Disability Support

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman]

If those schemes were so good, the proportion of people with disabilities in work would have gone up, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth, who opened the debate, pointed out, it has not increased one jot in the last eight years.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is right. She will recall that the gap between the employment rate for disabled people and the overall average was falling steadily until 2010, and she will know that it has flatlined ever since. Does she share my disappointment that the Government no longer have a target for reducing the disability employment gap—the target initially set by David Cameron but since abandoned, unfortunately?

[Helen Goodman]

My right hon. Friend, who had a proud record as a Minister tackling these issues in the previous Labour Government, points out the twists and turns of policy. It is patently ridiculous for Ministers, following the UN report, to be complacent in this area. There is no room for complacency.

I wish to illustrate the problem of ESA with some stories of constituents of mine. Mrs M, 63, had to stop working as a carer because of ill health. She was signed off by her GP. She has Paget’s disease and a tumour on her leg. She sees an oncologist. She needs a new hip. She is seeing a surgeon because she needs a new knee. She has heart arrhythmia on the left side and sees a cardiologist. She was refused ESA at assessment and had to apply for JSA, and she was advised to apply for jobs as a roofer and bouncer or to consider retraining as a social worker. Obviously, we supported her appeal, and ESA was awarded. It is patently ridiculous that people have to go through this sort of thing.

Mr C, 60, had previously been awarded DLA following a series of strokes. He was transferred to PIP in January 2018 and awarded a high rate for both care and mobility. He put in an ESA assessment request in September 2018, but he got confused because all his medical information had been sent to DWP for the PIP assessment, and he was then expected to pay again for the medical evidence for the ESA application. Why can the Department not sort out its administration, instead of putting these financial burdens on to our vulnerable constituents?

Mr I, 64, was previously awarded PIP and was reassessed in 2018. The award was unchanged—eight points for mobility because he cannot walk 50 metres unaided—but his ESA assessment in October 2018 failed because he could move 200 metres using a wheelchair. He is currently awaiting a mandatory reconsideration. One of the confusions is that people cannot understand how they can be awarded a high award in the PIP assessment but then be required to work under the ESA assessment. It does not stack up. One reason it does not stack up is the amateurish and unqualified nature of the staff doing the assessments. This has been a problem from the off. Ministers have had eight years to sort it out, but they have failed.

Let me tell the story of Mr J. Mr J is autistic and has various mental impairments. He had been receiving DLA, but was moved to PIP. He applied for ESA and was placed in the support group. He was unaware that his ESA was contribution-based rather than income-based. When he went to the chemist and was given the prescription form, he ticked the box because he had previously been entitled to free prescriptions, but that was no longer the case. A fine was issued, which the family had to pay. Mr J’s mother had to intervene and become the appointee to deal with the issue, as Mr J was plainly not capable of doing so himself.

Mr J is not a one-off. He is not unusual. Five years ago, 30,000 people were fined for falsely saying that they were entitled to NHS prescriptions. Last year the figure was 1 million, and it was 1 million because the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Work and Pensions are not properly co-ordinated. The Department for Work and Pensions does not give people the information that they need when they receive their benefits, and the Department of Health and Social Care is hounding them for money. For the Minister, on a nice ministerial salary of £98,000 a year, a £100 fine might not be a lot, but for people with incomes of £100-£150, it is a whole week’s income.

This is a complete disgrace. It is utterly careless. We have been raising the issue with Ministers for the last six months and they have still not sorted it out. Of course I am not saying that Ministers set out to fine a million people—that would be a ridiculous assertion—but it is sometimes culpable to be careless, and this Government are careless of disabled people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth George]

The hon. Lady makes a very relevant point. The evidence from my constituents with mental health issues and brain injuries is that assessments are centred on physical health and physical difficulties.

I know from my 20 years working for the shop workers’ union, USDAW, that work is not easy these days, particularly for people with long-term health conditions. Employers now have sickness absence procedures, and employees often cannot have more than three periods of sickness absence, however short, in any six-month period. People with disabilities—particularly those who do not have a union representative to support them under the Equality Act 2010—are simply slipping through the net, not performing and being left out of the workplace.

Unfortunately, universal credit and the cuts to that benefit will trap people who have disabilities more without work, and particularly those who are on a higher-level benefit with premiums and then take up a short period of work. For example, one of my constituents took a job working for Royal Mail for six weeks over the Christmas period, because he felt relatively well and wanted to do it. He has just found out that when he finishes that job, he will be transferred on to universal credit and will lose his transitional protection and support. That is not a message that says to people with disabilities, “Try to work. Try to do your best.”

We see even more problems with the system where people with disabilities are being refused work capability assessments and are not seeing any money at all. One of my constituents was presented to me by a support charity six months ago. It has been trying for six months to get him some money, since he failed his ESA assessment. He had a fit note and should have been getting money. Only with my intervention did he get support. For six months, he was living off friends, family and food bank parcels.

[Stephen Timms]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend saw this comment from Professor Alston in his report:

“great misery has also been inflicted unnecessarily…on people with disabilities who are already marginalized”.

Ministers have sought to dismiss that criticism, but does that not sum up pretty well the experience of a very large number of people up and down the country?

[Ruth George]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making that important point, on which I was going to end my speech.

I want to quote a constituent with a disability who wrote to me to set out her experience. She was not asking for support—she was able to fight the system—but she said:

“The reason I’m writing to you is to encourage you to keep fighting for us in Westminster, to be the voice that is being taken away from the disabled people in this country. Fight to put an end to this barbaric, humiliating assessment system, where the person who makes life or death decisions doesn’t even get to meet you, isn’t medically qualified (specific to the individual condition) and is meeting targets to refuse claims.”

That is the view of people with disabilities. They want Parliament to be seen to be supporting them. The changes to universal credit in the Budget did not affect people with disabilities, who are some of the worst impacted by cuts to universal credit. I very much hope that the Minister and the Government are listening.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Sarah Newton)]

I should like to add my voice to those congratulating the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) on securing such an important debate. It is to the great credit of the House that, after what have been an emotional, long and tiring few weeks here, Members from every country of Great Britain are here tonight to speak up so well and so passionately for their constituents. This is probably our last full debate before the Adjournment debate tomorrow, and it is right that we have focused on such an important issue as the disabled people in our country and the amazing contribution that they make.

Of course, we should rightly focus all our efforts on what more we can do for those who are vulnerable and need our support, and I am sure that all hon. Members will want to ensure that we are doing everything we can to live up to the ideals of the United Nations conventions, which we helped to design, and to those of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which a Conservative Prime Minister introduced in this House. There is also cross-party support for the Equality Act 2010, which underpins so much of what we are doing. These are important issues that should unite the House, and I am pleased to have heard a lot of constructive comments this evening. I have very little time, and I will not be able to answer all the questions that have been raised, but I will write to hon. Members if I have not been able to address their concerns. I want to focus on the motion, as it is so important.

I want to reassure hon. Members that the Government do publish distributional analysis of the cumulative impact of Government decisions on household finances at every fiscal event. The last publication was in October, to accompany the autumn Budget, and assessed the tax, welfare and public spending changes announced from the 2016 autumn statement onwards that carry a direct and quantifiable impact on households. Her Majesty’s Treasury uses its intragovernmental tax and benefits microsimulation model to produce that analysis, and the underlying data comes from the Office for National Statistics annual living costs and food survey.

Her Majesty’s Treasury uses the LCF survey, because it is the primary source of data about what income people have, how they spend their money and what public services they have accessed. The survey is unique in capturing all that information. Only by assessing the impact of Government policy on each of these areas can an accurate and fully comprehensive assessment of the total impact of all Government policies on welfare, taxes and spending on public services be made. Looking at only one aspect, such as changes to income from benefits, does not provide a complete picture and is misleading. For example, the Government have committed to increasing spending on the NHS by £20 billion, which will have a positive and direct impact on the lives of millions of disabled people. To look only at benefits would be really misleading.

The LCF survey came into existence in 2007, but a household food consumption and expenditure survey has been run by Government since the 1940s. The primary purpose of these surveys has always been to collect detailed expenditure data for a sample of people, which is then used to assess changes in people’s spending patterns in order to adjust the basket of goods used to estimate inflation. The survey does not collect information from the sample of individuals that would allow us to assess whether a person is disabled—it has never been able to do that. As with all Government surveys, taking part is voluntary and a difficult balance has to be struck between the amount of information we are asking respondents to provide, and therefore the time it takes to complete the survey, and the proportion of the sample who are willing to take part. The survey sample is designed to be representative of the population, and the more people who do not respond, the more the estimates from the survey potentially suffer in quality.

Therefore, the lack of information about disability means that the information does not exist for the Treasury to estimate the cumulative impact of all Government policies on disabled people. However, the Office for National Statistics is currently undertaking developments to its household surveys to integrate various surveys and to link various sources of administrative data held by the Government, which means it might be possible to have the required information on disability status in future. The ONS is consulting users, and I have instructed my officials to raise the issue of disability status in the living costs and food survey. I encourage stakeholders, and all Members who care about this as much as I do, to contact the ONS, which is independent, and raise the issue. If we had that information, and if the ONS proceeds in the way I have just described by linking datasets, it would be possible for us to undertake the sorts of assessments that people have articulated so well this evening.

However, although a cumulative impact assessment is not possible now, the DWP does undertake a wide range of other research and analysis to assess and monitor the impact of policies on disabled people. The DWP runs its own household survey—the family resources survey—which collects information from a sample of households, with detailed information on sources of income, the amount of income families receive and detailed information on the characteristics of the people in those households.

[Stephen Timms]

rose—

[Sarah Newton]

I have said that I will not take interventions, in order to answer all the questions, but I will write to any Members I am unable to answer in the time available.

The family resources survey collects the information required to make an assessment of the disability status of people in a household. The information is then used to provide estimates of the amount of income that families with disabled people have. The DWP publishes estimates of the numbers and percentages of people within households with disabled people who have low incomes in the annual “Households below average income” publication.

In the 2016-17 survey, we saw that 16% of people in families with a disabled person were described as in absolute low-income poverty before housing costs, with a weekly income after tax of £280 or less for a couple with no children, compared with 19% in 2009-10. Absolute low-income poverty, on a before housing costs basis, has actually improved by three percentage points since 2010 for families with a disabled person.

Looking at all four measures of low-income poverty—before and after housing costs, and on a relative and on an absolute basis—poverty for people in families with a disabled person has improved since 2010 on three of the four measures, and there was no change in the fourth. I am not complacent. One person living in poverty in this country is one person too many, which is why we are determined to do everything we can to put more money in people’s pockets.[Official Report, 5 February 2019, Vol. 654, c. 2MC.]

[Stephen Timms]

Will the Minister give way?

[Sarah Newton]

Let me make these points. I have been asked to address a lot of issues, and I really want to do that.

As well as the poverty figures, the Department for Work and Pensions publishes impact assessments for every new policy that carefully consider the potential impact of those policies on people with protected characteristics, in line with its legal obligations and its strong commitment to promoting fairness. The DWP has a continual and broad programme of research and evaluation of policies affecting disabled people, which is often contracted to independent research bodies, and all the findings are published. A recent example of such work is the research into the experience of PIP claimants, which was published in September and provided valuable insight into how PIP is working to inform policy development.

We have had some appalling misuse of statistics tonight. Of all the people who have applied for PIP, 9% have gone to appeal and 4% have been overturned. I work with a great number of colleagues in this House, with the Select Committees, with the all-party parliamentary groups, with disabled people and with those who represent disabled people. When we hear recommendations on how we can improve the process, we implement them. The Work and Pensions Committee did an extremely valuable piece of work on assessments for ESA and PIP, and we are delivering on implementing those recommendations.

The hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George), who is a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, spoke about the video recording of PIP assessments. I am determined to see that happen, because it will restore a lot of confidence in the process. We spent the summer carefully speaking to people with disabilities and to those who undertake the assessments—let us not forget that they are fully qualified healthcare professionals—about video recording. Putting all that information together, we started live testing the video recording of PIP assessments only a few weeks ago. That work will be completed in the new year, and we will be able to report back to the Select Committee and to the House on our progress and on how we will roll it out.

We are also undertaking a huge, large-scale test—it is actually the largest randomised control trial of its kind in the western world—as well as research into the employment and support package, to look at all the things that work to enable people with disabilities who want to work to get into work. It was interesting to listen to the personal experiences of the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), and there are many disabled people who want to work but face unacceptable barriers to work, although we have made a lot of progress.

The latest data from the ONS shows that 900,000 more people are in work over the last five years, which is a steady increase in the employment rate from 43% to 51%, but we are very ambitious and want to see that gap close completely so that employers can draw on all the talents of the nation. We have set ourselves the goal of having 1 million more disabled people in work, on which we are making good progress.

Not only are we helping those people who can work into work, but we are always looking at what more we can do to improve our main health and disability-related benefits. Let us be absolutely clear that we are spending record sums on those benefits—over £50 billion this year, which is much larger than our defence budget. The figure has grown by more than £5.4 billion since 2010, and it is forecast to rise in every single year of this Parliament. All those benefits that are about the additional costs of disability were not frozen and were not part of the benefits cap, and include payments for carers, so it is simply not true to say, as Members have this evening, that we have been reducing the amount of money that we spend on the social security system.

[Stephen Timms]

Professor Alston produced a punchy report, and it made some telling points. He referred to

“the dramatic decline in the fortunes of the least well off in this country.”

He added:

“The Government has remained determinedly in a state of denial.”

From what the Minister is saying, it seems she is confirming Professor Alston’s point. There has, has there not, been a dramatic decline in the fortunes of the least well-off?

[Sarah Newton]

I was very pleased when the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth opened this debate by saying that she is an evidence-based policymaker, because I am too. I spent time serving on the Science and Technology Committee, where I was instrumental in having social science brought into its purview, and I was on the board of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. It is very important to me to make sure we use statistics, data and research accurately, and I am quoting from independent, impartial information.

As I said, one person in poverty is one too many, but let us not forget that we have had to deal with the legacy we were left by the previous Government of “There is no money”. We have had to make difficult choices about public expenditure, but we made sure that we increased the amount of money for people with disabilities and we increased money for the NHS. That extra money going into the NHS is directly benefiting people with health conditions and disability.

I have little time to wind up, but I want to mention that we have talked about other barriers that people face to fulfilling their aspiration to play a full part in our society, on which I completely agree. Employment is really important. All of us will be going back to our constituencies. We will do some Christmas shopping, go to carol services and enjoy a panto—we will be doing things with our families—but so many disabled people in our country will not be able to do that. We are absolutely determined through what we do with our sector champions and on our inter-ministerial working groups to make sure that every disabled person in our society can play their full part. We are removing those barriers. We are absolutely committed to living up to all the UN standards that we have signed up to, which are certain to make positive differences and changes.