Universal Credit: Farmers

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2024 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered universal credit and farmers.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mrs Murray.

This morning for breakfast I had oat clusters, and for lunch I had a cheese panini with some salad—it is a good day when I remember to eat. So far today, without even thinking about it, I have had produce from oat and wheat farmers, dairy farmers and a variety of vegetable farmers, and I am suspect everyone here could say something similar if they stopped to fill in a food diary. Farming is integral to our day-to-day lives.

When we are down here in Westminster, farming might seem very far away—there is not a field in sight—but my constituency of North East Fife is rural and has a wide variety of agricultural businesses. Next month, the annual Fife Show will attract farming from across North East Fife and the surrounding areas, and bring that community very visibly together. It is therefore not surprising that I am here today talking about this issue, given the constituency I represent, but it affects even MPs representing urban constituencies: farming is quite literally the lifeblood of our very being. Without farmers, we would not have food. I say that at the start of a debate on universal credit to drive home the very important point that we must not lose sight of the needs of our farmers, and must do everything we can to support them. Surely that is what the Government’s Farm to Fork strategy is all about.

The state of our food supply chains mean that some farmers need benefits to boost their incomes, and that is deeply worrying. That is a debate for another day and another Department. The fact that some need support is why we are here today to ask the Minister and the Department to design a system that works with, and not against, farmers.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady always brings subjects to Westminster Hall and the Chamber that are of particular interest to me. I declare an interest: I am a member of the Ulster Farmers’ Union, and we own a farm outside Greyabbey, so I understand the issues and the implications of what she is saying. Does she agree that farmers may have three good months of income—not necessarily profit—followed by nine months of hardship, so the monthly system is not appropriate for their seasonal work? Rather than making farming viable, the Government aid through the universal credit system may put people off and make farming untenable for families. That is incredibly concerning as it affects our food security, which this debate is also about—food security and delivering for the nation.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

The hon. Gentleman always gets straight to the key issues in his interventions. I will talk about a number of the things that he referenced. Indeed, the monthly aspect of universal credit is one of the key challenges.

Let me start with the basic point: the Government are asking the vast majority of farmers to go through the process of transitioning to universal credit from tax credits now, right in the middle of peak farming months. For example, it is the middle of lambing season. Let me be blunt: sheep farmers do not currently have the time to sort through accounts, visit the jobcentre or have interviews by phone. We all recognise that farming is not a 9 to 5 job where appointments can be scheduled. The sheep three fields down having a difficult birth will not be able to hold on just because the jobcentre is due to call. The farmer who cares deeply for their animals and also cannot afford to lose income if things go wrong will not be able to stay in the farmhouse to wait for that call. They will be down in the field with the sheep to keep an eye on things and intervene if need be. Even if there is a phone signal, which is not always guaranteed, a farmer can hardly talk through the viability of his or her business while elbow deep in that sheep.

I appreciate that that sounds slightly comical, but it is deeply frustrating for farmers and incredibly stressful when they are worried about losing their income. It shows a failure within the DWP system to understand how farming works, so I ask the Minister: what thought and consideration was given to farmers when the decision to roll out the transition to universal credit was made? I know the National Farmers Union raised concerns about the transition as early as 2018 in evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee. Did the Government pay any attention to that? Even if they are talking to the NFU, I cannot see the outcome in those policy decisions.

I recently tabled a written question asking for an impact assessment on how the roll-out of universal credit to farmers has been done. The response—I will be honest—did not exactly answer the question, so I will make the assumption that the answer is no. If I am wrong, I am happy to be corrected on that, and I hope the Minister will use her time to set out the findings from that assessment. But the response I received did point me to the latest findings from the “Move to Universal Credit”, in which there was only one paragraph relevant to farmers—an observation that additional checks on self-employed claimants may be a factor in the low take-up of universal credit. Obviously, that is a part of it, but it somewhat understates the issue, and it also conflates all self-employment businesses. Farming is very different to somebody, for example, running a shop, selling handmade products, or a tradesperson such as a joiner. Here we are: I am going to assume that the Minister has heard the warnings from the NFU, has seen correspondence from MPs, has spoken to farmers herself, has had her officials carry out research into the farming industry, and has seen the media coverage on the radio, specialist farming news and print media.

In any case, I will explain why universal credit fails farmers. Universal credit does not account for variable incomes and does not allow for those incomes to be averaged out. The very nature of farming means that farming income varies significantly through the year, or even over multiple years. I want to go back to that sheep farmer who is busy saving their animals and bringing new ones into the world, rather than speaking to a work coach. That lamb will not be ready for sale until much later in the year, meanwhile the sheep and the lamb will require food, shelter, water, shearing and possibly extra hands on the farm to help out in the busy months. An animal farmer might in some cases try their hardest to grow crops to be harvested in each season, but often that is not practical. Not all areas are suitable for all produce, and even if they were, economies of scale mean that it can be more profitable to specialise. That does not mean there is no work that needs to be done until harvest and sale time; just that the work done by farmers does not get paid for many months. Meanwhile, seed, fertiliser and fuel costs are all going up. That is arguably one of the reasons why some farmers need extra support in the first instance.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Like my hon. Friend, I have had correspondence with the Government on this issue. The sheep farmer example is a very good one. That sheep farmer will have income, possibly in the autumn from the sale of the sheep, possibly from a basic payment, and possibly from something like the less favoured area support scheme. There might be a small wool cheque at some time in the late summer or early autumn, but apart from that, that is all the income, which then has to be spread and harvested throughout the rest of the year. That is the reality for the sheep farmers to which my hon. Friend refers, and it shows the virtual impossibility of shoehorning that into a universal credit scheme that looks at things on a monthly basis.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and he has illustrated part of the challenge. We are finding that, when that income spike happens, that is the very point where farmers are losing the benefit to which they should be entitled. It is important to recognise that sometimes it all goes wrong: a really bad harvest; illness among livestock; a year of barely breaking even; or worse. Otherwise, in the main, hopefully all that hard work and waiting pays off and payments come in. After months of very little, there is a significant income boost, and a boost that—as I have just said—will write off universal credit for that month, even though that income boost will have to stretch over the many months until the next sale day.

Tax credits allowed farmers to average out their income over a multiple-year cycle to truly reflect their monthly income over time. Universal credit only takes a one-month snapshot, and I know that people have experienced difficulties with universal credit in occupations such as farming for that very reason. Given that work coaches are required to assess whether self-employment is gainful, there is a significant risk of months of loss being seen as not real work. Recently, on that very issue, a headline in the Telegraph stated: “Farmers claiming benefits told their farms are ‘hobbies’ and to get jobs”. Some work coaches might understand how farming works, but it is clear that others certainly will not and do not—it cannot be left to luck. I doubt the Department has spare funds to train all work coaches in farming practices, so a standard reform of how income is assessed would surely be a much fairer and efficient path to take.

Another related issue that I will highlight is the imposition of the minimum income floor after the 12-month transition period. I fully accept that there must be measures to stop people being able to potentially manipulate benefits to prop up an unsustainable small or hobby business. Applying a deemed minimum income when calculating universal credit works in those cases, but I seriously question why it is useful to take vital income support away from farming families in those months where their produce is being produced rather than sold. Farmers are not earning the minimum wage in those months, so why on earth are we pretending that they do?

The 12-month transition period is welcome, but the nature of farming will not change in the course of a year. Arguably, all that will do is push the problem down the road, so I urge the Minister to go away and review it. If she is genuinely concerned about farmers exploiting universal credit, there must be other anti-abuse provisions that we could be looking at. The minimum income floor is a blunt tool that is doing more harm than good.

My final point is similar to my first, because after the administrative burden of applying to universal credit, farmers must continue providing monthly income updates. Farmers are not accountants; they often operate in partnerships and, most importantly, they work full time doing the actual farming. Their definition of full time is different from others, because it means well over 12 hours per day, seven days a week. When exactly does the Minister think that farmers will have the time to meet those obligations?

I ask the Minister to not just repeat the same platitudes that have been signed off and sent in a standard letter, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and I have both received. I have seen that letter shared online many times, and I assure the Minister that it has done nothing to reassure anyone.

The good news for the Minister is that she needs only to look back to the tax credit system to find out what works; she does not need to reinvent the wheel. What farmers need is a system that allows for averaging income over multiple months and years, where benefits are paid during income spikes and where there is no assumed minimum income when it is low. They need a system without the administrative burden of monthly appointments and paperwork, and with an understanding of how farming works and the variety of set-ups, be that tenant farmers, those in partnerships, and everything in between.

It is not just farmers saying that. I have an example from a rural land and property agent, who has published a blog entitled “Why the Universal Credit System Isn’t Working for Farmers”. The Farming Forum threads on the change currently have nine pages of comments on one thread, while another thread has 24 pages. There is a Facebook support group for farming families that has been deliberately kept open so that MPs, journalists and others can see what farmers are saying about this change.

Yesterday, on that Facebook page, someone anonymously posted that because their family were so busy on the farm they could not get to the job centre, and their benefits had been stopped. The writer went on to say, in their own words, that they wanted to chuck themselves off a bridge as a result. A few days before that, someone wrote that they were able to feed their children but they could not afford to eat that day themselves. They used to get £700 in tax credits a month, but the assessment for universal credit does not take into account the difference between income paid to the family and income used to meet farming bills.

The system change means that someone who is producing our food cannot afford to eat. That is just not okay. Farmers are literally the reason why we are here in the Chamber with full stomachs, why our children have the energy to go to school and learn, why we can go to the supermarket and make our dinners tonight and why our restaurants are some of the best in the world. It is not an issue that will go away; it is a crisis for too many farming families. We must support them, and I hope that the Minister’s response recognises the gravity of the situation.

Child Maintenance Service

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Westminster Hall

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

Thank you, Sir Charles, for calling me to speak; I am very grateful. I thank everyone who has contributed to the debate.

There were two aspects of this issue that I wanted to raise. The first is domestic abuse cases about which many Members have spoken so eloquently. I have a particularly egregious case in my constituency. The children are now adults, but the coercive control is still being applied to the receiving parent by the withholding of money. I agree with the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) that we need to examine how we consider arrears in terms of debts and that people need to be pursued quickly, because the legacy of these issues is ongoing for these children into adulthood.

Secondly, we say that we want the system basically to work so that we do not make the situation worse when the CMS becomes involved. However, the reality is that even those parents who engage with the system in good faith are being let down.

I will just the case of my constituent, Kevin, who was medically discharged from the military 18 months ago. He reported his falling income to the CMS and continued to make payments for his children. However, the CMS then did everything wrong: it took overpayments; it wrongly moved him to the collect and pay route; and it pursued him for £12,000 of debt that never existed, because the systems work on the basis that there is a consistent salary and income going forward. The 12 weeks that was talked about earlier means that Kevin has gone through a huge amount of stress and anxiety, and we are left in a situation where those children have been negatively impacted as a result. It is clear that this issue is complex and difficult, but it is also clear that the Government need to do more.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jo Churchill]

The way that universal credit works means that work coaches can use their flexibility, but if a payment is short one month, the appropriate thing to do is to sort it the next.

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

T10. In his opening remarks, the Secretary of State mentioned the assessment period for cost of living payments, but people on four-weekly pay schedules miss out on support because they fall foul of the assessment period rules for universal credit. What assessment have the Government made of the number of people missing out, and what remedy do they have?

[Mel Stride]

Cost of living payments can be affected by when people are paid, and therefore by whether they are on universal credit and qualify at precisely that point. I do not have the figure to hand that the hon. Lady requests, but I will of course get back to her with it.

Pensions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Hopefully, the House will be relieved to know that I do not intend to repeat the explanation of this order that the Minister has just given. As he said, the statutory instrument addresses the needs of a specific group of pensioners. We support the measure and will therefore obviously support the order. I will just take a very short amount of time to raise a few other related issues.

Further to the debate that we had on the previous order, Madam Deputy Speaker, you will remember that under Labour we saw an historic fall in pensioner poverty. Unfortunately, that has been rising recently, which is alarming after nearly two decades of decline: one in six pensioners are now living in poverty, with the figure rising to one in four among those who are single. I hope the Minister agrees that Britain should be one of the best countries in the world in which to be a pensioner, so the fact that many are still spending their later years in poverty does not reflect well on us.

Labour in power introduced pension credit, ensuring that pensioners’ weekly income reaches a minimum guaranteed level while offering a whole host of benefits, such as free dental and optical treatment. However, as we have discussed many times across the Dispatch Box, despite highly publicised campaigns, statistics released in October show that 40% of those eligible to claim pension credit are still not doing so. Given that I am sure the Minister shares my concern about this matter, will he confirm what more the Government are doing within their powers to make people aware of their potential pension credit entitlements?

Since we have just rehearsed all of the arguments about the cost of living, I thought the Minister might like to take a moment to reflect on what more the Government can do. As we know, social security systems cannot perform their most basic function if entitlements are eroded by inflation or, worse, not taken up at all. Further to the debate that we have just had, we also need to end the speculation about uprating. Pensioners should not be put through that, any more than anyone else should.

As we all know, the key to a good retirement starts in the workplace, when retirement can often seem like a distant concept. We need people to consider their future early on, which was the logic behind automatic enrolment —a massive policy success started under the last Labour Government, which has driven up the number of people saving. However, too many people are still falling through the net.

In September, the Pensions (Extension of Automatic Enrolment) Act 2023 received Royal Assent with cross-party support, giving Ministers the power to abolish the lower earnings limit for contributions, and reducing the age for being automatically enrolled from 22 to 18. At the time, the pensions Minister, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), said:

“We will consult on the detailed implementation at the earliest opportunity”.

We have not had further information about that implementation, and I wanted to give the Minister the opportunity to share any information about what is happening with those powers. I hope that all Members across this House will agree that the extension of auto-enrolment is a good thing, and that we should crack on with it.

I will make one final point: the roll-out of collective defined-contribution schemes, which provide an income for later life while giving members greater certainty about retirement outcomes that they could achieve, is certainly to be welcomed. However, more needs to be done to ensure that the proper framework is in place for companies that express an interest in CDCs, while ensuring that those who can still join a defined-benefit scheme do so. I would be grateful if the Minister commented on that.

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

Very briefly, the Pensions Minister will know, because there was a Westminster Hall debate on this a couple of weeks ago, about some of the issues experienced with defined-benefit pension schemes with companies such as BP not applying the limits that have been recommended by the trustees. Does the shadow Minister agree that we need to ensure that companies that have made promises to pensioners actually pay out?

[Alison McGovern]

I am not entirely sure whether that intervention was for me, so I will let the Minister respond when he winds up. However, on companies keeping their promises, that seems like one of the basics to me.

As I said before, we support these measures and will not oppose the Government’s proposals, but I would very much welcome the Minister’s comments on the questions I have raised.

Social Security

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Commons Chamber

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

Given the number of us in the Chamber, I do not think that this will be an afternoon of high drama. I, like others, do not intend to divide the House on the motion before us.

The Government made their decision on uprating last year. Pensioners around the country let out a collective sigh of relief that the triple lock had been kept. No one here today will vote down either this or the next statutory instrument. Clearly, we on the Opposition Benches would like the measures to go further, but we know that the harm from torpedoing them would be catastrophic, because it would prevent the proposed increases from taking place. None the less, as the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) said, there are different ways of doing this, and given that we have this opportunity to speak today, I will do so to allow the Minister to get a feel for the mood of the House—how we feel the Government are performing in this area, and, more importantly in an election year, how our constituents feel that they are performing.

It is quite clear that the outcomes of Government policy are hard to swallow. What we are seeing is women dying as they fight for compensation because of the Government’s maladministration of their state pensions, and that is clearly not acceptable. We see pensioners going hungry and risking illness because they cannot afford to either eat or stay warm, and that is not acceptable. I raised a number of these issues relating to pensioner poverty in my recent Adjournment debate, and I look forward to meeting the Minister, as was promised, to discuss some of them. As Members have already said, we know that one in three children are living in poverty, and that is not acceptable.

Madam Deputy Speaker, the report card is in, and it is a fail. Record numbers of families are relying on emergency food parcels. In April to September last year, 320,000 people turned to a food bank for the first time. The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) mentioned the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s essentials guarantee. I find it interesting that we are here debating how much the uprating to benefits is, but we never seem to debate what is the correct amount in the first place that can allow people to live in dignity and obtain their essentials. Perhaps if people had that certainty, they would be better placed to improve their health and often their employment opportunities.

Incidentally, the Trussell Trust is on the estate today—indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker, I think I saw you at the meeting—and I hope the Minister has had the time to visit its staff in the Churchill Room to hear directly from them. The Minister and I have worked together on the all-party parliamentary group on ending the need for food banks and our inquiry report into cash or food. There today I learned my own statistics for North East Fife. I have one main Trussell Trust food bank, in Cupar, which until recently was ably run by Joe Preece—he has just stepped down after a number of years in charge. Those statistics showed me that there has been a 25% increase in the use of the Cupar food bank since 2018. That is before covid; the Government give lots of reasons about people experiencing pressures due to the cost of living but we all know in this place that food bank use was increasing long before covid came along.

Child poverty costs the Government £39 billion each year through immediate additional public services and the delayed costs associated with the higher risk of unemployment in adults who grew up in poverty. That £39 billion per year is a huge amount of what is to some extent avoidable spending, and I find it hard to believe that we could find a voter who thought that letting a child live in poverty was acceptable if we could avoid it. Even if we could find that voter, I am pretty sure they would be horrified by the amount it is costing them, the taxpayer, to effectively do nothing. So I put it to the Minister and the Government that they are shooting themselves in the foot by uprating benefits with inflation while keeping the two-child limit and freezing the benefit cap. The Minister might say in his closing remarks that the cap was increased last year but that is disingenuous because it had been frozen since 2016, when it was actually lowered. Last year’s uprating was vital but totally insufficient in ending poverty.

When I was elected in December 2019 some 41,000 families across the UK were subject to the benefit cap and now there are over 75,000. The drop in numbers from the uprating last April will quickly vanish if the cap is frozen for another seven years. Indeed, these are the two policies which, if changed, would be the most effective and efficient means of lifting hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. I do not know for how long the Minister will be in his current position—we do not know when the general election will be this year and the change that might bring—but what a legacy it would be to take hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. I hope he agrees with me on that.

It would not be a DWP debate for me without raising the issue of unpaid carers and in particular carer’s allowance. Following this uprating, carer’s allowance will be £81.90 each week, claimable by the 1.3 million carers who do 35 hours of unpaid care each week—full-time work. That is just £15.75 per week more than when I was elected four years ago—for each hour of cooking, cleaning, bathing, appointments, admin and worrying, an extra 45p. So yes I am bringing it up again.

I am looking forward to meeting the Chief Treasury to the Secretary next month to discuss carer’s allowance, particularly the much-needed reforms of it, because I believe that carer’s allowance creates barriers to work. Almost half of carers receiving carer’s allowance report that they are struggling to make ends meet, and if they are struggling, the people they are caring for are struggling too.

I am going to end with a local gripe. Yesterday I received a letter from the DWP north-east Scotland service leader. This followed from the Department’s written statement six days ago about starting the next phase of the transition to universal credit. The letter was dated seven days ago and it told me that the move to universal credit expansion into North East Fife had been moved forward, to nine days ago—two days before the letter was written, three before the announcement was made by the Government, and over a week before I was actually told. MPs rely on timely communications to be able to do our job, to scrutinise Government activity and to support our constituents. I very much hope that that was a one-off error but I raise it here in the hope that future errors can be prevented.

These orders are a technical necessity, but when we look past that—when we look past the different ways of calculating inflation and the actuarial arguments—what we are talking about is what kind of society we want to live in. During covid many found out for the first time about the inadequacies of our social security system and for those remaining on it, it remains deeply inadequate.

Defined-Benefit Pension Schemes

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Carmichael]

The hon. Gentleman strikes at the reasons why I brought forward this debate. We might benefit from a wider and longer ventilation of the issues at some later stage, but we have 30 minutes today, so let us use it. I had the opportunity to discuss the issues yesterday with the Minister, and he is alive to the concerns.

When it comes to regulating pensions, and indeed other similar financial provisions, the law of unintended consequences is never far away. The Government are right to be cautious, but they have to be alive to the fact that this is an emerging crisis. What happens to the beneficiaries of the BP and Shell pension schemes today could happen to just about any pensioner the future. As those pension funds come to a point of greater maturity, the concern that we hear from BP, Shell and other pensioners is that decisions are being taken not in relation to their best interests, which is the primary fiduciary duty of the trustees, but because of other concerns. There is a significant number of significant issues for the Government to look at in relation to pension regulation, not least of which is the balance between the companies that have created these pension funds in the first place and the independence of the trustees.

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

With 60,000 BP pensioners impacted, it is unsurprising that I too have been contacted by constituents. There is a wider debate about the fact that if multinational companies such as BP and Shell are making these decisions, smaller companies will end up making similar decisions if something is not done. My right hon. Friend mentioned appointed trustees. Does he agree that BP has a duty to take the advice of its appointed trustees to prevent real-terms cuts to pensions? Otherwise, what is the point in having trustees at all?

Cost of Living: Pensioners

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Commons Chamber

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

There are 2 million older people living in poverty—that is one in six—and another million are sitting just above the poverty line silently struggling to make ends meet. Together, a quarter of older people are in or at risk of being in poverty. In recent years, the phrase “heating or eating” has become shorthand for the cost of living crisis. It rhymes, and it is easy to say, but it is the reality facing too many of our pensioners. Age UK research found that 4.2 million people cut back on food or groceries last year, while a survey by this House’s Petitions Committee of those engaging in petitions on pension levels found that three quarters were worried about affording food.

Health statistics always worsen in the cold winter months, with mortality rising in all parts of the UK last year compared with previously. As we face an even colder winter —in my constituency we often reach minus temperatures overnight—there are real consequences when older people cannot afford to properly heat their homes. The reality is that heating or eating is not a catchphrase, but a decision about survival. It is our duty as policy makers in this place to ask why that is a reality for so many of our older people and to find solutions.

I welcomed the Government’s eventual decision to keep the triple lock this year, but the lack of clarity and uncertainty about that decision appeared to be electorally motivated, and I argue it caused a great deal of anxiety for many older constituents.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is talking about the triple lock on pensions. I have heard it said in this House in recent months that the triple lock on pensions was a Conservative proposal, so I went to the Library to find out whether that was true. The 2010 Conservative manifesto talks about

“restoring the link between the basic state pension and average earnings”,

while the 2010 Liberal Democrat manifesto states:

“We will uprate the state pension annually by whichever is the higher of growth in earnings, growth in prices or 2.5 per cent.”

Does she agree with me that the triple lock was a Lib Dem proposal?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I regularly meet Steve Webb, the former Lib Dem Pensions Minister from the coalition, and I know how hard he worked when in government on this policy, so I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and thank him for his intervention.

The triple lock is of no use to anyone if the Government cannot get their systems working to pay people what they are due. Repeatedly last year we learned of pensioners nearing or reaching pension age trying to top up their national insurance records and seeing their money disappear without a trace. It would appear again some weeks later, but often only after chasing by an MP, an adviser or due to media coverage. That was not just in one or two cases; what became apparent were systemic problems of jammed helplines and hundreds upon hundreds of people losing track of their savings as they paid them over to the Government. Will the Minister tell us what he is doing to resource properly the Future Pension Centre?

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making a strong point and an excellent speech. On savings and topping up national insurance, we hear that about two thirds of those over 64 are dipping into their savings just to keep going. They are cutting down on food, and eating less healthily. Apart from the cruelty shown to pensioners by forcing them into that position, are the Government not short-sighted in not seeing the implications of treating our pensioners so badly for the NHS, the welfare system and social care?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I think it is reflected across a number of policy areas that we should look in all our services at sufficiency of income, allowing people to live with dignity and respect and knowing that they can cover the essentials, and for pensioners as well as for other age groups.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Further to that point, will the hon. Lady give way?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I give way to the hon. Member—it is not an Adjournment debate without him.

[Jim Shannon]

I congratulate the hon. Lady, who always brings to the House and Westminster Hall bread-and-butter issues that I support. I am glad to come along and give my support to her tonight. The price of electricity in Northern Ireland is rising by 20%, but pensions are rising by only 8.5%. With similar increases in the cost of meat and veg, it is clear that those comfortable on their pension in 2020 will be substantially less comfortable now. Does she not agree that an investigation into energy prices must take place as people feel that they are being gouged every time they put on their light or gas and feel the pain of prioritising one necessity over another?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I am grateful to the hon. Member. I agree that many people feel they are being held hostage by the vagaries of energy prices and systems. Although the cap and other measures have gone some way to helping with that, there is no doubt that it is a huge challenge. It also demonstrates why the triple lock remains required.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

While we are on energy prices, I am acutely aware that, as we speak, pensioners in my constituency are having to brave serious snow conditions and, because we have the highest level of fuel poverty anywhere in the country, they will feel literally and metaphorically out in the cold. Does my hon. Friend agree that Ofgem has a role to play in the creation of a social tariff, or even a geographically-based tariff?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

One challenge in my right hon. Friend’s constituency is the number of his constituents who are off grid. We know that there is a lack of regulation in the sector off grid. One other challenge for the Government in responding to energy price fluctuations was getting a lot of money out to many people easily, and administrative issues materialised for those off grid. Many of them have still not seen the money to which they are entitled. We need to look at better regulation of our energy system.

I was talking about the Future Pension Centre and the challenges experienced by many constituents across the UK in topping up their pensions. I tabled a presentation Bill on the issue to extend the deadline and was glad that the Government took that up. In responding, will the Minister tell us what discussions he is having with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs about making its systems align and function properly? If those systems were working as they should, many constituents would not have a gap to fill in the first instance. Will he consider implementing a proper receipting system so that older people have proof of payment as they do with any other transaction?

We know that errors by the Department for Work and Pensions are all too commonplace; we need only to look at the experience of the WASPI women—the Women Against State Pension Inequality—to see that. Those women, through no fault of their own, lost their ability to plan for their retirements. They lost their financial autonomy. Many of them continue to live in poverty, while others have sadly died without seeing any compensation.

I know that we are all awaiting the final report of the ombudsman setting out its recommendations for compensation for the WASPI women, but in the meantime will the Minister agree to meet me to discuss the next steps? He and I worked successfully together on the all-party parliamentary group on ending the need for food banks before he took on his current role, and I hope that we can do so again.

I return to pension income and want to raise pension credit with the Minister. This top-up benefit is the simplest tool at the Government’s disposal to lift pensioners out of poverty. It feels like every year we have a new attempt at increasing uptake with a fancy leaflet or other information campaign. I am sure we all go to the drop-ins, have our pictures taken and share them with our constituents, but pension credit take-up remains stuck at 63%, which suggests that the campaigns simply are not working. Pensioners either do not know about the benefit or do not realise they are eligible, or some struggle with the stigma of being seen to claim it.

I have been in this role for more than three years, and I have spent a lot of time having conversations about how to improve uptake. Clearly, an annual leaflet is not doing the trick. We need a long-term strategy on pension credit uptake with two key focuses: how we share data to identify people eligible for pension benefit, and how we target them efficiently and effectively so that they actually claim it and do not feel stigmatised?

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Lady makes a critical point. When I talk to pensioners in my constituency, I always ask what benefits they are on. I always mention carer’s allowance if they do not receive disability living allowance, and I always mention pension credit. In many cases, they are not on it. How do we make a better system? I suggest, with great respect, that maybe the Department needs to physically go to those people and introduce it to them. Many people are proud, independent and do not want to take it up because they think they should not, but they should. They worked hard all their days and paid their tax and national insurance, and it is time for payback.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Chamberlain]

Stigma is definitely a part of it, but some think they do not qualify as they have a sufficiency of income that would result in their being rejected. I always say to them that even if it is only 50p, it is worth doing because of the passporting benefits. We have seen this challenge around child benefit. Having not seen an increase in the thresholds, we are in a ludicrous situation where if a single earner earns over £60,000, the household is not entitled to it. The challenge is that if the non-earning parent does not apply, they do not get their national insurance contributions for their pension. Why would people apply for something that they do not think they are entitled to? We must do more to make it easier for people to get what they are entitled to. They do not want to end up 20 years down the line finding out that they do not have full pension contributions, because we know that topping it up is quite challenging, as I have talked about.

Going back to pension credit, perhaps once the Minister’s Department has published the results of last summer’s trials of targeting recipients of housing benefit, he could give us an update on the outcome of the trial to see whether that might work for pension credit, and what lessons can be learned. Missing out on pension credit has serious implications beyond the credit itself. As I mentioned, it is the main passporting benefit for older people for cost of living payments. While we focus on a long-term strategy for pension credit, will the Minister consider extending entitlement to those payments to older people in receipt of housing benefit and council tax reduction, for example? I suspect that if they are eligible for those things, they are probably eligible for pension credit.

Before I move on to long-term strategies to tackle pension poverty, I want to raise one more benefit-related point. This is not strictly in his portfolio, but will the Minister commit to providing the House with an update on the future of the household support fund? I know from English colleagues that there is significant distress at the prospect of its not being renewed in March.

I dispute the claim of the Minister’s colleague, the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), in a written response to me yesterday, that pensioner poverty is falling. It is not. The claim was based on statistics before housing costs, which is distinctly disingenuous. Increasingly, pensioners face high housing costs, as more continue to rent privately into older age. Twice as many rent now than a decade ago—a trend set to continue as it is harder for young people to get on to the housing ladder.

We must tackle the poverty immediately in front of us, but we must look at long-term drivers of poverty among pensioners and stop this trend in its tracks. There are two parts to that: ensuring that people enter retirement sufficiently equipped, and ensuring that no one falls into poverty after ending their working life. Ultimately, our experience during our working life determines what happens to us when we retire. If someone has to take time out of work or only works part-time because of ill health, child rearing or caring, they will be substantially worse off in retirement. Those last two reasons are incredibly gendered, with women more likely to miss out on savings for their retirement.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

It was right earlier to highlight the benefits of the coalition Government introducing the triple lock, which this year will mean an uptick of between £650 and £1,000 for pensioners. The coalition Government also introduced mandatory pension contributions and pension pots from employers. Does hon. Lady not think that that is the sort of long-term planning that will make a difference to help this generation to be in a better place financially when they retire?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I assume the hon. Gentleman is referring to automatic enrolment; if he waits, I will mention that. I will not let it go amiss.

Returning briefly to the gender pay gap, the Government’s own research puts the gender pensions gap at 35%. I would argue that we could call it the caring gender gap, because life is arguably more complicated for retirees with caring responsibilities. I am not just thinking about older couples who increasingly rely on each other as their health starts to deteriorate, but people who move into retirement while carrying on caring for their adult children or for other family members.

Constituents have written to me to protest about the injustice of having lost out on the opportunity to build up retirement savings and now, moving into pension age, losing their carers allowance but still continuing to provide unpaid care to their loved ones while others in their cohort settle into a more comfortable retirement. I would like to see a comprehensive plan from the Government, across Departments, to tackle that unfairness. Are there ways of bringing unpaid carers into auto-enrolment through a credit scheme? Could we increase the employer contribution to auto-enrolment to help to build the savings of those in low-paid work? How can we encourage more carers back into the workplace?

I was proud to pass the Carer’s Leave Act 2023, but that is not enough. We need policies on issues such as staying-in-touch days and we need a carer’s allowance that incentivises work. I look forward to meeting a colleague of the Minister on just that. There is definitely an education piece here. Auto-enrolment was an incredible policy, but it also means that people do not really think about their pensions. The Money and Pensions Service estimates that 22 million people say they do not know enough to plan for their retirement, while Department for Work and Pensions research last year found that attitudes to pensions are

“characterised by detachment, fear and complacency”.

I think that those views would be represented in this place, too, when I think about the different things I did before I came to this place and the different pension pots I have.

I understand that planning for retirement is difficult and complicated unless you are an actuary or a financial specialist. I can hear the response of my teenage children if I try to bring it up at home or see the eyes glaze over on the doorstep, but people do care about the result of not engaging. My challenge for the Minister is to bridge that gap and change our culture so that people knowing about their pension is normal, and not scary but a standard part of people’s financial planning and education.

I am interested to hear the Minister’s ideas, but I will put to him just one that keeps coming up when I speak with experts and stakeholders. Will he consider a trial to test the impact of automatically booking savers for pensions guidance appointments when they turn 50? Let us try to make it easy, because lots of things can happen in retirement: your health can change, you could be bereaved or divorced, you could become a carer. The economy could be crashed, causing a sustained cost of living crisis. To try to understand drivers of poverty among older people, Independent Age followed the outcomes for a cohort of pensioners who entered state pension age above the poverty line. Within 10 years almost half had fallen into poverty. Something else is clearly happening that we need to understand. I have talked about a lot of different moving parts in the overall pension and poverty landscape, but what we need—what older people need—is a comprehensive plan.

I will end by asking the Minister this: will he consider a cross-Government review of what support an older person needs to stay out of poverty? Will he bring Westminster up to the standards of other nations and support a Westminster commissioner for older people and ageing? I would like to get something done and I am sure that the Minister would too. I look forward to hearing his response.

Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Commons Chamber

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

The cost of living payments are a vital means of support during the cost of living crisis, but my constituent has lost out, through no fault of her own, because of the well-known issue whereby two of her work paydays fell within the assessment period used to assess eligibility. Will the Government review the eligibility process for the third cost of living payments to ensure that no one else misses out?

[Mel Stride]

This is a long-standing issue that crops up every few years. It is not something on which the Government intend to take specific action. We trust people to manage their finances, such that they can cope with the occasional eventuality where there is an additional year within any one calendar year.

Work Capability Assessment Consultation

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for that typically sensible and astute intervention. May I personally thank him for the advice and input he has given over the preceding months, particularly in this area? He is right that we should be proud of our record of assisting disabled people into work—2 million more in work since 2013. Equally, he is right about addressing the hundreds of thousands of people with these kinds of difficulties and challenges who are leaving businesses and the workforce every year. I recognise that it is essential to get help to those people as early as possible, before they progress too far along that health journey. That is why we are already consulting on occupational health, so that we can make sure that is rolled out more effectively across large and medium-sized businesses.

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

In his statement, the Secretary of State mentioned that four descriptors would be reviewed, but there were no plans for any other changes. He certainly did not mention adding any descriptors. At yesterday’s Westminster Hall petition debate on disability assessment, one of the key issues discussed was remitting and relapsing conditions, particularly fatigue. Will the Secretary of State commit to looking at fatigue, and either adding it as a descriptor or telling us what he is going to do about it instead?

[Mel Stride]

Nothing in the consultation excludes bringing forward exactly the point that the hon. Lady makes. I hope she will do just that, and encourage others to do so as well.

Disability Benefits: Assessments

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Justin Tomlinson]

Absolutely. It would be valuable twofold. I talk to a lot of the assessors, and I know we are all going to highlight where there are challenges, but something like 95% of claims go through. Satisfaction is still relatively high for those claimants; as I said, we are spending £10 billion. The vast majority of assessors want to get it right first time and want to have that knowledge and support, so if we can allow some assessors to specialise, they can develop their training with charities and health organisations with specific knowledge of the area. That will increase the chance of getting the decision right the first time.

Not everybody presents with one single health condition, so it may be that people would have a hybrid assessment in two parts. There would be a general assessment, which in many cases would pick up things on the mental health side that people did not realise were having an impact on their day-to-day life; there would also be a specific assessment of the primary health condition. As the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) so clearly articulates, where people have fluctuating health conditions we really need the knowledge to ensure that we are looking not just at one particular day but, as the guidance says, at the typical impact over a one-year period.

During covid, we had a significantly reduced workforce. All our health assessors have a medical background and then have extensive training, and they were the first port of call for secondments to the NHS to provide the covid jab, so we had an incredibly depleted workforce. That really focused our mind on the volume of assessments. At Work and Pensions oral questions earlier today, I raised a point about whether lessons have been learned on extending the severe conditions criteria. When we looked at it, we estimated that about 250,000 to 300,000 assessments, with a change, could be lifted out of the system every single year. That would speed up the process for those who remain and would obviously be beneficial for those 250,000 to 300,000 people.

At the moment, PIP does not look at individual conditions—it is about the menu of health conditions that have an impact on someone’s daily life—but I think that, in some cases, we can do so. We have shown that with the changes to the special rules for the terminally ill, which will look at health conditions. I will give one example, but no doubt there are many organisations that would lobby for a change in respect of particular health conditions.

Motor neurone disease is a horribly degenerative disease, and there is a pretty clear trajectory once someone has been diagnosed, so I have never understood why on earth we assess people who have it. From the moment they have been diagnosed, we should be able to say, “We expect their condition to go like this,” and then provide an automatic level of support. They would start at the lower level immediately after diagnosis and, as their condition, sadly, deteriorated, they would automatically move on to the highest level. If, sadly, their condition deteriorated more quickly, they would be able to contact the PIP assessors, speak to the MND specialist team, have a light-touch conversation—a GP’s note would probably be sufficient—and be automatically upgraded.

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

I am grateful that the hon. Member has brought up MND. Does he agree that one thing that the current system must do is prevent delays? Not only do people with the condition sometimes deteriorate more quickly, but the adaptations that local authorities are making, and so on, mean that we are making the process much more difficult on every front for people with MND.

[Justin Tomlinson]

Absolutely, and that was one of the drivers behind our changes to the special rules on terminal illness. From the point of diagnosis, PIP is a gateway benefit that will unlock extra help from local authorities, so it will certainly speed up that process.

Before the Minister panics and thinks that he would need an office akin to Fort Knox because every single health group would lobby him and say, “These rules should apply to our particular health challenge,” let me say that the way around that is to look at the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council, which already operates within the DWP. In effect, that is a separate, independent body of medical and scientific experts with far greater brains than mine. They are the ones who decide which health conditions qualify for industrial injuries benefits. We could apply the same principle and, as medical care and scientific knowledge evolved, they could update the guidance. That could potentially lift 250,000 to 300,000 people out of the process and help some of the most important people. Since the changes on terminal illness came into force, we have seen all pluses and little else. I hope that the Minister’s commitment to trying to pilot initiatives in this area will continue, ahead of the White Paper.

Many colleagues have mentioned the appeals process. There are different ways of looking at the statistics but, by and large, for the vast majority of people who are successful in the appeals process, either at the mandatory reconsideration stage or at the end, that is because of additional evidence that is presented. We have to look at why that additional evidence is being presented so late in the day. There are many things that could be done. The Department could be more proactive in chasing up sources that have supportive evidence. Getting evidence from a GP is a bit of a postcode lottery. Some GPs will reply to a claimant immediately and give chapter and verse; some are much slower. Some will seek to charge. Some do not necessarily have the right information.

Where someone has already gone through a work capability assessment, which is very similar—I know there is potentially a review of whether we should have two separate assessments, but this is the case as it stands today—there will already be a lot of information on a similar system, and we should at least ask the claimant whether they would like us to look at that information. Remember that it is the claimant’s information and we should not do that automatically, but we should ask to bring that information over.

We should be proactive in encouraging claimants to bring a trusted colleague with them to the assessments. That is within the rules, but how assessors allow it is very inconsistent. Some assessors will encourage the colleague to speak. Some will tell them, “No, you’re not being assessed; you are just there to provide moral support.” We need consistent guidelines. In my opinion, they should be allowed to speak. I have sat in on a lot of assessments; a lot of people are understandably overwhelmed, and arguably do not do themselves justice in what they say. Sometimes, when a person has had a condition for so long, they just take it as the norm that, for example, they no longer sleep at night. Their partner who is woken up by their not sleeping at night would probably be better at articulating that. We should be doing that.

We also started testing phoning claimants at the mandatory reconsideration stage and asking them to tell us, in their own words, why they disagreed with the decision. One speaker mentioned earlier that the mandatory reconsideration success rate is only about 11%. My understanding is that when we piloted proactively speaking to the claimant, that figure went up to about 40%; when I talked to assessors doing that at the time, they felt they could go even further. We would invariably find that a claimant’s GP had told them something but they had not provided us with the information, or had not been able to get it, and we could chase the GP on their behalf and get that information.

We also allowed people to be lifted out of the system. In the past, people had in effect to take their chances. They had to wait for the MR, and once they triggered the independent appeal the Department could not come back and say, “Now you have provided us with this evidence, we agree with you and wish to do that,” because they were stuck waiting for the judge, which can be up to a 12-month wait. We changed the rules so we could lift people out, but if people still did not agree with us they had the right to stay in the process. All those measures that can help lift people out of the process would be very welcome.

I also want to highlight the need for us to start signposting support and help. PIP is geared up to identify people’s challenges and then to identify society’s financial contribution towards the impact on their daily lives, but we stop there; we do not signpost people on PIP to additional support that may exist in their communities. I visited many wonderful and innovative mental health pilots across the country—we will all have done loads of visits in the summer recess, seen something and thought, “Gosh!”—but time and again people said to me, “Our problem is that we can’t find enough people to come and test these things out.” Yet the PIP database has the list of all the people who have been identified as having a mental health issue. I am not saying that they should have to do it, but at the very least we should be writing and saying, “Right, you’re in this particular postcode. These are the local charities and organisations, this is the local authority, and these are the local health pilots to do with your primary condition, or menu of conditions, that may be of interest to you.” I think that would be hugely beneficial to many of the people who go through the system.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) who opened the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. Elements of his speech felt like groundhog day, because the first Westminster Hall debate that I led, in 2017, was on the issue of work capability assessments. It is worrying that six years on we are still here debating the very same issues. All Members, regardless of party, know that those issues cause undue stress and misery to people across our four nations.

The British Government’s approach to disability benefit assessments is not just ineffective—the theme that has been developed today—but inhumane. Under the current regime, the application process removes the reality of people’s lived experience as the very foundation on which the system has been defined. It favours evidence provided by the assessor rather than the claimant. The system also operates on the presumption of scepticism. It is not a system that empowers its users. Instead it perpetuates a cycle of despair and frustration. That “one size fits all” approach to disability assessment is in my view not only short-sighted, but it completely disregards the reality of living with a disability or a chronic illness. Charities such as Scope have raised concerns about the process time and again, but their calls appear to be continually ignored—at huge expense to those living with a disability.

The impact of disability assessments has, unfortunately, featured significantly in my caseload since I became MP for Glasgow East in 2017. I will be honest: I am no stranger to hearing about dehumanising experiences that my constituents have endured as a result of this system. I sit week in, week out at surgeries across the east end of Glasgow in places like Baillieston, Parkhead and Easterhouse, hearing the same harrowing and sometimes traumatic experiences that people have had to endure at the hands of the disability benefits assessment process.

In most cases, and worryingly, people’s mental and physical health are only worsened by the assessment process. That leads to many further problems for the NHS through health problems, whether physical or mental, so it is counter-productive. My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) referred to the finding by Scope: from January to March this year, 68% of PIP appeal outcomes were changed in favour of the claimant. If such a proportion of wrong outcomes were found in any other Department, Ministers would ask serious questions. I respect the Minister, who I know takes a strong interest in this issue, but I ask him to look again at the figure of nearly 70% of appeal outcomes being overturned. That suggests that the system is fundamentally flawed.

As people continue to face the disability price tag, disabled people are also having to juggle the restricted funds available to them along with soaring food and energy prices. According to the Trussell Trust’s analysis, three quarters of people referred to its food banks reported that they or a member of their household were disabled. As disabled people are hit disproportionately by the cost of living crisis, to the tune of some £945 a month extra, it is vital that all financial support to which they are entitled is awarded. However, under the current system, that is not always the case; in many cases, it feels as if people are actively held back from the support they so desperately need.

The hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) highlighted the recommendations in the Work and Pensions Committee report about the use of informal observations—a point also made by the MS Society in its briefing for the debate. Far too often, PIP assessors make inaccurate decisions based on those informal observations. Watching how someone looks or behaves during their assessment or observing someone walking from their car to the assessment centre are now used as tests of mobility. That is completely wrong and such things should not be taken into account. The Work and Pensions Committee, on which I am privileged to serve with the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), has heard that, more often than not, those informal observations are given greater weight than medical evidence.

As others have outlined, when it comes to people with conditions such as multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s, which fluctuate day to day and have many hidden symptoms, it is completely arbitrary for informal observations to be used to inform the assessor’s decision. The assessor’s limited understanding of complex fluctuating conditions such as MS, combined with the use of informal observations as a way of gathering evidence, results in greater emphasis being placed on the evidence provided by the assessor, rather than the lived experience of the disabled claimant. It therefore strikes me that the only purpose of asking a claimant to come for an assessment is to watch them literally walk from their car to the front door of the assessment centre, which seems utterly absurd.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston made clear, when we look north of the border—this brings me to the substantive point from the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson)—we can see the difference that devolution has made to how the policy has been implemented. It seems clear, not just to SNP Members but to those who work in the disability sphere, that the Scottish Government—on a cross-party basis, in fairness—are moving away from the regressive approach and becoming more committed to a process that has been designed around the lived experience of people with a disability.

Indeed, the adult disability payment from the Scottish Government is delivering an entirely new, simplified and—I would argue—far more compassionate experience for disabled people. It is a system that has been designed with the claimant, rather than against them; that is the key point that comes back when we speak to stakeholders north of the border. Putting compassion and people at the heart of the system must be the priority for any Government, regardless of their colour, so I am proud that we have taken that approach. Indeed, I am proud that Conservative Members on the Work and Pensions Committee unanimously approved its report praising the Scottish Government’s approach.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I am a member of the Scottish Affairs Committee, which did an inquiry into welfare in Scotland, and I certainly agree that what came through strongly from stakeholders was the need for a compassionate approach. As always, however, the processes have to be properly administered. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that at the moment the reality is that waiting times for the ADP in Scotland are longer than those for PIP assessments? Does he, like me, have casework in which there have been incorrect decisions? The approach might be different, but we need to see better outcomes.

[David Linden]

Absolutely. I totally understand the hon. Lady’s point, and I am sure she will understand that a lot of the civil servants who were working on the design of the Social Security Scotland system were rightly deployed towards the covid pandemic. Ministers in the Scottish Government have acknowledged that the situation with the ADP waiting list is less than helpful. But I come back to the fundamental point on which I challenge the hon. Member for North Swindon, which is that our systems are about taking the view that the claimant is not on the make. That is the nub of the issue. With the UK Government’s system, there is a scepticism about whether the person sitting at the other end of the table is on the make or on the take, so it is about trying to find a way to catch them out. That is why there is an overturn rate of 68%, for example.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for introducing the debate, the petitioners who signed the petitions and the Petitions Committee for its work.

As other Members have said, as a constituency MP I find that DWP casework, particularly regarding PIP assessments, takes up a substantial part of my caseworkers’ time and often causes extreme distress to those who come to me as their MP. It is always nice as an MP to feel good when we have had a result and managed to overturn something, but frankly we should not need to be involved in the process at all.

I thank the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, for highlighting a number of the Committee’s recent report findings. I echo the thoughts of the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden): this is a cross-party issue. There are a number of areas on which we would be likely to find agreement in order to straighten out and improve some of the systems. That would not only help some of our most vulnerable constituents but, frankly, surely save the public purse some money, given the failures and inefficiencies in our system.

It is useful to reflect on why we have a disability benefits system in the first place: because we know that those with a disability often find that their ability to work is impaired or that they are unable to work at all. Our social security system accepts that such individuals need support to compensate them for their inability to work and to meet the additional costs that their disability involves.

It is important that we remember that work capability assessments are not strictly disability benefit assessments, but they predominantly impact on disabled people when they apply for benefits and need to be considered in this debate. The Government have said that work capability assessments are unlikely to be abolished until 2026-27 at the earliest, so there are some key questions that we need answered. We need to know what will be done to improve them in the meantime—we have already heard a number of points about that. How are we avoiding over-testing? What has been done to protect claimants’ mental health? It would be great if the Government could provide clarity on the timeframe involved.

Without work capability assessments, is there a blanket requirement to look for work? It is vital that we avoid unnecessarily extending sanctions to those who are not in a position to work because of their health. All the evidence suggests that sanctions are not effective in encouraging people to work, and they also penalise people with mental health difficulties. Surely we should all want to see a scheme based on incentives.

My party wants to see a separation of the administration of benefits from employment support. Being supported to access training, education or employment ought to be separate from social security. People are not motivated to do things because there is not a sanction; they are motivated to do things because everyone wants a life that is as fulfilling as possible.

I am conscious the fact that at this point in the debate, although we still have plenty of time left, I am touching on things that have already been covered by other Members. On the application process for PIP, the forms are long, difficult and stressful, particularly for applicants with cognitive difficulties, fatigue or mental health difficulties. I firmly echo the thoughts of the right hon. Member for East Ham in relation to the time limit to complete the forms. It is certainly my experience as a constituency MP that forms sometimes take up to a week to arrive, which leaves applicants with only two weeks to apply. That is simply unrealistic.

There is an option to call the DWP and ask for an extension, but frankly it is not well known about, and having to engage again with the DWP causes unnecessary stress. Surely we could look at increasing the time given for applicants to complete the form to two months, and perhaps even longer. We also need to review the form so that we properly take account of relapsing and remitting conditions. I refer to the remarks that I made in an Adjournment debate that I secured on long covid, in which we considered how to support people with that condition.

[SIR GARY STREETER in the Chair]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Gary. On the PIP assessment process, we all have inboxes full of correspondence from unhappy constituents. I am aware that there will potentially be happy constituents out there who have not had any issues with PIP and therefore have not got in touch with us as MPs, but for those who do get in touch I suspect that the reality of their experience is that they feel the process was degrading and designed to trip them up. The Government can say all they want that that is not what is meant to happen, but it is the experience of the vast majority of people we talk to. One of the petitions we are debating suggests abolishing assessments entirely and focusing only on the medical evidence. We have heard comments from other Members as to why that might not be the best approach, but I agree that it is hard to find a system that is worse than the current one.

Delays in getting assessments is a real issue. According to Citizens Advice, in April this year some 720,000 people were waiting either for an appointment for a new claim or for a review—that is some backlog. We must see a shift in how assessments are offered, with a choice for claimants between them being in person or on the phone. One of the benefits of the pandemic was seeing how that might be possible.

The formal part of the assessment, as Members know, involves reviewing the claimant’s functional abilities against a range of descriptors. Evidence gathered by organisations such as Scope shows overwhelmingly that the descriptors do not allow claimants to properly explain their needs and what they might have difficulty with. Let us take, for example, the question on food preparation: the ability of someone to feed themselves is not as simple as whether they can cook a meal unaided. So many aspects of that are not covered by that simple statement. Perhaps someone can prepare a meal if their pain is not too bad, but they need someone to reach for the items on the top or bottom shelves of a cupboard. Perhaps someone asks the question based on whether the claimant has had help cooking in the past day or week. The answer might be no not because they do not need help, but because they simply have not had the opportunity or support, so they have been eating food like cereal or a ready meal to compensate.

The descriptors are even more problematic for people with relapsing and remitting conditions. At the moment, a 50% rule is applied, so someone has to experience a symptom and have a resulting difficulty for half a given time period for that difficulty to count. That means that if they are in pain so severe that they cannot wash, dress or go to the shops, but only for 14 days in a month, they would not qualify for any support. The criteria also fail to take into account the impact of performing the activities being assessed. “Can you walk more than 20 metres or 50 metres?” Perhaps they can, but slowly and with difficulty, and they are then in so much pain that they cannot do anything for the rest of the day. A mere yes or no does not consider the better test of whether someone can do something safely, repeatedly, competently and in a timely manner.

Other Members have touched on this, but informal observations are a real concern. Particularly given the use of non-specialist assessors, it seems deliberately careless to ask someone to make a judgment on another’s abilities without any deep understanding of that person’s experience. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) for highlighting MS in that regard. In any case, the mere fact that people know they are being watched makes them feel that they are being distrusted, which speaks to the point that the hon. Member for Glasgow East made. In fact, that is why we are all here today: because the people who are meant to be supported through benefits like PIP have so little trust in the system that they want it to be completely overhauled. That is why they signed the petition. We absolutely need to restore that trust, and the first thing the Government could do very simply is to review the use of informal assessments.

I agree with the right hon. Member for East Ham that all assessments must be recorded by default, with the option to opt out if the applicant wants. I do not understand why the Government have not accepted that recommendation from the Select Committee. All reports simply ought to be shared so that claimants can see how and why a decision has been made. That seems reasonable, particularly if we are then moving on to reassessments.

It is important to think about reassessments, and I hope the Minister will explain why it continues to be DWP policy to over-review claimants who have no chance of improving. If something gets worse for a claimant and they think they should be entitled to a higher level of support, they are entitled to start that review process themselves. There is absolutely no need to call people back year in, year out for a stressful process that uses up taxpayer money and just creates more and more backlogs. The backlog will soon be well above a million if we continue in that way.

Worse than that, all the stats for mandatory reconsiderations and appeals show that incorrect decisions at first assessment are commonplace. That means that when someone is called back for an unnecessary assessment, the chances are that they might have had their benefits wrongly stopped. We know that families with at least one disabled person are far more likely to be in poverty than those without—42% compared with 18%, according to the Social Market Foundation—so stopping those benefits, even for a short period, can have devastating effects.

The process halts any chance of someone improving and being able to enjoy a more active and fulfilling life that might include employment, with frequent reassessments linked to stress and further deterioration. That has been the experience of one of my constituents. She does not want to be named, but she wants me to share this with the Minister. She suffered a spinal cord injury in the early 2000s. She was initially assessed in 2016, then reassessed in 2017 and 2019. She has had multiple incorrect assessments. She finds dealing with the DWP incredibly traumatic. Despite being told by her doctor that her condition will never improve—something the DWP eventually accepted—she is still being told that she needs reassessments every two years. That will not fix her spine. All it does is risk her losing the little she receives while causing immense distress. Her needs might worsen over time, but she should be able to exercise her own autonomy about requesting a review rather than being stuck in an endless cycle. What are the Minister’s thoughts about what I can go back and say to my constituent to show that he understands and cares about her and others in that position?

In conclusion, it is clear that the assessments need to be reformed from top to bottom. None of us knows what will happen to us or our loved ones, and our social security system should be a safety net. Its purpose should be to reduce poverty and, where possible, increase employment. I hope the Minister will take on board the comments made by Members today.

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

We now turn to our Front-Bench speeches. I call Marion Fellows.