Disabled People

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Even if there were sufficient accommodation for this huge change to take place, the trauma that people with disabilities, and in many cases their carers, will be asked to go through is simply unacceptable.

Each of the people I have described stands to lose a minimum of £401 a year. At a time of rising fuel costs and rising prices in the shops, that £401 can be the difference between having electricity or not, having a warm home or not, or having three meals a day or not. The bedroom tax is creating fear and despair among the most vulnerable in my constituency and the country.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Is it not the point that, according to the Government’s forward budgets, they expect to make a saving from the bedroom tax, but if the people affected moved there would not be a saving? That is how cynical the policy is.

[Mr Clarke]

Again, that is a good point. I think of a constituent whose case I raised with the Prime Minister. I visited her the day after our exchange. Her house has been adapted because she is in a wheelchair, which she has to use upstairs as well as downstairs, so she needed a lift. That lift was provided in one of the rooms of her house. Are we to believe that it would help society for that woman to move to a smaller house, which would also have to be adapted? Where is the sanity of that, far less the decency?

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[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I fear that that will be the last intervention that I take. In the first instance, it is not about trying to cut how much money people get; its purpose is to direct the funds, recognising the expenditure constraints. The Opposition, in their robotic insistence on very simple, clear messages that are completely false and not based on any sense of reality, have forgotten about that. Considering that the DLA budget has gone up £10 billion in real terms—that is more than the Home Office budget or what we receive from capital gains tax and inheritance tax—it is vital that we are more sensible and intelligent in how we apply those funds.

It is perfectly clear to me that the PIP reform will be much more intelligently applied than the DLA, the costs of which spiralled, as I have suggested. We had a self-regulatory system, whereby people could essentially say that they were eligible for the benefit.

[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—

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[Greg Mulholland]

I say two things to the hon. Gentleman. First, the experience of all right hon. and hon. Members is crucial; each and every one of us should be bringing constituents’ cases not only to this House, but to Ministers. That is part of how we learn.

Secondly, all Governments must be prepared to do full impact assessments of policies before they are implemented, as has been done, and then to review them constantly. I do not want the message to be sent out that the Government are afraid of doing that. We need a constant and ongoing review, and I hope we get that message. I have made that point specifically about the under-occupancy penalty, to give that policy its honest and factual name.

We have to accept that there were many flaws in the system inherited by the Government. Although undoubtedly well intentioned and in some ways positive, the Welfare Reform Act 2007 had flaws and did not always do the kind of things that we would all want it to do. It was right that it was reviewed.

The question that we should ask, and I hope we will all ask today, is not about whether reform was needed, because it very clearly was, but about whether the reforms are the right ones. We should be asking that question continually, and not from a partisan perspective on either side. Are the reforms working and delivering for disabled people? If and where they are not working, we should look into that. I have no problem in saying that and urging Ministers to review the situation on an ongoing basis.

[Sheila Gilmore]

In the course of the debates about the Welfare Reform Bill, people predicted that a number of specific issues would be difficult. For example, there was an amendment suggesting that adapted properties should be exempted from the bedroom tax. Does the hon. Gentleman now regret that his party did not support those changes?

[Greg Mulholland]

I pay tribute to the work of the Work and Pensions Committee, of which I was proud to be a member in the last Parliament. It has a vital role to play and I look forward to its ongoing reports, which should be part of the review of these policies.

The hon. Lady knows, having listened to me in debates on more than one occasion, that I personally felt unable to support the under-occupancy penalty precisely because there were not the sort of exemptions that I believed should be included. I thank Ministers for listening to at least some of my points and introducing further exemptions before the policy was introduced, but I would like more exemptions and I will continue to press for them.

During our last debate on the subject, I stood in this exact place—the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) was probably very near where she is now—and said that the Government must and should commit to a review on the specific policy. We did get that commitment. There must be a review, which should be done not only through the Department for Work and Pensions but in conjunction with councils up and down the country, so that we get an open and honest assessment of how the policy is affecting disabled people.

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[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

To justify many of their benefit changes the Government have had to construct a narrative that the system required a complete overhaul. I suspect we shall hear that from the Minister when she responds to the debate, so I shall pre-empt it with a narrative about the disability living allowance.

The DLA is old-fashioned and too reliant on physical disabilities. The Minister is fond of saying that the new system will be better for those with learning difficulties, mental health problems and so on, but if overall numbers are to be reduced—nobody has suggested they will not be—and more people with mental health problems are included, who will be excluded? We need to know that.

It has been argued that DLA is too easy to obtain, but more than half of all claims are refused when first applied for. Part of the idea that DLA is too easy to get was set out to the House again by the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng). He claimed that most people get DLA by filling in a form, which is all they have to do, but that is simply not the case. Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions from 2010 state that 16% of decisions are made without “additional” information, other than the form, but that does not mean that medical information is not provided because people send it with the form. Some 36% of decisions are made on the basis of further non-medical information—remember that there may already be medical information—such as phoning the claimant to get more information or speaking to a carer, and 48% of decisions are made on the basis of further medical information or assessment. Worryingly, in a press release from as recently as June this year, the DWP again repeated that more than half of claims are made without any medical information. It is not helpful to keep repeating things that are not accurate.

The other accusation about DLA was that claims are never looked at again, and the June press release stated that 71% of current recipients “get” indefinite rewards. The tense is important because if we read “get”, we presume that something is still ongoing. In fact, in 2010, 77% of new claims were for fixed periods, and 23% were indefinite. The figure in the press release goes back to 1992, when many more indefinite claims were granted. Things have already changed. If we start making policy on the basis of false premises, and create a straw man—as the Government constantly do to justify what they are doing—the chances are that we will get things wrong.

One group of people who are very badly affected by these changes are those in the 45 to 65 age group. If they fall ill, they lose income from their job. For many couples, that means a halving of their income, and of course they will have higher costs for such things as heating. Many lose employment and support allowance after a year if they are in the work-related activity group, often because they have a partner’s earnings, even if that partner works only part time; savings towards their retirement, which they will now have to use up before they ever get to retirement age; or an early retirement pension. Given the forthcoming increase in pension age, people will be in that limbo for a lot longer. The people who have tried to help themselves are being hit particularly hard.

The same group may be among those who do not receive the personal independence payment. Some 66% of those on the lowest rate of DLA are aged over 45, so they are likely to be the most affected. That is also the age at which illness and disability are most likely to occur. If they are tenants, they are also likely to be affected by the bedroom tax. Those are important issues for that group.

Ministers constantly tell us, “Well, we’re not doing a cumulative impact assessment because the previous Government did not do one.” However, it is this Government who boast about carrying out a comprehensive and revolutionary reshaping of the welfare system. If they do not do a cumulative impact assessment when they are doing that, when would they? It is important that that is carried out properly so that we can see what is going on and make the necessary adjustments rather than simply say it will be all right on the night.