Department for Education

Stephen Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

I would like to begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Ruth George) on the way in which she opened the debate. The context set out for us by the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field), of the cuts since 2010 should be borne in mind during the debate. The House of Commons Library estimates cuts of £37 billion to working-age social security since 2010 and £4.8 billion to disability benefits.

I want to talk about a couple of cases, one of which relates to decision making in personal independence payment cases. I was interested that the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) raised the issue of PIP being a bit of a problem. I have seen numerous instances of very poor-quality decision making in PIP cases, particularly when people are migrated from DLA to PIP. These are people with multiple and severe disabilities, often with lifetime awards under DLA, with fluctuating yet deteriorating conditions and usually with the higher rate mobility component entitling them to a Motability vehicle, but they simply lose that when assessed for PIP and consequently lose their cars and their mobility—the one thing that makes their lives a little easier.

In a recent written answer, the Government admitted that 44%, or a staggering 157,740 people, who were previously getting the higher rate mobility component under DLA had been reassessed and lost their eligibility to the equivalent rate. No doubt some people’s entitlement has been raised—I accept that—but a lot of disabled people have lost their access to a vehicle and had their lives upturned and made much harder, often wrongly. These decisions, many of which are perverse, have come to my advice surgery. They are inevitably overturned when they finally get to an appeal, but that takes months. When they do get to appeal, 70% of cases are overturned, and people get their higher rate mobility back.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (Ind)]

People do not get any of that additional money during the months that they have to wait for an appeal. The Government say, “Yes, but if you do win the appeal, you get the money back,” but for people who are short of money and on the breadline, this can mean many months of lost income.

[Maria Eagle]

The hon. Gentleman is correct. For people waiting, it may as well be never. The Courts and Tribunals Service tells me that on Merseyside the average waiting time for an appeal is 38 to 42 weeks—10 months.

I have a constituent whose mother came to me in despair for help. She is a young woman of 29 years but has serious and worsening immune conditions, which are baffling her doctors and causing her health to deteriorate. She has so many conditions, and I will not go through them all, but she can hardly walk at the best of times and sometimes is in a much worse state. She often has to visit four different hospitals, sometimes with two or three appointments a week, and has been using a Motability car to do so. However, she does not have her Motability car any more because it has been taken away. She had a lifetime award of higher rate mobility under DLA, but when she was migrated to PIP, she was only awarded the lower rate. She appealed for a tribunal hearing last May and is yet to receive a date for it. She was recently told that she is likely to have to wait another six months, but my office is trying to get that hearing expedited.

The young woman’s mother came to see me because the car had to be returned and the first trip to hospital without it cost the family £17.50 one way. Her parents are low-paid workers and cannot afford to make such payments. The family were considering having to choose which hospital appointments to go to, which is a shocking situation. Fortunately, the Mayor of Liverpool has a hardship fund. I have referred her to that, which is now paying for the family’s taxi trips, but she should not have to rely on that kind of assistance when she is entitled to the payments; I have no doubt that she will get her car back when she finally gets an appeal heard.

I want to raise another benefits issue affecting disabled young people who have special educational needs. It is about a difference between the rules for ESA and the rules for universal credit that seriously affects a small number of young people with special educational needs. My constituent Antony Hamilton has autism and developmental co-ordination disorder. He is in receipt of PIP and has an education, health and care plan, which required him to complete two years of specialist post-16 education provision before going on to do A-levels. As a consequence, he is a bit older than the typical A-level student, and he turned 20 at the beginning of the second year of his A-level course last October. The child tax credits and child benefit his father received for him ended at that time, but he still had most of a year of full-time education to go.

Under the legacy working-age benefits, Antony could have applied for non-contributory ESA to cover the financial loss, which is £170 a week. Under universal credit, however, there is no such option. He has been told he would have to apply for universal credit, undergo a work capability assessment and be required to work or search for it, which is something he cannot do because he is in full-time education. It is Catch-22 for people like Antony. He is working hard to achieve in educational terms, but his parents are having to spend their small savings to help him to be able to finish his A-levels. The letter his father got from the DWP said:

“The Department of Work and Pensions…does not set the policy and legislation relating to UC, this is the responsibility of the UK Government.”

Will the Minister please enlighten us about who is setting this policy, and about what he is going to do to help Antony?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (Ind)]

Like others, I pay tribute to our colleague the hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George) for securing this important debate.

In the limited time available, I want to concentrate on a couple of elements of universal credit in which technical failings still cause real difficulty for individuals who receive it. I am aware that the new Secretary of State has been in listening mode, has taken on board some of the criticisms that she has heard in the House, and has improved and applied the suggestions that have been made. I hope that the Minister will give some feedback on these specific issues, so that the Department can improve the position.

When people who are moved on to universal credit already have a medical condition or disability, they are immediately placed in an assessment period similar to the one that in which they were placed when receiving employment and support allowance. The problem is that the period can be as long as 14 weeks, during which time their incomes can be cut by as much as £200, £300 or even £400 a month. If people on low incomes must wait 14 weeks for the result of an assessment that they have already undergone to receive ESA, that is clearly an anomaly in the universal credit system, which I urge the Minister to examine, respond to, and fix.

There is a second element of universal credit that involves an anomaly. When someone who has been receiving a severe or an enhanced disability allowance—which is only received by those with very significant impairments—moves on to universal credit, that person will automatically lose the additional money. The point of the enhanced disability allowance, which has existed for a long time, is to help people with severe disabilities to receive that little bit of extra money which enables them to function and lead secure and independent lives. I ask Members to imagine immediately losing up to £300 or £400 a month. It would catastrophically damage one’s income. I should be grateful if Ministers revisited and fixed both those anomalies.

Let me finish with a couple of real stories of the kind that we all encounter in our constituencies. They concern tribunals. My senior casework manager, Scott Stevens, is an outstanding advocate for disabled people. During both my times in Parliament, I have always done my best to ensure that he, or one of my team, represents disabled constituents at tribunals as their advocate. I pay tribute to Scott: he has a success rate of about 85%. When disabled people come to me in connection with tribunals and we are able to support them, we win 85% of those cases.

“Win/lose” is rather inappropriate language in this context, and I will explain why. We won a case at a disability tribunal on Monday. Again, Scott was there, acting as an advocate. What did we win? This was an individual who has between three and five epileptic episodes daily, both during the daytime and in the evenings. She had received the personal independence payment for a long time, but was knocked off it 10 months or a year ago, so we had to go to the tribunal to enable her to be put back on to it. I repeat that this is someone with an epileptic condition experiencing three to five episodes a day, yet she was considered not suitable to receive PIP. Members in the Chamber will not be surprised when I tell them that she was restored to 11.5 points so she now gets her PIP entitlement. That is just wrong: it is wrong that she has had to wait 10 months—and we can imagine the amount of debt my constituent is in because obviously she has not been receiving the full entitlement for 10 months. So I pay tribute to Scott Stevens for winning that case and I pay tribute to my constituent and I am glad she has got her PIP entitlement back, but I really do think the DWP has to revisit this so people do not keep having to go to tribunals.

[Several hon. Members rose—]