Department for Education

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Christine Jardine]

Yes, it was our policy, and if it had been delivered with the amount of money that was originally intended, it might have worked. However, in 2015 the then Chancellor took £3 billion out of the budget, leaving the policy crippled.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Christine Jardine]

I will continue, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.

The constituent I mentioned was told that she did not need her mobility car, because if she could drive, she could walk. However, the car was specially adapted for her disability—a disability she was born with and for which she wears callipers. She cannot walk any distance. It was nonsense.

If the Department wants to save money, it should get more of these assessments right the first time, and bring assessments in-house to help it to do that. In 2015-16 the Ministry of Justice spent £103 million organising ESA and PIP appeal hearings, not including the costs to the DWP of defending them, yet two thirds of those hearings went in favour of the claimant. Meanwhile, the Government spent £370 million a year on contracts to Atos, Capita and MAXIMUS to conduct those assessments. That money could be much better spent. Surely it would be cheaper and fairer for the DWP to invest properly in trained professionals to carry out these tests.

Perhaps the most important thing the Government could do—as we have heard, this is the starkest omission from their estimates—is to end the benefits freeze. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, that is the biggest policy driver behind the expected rise in poverty by the end of this Parliament. It estimates that ending the freeze a year early would cost £1.4 billion, reducing the number of people in poverty by 200, 000. It is absurd that the Government have been unwilling to accept that, given that they had the money to spend but instead put it to use by giving a tax cut to higher-rate taxpayers. Surely it is morally wrong to attempt to balance the books on the backs of the most vulnerable. The Government should use the spring statement to scrap the final year of the benefits freeze, and finally make the DWP work for the people it is intended to work for.