Disability Support

Debate between Stephen Timms and Helen Goodman

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.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Stephen Timms and Helen Goodman

Committee: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 6th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman). I share her bemusement at where we have got to on the impact assessments, which we have now been told do not exist. Like her, I would have thought that that work would have been done—it certainly should be done. If it has not been done—we have been told that it has not been done—it urgently needs to be done so that the Government and the House can take an informed view about where we are heading.

I wish to speak briefly to my amendments 152 and 153 to schedule 4, which touch on the matter raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman). She pointed out that while it was a good thing that Ministers could assure us that no new taxes would be introduced as a result of the sweeping powers that the Bill gives to Ministers—I am glad that new taxes are not going to be imposed on us through the use of these powers—nevertheless the Bill gives them the powers to impose charges. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to make the point, which was also made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen North, that there is frankly precious little difference between taxes and charges. There are wide powers in the Bill to impose new charges, so my amendments 152 and 153 are intended to constrain the power of Ministers to impose charges, which could be almost limitless in scope. I hope that the Minister, in winding up the debate, will be able to give assurances to the Committee that these powers will not be used in ways that none of us would want. I hope that by probing the Minister’s intentions through my amendments I will receive the assurances I seek.

Amendment 152 would amend line 35 of schedule 4, on page 32. The schedule is slightly alarmingly worded, and the amendment is to part 1, which deals with the power to provide for fees or charges. Paragraph 1(3) lists various things that Ministers can introduce regulations to do: to prescribe fees or charges; to provide for recovery of any sums payable; and to confer power on public authorities to do rather similar things. The sub-paragraph explicitly allows Ministers to introduce regulations on those three things, but its first line also reads:

“Regulations under this paragraph may (among other things)”.

Apart from the three specific things, which, frankly, sound rather alarming, it seems that there are some other, non-specified things that the schedule would empower Ministers to do. Amendment 152 simply proposes the deletion of the words “among other things”, so that at least Ministers can do only three things to demand money from taxpayers or charge payers.

[Helen Goodman]

I just want to make sure that I have understood what my right hon. Friend is saying. Surely what is being proposed here is that Ministers’ ability to use secondary legislation to impose taxes should be constrained, and they will be allowed to impose charges—not that if the Brexit bill is ginormous and the public finances are in a mess, Ministers will have stood at the Dispatch Box now and committed never to increase income tax. That is the correct understanding, is it not?

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The amendment simply constrains Ministers’ ability to introduce new charges—she calls them taxes, and she has every right to do so—under the secondary legislation envisaged in schedule 4. What I hope the Minister will do is assure us that by “among other things” he is not envisaging some great long list of new money-raising powers.

[Helen Goodman]

Before my right hon. Friend moves on, is it not worth considering those EU agencies, such as the European Medicines Agency, that are financed by charges on the industry, not by the taxpayer? We should really be hearing from the Minister how the Government propose to fund such agencies in future.

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We come directly to that point in amendment 153, in which we propose to add to schedule 4 the words set out on the amendment paper, which I shall read out. We propose to constrain Ministers’ powers by saying, first, that regulations

“may not be made for the purposes of…creating a fee or charge that does not replicate a fee or charge levied by an EU entity on exit day”.

That is exactly the point my hon. Friend has just raised. We of course recognise that a lot of charges are imposed at the moment by EU bodies of one sort or another—she mentioned a very important one—and that, in future, comparable fees or charges may well need to be levied by UK entities, but the aim of the first paragraph of amendment 153 is to make it clear that Ministers cannot impose new fees or charges for which there is not already a counterpart from the EU entity.

[Stephen Timms]

I had not considered that, and the right hon. Gentleman may well have a point. I would be interested to know whether that is indeed the case. That interesting point is certainly worth pursuing, and I would welcome it if he expanded on that later.

Secondly, amendment 153 states that Ministers cannot bring forward regulations for the purpose of

“increasing a fee or charge to an amount larger than an amount charged by an EU entity for the performance of the relevant function on exit day.”

Let me take the example my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) mentioned. The European Medicines Agency does very important work, and it charges the industry for that work. I am suggesting that the secondary legislation powers in schedule 4 should not be used to introduce a charge for the same function that is higher than the one currently charged by the European Medicines Agency. There may well be a loss of economies of scale in leaving the European Medicines Agency, and it may well be that undertaking that function purely for the UK will be a less efficient process than doing it EU-wide, as the European Medicines Agency does, but I do not think the secondary legislation powers in the schedule should be used to impose on industry or any charge payer a fee that is higher than the one currently charged by the EU entity.

I accept that there may well in due course need to be some higher fees or charges than those currently levied by EU entities, because the process may well be less efficient when carried out at a UK-only level, but I do not think the secondary legislation powers should be used for that purpose. If Ministers want to bring forward a proposal to impose a higher fee or charge, they should do so through the proper parliamentary process, with scrutiny by this House, not through secondary legislation powers.

[Helen Goodman]

One of the points made to me by those in the industry is that if these fees and charges shoot up, that will have an impact on their competitiveness, which is the last thing we want. Does that not reinforce my right hon. Friend’s point?

[Stephen Timms]

Once again, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Indeed, my amendments arise specifically from the discussions I have had with those in the tech sector who are worried about the prospect of being hit by substantially larger fees and charges in the future, which is exactly what the powers in the schedule would allow Ministers to do.

I very much hope that the Minister will give us an assurance that these powers will not be used in that way, and that we will not find that industry and charge payers of other kinds are hit by fees or charges that are not being charged at the moment or are higher than those currently being charged. I very much look forward to the Minister’s response.