Housing Benefit and Supported Housing
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(8 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Brandon Lewis
I shall make a little progress and then take more interventions.
This Government have always been clear that the most vulnerable will be supported through our welfare reforms. We know that the welfare system is vital for supporting vulnerable people, and we know it is essential that all vulnerable people have a roof over their heads. That is why we have been determined to support their housing needs. We have set aside over £500 million to create a strong safety net against homelessness; we recently pledged £40 million for domestic abuse services, ensuring that no victim is turned away from the support they need; at the autumn statement we announced a further £400 million to deliver 8,000 specialist affordable homes for the vulnerable, elderly or those with disabilities; and the Department of Health committed to fund up to 7,500 further specialised homes for disabled and older people.
We spent an extra £2 billion on main disability benefits over the course of the last Parliament, and by 2020 we will be spending at least £10 billion a year extra over and above inflation on the NHS, including a record £11.4 billion a year on mental health, which we can do because of the stronger economy that the Chancellor has brought to our country.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
The Minister is giving us the statistics on how much money the Government have put aside or will be spending. I ask him a straight question: will people currently in supported housing be protected, rather than being turfed out and made homeless? That is a simple question.
Brandon Lewis
As I will set out in more detail later, we will make sure that the most vulnerable people are protected. That is what the welfare system is all about.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I have listened to all the speeches that have been made by Conservative Members today, and have found myself wondering whether some of them are attending the right debate. If they consult the Order Paper, they will see that this debate is about supported housing. It is not about housing bills or taxation; it is about a very specific, vulnerable group of people.
We keep being told to wait and see what the proposals are. Would it not have been sensible for the Government to work out the costs of their proposals and establish the issues involved at the outset, and then conduct a review before making their announcement? If they had conducted the review properly, they might have established that the proposals were counter-productive in both economic and moral terms. If they had done their homework first, we might not be having this debate.
To suggest that mine are crocodile tears are very unfair. I rarely cry, but when I do, my tears are real. I assure the House that Labour Members care about people, and we care about people because it is what the Labour party was founded for. As for the suggestion made by some Conservative Members that social housing organisations have pots of money and spend millions of pounds on campaigning, that is absolute rubbish. I have been contacted by a number of housing associations and charities that look after vulnerable people in my constituency, and I assure Members that they do not have money to waste on campaigning. I have visited those places and I know what happens there.
Let me enlighten the House. At least three organisations in my constituency are doing valuable work. The main provider of social housing is Bolton at Home, whose representatives have contacted me—and I speak to them regularly in any event—to say that thousands of children will be made homeless, as well as hundreds of adults. Bolton at Home also provides supported housing, and it is important to remember what “supported housing” means. It means support for the vulnerable, the disabled, the elderly, those with mental health issues, and the young. The suggestion that turfing them out of their supported housing will enable the Government to economise and cut costs is absolute rubbish, because the state will then have to pick up an even bigger tab.
Another organisation in my constituency, St Vincent’s Housing Association, is a charity which runs a secure unit for about six adults. It relies on housing benefit to look after those people, who have mental health and drug problems. They are extremely vulnerable. If they are put on the streets, they will probably commit crimes and end up in the courts or in prison, and that will cost the state even more money.
Emmaus runs a “companions” system. It, too, looks after vulnerable people, using housing benefit to support them. I do not understand why the Government seem to think that their proposed cuts will save money. In fact, they are counter-productive.
Simon Hoare
In the words of the late Ronald Reagan, “There you go again.” The hon. Lady seems to be suggesting that she has a monopoly on understanding. Does she not accept that Conservative Members also talk to service providers in our constituencies, and also know what is going on?
Yasmin Qureshi
Sometimes I genuinely struggle with the question whether some Conservative Members either care or are bothered. If you were really concerned about disabled and vulnerable people, you would have spent your five-minute speech talking about them, rather than criticising Labour Members for raising this issue and accusing us of shedding crocodile tears. I do not know how many times you used that phrase.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Natascha Engel)
Order. The hon. Lady is speaking through the Chair, and should not do so.
Yasmin Qureshi
I am so sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker; I got carried away.
If Members on the Government Benches were genuinely concerned about the vulnerable, they would be supporting our motion today, because it is only about specific sets and groups of people with a whole range of issues.
Going back to Emmaus and its companions, it gets £132 in housing benefit that it uses for them, but the companions then have to come off other social security benefits. The cost to the charity of providing a home for these people is £1,000, but it does it because it wants to help them learn skills and reintegrate into society. This cut in benefits will mean it will have to find even more money in order to support these people.
If the people in St Vincent’s housing, for example, are turfed out, that will cost the state far more than cutting their housing benefit. So I go back to the question I asked the Minister right at the beginning when he opened this debate: can he guarantee to us that people currently in supported housing will not be turfed out of their home? Will they be supported and protected? I have still not had an answer to that.
Amendment of the Law
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
Since this Government were elected five years ago, three mantras have been quoted by the Con Dems against the Labour party, and I want to debunk some of them. The first is the suggestion that, somehow, the global financial crisis was caused by the Labour party. [Laughter.] The second is that, somehow, that was because we had a light touch in our regulation of the banks. The third is that, somehow, our party is anti-business. Conservative Members started laughing when I mentioned the global crisis, but they perhaps need to be reminded that when Labour came to office in 1997 the national debt to GDP ratio was 43% but by 2002, five years later, it was down to 30% under Labour. So let us not have any lectures about our financial prudence.
The banking crisis occurred later—I expect more laughter—but Conservative Members should stop laughing because if the banking crisis was our fault, why were the USA, Japan and the entire world having the same problem? That is why it was called the global financial crisis. It was not the UK’s financial crisis; it was the global financial crisis, which we know started with the sub-prime mortgages in the USA, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the other things that happened. So it is wrong for the Government to have said what they have said for the past five years, and I hope that the British people, who know the truth, will reject them at the forthcoming election.
We keep hearing about our light-touch regulation, with people saying, “You took your eyes off the banks and you regulated them too lightly.” Yet this Chancellor and this Prime Minister were saying up until 2010 that the Labour party was far too stringent on the regulation; we were being accused of stifling business and of over-regulating the banks. So which way do Conservative Members want to play this: were we overly light or too strong? I would say that we regulated the banks properly. Again, the Government have collective amnesia and they need to be reminded.
The current national debt is £1.36 trillion, whereas when Labour left power in 2010 it was £0.76 trillion, about half what it is now. The national debt to GDP ratio is about 95% now, so we need take no lectures from Conservative Members about financial management and fiscal prudence. The reason there remains such a high debt, much bigger than when we left office, is that the Chancellor’s austerity measures meant he was not able to get the revenue receipts he needed to close the deficit.
Although jobs have been created, which we welcome, most are on zero-hours contracts, part-time jobs and poorly paid jobs. Many people still have to rely on working tax credits to make ends meet. It is worth remembering that, in 2007, the Labour Government borrowed £37.7 billion, but spent £28.3 billion on big projects, such as building hospitals and schools, which helped the economy. By contrast, when this Government borrowed £91.5 billion in 2013, they invested only £23.7 billion. The rest was used to bring down the budget deficit, so there has been no economic miracle.
Today’s debate is about jobs. We are told by Government Members that we are the party that is against business. Well, since 2010, it is Labour that has constantly urged the Government to fulfil the infrastructure projects that we pushed for and it took years for the legislation to be passed so that they could go ahead. We called for a reduction in VAT and in national insurance to help small businesses. We called on the Government to reduce business rates to enable start-ups and to allow local authorities to help small businesses. We have constantly argued that the banks were not lending enough money to small and medium-sized enterprises. We are the party that said we would build 200,000 new homes. We are the party that said that all 18 to 24 year olds who qualify would get apprenticeships, which is about 1 million young people. We are the party that said that it would create 20,000 more nurses training places and 8,000 more doctor and GP training contracts.
Adam Afriyie
The hon. Lady is saying that Labour is the party for all sorts of things, but was it not also the party that did nothing about zero-hours contracts when it was in power?
Yasmin Qureshi
When zero-hours contracts are properly used, which is rare, they are fine—I am talking about students who work part time—but we now have 1.5 million people on them.[Interruption.] I am sorry; I thought that the hon. Gentleman wanted to intervene again.
Yasmin Qureshi
No, no. To say that we are a party that does not believe in business or enterprise is wrong. We are a party with a social conscience. Some years ago, when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition talked about producers and predators, he was said to be anti-business; he was not. We are the party that believes in fairness. We are the party that believes that if a person does a day’s work, they should be properly remunerated. We are the party that spent many hours in the previous Parliament arguing for the minimum wage when everyone in the Conservative party was trying to argue against it. We have a record of which we should be proud.
Personal Independence Payments
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, Mr Crausby, to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon. I am grateful to have been granted this debate on the processing of personal independence payments. As in the constituencies of many of my colleagues, concern about the time taken to process PIP payments has been significant in my constituency. Several cases that have been brought to my attention are both shocking and heart-wrenching. I am here today to represent constituents who have come to me in despair for their stories to be heard. I know that many right hon. and hon. Members throughout the country have constituents in similar situations. I thank the organisations that have contacted me recently to tell me about their work and some of the challenges faced by the people they help. They include Macmillan Cancer Support, Scope, Mencap, the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign and Parkinson’s UK.
I believe there is strong support in this country for a social security system that helps people to get by when they fall on hard times, and that provides dignity and a decent standard of living for those who are unable to work because of sickness or disability. Before being elected, the Prime Minister said:
“The test of a good society is you look after the elderly, the frail, the vulnerable, the poorest in our society. And that test is even more important in difficult times, when difficult decisions have to be taken, than it is in better times”
yet, four and a half years on, life for disabled people is harder than ever. They have been among the worst affected by the Government’s decisions.
As the House has heard, the delays in personal independence payments are a serious problem, not only for my constituents in Bolton South East, but for people throughout the country. They are desperate people. Many of them have worked and paid into the system for years, but have been struck by disability or illness and forced to wait months for help from the Department for Work and Pensions.
PIP is a non-means-tested benefit available to people suffering ill health or with a disability. It is intended to help those who receive it so that they can cover the additional costs that will inevitably arise from their condition, whether they are working or not. It is important to remind the House that life costs more for those who are disabled. There may be additional costs for special food, medicines, equipment, extra heating and lighting costs for those who need to stay at home longer, and transport costs for those who are less mobile. Such extra costs are not luxuries. They are essential to a life of dignity, and any civilised society should make it a priority to see that people who need such help get it without fuss.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
A constituent of mine who has cancer and lost the use of her legs was one of the 720 people in Newport East with an outstanding claim. She was paid in October. The payment was approved in August, but it took until October to pay her, with no backdating. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Minister should address that point, because it is outrageous that we should leave people that long with no backdating?
Yasmin Qureshi
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The crux of the problem is delay, not only in the assessment programme, but in giving the money. I will speak about a constituent in a similar situation to that of her constituent.
A recent Scope research paper shows that the costs add up to an extra £550 a month. Some costs cannot be avoided, but disabled people too often continue to pay over the odds for everyday items and services. The Government must guarantee that the value of PIP keeps up with disabled people’s extra costs. For example, placing a triple lock on PIP, as the Government have done on pensions, would ensure that its value is maintained and build the financial resilience of disabled people. PIP is the financial lifeline that disabled people rely on to help to meet those costs. Instead, its processing has brought distress and hardship to some of the most vulnerable people. Sadly, the Government have completely failed to remember the human impact. Behind the bureaucratic language and spreadsheets are enormous backlogs of ordinary people in need who are being let down and mistreated. I will give a few examples, which I am sure will be familiar to colleagues and their constituencies.
Mr and Mrs Booth came to my advice surgery in March. Mr Booth had had a stroke in August 2013. He was paralysed on his right side. He had been waiting for an Atos assessment since September 2013. PIP is a passport to other benefits and his wife could not apply for carer’s allowance until he received PIP. Mr Booth told me that he was being summoned to court the following week, and that he faced having his home repossessed because he could not repay his mortgage as a result of not being able to access benefits. He was receiving only statutory sick pay, and his future was hinging on the Atos assessment.
I wrote to the Secretary of State on 3 March and highlighted Mr Booth’s case. A week later, the judge adjourned the repossession order for two months to allow the situation with Atos to be resolved. By the time Mr and Mrs Booth revisited me at my surgery in July, Mr Booth had had his assessment in May, but they were still waiting. They had contacted DWP twice. It had assured them that the matter would be dealt with soon. Clearly that was not the case. I contacted the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), then Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, urging him to look into the case as a matter of urgency. I received a response at the end of July, which addressed some of the issues I had highlighted. The letter stated:
“I am sorry for the time it has taken to process Mr Booth’s PIP claim of 12th September 2013. There was an initial delay in forwarding it to Atos, the assessment provider, because we needed to validate the claim and this was not completed until 17th October. The delay in arranging for this to be done is regrettable. Unfortunately, experience so far has highlighted that in many cases, the assessment process has been taking longer than expected. We are continuing to monitor this closely and we are working with the assessment providers to try and reduce the time they are taking to complete their part of the processes.”
That was unfortunate and regrettable for Mr Booth. He was given a back payment of £4,694.37 for the 10 months he had waited, but it came too late for him. His home was repossessed and he and his wife had been made homeless by the negligent delay.
A second constituent, Ms Sylvia Syddall, contacted my office on behalf of her husband who had suffered a heart attack and three subsequent strokes. She had made a claim to cover the additional costs to support her husband. Atos first informed Ms Syddall that her claim had been received four months after the initial application was made to the DWP, and 16 months from the present day. Several administration errors followed, and Atos insisted on a medical assessment, despite being given much medical evidence stating that Mr Syddall was severely ill and had been hospitalised for a prolonged period, and was unable to feed and wash himself. However, the delay continued for weeks. Atos kept insisting that it would do a medical assessment despite there being so much staff medical evidence staring it in the face and telling it exactly what was wrong with him. Sadly, Ms Syddall’s husband passed away without his PIP payment ever being processed and completed. His wife had been paying for the additional costs herself and sadly, she did not even have enough funds to pay for his funeral. Sixteen months on, Ms Syddall is without her husband, without having received any payments. It is a particularly troubling case, demonstrating the consequences of the deeply flawed process that we seem to have at the moment and how such delays are hurting the most vulnerable.
Let me give a third example. Mr Darius Pope is a young disabled constituent, confined to a wheelchair after a road accident. He suffers depression. He is now suffering at the hands of Atos and from over six months of the DWP chaos. Will the Minister tell me what I, as an MP, should say to a constituent such as Mr Pope, who is faced with such considerable stress and anxiety from the processing of his personal independence payment application that he tells me he would take his own life if it were possible for him to walk out of his wheelchair? This constituent has contemplated suicide. The additional costs of living are so burdensome that he has to borrow money from his parents, which is not a great situation—that relationship has become increasingly strained.
Those are just a few of the appalling cases from constituents who have allowed me to share their stories, but there are many others. As I have said, I have no doubt that such stories are replicated throughout the country. When I posted about this debate on social media, I was inundated with stories from across the country.
The concerns do not just come from my constituents or colleagues. In a report published on 27 February 2014, the National Audit Office said that the “poor” early operational performance had led to long delays and uncertainty for PIP claimants. It said that the Department had failed to allow sufficient time to test the new system and that unexpected delays in the assessment process had led to a large backlog of claims. The NAO recommended that the DWP set out a clear plan for informing claimants about the likely delays they would experience while plans to improve performance took effect. I ask this question now and will ask it again later: will the Minister today confirm what progress has been made?
Jessica Morden
Back in April, in a similar debate on personal independence payments in Wales, the then Minister admitted that there were delays in all parts of the process, including at the DWP end. Does my hon. Friend believe it is important to hear from the Minister today how much of that delay in Wales is Capita and how much is the DWP, and what he and the DWP are doing to speed up the process at the DWP end, which he is responsible for?
Yasmin Qureshi
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, and I hope the Minister has heard what she says—she echoes a concern that others have about the delays.
The tragic part of the situation is that everybody says, “Yes, there are delays,”—we have been hearing that since last year—yet when the pilot project was rolled out, why was it not rolled out on a smaller scale? Why were proper resourcing and staffing not given to the new system of assessment? Surely people must have known that when a new project is rolled out, there will be teething problems. The purpose of pilot projects is to see what happens, so why not do the pilot projects on a small scale? Why not make sure that the resources are there to deal with all the eventualities and problems? Why carry it out on such a massive scale that we end up with those backlogs? The backlogs are still there. It may be a naive solution, but why does the Department not employ more people who can process applications? Why does it not tell Atos to speed up its assessment process? I cannot believe that in the 21st century, in the country that we live in, such things cannot be expedited. For months and months we have been hearing the same story—“Yes, there are delays, yes, there are delays”—but there are solutions, and it seems as if nobody in the Department of Work and Pensions or other Ministries is bothering to listen or trying to deal with the solutions. It is almost as if lip service is being paid by everybody—they say, “Yes, there are delays; we are dealing with it,” but nothing has been done.
The Work and Pensions Committee and the Public Accounts Committee have described services to PIP claimants and the length of time people must wait for decisions on PIP claims as unacceptable. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee rightly said:
“The implementation of Personal Independence Payment has been nothing short of a fiasco.”
I am pleased that the Minister recently acknowledged that the situation is not satisfactory and is working collaboratively with the assessment providers to improve performance and reduce the backlog of claims, but I would still like to ask him this: why should sick people have to pay the price for his maladministration?
Data released by the Department show that, of the 529,400 cases registered for the personal independence payment between April 2013 and the end of July this year, just over 206,000 have been cleared—either awarded, declined or withdrawn. However, the figures do not reveal how long those individuals had been waiting in that 16-month period when PIP was first introduced. Why are the Government not disclosing data on waiting times?
Before the summer, the Secretary of State reassured the House that, by autumn 2014, no PIP claimant would have to wait more than six months, and that, by the end of the year, no one would be waiting for more than 16 weeks. However, I was disappointed that the Department is working towards reducing its waiting times to 16 weeks to assessment rather than to payment, as first implied by the Secretary of State. Based on that time frame, the absolute earliest that a claimant could expect to receive a decision would be after 18 to 20 weeks, which is not acceptable.
In any case, autumn has passed, but I still have cases of constituents who have been waiting for more than six months. The end of the year is fast approaching. Will the Minister tell the House why he was not able to meet the autumn target for the constituents of Bolton South East, and how he intends to achieve the end-of-year target?
The situation is not getting any better; it is getting worse. People are facing major delays with both Atos and Capita to secure face-to-face meetings, and it is taking far too long for Atos and Capita to report after assessments. The longer those problems persist, the more long-term the impact. What is the Minister doing to ensure that his Department’s contractors provide an acceptable service to claimants?
Fightback is a local charity in my constituency that helps a considerable number of constituents. It reported to me that its helpline has been inundated with disabled people phoning for advice. It has received almost 50 calls on PIP delays in a day. Many are facing extreme delays of well over six months.
If the Department has revised its assumption, will the Minister set out the end-to-end process of PIP claims and how much time each part of the process takes? Does he agree that it is right and proper to ensure that disabled people, including those affected by cancer, receive financial support as quickly as possible, and that 11 weeks to payment, as suggested by Macmillan, is a more acceptable time to wait?
What struck me as unusual when carrying out the research for today’s debate is the reason why the Government have not published for more than a year the average length of time it takes to process PIP claims for normal and special rules as part of their quarterly statistics. In the interests of transparency, will the Department publish clearance and waiting times to demonstrate that claimants are waiting no longer than 16 weeks to assessment, in line with the current aspiration? Considering that the benefit has been in place for a year, why is it taking so long to provide a rounded and representative picture of PIP performance, improvement activity and claimants’ experience?
Earlier, I explained that my constituents Mr Pope and Mr and Mrs Booth had fallen into burdensome debt because of the additional costs of disability. A Scope report shows that they are not alone. I do not know whether the Minister is aware that statistics reveal that the disabled are twice as likely to have unsecured debt such as payday loans and credit card debt, and debt such as logbook loans. Such debt often totals more than half their household income. Even the Government’s research has shown that the disabled are over-represented among high-cost borrowers: 18% of disabled people use that type of credit, compared with 5% of non-disabled people. That prompts the question: why is a group that is already vulnerable to financial pressure being “looked after” by legal loan sharks and doorstep lenders, not the Government?
As we know, debt does not just make day-to-day living harder for Mr Pope and others. It is impossible for people to plan for the future when they cannot be sure whether they can keep a roof over their head. Debt narrows their horizons. A disabled person’s debt problems are only compounded by the additional difficulties they will have in finding work that is suitable for them.
I hope the Minister uses this opportunity to answer the questions I have asked and to explain what he and his Department are doing to make the system easier for claimants. We have heard in the past acknowledgement from him and others that the delay is unacceptable and more must be done to address it, but what specific actions have been put in place to do that?
The essence of the debate is common human decency and treating people with dignity and respect. Certainly in the case of PIP, many hundreds of thousands of people in our country have failed to be protected by the Government. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response with concrete information on what they have done so far and concrete proposals on what they will do to deal with the backlog.
Mr Harper
I accept the hon. Lady’s point. I mentioned it because some hon. Members have raised cases in which there have been two issues: a decrease in income because someone has been out of work, and extra costs. I am simply making the point that, in those cases, it is reasonable to expect PIP to cover the extra costs, but it is not a benefit designed to deal with the fact that someone is not working.
The hon. Member for Bolton South East wrote to us about the Booth case, but I do not think she has written to us on the Pope case at this point, so I do not have the specific details. If she wants me to consider it, I am happy for her to drop me details after the debate. The third case, about which she has written to the Department, is the Syddall case. I put on record my apologies for the delays in that case. When someone has a terminal illness, which was not the case or was not known about in this instance, we obviously prioritise their claim. As the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) mentioned, my predecessor put in place those changes to the process, and we are currently dealing with cases involving people with a terminal illness in about the expected time period of 10 days. In cases such as the one raised by the hon. Member for Bolton South East, when the person does not know that they have a terminal illness and dies while awaiting a decision, we deal with the claim based on the evidence we have. Any arrears of benefit, if applicable, are paid to the estate. A decision has now been made in that specific case. It will be communicated to the family shortly, and I will write to her shortly after that to give her the full details. I hope that is helpful.
Yasmin Qureshi
I thank the Minister for the letter that is on its way to my constituents and me regarding the position on Mr and Mrs Syddall. There is a fast-track procedure for people who are terminally unwell. Is it possible to extend that fast-track procedure for people who may not be terminally unwell, but who are obviously disabled and in need of benefit, such as those who have had a stroke? Perhaps the concept of a special fast-track procedure could be extended to slightly different categories of case.
Mr Harper
I will come to that in a minute, because I will discuss the point made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) about paper-based reviews, meaning assessments made based on the paperwork without having to call someone in.
The general point arising out of the specific cases raised by the hon. Member for Bolton South East and other Members is on delays. I have been frank that delays are not acceptable since I made my first appearance at questions; when I gave my evidence at length to the Work and Pensions Committee, on which the hon. Member for Edinburgh East serves; and during the summer when I dealt with Members’ correspondence. The top priority when the Prime Minister asked me to do this job was to get the delays dealt with. That is my priority. I have been spending a considerable amount of time with my officials and meeting with both assessment providers to put it right. A new team of officials have taken over the work and are driving improved performance. We are working with the assessment providers and working with the oldest cases to improve it.
The hon. Lady asked for specifics. Between them, the two assessment providers have doubled the number of health professionals working through recruitment and training, and have increased the number of assessment centres—I will cover specifically the points raised by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) in a minute—and extended their opening hours.
We have increased the number of paper-based assessments, so in many cases it should be possible, based on the paperwork that people produce, to make a decision without having to call them in for an assessment. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East is right that, at the beginning of the process, the number ran very low and below where we expected it to be. We have improved the process. I hope she will be pleased to know that, when claimants have been unable to work and have gone through the work capability assessment, we are joining up the process, so that we take the ESA85—the report from the work capability assessment—and put it with their PIP form and any other evidence they have provided. That is enabling us to make more decisions based on the paperwork without needing to call people in for assessments. I hope that is sensible.
Welfare Reform (Sick and Disabled People)
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
This is one of the most important debates that we have had, certainly since I have been a Member of Parliament, because it concerns 11.3 million people who are the most vulnerable in our society. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and those who signed the petition on securing the debate, and the Backbench Business Committee on providing time for it. We know that the mark of a decent society is how it treats the vulnerable—the sick, the disabled, the elderly. There may be a case for reforming welfare and introducing reforms, but reforms that impact most on the disabled are wrong. I will not go into the statistics because they have already been referred to, but I think it is universally accepted that the benefit cuts hitting the disabled mean that they are about 30% worse off than other people. My mind boggles as to why we should put the greatest burden of cuts on the disabled and the unwell—the vulnerable in society. That is why I welcome the opportunity to debate this matter.
I want to refer in detail to the effects on deafblind people. The changes—the stress from the form filling, the assessment and the convoluted process, and the changes in the payments—are having a tremendous impact on the 365,000 people who are both deaf and blind. A mother of two deafblind adult sons describes how one of them uses the disability living allowance. She says:
“I worry that MPs don’t understand how deafblind people communicate and just how important communicating is to them. It can be very lonely and frustrating for the deafblind person and can ultimately affect the deafblind person’s mental health. My eldest son uses his DLA to pay for his 1-to-1 support; that money gets him the life he wants. Before he had the right support, he exhibited very difficult behaviours because he was frustrated.”
She says that he could cause danger to himself and to others, but when he got his one-to-one support, his life completely changed. She continued:
“My son is a sociable friendly man who is now able to take a full part in everyday life and make decisions for himself, the difference is amazing! It would have been a waste of money”—
and obviously cost more—
“to place him in the secure residential accommodation.”
He is now much happier and his family is happier as well. We must always remember that saving money at one end might mean spending more money later and so be a false economy.
I also want to mention the closure of Remploy factories. I used to visit my Remploy factory in Bolton all the time. The people there were really happy to have a job to go to. They wanted to work and earn a living, not to take state benefits. The closures were very much an ideological decision by the Government. There were difficulties in the Remploy system, but they were with the management at the top of the hierarchy, who were keeping a lot of the money. The changes that were needed to make Remploy more effective should have been made at the top, where money was being wasted. The ordinary disabled person working in the factory was not causing that waste. Rather than looking properly at how to make Remploy work better, the Government managed to abolish it. As a result, many of the people who worked there have ended up unemployed. They are sitting at home, claiming state benefits and getting incredibly depressed, because—let us face it—with so many people unemployed, their chances of getting a job are negligible.
Lastly, I want to talk about work capability assessments and Atos. Much has been said about that in Parliament. My constituent, Mr Jason Froggatt, lost his job because of illness, but Atos then said that he was fit to work but needed to do so near a toilet—that was actually in the assessment. He, his wife and their son now face losing their home because they do not have enough money. I wrote to the Secretary of State a few weeks ago about that case but am yet to receive a response. We have heard many other examples of people who are very ill being told that they are fit for work.
Mike Penning
Actually, I was going to refer to the work by Dr Duffy, and when we leave the Chamber today, I will ask my officials to contact Dr Duffy and his team to see whether we can work closely together. Perhaps we can give them better information so we can be as accurate as possible.
The right hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire) said my heart is in the right place, and I hope it is. I consider it a great honour to do this job and I desperately want to make things right and proper. If we look at the spending since 2009 going forward and projected into 2015, we see that the budget in this area of Government expenditure will continue to rise. We have a slightly more cumulative figure than the ones I cited earlier, and it is about £50 billion a year, so we spend just under £1 billion a week in this budget. The key for everybody in the House is how we spend it—that we spend it correctly.
I also believe in having a work capability assessment. I do not agree with the motion, but I do agree with the shadow Minister. I think that the assessment was brought in for the right reasons. I am not going to say all the problems were caused by the previous Administration because, frankly, the problems with Atos and the WCA have been there for everybody to see since the general election as well. It is not quite as simple as saying, as some Members have, that we should go out tomorrow morning and sack Atos. It has a contract. As I said at oral questions earlier in the week, I am determined that once we have negotiated the position with Atos—and we are in negotiation with Atos, which is why I was so surprised to read the views of Atos in the press over the weekend—we must make absolutely sure taxpayers’ money is not paid to Atos as compensation for the end of the contract when that comes. That would be fundamentally wrong and I would not agree to it. The negotiations continue.
We have discussed several aspects of benefits today, and I believe that the time being taken for people to be assessed is fundamentally unacceptable. This is an issue not only for the suppliers of PIP and the WCA—we have talked about Capita and Atos—but for my Department as well.
Mike Penning
I want to make some progress, but I promise that I will give way to the hon. Lady in a moment.
Mike Penning
If we were to inform claimants and Members of Parliament about the minutiae of every single change in policy, we would be here a lot longer. As most Members know, I am not hugely party political, but I must point out that the previous Administration did not offer that level of information either. That is not how Governments work. We are trying to deal with the delays, and to ensure that people get what they are entitled to as quickly as possible and that nobody will be worse off while we are doing that. We are, however, in the middle of a really difficult negotiation with Atos over the WCA.
I want to talk about how we can speed things up. Yesterday, I chaired a meeting of a network involving all the major stakeholders and charities. I hope that I will not upset any of the charities by leaving them out. It was a positive meeting, at which I said to them, “Sit with us and work with us to help us improve on what we have.” I was very much in listening mode, which is why I shall now give way to the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi).
Yasmin Qureshi
I am not going to make a party political point; my comment is meant to assist the Minister. On a voluntary basis, I have represented people appealing against assessments now, under the current system, as well as 20-odd years ago under the old system. The problem now lies with the assessment method, which involves only form-filling and box-ticking. That is why we can no longer assess people’s disabilities properly. In the old days, a medical expert gave evidence on a person’s ability. If we were to bring doctors back into the equation, we might find that more decisions were made properly.
Mike Penning
I am almost sorry that I gave way to the hon. Lady, because her intervention was so long. My time is being massively eroded, and I hope, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you will give me a few more minutes to address the issues that have been raised.
The consultants and GPs tell us that the clinical evidence taken at the assessment is vital. When they carry out an assessment, they are not there to provide a diagnosis; they are there to assess capacity. They can do that only by using an evidence base. One of the big issues under DLA was that only 6% of applicants ever got a face-to-face assessment. We are at 97% now with PIP. I agree that that is fundamentally too high, as I said to the Select Committee.
I have also attended tribunals to see what is happening during the last part of the DLA claims that are now coming through. I listened to the cases, and I agreed that some of them should never have come before the tribunal in the first place. Under PIP, we have mandatory reconsideration; that was never the case before. I have now asked my officials to go through the approximately 30,000 cases waiting to go to tribunal. We will mandatorily assess all of them, to try to prevent so many from going to tribunal. There is a lot of work to be done, but we must do as much as we can, together with the charities and the representative bodies.
Residential colleges were mentioned earlier. I agree that they do excellent work, but the college principals know that I cannot pay for places that are not taken up. That is what was happening under the previous contract. There were residential places with nobody in residence, and we had day people on day courses. We have worked with the colleges on that, and we will ensure that we have the necessary capacity. Interventions have eroded my time, so I shall now listen to what the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has to say; I think I know what it will be. Please, let us work together to ensure that the system is better for everyone we represent.
Housing Benefit
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Esther McVey
Just like I am being shouted down now, the voices of nearly 2 million people on waiting lists have been shouted down and, unfortunately, the 400,000 people in overcrowded accommodation are not being listened to.
We have two different legal systems within one—it does different things for people in the private rented sector and for people in the social rented sector. Opposition Members want to remove the reversal of the spare room subsidy, but I want to throw a question out there. If they retain the spare room subsidy, I believe a legal challenge is on the way from people in the private sector, who want the same policy to apply to them. If Labour reverses our policy, that is not tough on fiscal responsibility. Instead, Labour will spend yet more, which is typical Labour: spend more and increase benefits, and ignore the problem altogether.
Hon. Members have asked whether the policy was about saving money, getting the housing stock right or getting the right people into social houses. Actually, we must do all those things. That is why, as we are solving those problems, £4.5 billion will be put into new building, so we will have 170,000 new houses by 2015. A further £3.3 billion will mean we have another 65,000 houses by 2018.
The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) said that Members on each side of the House are different and she is quite right: those on the Opposition Benches deliver problems and those on the coalition Government Benches have to solve them. The hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) asked what the difference is between the Government side and the Opposition side of the House. The Opposition drove us into recession, never thinking about what they were spending and never living within their means. We are digging them out of that recession.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
What would the hon. Lady say to my constituents, Mr and Mrs Wilkes? Mrs Wilkes has a back problem and is disabled. Her husband cannot share a bed with her, much as he would like to, and has to stay in the second room. They are having to pay the bedroom tax. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Interventions must be brief. I think we got the gist and we are grateful to the hon. Lady.
Disabled People
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Hoban)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:
“welcomes the Government’s leadership in furthering the rights of disabled people; recognises the UK as a world leader in disability rights; notes that approximately £50 billion a year is spent on services for disabled people, including adult social services and including an investment of £3.8 billion in health and social care services in England to deliver more joined-up services to disabled people; further notes the £350 million allocated by the Government for programmes and support for disabled people to move into and stay in work; and acknowledges the Government’s collective determination to build upon the London 2012 Paralympic Games, and create a legacy which shines a light on the abilities and achievements of disabled people.”.
I thank the Opposition for choosing this subject to discuss today, not least because it gives me an opportunity to remind the House of this Government’s actions to support disabled people and improve people’s lives. We are absolutely committed to supporting disabled people and enabling those who face the greatest barriers to play a full role in society.
The UK is a world leader in rights for disabled people and spends more on disability than Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan. We are proud of that history and the Government are spending about £50 billion a year on disabled people and the services that support them, but spending money is not enough. We need to spend that money wisely, and I will set out the reforms we are undertaking to ensure that that happens.
Some of the biggest barriers for disabled people are caused not by money but by prejudice and we have done far more to tackle the prejudices that continue, moving forward society’s understanding and knowledge of disability and disabled people. Our ambition is to enable disabled people to achieve their aspirations and play a full role in society. Our approach has been developed with disabled people and the organisations that represent them because it is important to help with what happens in their lives. The strategy we have developed is set out in the document “Fulfilling Potential—Making it Happen”. It sets out nearly 200 actions across government to ensure that disabled people can realise their aspirations.
I am pleased to say that under this Government disabled people are seeing improved outcomes and reduced inequalities compared with non-disabled people since 2009-10. Figures published last week show improvements for disabled people in educational achievements, the employment rate and the proportion in relative poverty. They also show how inequalities compared with non-disabled people have reduced for GCSE results, for the employment rate, for income poverty for families in which someone is disabled, and in choice and control.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I note that the hon. Gentleman expresses sympathy and states that the Government have done a lot for disabled people. We have received a great deal of information from various charities saying that the cumulative impact of all the cuts will affect disabled people more than able-bodied people. The purpose of today’s motion is to ask the Government to carry out an independent evaluation of the fact that the changes will affect disabled people more. What is wrong with the Government carrying out that assessment?
Mr Hoban
The hon. Lady’s intervention was long enough, so I ask her to let me finish making my point. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) called on the Treasury to implement this measure; he, of course, was a Treasury Minister in the dying days of the previous Government. Did they do anything about this? No, they did not. It is a bit rich for Labour, having been in government for 13 years, to come forward at this point to call for a cumulative impact assessment. They never did it when they were in government, and they know that they could not do it now either.
Over the past three years, we have maintained financial support for disabled people despite the fiscal pressures, we have refined benefits to support disabled people and help them into work, we are reforming the care system so it better meets the needs of disabled people and the elderly, and we are using the magnificent success of the Paralympics to transform lives.
Our record on spending on disabled people compares well internationally. We continue to spend almost double the OECD average as a percentage of GDP—2.4% compared with about 1.3%. Of the 34 OECD countries, only Norway and Iceland spend more. In the last spending review, published last month, we demonstrated that even in hard economic times when so many budgets have been subject to significant cuts, the Government continue to make the needs of disabled people a priority and to protect funding for disabled people.
As we know that delivering better, joined-up services for the disabled and the elderly shortens hospital stays or, even better, keeps people out of hospital and in their own homes, we are creating a £3.8 billion single budget for health and social care services in England so that people can work together more closely in local areas, based on a plan agreed between the NHS and local authorities. That shared pot includes an additional £2 billion from the NHS and builds on the existing contribution of about £1 billion in 2014-15. To enable the programme to start, we are investing an extra £200 million in 2014-15 to get this work under way. I believe that that working together will benefit both the disabled and the elderly.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I support the Opposition motion. I was sad to hear some of the comments from the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), because no Opposition Members have tried to patronise or insult disabled people. The fact is that we recognise that financial equality for everyone must be preserved, and we know that disabled people will be fundamentally more affected by the proposed changes than others.
Therefore, the fact that we are requesting something very simple—an assessment of the cumulative impact of these right-wing changes on disabled people—is nothing unusual. In fact, as a responsible Opposition who stand up for people, that is exactly what we should be asking for. It was not very helpful when the Minister, in response to my intervention, effectively said, “Well, the previous Government never carried out an assessment, so why should we?” That is just not good enough. They are the Government and they have brought in far-reaching changes, so the assessment should be carried out.
I also know from the Remploy factory in my constituency, which I visited when it was still open, and from speaking to many disabled people, some of whom are my constituents, that they want to work and to fulfil their potential. However, all the changes that are being made will have an impact on them, and we want to protect them.
I want to talk briefly about some of the proposed changes and why we think they will have more of an impact on the disabled. In the spending review in June this year, the Chancellor announced that for the first time ever there will be a cap on the UK’s welfare spending through changes to the annual managed expenditure. That means that if demand for disability benefit rises in future, there is a substantial risk that disabled people will lose vital financial lifelines. The impact will be that they will be left more exposed to trade-offs within the cap. If the need for housing benefit rises sharply one year, there is a risk that disability benefit will be a lower spending priority.
The Welfare Reform Act 2012 introduced a number of measures, one of which was a new single benefit—universal credit—to replace six income-based benefits and tax credits for people of working age. Around 2 million households will see their income drop when universal credit is introduced, and disabled people will be particularly affected. While the average household will be worse off by £26, the average disabled household will be worse off by £37.
Furthermore, the halving of support for disabled children from £57 a week to £28 a week could see a reduction in income for families with disabled children of up to £1,366 a year—more than £20,000 over the course of a childhood. It is estimated that this change will affect about 100,000 disabled children. The removal of the £58 a week severe disability premium will have a profound impact, affecting 230,000 disabled adults and potentially costing them more than £3,000 a year.
The introduction of the personal independence payment, which is to be rolled out following the abolition of disability living allowance, means that over the next five years as many as 600,000 disabled people will lose £2.62 billion of support. The reforms mean that a disabled person could lose between £20.55 and £131.50 a week in support for the costs of living at home, such as preparing a cooked meal, or the costs of getting out and about aided by a wheelchair.
Another change that is being introduced is the contributions-based employment and support allowance, which is to be subjected to a 365-day limit. It applies to disabled people in the work-related activity group who are assessed as not being able to work immediately but who could, with help and support, return to the labour market in future. This will affect some 700,000 people by the year 2015-16, and of those 40% will lose their ESA completely. This change could force disabled people back into work when they are not ready for it—and, let us face it, there are not many jobs out there in any event—and push them into disposing of any assets they have, with their partners perhaps having to cut back on their working hours. The effects of these changes are likely to be compounded by the Government’s recent decision, set out in the autumn statement, to increase the value of this benefit by only 1% instead of 2.2%, which is the current level of inflation.
Much has been said about the bedroom tax, which reduces housing benefit for a social housing tenant whose accommodation is deemed to be larger than they need and will fall disproportionately on households with a disabled person. The DWP estimates that 670,000 people are under-occupying accommodation in the social rented sector, and of those, two thirds are disabled.
There is also the benefits uprating. Although the Government have confirmed that PIP, ESA for the support group and disability-related tax credits will rise in line with inflation, ESA for the work-related activity group, housing benefit and working tax credit are set to rise by only 1% for three years. Given the cumulative impact of all these reforms, the Government must surely carry out an assessment.
State Retirement Pensions
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(11 years ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Yasmin Qureshi
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people will not get a full pension as a result of any increase in the qualifying period from 30 to 35 years.
[Official Report, 25 April 2013, Vol. 561, c. 1090W.]
Letter of correction from Steve Webb:
An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) on 25 April 2013.
The full answer given was as follows:
Steve Webb
The single-tier pension will require 35 qualifying years of National Insurance contributions or credits for the full amount. Based on the illustrative amount of £144 for the full single-tier pension in 2012-13 terms set out in the White Paper, 30 qualifying years under the single-tier scheme would be equivalent to a value of £123.43 a week.
Under the current state pension system, people reaching State Pension age today require 30 qualifying years for the full amount of basic State Pension currently £107.00 a week and can make contributions to the State Second Pension for each year in their working life. When the single-tier pension is implemented we will recognise contributions made under the current system and translate them into a single-tier pension foundation amount.
In the long term around 85% of people will get the full single-tier pension under the proposals outlined in the White Paper published in January. Chart 4.1 shows the proportion who will receive the full single-tier pension by the year in which people reach State Pension age. In the early years of the reforms most people receiving less than the full single-tier amount will do so because they will have a deduction applied to take into account periods when they were contracted out of the additional State Pension, rather than because they have fewer than 35 qualifying years.
The correct answer should have been:
Housing Benefit (Under-occupancy Penalty)
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this debate.
The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) said that the Opposition have many soundbites and that the Government should develop some of their own. Perhaps the Government are not able to develop soundbites because they have nothing good to say about this measure.
I have listened to the many Members who have contributed to this debate. On the face of it, the Government’s proposals sound logical. There are apparently 1 million bedrooms going spare in this country. The argument is that people should not be able to carry on living in homes that have too many bedrooms, but should be moved to smaller homes. That sounds sensible and practical, but it does not reflect the reality on the ground. Few homes fall into the category of a two or three-bedroom house that is lived in by a healthy, fit person but is under-occupied. Most of the so-called spare bedrooms are needed by the people who live in those homes.
I say that not because I am in any party political grouping, but because of what my constituents have said to me in my surgery and in letters. I can honestly say that none of the people who have contacted me fall into the criteria that the Government are presenting. I will share with the Ministers and other Members of the House the experience of the constituents who have spoken to me.
A number of the constituents who have spoken to me are single parents whose children do not live with them for seven days a week, but stay with them for two or three days, depending on the arrangements made by the court. People in that situation who live in a two-bedroom place will be severely affected by these provisions. What will parents who do not have the money to go into private rented accommodation or buy a home with the right number of bedrooms say to their children? They will have to say, “Sorry, you can’t come to stay because I have to go to a one-bedroom flat. I will not be able to spend quality time with you. I will not be able to develop a proper relationship with you as other mothers and fathers can with their children.” That is the kind of situation we are talking about.
The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) said that anybody who has a bar outside their home can be described as disabled. The people who have come to me have been elderly or very unwell and have homes that have been adapted substantially at a cost of thousands of pounds. They are often quite small properties, but may have one tiny room that is counted as a spare bedroom and has just enough space to store their wheelchair, commode, Zimmer frame or other equipment that disabled and unwell people often have.
Such people tend to be in social housing. Everybody who knows about social housing knows that they are small homes. That is certainly the case in my constituency. Even if they are two-bedroom flats, they tend to be very small, but people need a bit of space to be able to manoeuvre. What should I say to the constituents who write to me because they are being told that they will have to find somewhere else to live, but do not have £700 or £800 a year to pay for it? What about parents with two children of the same gender? They may have three bedrooms but they will be tiny rooms and the two children—two girls or two boys—will be in one little room where they cannot do anything except perhaps sleep on camp beds or bunk beds and they cannot have a proper room. Do we tell such people, “No, you’ve got to go; you cannot stay in this house and if you do you must pay £800”? That is the reality on the ground.
Foster parents have been mentioned but what was said about it being easy for someone to register as a foster carer and get an extra room is just not the case. People must go through high-level checks, training and vetting that can take months or even years before they are assessed as suitable to be a foster carer. To suggest that someone would become a foster carer to avoid moving out of their home or to claim an extra bedroom does not fit reality.
Many Members have touched on particular groups of people, and again I ask the Minister to reconsider this measure. The hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) mentioned a number of concerns that need to be addressed but I do not want to repeat points about discretionary issues and other ways that the bedroom tax will impact on people. At the moment, this is a compulsory scheme and a matter of law so if people have a spare bedroom, they will end up paying money unless they can argue for discretionary help. As has been said, on 1 April people will be faced with a choice of what happens and will end up with bills. They will then have to go to their local housing association or council and see whether they fit the criteria required to get some help. If they do not get that help, what will happen?
What happens when the £30 million set aside for this scheme is gone? Will more money be put into the fund so that people continue to benefit from it? Instead of a statutory scheme, would it not be better to work with councils and housing associations to try first and foremost to work out whether housing need can be reorganised and people placed in the homes that are appropriate for them? At the end of that process there may be some people who wilfully do not want to move, some who live in a massive home or there may be a single person of good mental and physical health living in a two or three-bedroom house and they might not be worried. However, they make up a tiny minority of those who have the so-called 1 million spare bedrooms. The majority of people—98%— fall into different categories.
Of course there is a need to address people who are waiting to be housed appropriately in proper homes or in accommodation that fits and meets their need. I have constituents in a similar situation. People suggest this is an unusual idea, but the way to tackle the problem is to consider a home-building programme. It is all very well hon. Members saying that one Government did not do that, another Government sold council houses and another should have done more, but we are where we are now. Instead of looking back at what could have happened five, 10 or 20 years ago, why not deal with our current problem of acute housing shortage? Doing that will not involve subsidised housing because, as everybody knows, the cost of building a house on a piece of land is not as much as the value of the property once it is put up for sale. Bricks and mortar do not cost as much as a house, the value of which can be over-inflated. When groups of people or associations and voluntary bodies get together and start building homes, they can pay for those houses so that the Government or state do not have to subsidise them. We must encourage local authorities and such groups to invest and allow house-building programmes to provide housing and help to regenerate the economy.
The measure is compulsory, but I urge Ministers to think about encouraging local authorities and housing associations to get together to deal with the people who will be affected. Constituents who are disabled and unwell write to me. One gentleman told me that he has one tiny bedroom, which will be considered spare, but he needs a commode, a Zimmer frame and a wheelchair. He cannot house that equipment in his tiny little—
Disability Benefits and Social Care
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
The Opposition motion highlights the many problems with disability benefits and social care. There is undoubtedly an attack on benefits for disabled people. Disabled people face many acute problems, many of which have been mentioned this afternoon. The changes to disability living allowance will impact on nearly 500,000 people. The problems associated with employment and support allowance will impact on nearly 280,000 people. We have not seen how universal credit or the personal independence payment will work, but I fear that there will be chaos in the benefits system when they are introduced.
I concur with what Members on both sides of the House have said about Atos. It is wholly inefficient and cannot operate the work capability assessment. Some might say that it is wholly incapable. The problem is not the work capability assessment, but the way in which it is carried out, including the way in which people have to tick boxes and the fact that people are being assessed by people who are probably not qualified to carry out such assessments. If I called for nothing else in this debate, I would call on the Government to look again at the way in which Atos is delivering the system on their behalf.
Like many other speakers, I want to focus on Remploy, which is very dear to my heart. The discussions and consultations between the trade unions, individuals, employers and the Government have been nothing but a shambles. I will ask a few questions of the Government about what will happen to Remploy. Each factory is being tret completely differently. They are all being given different advice on what is happening and about whether they are or are not in the consultation period.
I was outraged by the suggestion of the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) that Remploy was a form of disabled apartheid. That is outrageous. Remploy was established just after the second world war to look after disabled people, and we should be looking after disabled people now. Nothing has changed. For someone to suggest that it is disabled apartheid is outrageous.
The Remploy ethos was developed by George Tomlinson, who was an MP for a Bolton seat. He wanted there to be secure and open employment for disabled people. Remploy factories have given their employees an income, independence, self-respect and self-esteem. It is often said that society can be judged by how it looks after its most vulnerable people.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I am the Member of Parliament for Bolton South East and it was a Bolton MP many years ago who was involved in setting up the Remploy factories. I have visited the factory in my constituency on a number of occasions and the people there have told me that they take great pleasure in coming to work every day and getting a decent wage packet. They do not want handouts or disability benefits; they want the opportunity to work and to increase their self-respect. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Ian Lavery
I have met every member of the Remploy work force in my constituency and in Newcastle, and I wholeheartedly concur with my hon. Friend.
I will ask a number of questions in the short time that I have left. What is happening with the Remploy pension fund? Is it being closed or kept open? That is important to the people who work there. What is happening to the five-year modernisation plan that was put in place by Labour? Why is it being cut short? What about the huge management structure of people who are not disabled, who have been looking after the Remploy factories but have not implemented the modernisation plan? What is happening to the burdensome costs of that management structure?
Last year, there were 2,500 trainees in Remploy, and it is important that we get an answer to what will happen to them if, as we all believe, the Remploy sites are eventually closed. It is clear that the vast majority of the factories will close, if not all of them, which will mean the end of a working life for many people. Their health will decline. The Minister mentioned the problem of unemployed people who have mental health problems, and said that they should be taken off benefits and given a job. I cannot understand that. If someone who is unemployed has mental health problems and we take them off unemployment benefit and try to get them a job when there are no jobs available, that will be disastrous for them.
If people are taken out of work at Remploy, there will be a cost impact for the Government from what will happen to their health. The Government’s estimate is that benefits given to individuals in that situation could range from £10,200 to £27,000 a year. It is easy and cheaper to keep people in employment than to give them up to £27,000 a year of housing and other benefits. We should give them self-esteem and self-respect by allowing them to go to work, as every one of us enjoys doing.
I appeal to the Government to restart in full the consultation period, which started a few months ago. Things have changed rapidly since the beginning of the process, which makes it wholly unfair. We should restore dignity and self-esteem to people in Remploy and keep them in employment as far as we possibly can.
Remploy
Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for securing this debate. Is her experience similar to mine? I visited the Remploy factory in my constituency twice and spoke to the people working there. They had enormous pride in the work that they were doing. When I discussed with them how they felt about going into the open market and working in another environment, their answer was categorically, “No. We like working in this particular environment. It’s safe, they understand our needs and it’s more comfortable for us.”
Ann Clwyd
I cannot emphasise enough the pride that people who work in Remploy factories have in their work. They do not want to sit there doing nothing—they want to work—but one of the problems with procurement, or the lack of it, is that too many of them are sitting, waiting for work that has not come. Members may have seen the recent lists of those local authorities that are procuring work through Remploy factories and those that are not. Some local authorities in this country are not getting any work done by the Remploy factories in their area, which is a tragedy.
In a period in which unemployment is rising, it is pie in the sky and cruelly misleading to suggest that expanding the Access to Work programme will result in more work for disabled people. In my area, people would like any opportunity to work, but it is particularly difficult for disabled people and always has been. I remember when the disablement resettlement officers tried to get work for disabled people and how difficult it was for them in a very different environment from the one we are in now.
Remploy is at a crossroads. All 54 Remploy factories are under threat of closure when the current public funding ends in April 2013. The threat is compounded by the factories being deliberately run at 50% of their capacity. It is crucial that, instead of deliberately running down the factories in order to, in my opinion, justify closure, an alternative Government strategy is devised to maintain funding and enable individual factories to secure work.