Coronavirus Outbreak: DWP Response

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I pay tribute to the members of the Work and Pensions Committee and its Chair, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), for the important work they have been carrying out during the coronavirus pandemic. I welcome the recommendations in their report on the DWP’s response to covid.

For many of my constituents, this crisis has been the first time that they have engaged with the benefits system. While it is important to note that, as we have heard, there have been some successes, many of my constituents have been shocked to find out that what they believed to be a safety net has some significant holes. I want to limit my remarks to the issue of those left worse off and one particular constituency case.

One of my constituents, Lara, wrote to me. She is a student mental health nurse, and the previous academic year was the second year of her studies. During the pandemic, like all second-year student nurses, she was offered a fixed-term contract to help the NHS that would run until August. She said:

“It was fantastic to be recognised as having the skills that were needed, and like my classmates, I felt it necessary to take this offer. Should I have declined, I would then have needed to extend my studies by 6 months as in order to register as a nurse, 2300 placement hours must be worked.”

Many students nurses work alongside their studies to top up their nursing bursary, but Lara was unable to do that owing to disability, and, as a result, was eligible for housing benefit and for employment and support allowance, as well as the personal independence payment. She said that this was able to help her have a place of her own, which has vastly improved her health, something of which she feels the benefit daily. When she took on the fixed-term contract, that meant that she was receiving a wage, which meant a temporary pause in her benefits. She told me:

“I had to decide between keeping a benefit I was entitled to, or my education, and I chose my education.”

So she served on the frontline during the first wave of the pandemic, like so many other student nurses—I pay tribute to them all—putting themselves at risk to help protect our NHS.

But when Lara’s fixed-term contract came to an end, she found herself, in her own words, in “an awful situation.” She said:

“It turns out, since I started claiming benefits, the system has changed. Housing benefit no longer exists, neither does the version of ESA I received. I was advised I would now have to apply for Universal Credit, which…isn’t actually available to students.

Living off my nursing bursary, and PIP, means after I pay my rent and bills, I have £8 a week to live off. I either must take a loan, and leave university in debt, or give up my rented flat and move into a box room at my mum’s.

I am honestly so deflated that because I did what I felt was right in helping the country during the pandemic by providing skills I have, that I am now in this situation. It is a kick in the teeth that had I declined the placement, none of my benefits would have been affected.”

How is that fair? Lara showed such dedication in the spring to take the fixed-term contract when she was only halfway through her studies, putting herself at risk to help protect the NHS, and giving up the benefits she was receiving in order to do that.

It was people like Lara we were lining up outside our doors to clap for earlier this year. She and so many like her were making an enormous sacrifice to help keep us safe, and that is something we should be rewarding. What kind of society claps for our carers and then leaves them with barely enough money to survive on, applauds our public sector frontline workers and then hands them a pay freeze, and sees the need for a commitment to help the most vulnerable and disadvantaged around the world, only to withdraw that at a time when the need for support has never been greater?

The Committee’s report has rightly highlighted the failure of the Government to uplift legacy benefits in the same manner as universal credit. I have had a great deal of correspondence from constituents who have been directly impacted by this. In Lara’s case, this is someone on legacy benefits who leaves them and is now ineligible for both legacy benefits and universal credit. I hope that the Minister will engage with me on this particular case. Is there any estimate of how many other student nurses and doctors find themselves in the same position as Lara, having made the same decision earlier this year? We have seen from the Office for Budget Responsibility’s releases yesterday that welfare spending actually makes up a very small proportion of the total covid response. I look forward to the Minister’s response.