Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I can only guess that the hon. Lady is making a strange reference to the Conservative manifesto. We were very clear in our manifesto that we are still only halfway through the job of getting the deficit down to zero. It stands at £3,300 for every household in the United Kingdom and we said very clearly during the election campaign that, as part of that, we needed to make £12 billion of welfare savings. What was not in our manifesto was the national living wage.

The Chancellor has said that he has listened to concerns from colleagues in this House and will come forward with proposals in the autumn statement to achieve the goal of reforming tax credits, saving the money needed to secure our economy while helping with the transition through the changes. I do not believe that the new clauses are therefore appropriate for inclusion in the Bill.

I now turn to amendments 49 to 52, which intend to prevent the freeze for four years of working age benefits, child benefit and tax credits. The freeze of the main rates of the majority of working age benefits, child benefit and tax credits will, in total, contribute some £3.5 billion of savings by 2019-20, and will help us to achieve our objective of deficit elimination. It will put welfare on a fairer and more sustainable footing so that we can continue our investment in our national health service and our schools, even as we get the national finances back into balance.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) pointed out, there is an imbalance in a system that has seen a rise in average earnings of 12% since 2008, and in working age benefits, such as jobseekers’ allowance, of 21%. The individual element of child tax credit has risen by 33%. The freeze will help reverse that trend, helping earnings to grow faster than benefits, which will strengthen the incentives to work, and deliver the savings necessary to bring down the overall welfare bill. None the less, the Government will continue to offer protections to the most vulnerable. We know the best way to support people is to help them move closer to the labour market, but of course we realise that that is not possible for everyone. That is why we have made many important exemptions to the four-year freeze. We have exempted pensioner-related benefits, personal independence payment, disability allowance and attendance allowance relating to the additional cost of disability as well as statutory payments, carers’ allowance, the support group component of the employment and support allowance and disability elements in tax credits.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

The list that the Minister has just given to the House underscores entirely the compassionate, one nation Conservative approach that we are taking to these issues in sharp contradistinction to the Opposition parties, which seek to lecture but which have no remedy.

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend is right, and it is right that those exemptions are made.

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[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend makes an entirely valid point. Disabled people will find it more and more difficult to live fulfilling lives that enable them to make contact and fulfil their potential, which everyone should have the right to do, so it will be a disincentive.

[Simon Hoare]

I am chairman of the all-party group on multiple sclerosis. I entirely understand the hon. Lady’s concern and, indeed, the sort of representations made by the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson). However, does she take heart, as I do, from the fact that Ministers are part of a party that brought forward pioneering legislation on disability rights, which should provide comfort that Ministers on the Treasury Bench will make sure that no policy will leave people behind?

[Debbie Abrahams]

Yes, it is right to acknowledge the Government’s role in bringing in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, but this Bill flies in the face of that legacy. I really hope that by the end of today, the Government will be able to provide some reassurance, because to date there has simply been none for disabled people.

In Committee, the Minister said that these cuts would not affect people currently on the ESA WRAG, but does that mean that people diagnosed with progressive conditions, but assessed after the Bill is enacted, will be deemed to have a different form of the progressive condition? Will they require less support, or do the Government finally accept that, apart from being dehumanising and exacerbating people’s health conditions, the work capability assessment is not fit for purpose and needs a complete overhaul so that people with progressive conditions are not placed in the ESA WRAG? I would really appreciate some clarity on that point.

Surely if the Government were serious about supporting disabled people into work, there would be measures in place to support into work those disabled people who are able to work. How many employers will be engaged? Although the Disability Confident scheme is a good first step, only 68 employers are currently active in it, and they will certainly not be able to support the 1.3 million disabled people who are able to and want to work. Do the Government intend to extend Access to Work beyond the 35,000 disabled people it helped stay in work or into a new job last year? What is going to happen about the appalling ratio of one disability employment adviser for 600 disabled people? [Interruption.] What estimates are there of the impact on the employment of disabled people of this measure and the reduction of the 30% disability employment gap?

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[Simon Hoare]

Hitherto, the hon. Lady has been making a very thoughtful and considered speech. It may not be up to me, as a new Member, to say this, but the sentence that she has just uttered has fundamentally undermined the cause of her argument, and I invite her to reconsider it.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I appreciate that it is strong language, but I can only provide the hon. Gentleman with the evidence. In 2010, the use of the term “scrounger” by the mainstream press had increased by more than 330%, and it has remained at that level. We should always be mindful of the language that we use as leaders, and of how it is perpetuated.

[Debbie Abrahams]

I used that language to draw attention to the issue in the House, and more widely. I did so partly because I am sure I am not the only one to remember the autumn statement two or three years ago in which the Chancellor, at the Dispatch Box, referred to “closed curtains” when people were going out to work. It was quite clear what that implied. I use such language very carefully, and I repeat that its use in the media has increased by 330%. We all have a responsibility in this regard, including the country’s leaders.

The innuendo is that people with a disability or illness might be faking it or feckless. That is grotesque. As a former public health consultant, I speak with some knowledge. It is recognised that incapacity benefit and ESA are good population health indicators, and the release of the Government’s own data has proved the point. Disabled people in the ESA WRAG are a vulnerable group who need our care and support, and not our humiliation.

[Simon Hoare]

rose—

[Debbie Abrahams]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman one more time.