal credit so that it makes work pay and tackles poverty, and the report that Gingerbread has written will also help inform our child poverty taskforce.

Winter Fuel Payment

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

I remind everyone that this is a short debate, so everything is a bit squished, and most Members will not be able to make proper speeches. We have two Members down as intervening—we will seek clarity on the rest—and the Minister has 10 minutes to respond.

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[Rachael Maskell]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s expertise, and she is right: the NHS is where this issue will present itself. It is already under huge pressure, so we have to find a way out of this issue.

We have all had the emails, the handwritten letters and the people queuing up, pleading—I certainly have. These pensioners have worked hard all of their lives. Some have put a little bit aside; others have not. Winter is always a challenge. This Government must have the capacity to find another way. People put their hope in Labour because, like me, we believe that it exists to fight for working people, to protect the poor and to seek justice, equality and fairness. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Emma Reynolds), does too.

With the economic imperative shredded and the medical case so powerful, the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has provided a path out. It is unconvinced that the measures should be pushed through so urgently and wants scrutiny. It highlighted that the DWP needs to assess the risks of those eligible and ineligible for pension credit. While the triple lock fails to provide protection, the triple hit of the energy price cap rising by 10% on 1 October, the Tory freeze to the personal allowance and the removal of the winter fuel payment, without the cost of living payments, leaves people exposed. The Committee says that the measures could be delayed by changing the trigger dates. Delay is still possible.

The Committee also highlights that the Social Security Advisory Committee, which has a legal role in reviewing legislation before debate, will not meet until after the measures have passed. That means that MPs and Lords will not have the opportunity to debate its findings. We need these reports to debate the proposals. Furthermore, no impact assessment has been published.

As has already been said, according to academia fuel poverty is deeply rooted in inequality, disproportionately impacting on women and black and minority ethnic and disabled people, as well as the socio-economically disadvantaged. I have been contacted by many charities highlighting cancer, neurological conditions and others—and, of course, dementia too. Labour must always ensure that those with protected characteristics experience no detriment.

Our constituents are worried sick. They are frail and frightened. I see desperation in their eyes, and I hear it in their voices. As they grip my arm in the street and look at me, they know what I know—and if we are honest, what we all know. They are worried that they will be that statistic. Our duty is to take away that fear.

Mitigation is still possible: from delay to a social tariff or social prescribing, where consultants and GPs can authorise payments. I want to know what work the Government are doing in these areas. What measures are they looking at? What mitigation is possible, and by when? The household support fund will simply not be enough. The pension increase is insufficient. We need more, and we need it urgently.

I want this Government to do much better than the last, and I believe that, over time, we will, but winter is upon us now and we must reassure the fuel-poor pensioners that they will have the support they need. My constituents plead that I do something—my goodness, I am trying, but the Minister must too. Please, let us mitigate. Let us give people confidence and the comfort and care they need—the help and protection to keep them safe, warm and well this winter. If that cannot be done, then delay these measures. I rest my case.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

I see that there is another name down to speak. We have actually run out of time for that, but the Clerk is advising that Neil Duncan-Jordan can intervene on the Minister—that is a possibility. I call the Minister, Emma Reynolds.

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[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. The Clerk always reminds me that Members cannot use “you” because it means me, even when used with “Minister”. We have had it all morning.

[Emma Reynolds]

Dr Huq, I am sure Members will soon get used to the bizarre ways of this House.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bicester and Woodstock (Calum Miller) for his question. As I set out, the Chancellor was not expecting to do this but had to do it urgently because of the £22 billion black hole in our public finances. The black hole is in-year. What if we did not tackle it? Look at what happened under the previous Government, with Liz Truss’s mini-Budget: they put forward unfunded tax cuts and sent the markets into turmoil. Interest rates increased, putting mortgage rates and rents up, and that led to higher inflation.

People on fixed incomes, such as pensioners, would really suffer were we not to secure economic stability. Economic stability is the foundation of all that we want to do in Government. I say to pensioners and others across the country: this is a necessary step to make the improvements that we want in our NHS, bringing down waiting times, and in our schools, ensuring that we have the highest standards.

Women’s State Pension Age

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I am not familiar with all the details of the private Member’s Bill to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Whether the Government decide to support a particular Bill is clearly a matter for the usual channels and Government business managers, not for me at the Dispatch Box at this time.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The WASPI website has a grim counter of affected women’s deaths and of money saved by the Treasury. The current figures are 273,000-plus women and well over £4 billion. They are rising by the minute. How far have the consequences of the Government’s 2022 disastrous mini-Budget affected their thinking on this matter? If the Secretary of State will not commit to full level 6 compensation, as the ombudsman recommends, what does he have to offer Linda Gregory, my constituency born in 1953? She “did the right thing,” as he said. She did her sums, got her forecasts and was repeatedly assured by the DWP and HMRC that she had contributions to retire at 60 in order to look after her ailing mum—before this surprise was sprung on her, which has so far cost her £40,000.

[Mel Stride]

With great respect to the hon. Lady, her question perfectly exemplifies why it is important to look at the detail of the report. She refers to the ombudsman recommending the full level 6 compensation, but it is actually level 4, the range between £1,000 and £2,950. I am afraid that that piece of information was simply inaccurate.

Musculoskeletal Conditions and Employment

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I want to continue in the same spirit as the hon. Member for Gedling (Tom Randall). It is entertaining and sometimes enjoyable to have debates in which we just kick the Government and other political parties, but Westminster Hall debates are often a way to share information about our own experience of policy development and our constituents with the hope that the noise we make is listened to by the Minister and their advisers. We often find that there are shared issues that we can all learn from.

As the hon. Gentleman said, in the past there was almost a stigma around MSK conditions. Back pain was seen as an easy excuse to pull a sickie, when actually it is incredibly significant for individuals’ lives and, as the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) said, for the economy overall. I congratulate my hon. Friend on putting this issue on the agenda.

I want to go through the experience of my constituency and set out what has led me to the debate. At Heathrow airport, which is in my constituency, there was almost an epidemic of back injuries among baggage handlers. Some Members may recall, when they went through the airport over the years, that there were different campaigns about the weight of the baggage. Although mechanisation was introduced, the work nevertheless involves physical exercise, so we had an epidemic of people who were going sick as a result of back pain. We went through all those allegations of people fraudulently going sick, but when we did the investigations, working with the employer and the trade unions, we discovered the scale of the back injuries over almost a generation, along with the consequences.

The lesson we learned is that, through joint campaigning with the employer, the trade unions and local health bodies, we were able to introduce practices that minimised the damage that was being done to these individual workers, even though the problem continues. For large employers, it is easier. The epidemic of back injuries in my constituency at the moment is among smaller employers, whose actions are often on the margins of legality and they fail to take reasonable care of their employees.

Through airport campaigns, which involved Unite, GMB, the Public and Commercial Services Union and other unions coming together, we found that we needed engagement with the HSE at the earliest stage. We need guidance in place that can be applied so that the employers recognise their responsibilities and the trade unions representing their members can enforce the guidance through negotiation and, if necessary, through various forms of industrial action if individual employers are not adhering to those guidelines.

This is not in any way an attack on the Government or anything like that, but I want to flag up the resourcing of HSE, which my hon. Friend raised. There is an issue here that has to be addressed. I know that individual Ministers have to fight their corner with the Treasury for resources in their patch. Whenever the Minister goes into budget negotiations for her field again, she will have cross-party support for securing additional resources for the HSE. The current denial of those resources means that inspection and intervention processes are not working as effectively as they should to prevent actions that put people’s livelihoods in danger as a result of back injuries. One problem is that small companies are infrequently inspected these days, which means that incidents are arising where companies are ignoring basic guidelines set out by the HSE.

With regard to incidence, my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West has set out the scale of the problems. I want to congratulate Versus Arthritis, which works so hard. We are all drawing on the briefing we received from the organisation.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend, who is a near neighbour of mine as a Heathrow MP, is making a powerful case. He mentioned Versus Arthritis, of which my constituent, Julian Worricker —as a media person, you will know him, Dame Caroline —is a champion, as am I. My right hon. Friend talked about big or large employers. Some of their advice is well intentioned, such as the information on diet for people with arthritis, saying they should have oily fish, omega 5, extra virgin olive oil and all this healthy stuff. In a cost of living crisis, that may be difficult for people to buy when it is so much cheaper to get Iceland stuff for 99p or whatever it is, with loads of fat in it. Does my right hon. Friend agree with me?

[John McDonnell]

I am glad my hon. Friend has raised that matter in advance of my raising it. Poverty almost certainly relates to that, as it does to work practices, particularly with regard to hours of work. Fatigue then leaves people open to making mistakes at work, particularly around handling goods, heavy lifting and not following practices because they are just so tired. In addition, my hon. Friend’s point about diet is fundamental. A number of constituents have seen me and said, “This is the advice from my local doctor or whoever about what I should be eating, but I literally can’t afford it,” or they do not have the support they need to enable them to go on a path of healthier living and a healthier diet.

Versus Arthritis also made the point that for many of our constituents with these injuries, in the winter conditions, the cold affects them. There is nothing in the financial support that we give people that reflects or effectively deals with the incidence of cold. From the briefing we have all received, for my constituency the figure is 15,000 people. In other words, one in six people in my constituency have some form of condition. They are in pain, they experience fatigue and at times have restricted mobility. That is an epidemic by any calculation, and it has an impact on the economy overall. However, for many of the constituents I have met, it is also savaging their quality of life and, as a result, some of us have a sense of urgency about the need for action.

I have to raise the issue of waiting times for diagnosis and treatment, which has become a real problem. In my area, the numbers waiting more than a year for operations and interventions are better than some: the national average is 6%, whereas in my area it is 3%. We are performing better than the national average, but even 3%, which is a couple of hundred people waiting more than a year in my area, is a significant number. Hon. Members will know that when we meet those people, they are waiting in real pain and I am finding that the mental health consequences are significant too. People are desperate to support their families and they feel guilty that they are not doing so. At the same time, they are frustrated because they literally do not know what to do in that waiting period. I come to the points the hon. Member for Gedling made with regard to support and access to work. I cannot agree with him more about the significance of this. While I welcome the additional funding that has come from Government, we have found in the past—this relates to the work capability assessment, which I will come on to—a lack of expertise in assessment and advice. Exactly as the hon. Gentleman said, there is a range of conditions and, in many instances, very specific advice is needed—even at first assessment. We have to bring relevant expertise into the pathways at every stage and be capable of drawing on that, otherwise we just get things wrong. If the wrong advice is given, that adds to the pressure and stress on the individual.

The issue with the work capability assessment, which we have been dealing with since its inception, is—to be frank—the brutality of it. The regime has now become even harsher. We have been in debates here on a number of occasions, and we have even heard of suicides taking place as a result of the work capability assessment implementation. That relates to the lack of expertise in the assessment. Harsh conditions are placed on people who cannot meet those conditions, and as a result they lose their benefits. In addition to losing their benefits, there is a feeling of guilt and ostracisation in the community itself, and a stigma attached.

It is important that the Minister sits down with the Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents the civil servants administering these benefits. They are saying to us that their caseloads have increased dramatically, and that as a result they do not feel they have sufficient staff to deal with individual cases effectively. The pressure that many of their members are under is unacceptable, and the problem of being able to deal with their caseload properly has become insurmountable.

My final point is about the strategy for the future. The key thing that comes out of discussion with virtually every organisation we meet, whether it is Versus Arthritis or the Royal Osteoporosis Society, is the importance of engagement with the sufferers themselves and their representatives. It is similar to the disability principle, “Nothing about us without us.” Engagement with MSK sufferers is absolutely key to developing the future strategy. I also put in a plea for engagement with the trade unions representing many of the workers who have been involved in back injury cases and in prevention work. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made a point about small businesses. The Federation of Small Businesses has really been helpful on a whole range of these issues, not only about how it can advise its members on best practice, but also reporting back on what it feels are impediments to getting people back into work, and the support needed for small businesses to make reasonable adjustments for people suffering from these conditions.

There is a desperate need to move forward. I welcome what additional money there is, but it will not be used effectively unless there is proper engagement with all concerned with the experience that we have had over the last generation. In my constituency, I am hoping that we can overcome the issues of access to proper advice and to health treatment, and do much more on the preventive side, because many of my constituents are disabled for life as a result of past practices.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

13. What assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of universal credit deductions on levels of food bank use.

[The Minister for Employment (Guy Opperman)]

The Department for Work and Pensions has reduced the standard deduction cap from 40% to 25% of the standard allowance since 2019. Where a person feels they cannot afford benefit overpayment recoveries, they are encouraged to contact the Department.

[Guy Opperman]

In recent years, the standard cap has been reduced, as I said, from 40% to 25%. Reducing the threshold further would risk key social obligations such as child maintenance not being met. We aim to continue to strike the right balance between ensuring that protections are in place and allowing claimants to retain as much of their award as possible.

[Dr Huq]

The role of accommodating food bank Britain has fallen to churches and places of worship, which have also housed playgroups, vaccination centres and warm spaces of late. Given that they are stepping up to fill gaps in state provision—state failure—would Ministers be able to exempt their often crumbling and creaking buildings, whether or not they are listed, from VAT on building repairs, as generosity and him upstairs alone will not pay the bills?

[Guy Opperman]

That is a matter for the Treasury, as I am sure the hon. Lady knows.

People with Disabilities: Cost of Living

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Westminster Hall

[Marion Fellows]

The question of people becoming disabled through no fault of their own is germane to the entire debate. The perception is often that disabled people are the folk we see in wheelchairs who have always been unable to do things. So many people suffer from disabilities through accident or disease, and none of that is foreseeable—whole lives change.

This is my conclusion, I assure you, Dr Huq. Let me lay out disability organisations’ simple asks, which will improve the lives of so many people. Will the Minister talk about Government funding for a social energy tariff that discounts energy bills by 50% for disabled people, carers and those on low incomes? Could people be automatically enrolled in that scheme and could it be mandatory for all suppliers? Will the Government reverse the warm home discount eligibility criteria changes, uprate benefits in line with inflation and ban all forced installations of prepayment meters? Can hon. Members believe that people with disabilities are having prepayment meters forced on them in 2023? May I have the Minister’s assurance that he will look at all those asks, make sure they are acted on and thus end the misery for so many of our disabled citizens, their carers and their families? They are not asking for charity; they are asking for equity. All the people I have spoken about deserve so much better.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

There are three Back Benchers down to speak. I will take the three winding-up speeches from 10.28 am—we do not get any extra time because of the late start—so speeches should be limited to about eight and a half or nine minutes. I call Justin Tomlinson.

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[Justin Tomlinson]

That shows the slight misunderstanding here—and I say that in a good spirit. All the health practitioners who carry out assessments have at least two years’ experience and come from health professional backgrounds. However, the point where the hon. Gentleman is right is that they are not necessarily specialists in certain areas. If someone goes to a GP, the fact that they are the initial gatekeeper to the NHS does not mean they are an expert in everything—they refer people on to specialists. There would generally be five or six assessors in each location, so we cannot expect the collective knowledge of those assessors to cover every single health issue. Through the introduction of telephone and video assessments, however, we can refer people, and that is what I am pushing for. The point is: the role of the assessors was not broken, but it needed improving. That is what both the UK and Scottish Governments were looking to do.

I am urging the Scottish Government to be cautious about relying too much on the claimant, because not all claimants are in a position to argue their case and understand the conditions. It is not even just a case of that; it is also about people being unaware of additional health conditions. I made a point earlier about those with mental health conditions now being six times more likely to get access to the highest rate of PIP. Many people do not realise that their mental wellbeing is being impacted by their physical health condition. They would enter the PIP system thinking, “My physical health condition is impacting on me. I’ll fill in all the bits on that and answer the questions.” However, the assessor’s questions on how that impacts mental wellbeing then begin to identify additional challenges that the claimant was either unaware of or had got used to and took for granted. That then gives them the additional points that allow them to enter the higher rate.

It is same around the special rules for terminal illness. We extended that from six months to 12 months, working with hospices, the health and disability charities and GPs. The Scottish Government, with very good intentions, tried to create a system where it was automatic. They then realised that not everyone can be dealt with automatically, because we are all terminally ill in the sense that nobody lives forever. Conditions then have to be put in, but that inadvertently creates a more complex system. It would have just been easier to say, as Northern Ireland did, “Actually, on this occasion, the UK Government—having listened to the stakeholders and health and disability charities—might be on to something. In this case, we ought to do the same.”

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind the former Minister that he has spoken for 10 and a half minutes, and I did want speeches to be kept within nine minutes. If he wishes to give us a concluding sentence, I will allow it, but we do have other Back Benchers.

[Justin Tomlinson]

Understood, Dr Huq. In conclusion, I urge the Minister to keep a laser-eyed focus on disability employment, ensuring that we provide support for not just the individuals seeking work but employers. The majority of people with disabilities develop them during working age, and we need to ensure that employers—particularly small and medium-sized employers—are equipped to support people with changing health conditions.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

I call Wendy Chamberlain. Keep it within seven minutes, if you can, and then Marion Fellows gets time to wind up.

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[Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I thank the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) for securing this debate on an important matter.

I rise to speak today as the daughter of a woman who lived with disabilities. Her daily challenges were significant, but I did not think of her as disabled until well into my late teens or early 20s, when I fully grasped her reality. That is because she lived a full and active life; she was ferociously independent and did not want her challenges to affect the rest of us or affect how she was treated by other people. I think we all know of people living with disabilities who show immense courage and fortitude. I pay tribute to them, because they do not want to be dependent. They want to live full, independent lives.

We know that the cost of living crisis has had a severe impact on many of our constituents. Last year, I ran a cost of living survey in my constituency. The responses from those caring for people with disabilities and from those living with disabilities were particularly heart-wrenching. One mother made the difficult decision to turn off her disabled son’s oxygen concentrator because she could no longer afford to pay her energy bills. He now relies on oxygen cylinders, which run out and which must be replaced on a regular basis. That brings its own challenges, but effectively their lives are now more complicated than they need to be.

Another constituent, in addition to having a spinal condition that has left him unable to work, is diabetic. He told me that because of the cost of living crisis and food inflation, he can no longer afford to follow the recommended diet for his diabetes. In his own words, he is playing Russian roulette with his health.

We all have examples we could share from our constituents. The simple truth is that the increase in the cost of living has had a disproportionately detrimental effect on people with disabilities. Disabled individuals and their households have, on average, lower incomes than those without disabilities. Furthermore, many people with disabilities have additional costs related to the treatment and mitigation of their condition. Those who encounter difficulty in leaving their home also have the added costs associated with being at home more often, such as higher energy bills.

What is more, even with existing disability-related financial benefits, those with disabilities are more likely to find themselves in relative income poverty. That has been compounded by benefits not having previously kept pace with inflation. Without drastic action, we risk a situation in which the most vulnerable in society are driven further into poverty. Reintroducing the universal credit uplift and extending it to all claimants on legacy benefits is a request that I have had from a number of constituents. What assessment has the Minister made of the help available to those with disabilities in the cost of living crisis?

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

I call the first of the three Front Benchers, David Linden for the SNP.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I pay tribute to you for getting here in double-quick time as a late substitution. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) on securing this debate on a very important topic.

The cost of living crisis has permeated so many different aspects of our communities. The topic is brought up continually in my weekly advice surgeries, where sadly constituents have repeatedly told me that they are struggling to afford their weekly food shops and monthly energy bills. It is very much either/or. I am sure that other MPs in Westminster Hall today can relate to that—how helpless it feels to be sat across the surgery table from people who are clearly struggling and who desperately need support.

In far too many cases, people fall between the cracks and end up without the help that they not only deserve, but are entitled to. That is far too often the case for disabled people, who incur hidden costs through no fault of their own. As we have heard repeatedly this morning, disabled people and their families spend a greater share of their income on food and energy, the commodities that face the steepest rises in inflation. Again, as we have heard, people with special dietary requirements are being hit particularly hard by food inflation, with statistics from January showing that households with specific dietary requirements are paying up to 73% more for their food than those who do not need to buy “free from” products.

Disabled people face many additional costs related to the treatment and mitigation of their disability, such as equipment or therapies. In some utterly awful cases, disabled people face the impossible choice between powering essential medical equipment such as wheelchairs and ventilators and putting food on the table. All those extra costs hit harder because disabled individuals and their households have, on average, lower incomes than their non-disabled counterparts, with 27% of disabled people living in poverty compared with 21% of non-disabled people. The result is that disabled people are more likely to have a lower standard of living, even when they earn the same.

According to research from Scope, on average, disabled households need an additional £975 a month to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households, and if that figure is updated to account for inflation over 2022-23, those extra costs rise to £1,122 a month. The price tag on disability feels incredibly dystopian. What kind of Orwellian society are we living in when having a disability incurs a price tag?

We have only to reflect on the words of Nye Bevan to understand the absurdity of the situation. Bevan said:

“Illness is neither an indulgence for which people have to pay, nor an offence for which they should be penalised, but a misfortune the cost of which should be shared by the community.”

Let me make it clear: illness is not an indulgence or an offence. People should not have to pay or be penalised. If Nye Bevan could understand that in the 1940s, I am puzzled as to why the current British Government are having so much difficulty with the concept.

The Government must do more—so much more—to use all the powers at their disposal to tackle the cost of living crisis on the scale that is required. While the uprating of benefits in line with inflation was welcome, for far too many it sadly came too late. The additional payment of £150 to disabled people, while welcome, will not provide the same long-term assistance as a sustainable benefit uplift. Indeed, Disability Rights UK is on record as saying that the “lack of meaningful increases” in disability benefits over recent years means that the extra £150 “doesn’t touch the sides”, and it is right.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw said, the Scottish Government are taking action within their devolved powers and within their fixed budget to try to help disabled people with the combined effects of higher energy bills, the general rise in inflation and the impact of Westminster policies. Yes, there are things that we can do—for example, the winter heating payment; the Scottish Welfare Fund; spending money on discretionary housing payments, such as the £84.1 million being made available this year; the council tax reduction scheme; and the most generous concessionary bus scheme—but the reality is that devolution was not, and in my view never has been, set up to be a sticking plaster for bad welfare policies made here in London.

Yes, the Scottish Government are doing all that, but they are doing it with one hand tied behind their back. The brutal reality is that every additional pound that we spend on those measures to help with rising costs has to be funded by budgetary reductions elsewhere, given our largely fixed budget and our limited fiscal powers. Scotland has already suffered a decade of British Government-imposed austerity since the financial crisis, which has disproportionately hurt the most vulnerable people in society and has resulted in under-investment in our crucial public services. The SNP Government in Holyrood are using their limited powers and resources to do everything they can, but that has to be matched by the British Government. With every day that Westminster fails to use its reserved powers to adequately tackle the cost of living crisis, it is demonstrating that independence is the only way for people in Scotland to boost their income and build a truly fairer society.

In closing, I emphasise what is at stake for my constituents, whether they are in Barrowfield or Baillieston. We find ourselves in a dire situation in which it literally costs to be disabled—there is a price tag on being diagnosed with a disability. The additional monetary costs associated with being disabled are compounded by the myriad ways in which society is set up to penalise disabled people.

The social model of disability tells us that people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their impairment or by indifference. The barriers can be physical, such as in buildings that do not have accessible toilets or libraries that do not have Braille versions of books; attitudinal, such as the assumption that disabled people cannot do certain things; or systemic, as in this case, when the cost of simply living as a disabled person is higher and Government support has systemically failed. It is only by removing those barriers that we can achieve equality and offer disabled people more independence, choice and control. That is why I believe that the Government must do so much more to protect the most vulnerable in society.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

I call shadow Minister Vicky Foxcroft for the official Opposition.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

The hon. Member is a determined terrier on this issue, and understandably so. Important issues have been raised and it is vital that we get it right. We are carefully considering the issues and we will lay the order before the House as soon as we are able. In parallel, DWP officials are working at pace on implementation plans for the order, as I have discussed with him separately.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

11. What assessment she has made of the adequacy of the state pension in meeting the rising cost of living.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

18. What assessment she has made of the adequacy of the state pension in meeting the rising cost of living.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)]

The Government have announced a £37 billion package of support to help people with the cost of living. The full basic state pension is now £2,300 a year higher than in 2010 and is supported by many other measures.

[Dr Huq]

It is good to see the Minister back; there is nothing like organised labour to effect progress.

In reality the state pension has not managed to keep up with the multiple crises we face: we have the Ukraine crisis pushing up food and fuel prices on top of the existing cost of living crisis. Yet the Ministerial and other Pensions and Salaries Act 1991 dictates that last week’s non-returning Ministers, including an alleged groper, are set to net £423,000 in severance payments. Given the widespread public revulsion among our constituents feeling the pinch, including state pensioners, does the Minister not see that there is an argument for the non-exercise of that provision in this instance, because—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am not quite sure about the significance of this; the question is not that wide.

[Dr Huq]

This is about the pensions Act, Mr Speaker; I asked about this on Thursday. Does the Minister not see that this looks really bad to the general public in a cost of living crisis and that there is a good argument for the non-exercise of the Act in this instance?

[Mr Speaker]

Minister, can you pick something out of that?

Working Tax Credit and Universal Credit: Two-Child Limit

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss]

That is absolutely correct. I will go on to talk about some of the exemptions to the policy and how ludicrous they are, but for a crime such as rape to have some place within Government policy on benefits is quite abhorrent.

The first difficulty with this policy is that it gives an arbitrary cut-off date, resulting in two classes of families: those with children born prior to 6 April 2017 and those with children born after that. For the arbitrary quirk of fate of bringing a baby into this world a minute after midnight, a family will find itself £2,935 worse off per year. I give some credit to the former Secretary of State, Amber Rudd, for not making the policy retrospective, as was originally intended. However, having recognised the inherent unfairness of the policy, she ought to have abolished it altogether.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The hon. Member is making a powerful speech, and she talked about changes before and after this policy was introduced. Has she seen the figure that since covid started, 27% more families now fall under the two-child-limit policy? Does she agree with the Bishop of Manchester, who said last year that the policy “defies moral justification”? When it was first introduced, 60 bishops, as well as Muslim and Jewish leaders, wrote a joint letter to The Times saying:

“Children are a private joy and a public good. They are all equally deserving of subsistence support.”

[Alison Thewliss]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Member on that point and with those religious leaders who wrote that letter then and who continue to campaign on the issue now. I will touch on some of that a little later.

The effect of the two-tier policy that has been created is that a family with three children, the youngest being six, will receive support. However, a family with three children, the youngest being four, will not. The needs of these families are exactly the same, but this Government have decided that they are not entitled to the same support. Previous research on the issue has found that in some cases older siblings can come to resent the new baby in the family, because they have lost out on their activities, their sports clubs and the things they used to do because the family no longer has the money to get by. It is desperately unfair that children are already losing out on wider life experiences because of this discriminatory policy, as well as now on the very basics because of the cost of living crisis.

I will describe some of the other inconsistencies in the policy in some detail, because every time I explain them to people they are absolutely baffled; I would like to hear the Minister’s answer to the mad exemptions that exist. On the exemption policy for multiple births, if someone happens to have twins after having a single birth, there is an exemption to the policy, which is fine. If they have twins first and then go on to have another baby, they are not entitled to support, presumably because they should have known better. There are three children in each scenario, but different support.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) mentioned, the rape clause is even more pernicious. For this exemption, a woman has to fill in a form and have her traumatic experience verified by an official to say that her third child was conceived through rape or a coercive relationship. This form exists and has to be signed off by a professional to verify that someone has had a child in that circumstance. However, it can be claimed only if the person is not living with the parent of that child.

We know that forcing a woman to leave a relationship can put her and her children in danger, but that reality does not appear to trouble the Department for Work and Pensions. Some 1,330 women claimed under the exemption in 2021. The really perverse part of this pernicious and stigmatising policy is that it applies only to third and subsequent children. If someone’s first child was conceived as the result of rape and they went on to have two more children, that is just unlucky for them as far as the DWP is concerned.

The exemptions around adoption are also perverse. There is no additional support for an adopted child if they are adopted from abroad, or if a person and their partner were that child’s parent or step-parent immediately before they adopted them. Why on earth would this Government want to disincentivise adoption? The exemption for kinship carers, who were losing out on support for their own children because they had been so good as to care for others, was only granted after the Government were taken to court. It should not take legal action for this Government to recognise and fix their mistakes, but we know the DWP repeats this pattern again and again.

The effect of this policy is well documented and well assessed, and I pay tribute to the Child Poverty Action Group, the Church of England and other faith groups including the Interlink Foundation, which represents the orthodox Jewish community. As my hon. Friend mentioned, there is a discrimination at the heart of this policy that affects people of faith. It sticks in my craw to see Easter greetings from Members of this place—the Holy Willies of this place—when their faith does not extend to supporting children, who they are instead actively pushing into poverty through the policies they advocate. How does the Minister believe this policy affects people of differing backgrounds and faiths, and how can he say the policy is fair in this context?

Regional Inequalities: Child Poverty

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

We have done the maths, and we think we can do this. If everyone sticks to three and a half minutes or less, then everyone will get in. I start with Peter Gibson.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) on securing this important debate.

Child poverty has been rising in the UK, with a quarter of all children now living in poverty—more than 3.4 million children. Of those children, 75% are from working families. When children in our society face poverty as they are growing up, society as a whole suffers as a result. Yet, since 2010 there has been little, if any, intervention to stem the insecurities facing many families on the poverty line. As we begin the road to recovery after the pandemic, there is the opportunity for real change, but the perfect storm is coming for families across the UK as we approach the new tax year, with skyrocketing energy bills, an increasingly expensive weekly shop, a hike in national insurance and a cut to universal credit. This complex situation will mean that many more families will face strains on their household budgets and risk falling into food insecurity.

Not every child living in poverty facing food insecurity is eligible for free school meals. In the north-east, one quarter of children in poverty are not eligible for a free school meal according to the narrow £7,400 household income threshold. Meanwhile, 150,000 children across the country with no recourse to public funds live below the poverty line but remain ineligible for free school meals because of their immigration status. There was a temporary reprieve for those children during the pandemic; I plead with the Government to make it permanent.

We will all know that hungry children cannot learn, but this simple phrase is becoming a complex reality for far too many children and young people across the country. The burden of the gaps in the provision of free school meals often rests on schools that are having to subsidise parents who cannot pay—something that is not sustainable. Urgent attention must be paid to addressing the shortcomings in school food provision, to ensure that all children experiencing poverty have access to a hot, healthy and balanced meal each school day.

The recent levelling-up White Paper gave warm words to the importance of school food in combating health inequalities such as malnourishment and obesity. The prevalence of obesity has risen markedly since the start of the pandemic, no more so than for children from deprived and left-behind areas. It is a stark reality that the cheapest food is often the most calorific. It is far more expensive to fill up hungry children with healthy food. To give a quick example, four chocolate muffins are £1 in supermarket; six apples are usually £2.

The warm words of the levelling-up White Paper are not matched by reality. Over 1,300 Sure Starts have closed since the Conservatives got into government. At their peak, Sure Starts prevented more than 16,000 hospitalisations of children every year. We need more than warm words form the Government. Children and families experiencing poverty must be at the heart of levelling up. They need security and real policy changes, so that every child has the opportunity to do well in life. They need a Government who truly believe that poverty is not inevitable and act with passion every day to make it history.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Let me remind Members that the clock is ticking and all speakers have got very near the limit.