Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) (Amendment) Regulations 2017
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
Read Full debate21:02 - Division on Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville’s Motion - Ayes: 75 / Noes: 164 - Motion disagreed.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
I think that the House would like to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell.
Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB)
My Lords, I support the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, to annul the Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) (Amendment) Regulations 2017. I understand that such a Motion should be used only in exceptional circumstances. I will explain why I think that this is an exceptional circumstance.
People in my position, with a highly visible, severe impairment, tend to find it a lot easier to demonstrate and receive the support we need to get from A to B than those experiencing mental health challenges. To be honest, I probably find it a lot easier to get around than many in your Lordships’ House today. I think that you will all have witnessed those on the mobile Bench whizzing around the Palace estate with ease and speed.
But let us be in no doubt: the impact of panic attacks and anxiety, not to mention schizophrenia, dementia and autism, on being able to,
“plan and follow a journey”,
are equally fraught, if not more so, with profound obstacles than the effects of visual or physical impairments. As Jenna reminded me recently,
“Suddenly, for no reason at all, as I step out of my front door, the prickles in my chest get sharper and my head gets foggier. My heart pounds faster as it tries to defend itself from impending danger. My breathing becomes shallow as I desperately try to get air into my body and brain ... I try to grasp on to something, anything, to keep me tethered and whole”.
“Anxiety” may sound manageable to many, but unexpectedly and unpredictably collapsing in agony in public places can overwhelmingly restrict people’s mobility.
Speaking to a young woman with ADHD and Tourette’s syndrome who lives down my street, I heard about her terrible journey on a train where she suffered a severe anxiety attack. The train had to be stopped and the emergency services called. This expensive scenario could have been avoided if her PIP had not been reduced from the high to standard rate award a couple of months ago, allowing her to continue paying for a travel companion or use taxis. Her life has now been severely restricted.
It is a fundamental tenet of the Equality Act that there shall be no hierarchy of disability: we define a disabled person as someone with a “mental or physical impairment”. We in this House have welcomed the Prime Minister’s commitment to parity of esteem between mental and physical health. The amended regulations, sadly, completely depart from these vital principles. They state, in effect, that disabled people may be equal but, just like in Orwell’s Animal Farm, some disabled people have become more equal than others.
Lord Young of Cookham
My Lords, I think the House would like to hear from the right reverend Prelate.
The Lord Bishop of Winchester
My Lords, I have been asked to speak on behalf of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham and a number of other Lords spiritual who are unable to be in their places today. Like them, I have serious concerns about the impact of the proposed changes to the personal independence payment on people with mental health problems. A number of the Lords spiritual wrote to the Secretary of State on 8 March seeking clarification on the rationale for the new legislation. I am not aware that they have received a reply. I wish to use this debate to reiterate these concerns and urge the Government to reconsider their position.
Our understanding is that the introduction of PIP was intended to create parity of treatment for people with mental and physical health problems by basing the assessment on a person’s ability to carry out certain tasks, irrespective of the nature of their disability. This is a fundamental principle that we strongly support, which has helped counter a long-standing bias within the benefits system against people who suffer from severe mental health problems, such as schizophrenia, anxiety disorders and autism. Explicitly limiting access to the enhanced rate of the mobility component for those who experience psychological distress undermines this fundamental aim by reintroducing an unhelpful distinction between people with physical and mental health conditions.
Crucially for this debate, this change appears to be inconsistent with the primary legislation, which makes it clear, as the Explanatory Notes underline, that people should be entitled to the higher rate of mobility component if,
“a person’s ability is severely limited by their physical or mental condition”.
Furthermore, it appears to be inconsistent with Ministers’ public statements at the time. People who find it difficult to leave the house because of anxiety, panic attacks and other mental health problems can be as restricted in their independence as people with physical mobility problems. They face the same additional barriers and costs as other disabled people, and should be scored accordingly against the same criteria. The amended regulations, however, would mean that people with these conditions would be assessed against only two of the six criteria for “planning and following journeys”, even though they may be unable to make familiar or unfamiliar journeys without the support of another person.
I am aware of the issues through the work of local mental health charities in my own diocese of Winchester. I understand from Jane Harvey, the head of home support at Solent Mind, which supports people with mental health problems in Southampton and across Hampshire, that she is in no doubt about the social isolation of many of her clients. Getting out of the house can be an extremely stressful experience for someone who suffers from paranoia, lacks confidence in social situations or feels unsafe in noisy, crowded environments, such as public transport. But these daily interactions are also vital to their mental and physical well-being, preventing them becoming even more isolated and enabling them to eat properly, pay their bills and attend important appointments. That is why it is so important that we seek to remove as many barriers to their mobility as possible through financial and other forms of support, and that we do not differentiate in a way that seems to be against people with mental health problems, whose condition can be just as debilitating as a physical disability.
I realise that, in practice, many people with mental health problems have until recently missed out on the mobility component of PIP. But we believe that the clarification provided by the Upper Tribunal ruling is more in keeping with the original intent of the legislation than the amendment tabled by the Government, opening up additional support to around 160,000 people with severe mental health problems.
From these Benches we would not want to be seen to be resisting the aims of the original legislation, but we need persuading that the amendments to PIP are not undermining the intended aims of the benefit. I shall be supporting the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, I shall forgo the right to speak as extensively as I otherwise would, but I shall do three things. First, I very much support the Motion of my noble friend Lady Sherlock, and the manner in which it was spoken to. Then I wanted to ask the Minister a question about the original policy intent, because we have heard it as a justification for these regulations on a number of occasions. Can we be very clear on this? The Government pray in aid the PIP assessment guide as evidence to the original policy intent, but can we understand precisely when that and the detail were discussed by Parliament—not by officials but by Parliament—to be able to justify the claim that was made?
Finally, on the finances, we should not forget in all this that PIP was introduced against a backdrop of the predecessor, DLA, having a 20% cut in its budget. We talk about the implications of government costs of £3.7 billion, but let us just remember that forgoing that cost to government means resources to disabled people are lost as well. While £3.7 billion is what the Government might save from this, the losers are the disabled community, to a massive extent.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Henley) (Con)
My Lords, I get the impression that the House would like me to move this debate towards a close, so I shall deal with some of the points that have been made during what has been a wide-ranging and, at times, an obviously impassioned debate all across the House. I recognise the concerns that have been raised and welcome the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Government. I hope to make matters clear, and provide reassurances on a number of points.