Welfare Reform Bill

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Curran]

If I made that mistake, I am very grateful for the opportunity to correct it. We are talking about the mobility component of DLA, which will be transferred to PIP. I will come on to broader concerns about PIP later, but I thank the hon. Gentleman.

I was talking about how the Government are addressing the issue of overlap and introducing a review. I assume that part of their concern is the need for greater consistency in how funding for people who live in residential care is arranged. I put it to the Minister directly that if there needs to be greater consistency in how the transport and wider mobility needs of residents are addressed, she should issue the appropriate guidelines to care homes. Whatever she chooses to do to address the matter, it is plainly wrong and irresponsible to make victims of the residents themselves by the blanket withdrawal of a benefit to which they are legitimately entitled.

The core of the argument, which should determine how we vote today, is that the power in clause 83 is necessary only if the Government want to remove payments solely on the basis that someone lives in a residential care home. If that is not the aim, we need to change the Bill.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

On that point, does the hon. Lady agree that under article 20 of the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, on personal mobility, and article 31 of the UN convention on the rights of the child, removing the mobility component from children in residential homes may amount to a breach of the UK’s obligations in human rights conventions?

[Margaret Curran]

That is a very interesting observation, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for drawing it to the House’s attention. I know that he takes a great interest in these matters. That point gives us even more reason to argue that Members should support the amendments—they would avoid any problem of that nature.

When the Minister is not talking about “overlap” in an attempt to address the problem in question, she is talking about the need for a review. It was promised that the review, first announced earlier this year, would look into the provision of DLA mobility to those in residential care homes, which I know offered some succour to Members who were concerned about the matter. Labour Members were mildly optimistic that that was a signal that the Government were undertaking a rethink, as we know they are prepared to do when the time is right. However, we have been sadly disappointed. Although a review was launched, it has no time scale, there are no terms of reference, no review group has been established and there is no involvement for disabled people. No wonder people are confused about where the policy stands.

I remind the House that at Prime Minister’s questions on 23 March, the Prime Minister offered the Leader of the Opposition an opportunity to contribute to the review. I do not think that possibility actually exists. Have the terms of reference of the review been made public? No. Will the findings be published? No. This is not a review, it is, as the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) said, a delaying tactic to cover up a deeply flawed policy. In my wilder moments I thought it was perhaps an appeasement of some Liberal Democrat Members, because we know that their party conference overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning the policy. The Liberal Democrats in Committee disappeared when the matter was voted on. They are here today, so I hope they will join us and help to defeat this particularly pernicious part of the Bill. I appeal to them to make their presence felt today in a way that they did not in Committee.

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[Margaret Curran]

I acknowledge that many disabled people and disability organisations are extremely concerned about that, given the Government’s track record on this. We cannot underestimate or brush aside the level of anxiety of many people in this country about the reform of DLA. Many people find incredibly stressful and worrying the prospect of having to go through a new face-to-face assessment to prove their disability, despite it being abundantly clear, in order to receive help.

It is the Government’s job to assure disabled people that the introduction of PIPs—I know that the Minister tries to do this—will not mean the end of financial support for disabled people. Given the Minister’s efforts on that, I plead with the Government to go that extra mile to assure disabled people that the process is about meaningful reform of an important benefit, rather than an attempt to remove it from those whom they can get away with removing it from. One way the Government can do that is by ensuring that the most severely disabled members of our society do not face needless upheaval and uncertainty over the future of support following the introduction of PIPs.

[Stephen Lloyd]

I understand where the hon. Lady is coming from, but does she agree that the Government have made good progress by bringing in Professor Harrington to ensure that the test—which, to be honest, we inherited from the previous Government—is improved?

[Margaret Curran]

That test was introduced for the work capability assessment and the application of employment and support allowance, as the hon. Gentleman knows. Of course I acknowledge that the Minister is working with disabled people to try to ensure that the test is as effective as it can be, but I have to tell the hon. Gentleman and the Minister that most disabled people are saying that they are not satisfied. I do not think that reassurances have been given that the test is right yet. None the less, what I am talking about in this debate is automatic entitlement, which is a different issue. Even if the test were perfect, which would be very hard to achieve—we are very far from that—putting people through needless assessments, all at a cost, would still not be worth it when they are clearly disabled. Retaining automatic entitlement for severely disabled people would be a small step, but would enable the Government to send out an important signal to show that they are listening and that they get some of this. The big cry coming from disabled people is that there has been no shift from the Government and no signals, and that they do not get it.

Amendment 60, which is our final amendment in the group, would ensure that the process of reassessment will result in an orderly, careful and efficient transition for working-age claimants. As I have said before, we need to keep in mind the scale of the exercise that the Government are proposing to undertake. We are talking about reassessing 1.8 million working-age people on DLA in the space of just three years. To meet that goal, the Government would need to reassess—I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North that I do have the figures for this—roughly 600,000 people, which is 11,500 people a week or more than 2,000 a day. That is the scale of the process that disabled people will have to go through.

Given the scale and depth of concern about this issue, our amendment 60 proposes that checks and balances be written into the Bill to ensure that lessons are learnt as reform develops—we have tried to learn some of those lessons ourselves—and that the teething problems of assessment are addressed and disabled people have the confidence that reform will work for them. Amendment 60 would embrace this opportunity to send out a clear message that we will learn from mistakes in the system and iron out anomalies in the assessment before we start to assess some of the most vulnerable people currently receiving DLA, by ensuring that only new applicants are assessed first. That is what the safeguard would do. Amendment 60 is fair and proportionate. We are not saying that reassessment is wrong; we are simply saying that it needs to be done properly and carefully, and that it should be phased, with the Secretary of State playing a key role in the process to ensure clear scrutiny and accountability.

The amendments would ensure that the personal independence payment was a fairer, more effective and workable reform. As I set out in my introductory remarks, the Opposition support reform and the principles of reform; however, the Government have wasted a significant opportunity to introduce such reform. If the universal credit penalises families of disabled children by halving the support available to them; penalises severely disabled people who live alone by neglecting to replicate the severe disability premium or the personal independence payment; penalises disabled people in residential care homes by removing their DLA mobility component; penalises disabled people by making them wait six months before they receive the support that they need; and creates uncertainty and needless anxiety for the most disabled people in our society by removing their automatic entitlement to the new benefit, is it any wonder that we are opposed to this Bill?

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[Jeremy Corbyn]

I will be brief because many other hon. Members wish to speak, and under the timetabling motion we have to conclude by 6 pm, which is very inadequate given the seriousness of the issues. I shall speak specifically to amendments 43, 76 and 77. Amendment 43 was tabled by my Front Bench colleagues and I am happy to support it. I have added my name to it and I hope that they have noted that. Amendments 76 and 77 were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg).

This morning, I was at a commendable place known as Centre 404 in Islington, which provides support and activity for those with physical disabilities and learning difficulties, as well as support for their carers and families. It has been going for 60 years and is a very successful and effective organisation. The large numbers of people there this morning were discussing the introduction of PIPs and the issues surrounding carers week. Before we go into the details of the amendments, we should think for a moment about the enormous amount of work done by carers, who are inadequately recompensed and save the economy vast sums of money. If they were they not doing this work and giving up their careers and lives to care for those who desperately need their help and support, that care would simply not be provided and the costs to the state would be far greater, so we should recognise the economic contribution they make in a decent and humane way.

The Minister said that I conflated the question of jobseeker’s allowance interviews with PIPs. In a sense I did, because I was drawing attention to how people were dragged in for interview. For example, a lady told me—she is a much respected member of the community active on these issues—that her doubly incontinent adult daughter, who has learning difficulties, was told to go to a jobcentre for a jobseeker’s allowance work interview. It is expensive, unpleasant, wasteful, stressful for everyone concerned and an utter waste of time, and considerable damage and humiliation is caused to the individual and their family. That is why amendment 43, which would exempt those with prescribed medical conditions, would be a sensible, important and useful change to the Bill.

The Disability Alliance described to me how PIPs are likely to come in and how the assessments will take place, and the word that kept recurring was “continual”—continual prompting, continual help, continual assistance, continual support—which is interesting, because a person with a sporadic mental health difficulty does not need absolutely continual help and support, yet they do need help and support on a continuing basis. Do they then lose out on PIPs?

[Stephen Lloyd]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that definition also perfectly describes people with multiple sclerosis, which is a fluctuating condition? Someone with multiple sclerosis might need very little support one day, but literally within 24 hours might require substantial support.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South pointed out that there are some conditions that although not terminal or immediately life threatening are nevertheless very debilitating. MS fluctuates in its intensity and the intensity of care and support needed.

People with a long-term, continual and severe disability should be exempt, and should not be forced to go through this interview process. In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran), who sits on the Front Bench, I raised concerns about the costs of taking people in for interview, refusing them and then putting them through an appeals process, only for them to end up, months later, exactly where they started—with lots of costs, lots of time, lots of humiliation and lots of waste at the end of it. Amendment 43 would make a pretty appalling Bill very slightly better by recognising that those with permanent and long-term conditions should not have to go through this process. I therefore hope that the House will recognise the amendment’s importance and be prepared to pass it today.

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[Fiona O'Donnell]

As someone who became a Member only recently, I would rather that I was not called old-fashioned just yet. The hon. Gentleman completely misses the point.

On how people will be affected by the change to the mobility component of DLA, there is a genuine and general lack of understanding of what residential care is about and the experiences of the people living in it. I was worried that the Minister used the word “overlap” again and again, because we do not know what that will be or how it will be defined. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) asked, will it be defined on a group basis or individually? We are asked to have confidence that people will have the same choice, flexibility, independence and dignity in their lives, but I do not think that I can do so on the basis of what I have heard from the Minister.

I worked for a number of years in a residential home in Perthshire called Upper Springland, which is owned and run by Capability Scotland. If hon. Members and the Minister in particular want information about what the reform will mean, I suggest they read a report that was commissioned by Capability Scotland and the Margaret Blackwood housing association called “How am I going to put flowers on my dad’s grave?”. I shall not apologise if I become a little sentimental in the next part of my speech because I want to talk about some of the people I met in that residential home.

I do not judge people for not really understanding what a residential home is about because when I arrived at Upper Springland, it was not what I expected. People had not only a front door through which staff could enter after knocking, but a back door. It was entirely appropriate that they came and went without us knowing their movements. Sometimes they did not come home at night, in the way that many of us might have done in our misspent youth, but accessing that kind of information was no business of ours. Many people—I was glad that the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) raised this point—had come from as far away as Wales to live in Perth at Upper Springland because it was such a centre of excellence. This is the point at which I need to know what the Minister means by “overlap” because I remember how important it was to Fiona, that young woman from Wales, that she could attend her father’s funeral service.

Upper Springland had several adapted buses as well as individual cars that residents could use. There were regular trips to Perth so that people could access shops and occasional drivers were on duty at the weekend. However, it did not go as far as to provide a service to Fiona that would allow her to travel back to Wales to be at her father’s funeral. Would the Minister see the service at that residential home as duplication? Would she have removed Fiona’s mobility component, meaning that it would have been virtually impossible for her to attend her father’s funeral?

[Stephen Lloyd]

I hope the hon. Lady accepts that my determination and passion about, and commitment to, people with disabilities are perhaps equal even to hers. As I have listened to the debate, and especially to the previous few speakers, I have become frustrated by hon. Members’ assumptions that everything that the Government are doing is bad and for the worst reasons. She cites the example of a funeral as if to intimate that that would not be covered. I think that is scaremongering. I ask that she thinks carefully about the language she uses.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

I absolutely will not withdraw my comment. This is not scaremongering. I am setting out exactly the kind of concern that has been raised in a report commissioned by two of Scotland’s leading disability charities. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that those charities would be as irresponsible as to carry out scaremongering and to frighten the people who form part of their organisations—the people for whom they stand up—it is he who has something to answer for.