Welfare Reform
Baroness Browning Excerpts(2 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Baroness Browning (Con)
My Lords, I have power of attorney for two adults, close relatives, who are in receipt of PIP. As a carer and a mother, I have had to deal with the DWP for most of my life and most of theirs.
I just say to the noble Baroness that I was as critical of the Conservative Government’s methodology in reforming disability benefits as I am of this Government’s. If I ask her just one thing in this short period, it is this. When my noble friend opened on behalf of the Conservatives on this Statement, her experience shone through. There are ways of helping people who have lifelong disabilities to get into work, even people who have been out of work or never been in work. I have raised many of these issues with the noble Baroness; she knows my criticisms. Please, train the people in Jobcentre Plus. Use the examples that charities use—for example, to get autistic people into work—because they know how to do it. Please do it. The money will seem far less over time once those methodologies have been changed.
As a carer, I am exhausted. I am exhausted by having to try to explain to people who are really anxious about their financial futures, “Don’t worry about it, it’s all going to be sorted out—it’ll be all right”. In fact, I am genuinely worried. I am 80 next year and, like many elderly carers, I do not want to leave my relatives for whom I have responsibility with this sort of mess.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Browning. The House has benefited, as have I personally, many times, from her expertise and the care with which she expresses what she does. I commend her on what she has done personally and express my regret that the pressure on her and so many other carers is as great as it is. She stands as a shining example. The points she makes are really important; I will pick up a couple of them.
First, I should have said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, and to reassure anyone listening, that we are not making any changes to PIP until we have had the results of the Timms review. Nothing in the Bill when it comes to this House will affect people’s entitlement to PIP. I think we made that very clear yesterday. To be clear, we have tabled amendments in the Commons to remove Clause 5, which said you needed a minimum of four points. That will not happen, so I hope that will give some assurance to people.
I hope that the noble Baroness will see, as we begin to unfold our reforms to jobcentres, that we are going with the grain of exactly what she says. One of our concerns is that the system in jobcentres has become too box-ticking. We really need to release our work coaches to spend less time checking everybody in and more time focusing on the person in front of them and figuring out what they can get. What do they need? What help can they get? How do we support them? For some people, that is getting into a job, for others, it is moving closer to the labour market, and for some it is leaving the house. Our job is to support our work coaches. We are doing some incredibly interesting work with piloting and evaluation, trying different ways of supporting people and trying to go with what works— I am sorry: I am taking too long. I am grateful to the noble Baroness and we will absolutely take on her points.
PIP Changes: Impact on Carer’s Allowance
Baroness Browning Excerpts(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I cannot tell my noble friend at this stage what it will be, both because we are listening to the wider views and because we are going to take our time to work this through. To be clear, we specifically said in the Green Paper that we would look at the impact on carers and look at ways in which we could support carers who might find themselves losing entitlement to carer’s allowance.
To give a sense of timescale, assuming that Parliament approves the primary legislation that will bring about these changes to disability and sickness benefits, the changes to PIP that will affect carer’s allowance will not come in until November 2026. Only after that will somebody who is getting PIP at the moment see their entitlement change. It will be only as and when they are called to a review and their own circumstances are reviewed that their entitlement changes, which could in turn affect carer’s allowance. So I am confident that we have plenty of time available to us to work through the way in which we can support those who will lose out as a result of these changes.
Baroness Browning (Con)
My Lords, will the Minister explain how the Government will approach what is an increasing number of households, particularly as people get older, where you have two people in a household, both with some level of incapacity and one in receipt of PIP, who may lose it? How will the Government assess the carer who has health issues and get a balance that recognises that, for those two people living together, there is a level of support between the two? Remove the finance from one of them and you affect two people.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
The noble Baroness is right. There are cases—unusual cases—where both members of a couple are entitled to sickness or disability benefits, and even cases where both are getting carer’s allowance to care for each other. I do not know how many such cases there are. For that to work, each party would have to be sufficiently sick or disabled to be entitled to PIP, and would have to lose it, and each would also have to be able to provide at least 35 hours’ unpaid caring work a week. It is not that such circumstances are not there, but the interaction of different parts of our benefit system is complex, which is why we want to take our time to work through the impacts on various circumstances.
Welfare Reform
Baroness Browning Excerpts(4 months ago)
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for that question. I have real confidence in this. The noble Lord may know that in January we published the terms of reference for the Keep Britain Working review, a review headed by the former chair of John Lewis, Sir Charlie Mayfield, who is looking at ways in which we can make workplaces more receptive and more able to take on people who have health conditions and disabilities. It could include all kinds of ways in which we can support them. We want to remove the barriers to employers doing that.
We already know that this is the case: reasonable adjustments are often talked about as a way of doing it. The noble Lord may think that these difficult hires. In fact, it is estimated that, on average, employers could save between £5,000 and £11,000 for every employee they prevent from falling out of work. So having an inclusive workplace is not a “nice to have”: it is not an extra. It is a way of making sure that we protect those who are currently working. There are significant numbers of people at the moment who are working but have a condition, and hundreds of thousands of them fall out of work every year. Our system is trying to work with employers to protect those who are already in work, but we have lots of employers really engaged with us in jobcentres, in the work we are doing and in building relationships. People want to do this. We can do this.
Baroness Browning (Con)
My Lords, I refer to my interest in the register. When we talk about getting people back into work, perhaps the Minister could reflect on that group of people who have never been in work. I am thinking not just of school or college leavers but people who are now in their 40s and 50s and have never been in work, but actually still want to. She will not be surprised to know that I am referring particularly to the autism community. In the 32 years that I have worked in this building, the employment rate for the autism community has gone up from 17% to just 23%. These people have lived through many Conservative and Labour Governments, not forgetting a coalition Government. To get them into work will require something really different from what has been applied before. They are a discrete but important group. Given the Green Paper and the Statement that we have heard today, is the Minister going to get autistic people into work?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I am really grateful to the noble Baroness for raising that question and, as she so often does, reminding us of the challenges in this area. Let me say a couple of things. To reassure those who may be worried, as I have said before, anyone currently receiving benefits will carry on getting them unless there is a reassessment and their eligibility changes. However, that is not the limit of our ambition. One of the reasons we want at least to have a supportive conversation, rather than abandon people who are simply getting those benefits, is to begin to understand what more we could do to support them.
There are some people who will find it very difficult to get into work but maybe they could, with the right support, begin to do some voluntary work. Perhaps they could begin to reach out and get some fresh kinds of support or connect with the local community. The biggest challenge for us, as in the noble Baroness’s words to us today, is how we challenge employers to take this on. We are planning, as part of the consultation on the Green Paper, to not only invite people—I expect very many responses—but to hold events for the public and round tables, to hold discussions both in person and elsewhere. I would be really grateful if she would be willing to talk to us about addressing this as part of that consultation.
“Get Britain Working” White Paper
Baroness Browning Excerpts(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for that intervention and also of course for his many years of experience and work in the field of social policy and social care. I very much feel that what he described is what we are trying to do, and I absolutely assure him that the report will be looked at in detail and we will go through the recommendations carefully. One challenge we have is that it is too easy to write off young people. Nowadays, they are judged: the assumption is that they are not trying very hard and the expectations are there. Actually, I do not meet young people who do not want to be out there building a life. It is just that, sometimes, the challenges feel too big. If we can find the right way to support them—if we can get proper mental health support in place and if we can help employers to know how best to work with people who have mental health challenges—we can get people into jobs and they can stay in them.
In the years that I worked with single parents, for example, one thing I learned is that if people have found it difficult to get a job, if they find one that works for them, they are the most loyal employees anyone could get, because they have found a way in and something that works, and it becomes a brilliant relationship. So I am grateful to the noble Lord for that and I will take a careful look at it.
Baroness Browning (Con)
My Lords, on Friday morning, I was in a Jobcentre Plus office with a 50 year- old woman who has always worked—but not for the last two years, following a major spinal operation and rehabilitation. She is now ready to get back into work. When we went into that office, we were told that she was not entitled to any support from a disability job coach or adviser, although she is in receipt of PIP. The reason given was that she does not claim an unemployment benefit. What does the Minister suggest I do next to help this person? Why are we discriminating against disabled people wanting to get into work, whether they are claiming a benefit or not?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I am sorry to hear of the experience that the noble Baroness’s friend or family member had. What she said goes right to the heart of what we are doing. The point of the national jobs and careers service is that it is not just for people claiming benefits: it is for anybody who needs help getting into work, getting back to work or getting on in work. If we narrow it down to simply being about benefits, we will end up putting the incentives in the wrong place.
One thing that worries us about how the system has worked is that a lot of work coaches’ time is spent checking up to see whether everyone has ticked all the boxes and whether those on benefits have done all the right things. Of course, conditionality will always be a part of the system, but we want to see whether there are ways to reform that so that we can test different ways of making sure that people stay connected and work coaches can spend more time devoted to individuals —including the person that the noble Baroness described —to get them back into work if they want. There are 600,000 people out there who are long-term sick or disabled who want to work, but somehow they are not able to. We have to do something about that and we are determined to.
People with Disabilities: Access to Services
Baroness Browning Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Browning (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, on bringing this important debate to the Floor of the House today. I declare my interests, both in the register and as having close relatives who are in receipt of disability benefits and for whom I have some responsibility.
Today, I will focus on disability benefits. I am of course aware of the current consultation on PIP, which I will respond to in writing, in respect of those on the autism spectrum with learning disabilities and with mental health issues. However, I want to put on the record my ongoing concerns about the process of claiming disability benefits, the ethos surrounding the system, and the impact this can have on people, many of them already vulnerable.
These are some of the problems they face. There are lengthy forms, exceeding 20 or 30 pages, which put many people off applying in the first place. Many need help to fill them in, and there are often time limits, so finding that help becomes a pressure. Then there is the ability of the DWP to have applications assessed by qualified people with a working knowledge of the medical conditions they are assessing. It is dire. Do not take my word for it: as we have heard, the appeal rate for PIP is 70%—that is 70% granted on appeal. Only last year, a form that I assisted with was rejected. We asked for reconsideration, and when it came back, having been reconsidered, it had been awarded at an enhanced rate. What the person who looked at it in the first place was thinking about, I really do not know.
The questions are geared mainly to narrowly defined physical conditions, with each question scoring points, leaving out the complexities of autism, mental health and learning disabilities and giving few opportunities for people to explain in any detail how their lives are affected. They lose on points. This arbitrary points system is not flexible to take account of fluctuating conditions, good days and bad days, or degeneration. Complex conditions involving more than one disability do not stand a chance.
Despite paper forms, there is a presumption that applicants will then communicate via the internet or phone. Some will, but not everybody. I know several people on the autism spectrum for whom making a phone call to a stranger, or receiving one, is quite traumatic. There are long waiting periods, often without any money at all, and there is a problem with answering letters, even signed-for ones. We have heard that even children and young people starting cancer treatment can wait in excess of 20 weeks without any money at all.
All this builds anxiety and stress. It should be remembered that this is disability, not capability for work. PIP, for example, is a benefit that applies to people who are in work as well as those who are not. We are talking about disability, but somehow the debate seems to have moved to whether people are capable for work. I do not know quite where that has come from.
It is a given that many unemployed disabled people would like to work, and I support any initiative that supports that, but disability brings with it myriad extra costs, even for people who are working, and this whole process brings such a level of anxiety and distress. It is time the whole process was reformed. In doing so, the DWP should be as concerned about safeguarding the health—particularly the mental health—of claimants as it is about assessing them. I say that because even the very process of engaging in the benefits system can result in extreme outcomes.
I pay tribute to a former colleague of ours in this House, Lord Newton, Tony Newton, who was also a colleague in mine in another place. He got up out of his hospital bed to come here and speak on this subject. I also pay tribute to the much-missed late Lord Field, Frank Field, whom again I served with in both Houses. He was a champion in this area. On 25 September 2019, he tabled this Written Question in the House of Commons:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many inquests relating to benefits claimants who have ended their life by suicide her Department has submitted evidence to since 2013; and in how many inquests it was ruled that the policies of her Department were partly responsible for the deceased person’s state of mind”.
Noble Lords will be familiar with the reply from the Department for Work and Pensions:
“Unfortunately, the information requested is not held centrally and is therefore unavailable without incurring a disproportionate cost”.
Frank—being Frank—then approached the National Audit Office and asked it to investigate what was going on with the suicide rate among benefit claimants.
As a result of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor-General, some progress was made at the DWP. I reassure my noble friend that I am aware that it has made progress, but the point is this: in what other area of disability would anybody or any department—least of all a government department—have to collate information about suicide rates that resulted from their own activities? That surely is unacceptable and I say to my noble friend: I know that the Government want to modernise the benefits system for disability, but it requires absolute root and branch reform.
Health and Disability Reform
Baroness Browning Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Browning (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as I have for decades been the person who has supported two near relatives in receipt of PIP. In fact, I spent two hours on Sunday night helping to fill in a PIP review form—26 pages—for a PIP application that was refused in the first place and given at an enhanced rate on appeal. My noble friend will recognise from this that there is a lot already wrong with PIP and the way questions are asked and formulated.
I am particularly concerned about autism-related anxiety. It is not the same as people who just have the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune to cope with, which we all do. The brains of people with autism are wired differently. The things that make them anxious can very easily lead to a downward spiral that can result in suicide. I say to my noble friend—I know we are limited on time—that when it comes to the worried well, I put my hand up, because every day of my life now I wonder who on earth is going to help with those forms and applications when I am no longer here. It is a nightmare.
Employment and Support Allowance
Baroness Browning Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I should remind the noble Baroness that we uprated by 10.1% in 2023, and I take her point. I can reassure her that the process leading up to April 2024 is beginning; I have no doubt that the Secretary of State will be looking very carefully at all the evidence, and announcements will be made at the appropriate time.
Baroness Browning (Con)
My Lords, I declare a long-standing family interest in ESA, particularly in the support group. I venture to offer my noble friend some advice, as I could write not just a book, but a series of books on applications to ESA. The Government need to make sure that they employ people who fully understand the medical conditions they are dealing with. To give a quick example, it is no good having so-called doctors asking people who suffer from epilepsy and epileptic seizures whether they can get in and out of a bath. When the reply comes, “As someone with epilepsy, I am advised not to get into a bath of water”—for obvious reasons—the reply comes back, “Just pretend you don’t have epilepsy. Could you get in and out of a bath or not?” It is not just a joke—it is tragic, because it causes the most appalling problems for many disabled people.
Noble Lords
Universal Credit
Baroness Browning Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
The very fact that we have been rolling out a universal credit system over the last few years since 2013 comes to the essence of what we have been trying to do, which is to simplify the system. The noble Baroness makes a very good point about putting children first, as I said previously. One example of that is what we have done with free school meals.
Baroness Browning (Con)
My Lords, I declare a family interest in this Question. Over the next two years, people with long-term disabilities who currently receive employment and support allowance will be moved to universal credit, and there is already an acknowledgement that there will be some differences in the amount of money they will receive. What analysis has my noble friend the Minister and his department done to check whether that particular group—people with long-term, life-long disabilities—will not become part of the group we are discussing today, who cannot afford essentials?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My noble friend makes an excellent point, because, apart from the fact that we spent around £67.9 billion last year on benefits to support disabled people and people with health conditions, we are doing more, as the Spring Budget said, to help those who are disabled, and particularly those who wish to go into work.
Universal Credit (Transitional Provisions) (Claimants previously entitled to a severe disability premium) Amendment Regulations 2021
Baroness Browning Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Browning (Con) [V]
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness and to hear from her first-hand experience.
The severe disability benefit, as we have heard, awarded to people with existing disability benefits such as ESA and PIP, is by definition for the most complex disabilities, including physical and learning disabilities, autism, mental health challenges and, as we have heard, for people who are terminally ill. The excellent Motion of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, states that when moving to universal credit claimants should be,
“advised before moving from legacy benefits … that they could suffer financially”.
This is perhaps, in many cases, one of the groups who find it most difficult to obtain advice. For many, access to, or even ability to use, IT will be a challenge in itself when the benefit system is becoming almost exclusively an IT facility.
The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee of this House examined the Explanatory Memorandum and discovered that it did not make clear that transitional payments would erode over time. The Government responded to that point and revised it to include further information at the request of the committee. However, if it takes a scrutiny committee of the House of Lords to identify that people are going to be worse off under a system, what hope is there for many people outside this House who do not have that expertise, knowledge or understanding? There is a responsibility on the Government to be absolutely transparent and make sure that before people make the move to universal credit, which, as has been said, is a one-way system—there is no going back, once people are in it—they do not erroneously put themselves at a financial disadvantage.
I know that my noble friend the Minister understands these things. She, of all people, with her experience of work before she came into the Lords, understands only too well how disadvantaged people live. I have a high regard and respect for that knowledge and I am glad that she is there to bring it to her department.
I mention one thing in passing and I hope that noble Lords will not think that it is too sexist. This debate has predominantly been contributed to by women. I sometimes wonder whether that is because it is women who take the responsibility in the family for the benefits of relatives and dependants. Maybe that is why women have a more instinctive understanding—I have no doubt that people will complain about this—of the real impact of these issues on day-to-day lives.
A lot of the disability groups have made their case about the financial impact this will have, including Disability Rights UK, among others. Disability Rights UK has made very strong statements, which I am sure the Government are aware of. But on the question of managed migration, my experience is that this group, who are the most severely disadvantaged because of the level of their disability, have been subject to all sorts of changes and disadvantages. But we have not had this spelt out in debate in either House.
My noble friend will know that last year, after 30 years of experience in Parliament of personally dealing with casework—I cannot imagine how many I have dealt with—I actually struggled to engage with the Government’s website to apply for ESA for a young woman in a very difficult situation with an advancing degenerative disease. In order to apply for ESA, the computer made me keep going to universal credit. This woman was married to a man in receipt of the support level of ESA, and the only way the computer would allow me to apply for even universal credit for her was if that man agreed to forfeit the right to his ESA. I know my noble friend has taken this up, and I hope she has made some progress with it. But this is what people are facing. They deserve a lot better than this.
Personal Independence Payment
Baroness Browning Excerpts(7 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, it is important to re-emphasise the fact that this Urgent Question is about two specific cases that occurred before the regulations were amended in March 2017. It is about a five-month period. We are focusing on support for those two particular claimants and will ensure that any loss will be recovered and paid to them, literally within the coming days.
I sense that the House is perhaps referring to a judicial review decision that was made in the sense that the Secretary of State decided not to appeal a judgment towards the end of 2017 in relation to mobility activity 1, which is different from today’s Question. However, in relation to that, we will be carrying out an administrative exercise to identify claimants who may be eligible for more support under PIP and we need to screen the whole PIP caseload of 1.6 million to identify those people as a result of that JR judgment. The actual number of people whose award will be affected is much smaller. The judgment relates to people who suffer from overwhelming psychological distress that affects their ability to plan and follow a journey. Anyone who is identified as affected will be contacted by DWP and their payments will be backdated to the effective date in each claim.
Baroness Browning (Con)
My Lords, I declare a personal family interest. While I appreciate the constraints of this particular Question and judgment, my noble friend referred to the judicial review that was debated in this House. There have been many changes since the initial legislation came in. Can she tell the House how many existing people remain on DLA and are still waiting for their PIP assessment from DLA to PIP?
Baroness Buscombe
My Lords, I apologise. I hope that my noble friend will appreciate that this was given to me as an Urgent Question. I know that since PIP was introduced, 3.1 million decisions have been made, which will include some who were on DLA as well as new applicants for PIP, 9% of which have been appealed and 4% overturned. I am struggling to give the exact figure of the number of people who have moved from DLA to PIP. In that case, I am happy to write to my noble friend.