DWP Policies and Low-income Households

Tommy Sheppard Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry]

I am going to make some progress because other Members wish to take part.

The loss of the severe disability premium has taken nearly £62 a week out of the pockets of the most critically disabled. Cuts to the disabled child addition mean that 100,000 disabled children stand to lose up to £29 a week. Cuts to the severe disability premium mean that disabled lone parents with young carers stand to lose £58 a week. Those in the work-related activity group who receive employment and support allowance will lose around £30 a week.

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the lack of information and data that the Department for Work and Pensions has on its own activities, particularly when it comes to the most vulnerable claimants? On 10 January, I asked the Department to provide me with the number of people who had had their benefits withdrawn or suspended in the process of transferring from disability living allowance to personal independence payment. It wrote back on 13 January to say that it did not know; is that not shocking?

[Drew Hendry]

It is shocking.

Disabled people who have been found unfit for work by the work capability assessment are still expected to take steps towards finding work. That group includes those who have suffered serious injuries, those in the early stages of progressive conditions such as multiple sclerosis, and those with learning disabilities. Disability unemployment is a long-standing, unique issue, and the universal credit process is creating more barriers for the disabled people in the workplace.

The Prime Minister has been talking about JAM—the so-called “just about managing”—but thanks to universal credit, many families’ income is about to be toast. I suggest the Prime Minister comes to Inverness and talks to my constituents about her shared society—to those families with children who will be up to £2,630 per year worse off, according to the Children’s Society; to the lone parents and people with limited capability for work under the age of 25 who will lose £15 a week; and to the young people and their families who will be pushed further into poverty because of reductions in standard allowances. The four-year freeze on support for children will see the value of key children’s benefits cut by 12% by the end of the decade. Universal credit will not only fail to lift children out of poverty; it will push them further into poverty.

Citizens Advice has said:

“Universal Credit is failing to live up to its promise…from the outset people have experienced problems…delays to claims and errors in their payments.”

The Public Accounts Committee found that the systems were “underdeveloped”, and said there was increasing pressure on DWP staff. My team and I see it every day, day in, day out. Only yesterday, a constituent, Laura Shepherd, got in touch. She was at the end of her tether. Her 20-year-old son, Douglas, has severe autism, and has been on the waiting list for a work capability assessment since the end of September. During this time, they have had no disability support, just the minimum level of universal credit of just over £200 a month. Quite understandably, the family are trying to get this sorted out—they want their claim backdated to cover a period when they were incorrectly given child tax credits instead of universal credit. The universal credit team cannot even give Laura any dates for a disability work assessment for her son, because assessments of that nature are done by an external contractor. The team actually told her in writing to contact me, as her MP, because they were at a loss as to what to do.

The wife of an officer serving in our Army has now been waiting five months for assistance with childcare costs—she has had no payments for five months—and has suffered a catalogue of errors and very sporadic communication. She could not get her problem sorted out because even DWP staff working on universal credit are not allowed to talk to the service centre or claims manager. Everything has to be duplicated by email, leading to confusion and lost information.

Then there is this so-called helpline. Who on earth thought that it was a great idea to make it a premium call line? It is shameful that people with no money are being made to spend their last pennies on premium lines. What do they do if they have no credit on their mobile phones—that is if the phone has not had to be pawned to make up for the money that they are not getting through waiting for their payments? Many constituents have come to my office to call the helpline because they have no money. When they do call, they are left on hold while DWP staff try to sort out errors for more than 20 minutes. We asked CAB to monitor calls, and it found that none was under the Government’s stated waiting time of three minutes 27 seconds. In fact, all 36 that it logged were for longer than that. The longest was a staggering 54 minutes and 17 seconds. Sometimes, people are offered a call back. If it happens and they get to their phone in time, they are lucky. They only get one shot at that. It is like a universal credit version of Catch 22. The transfer of universal credit to full digital has already been halted, and the halfway house that has emerged is ripe for confusion.

People are required to make some online claims, yet need to take the original copy of letters to the jobcentre at their own cost. A report detailing the impact of the controversial new scheme in Glasgow shows not only that claimants are struggling, but that services and jobs are being put at risk. There is a lack of understanding and explanation of the general requirements of a claim, and those who have special needs are often left to struggle and to face the sanctions that follow. Where is the fairness or the simplicity?

The system is manufacturing debt and despondency. In Highland, the council has a framework agreement for the temporary homeless accommodation services. It is £25 a night or £175 a week. One of my constituents, Gavin, has been living in homeless accommodation. Under the old system, he would have been awarded £168 housing benefit, leaving him a small difference of £7 a week to pay out of his other entitlements. Under universal credit, he has the same housing costs, but gets only £60 a week, which means that he has to pay £115 a week out of his other allowances—but he does not get £115 a week. Even if he gave up food, heat, light and everything else and spent every single penny he would still be short. Gavin and others will always be in arrears. The system is flawed by design.