Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Michael Tomlinson

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 2nd December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

I am sorry, but I am going to carry on.

We must ensure that all of us, as leaders, use the appropriate language. I can point to speeches that have been made in the past in which that has not been the case.

The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South has outlined the provisions of her Bill, which requires an assessment of social security claimants’ circumstances before a sanction is applied. Measures in the Bill include a code of conduct for those responsible for imposing sanctions and the important principle of just cause, which is applied in defined circumstances. It will be applied, for example, where undertaking a job is in clear conflict with the claimant’s caring responsibility, and where there is just cause for not undertaking particular employment or job-search activity. In such cases, it is proposed that sanctions should not be applied.

The hon. Lady also mentioned the need for assessment for hardship payments after a sanction has been applied. Again, that is absolutely right. It was in fact one recommendation from the Work and Pensions Committee inquiry on this issue last year.

I have been heartened by the slightly different tone taken by the new Secretary of State, particularly in what has been said about work capability assessment and sanctions for homeless people and other vulnerable groups. I see this Bill as an important step forward, as it builds on what we have said should be happening. It would also make the process much fairer. I support this Bill in abolishing the punitive sanctions regime that the Tories and the Liberal Democrats introduced in the Welfare Reform Act 2012.

Let me provide a bit of background to what has been going on over the past four years. We have heard about the exponential rise in sanctions that have been applied to people on JSA, incapacity benefit and employment and support allowance, but we did not really touch on the new application to people on universal credit who are in work. I am referring to the taxpayers whom the hon. Member for Bournemouth West was talking about—the taxpayers who are already contributing to the Exchequer and who are, through the universal credit regulations, likely to be subjected to a sanction. That would be the case if, for example, they are not working full time, or if they have not got a permanent contract and want a few days off. They can be sanctioned and that is happening now.

I have been campaigning on this issue for more than four years. A constituent came to me after he had been sanctioned. He was in the middle of a work capability assessment when he suffered a heart attack. He was told by the nurse undertaking the assessment that he needed to go to hospital. He did that, and two weeks later he had a letter in the post saying that he had been sanctioned.

I mentioned another case to the Minister when we were in an interview recently. John Ruane from my constituency has a brain tumour, which means that he has three to four epileptic fits a week. His clinical team contacted me because he was refusing to have a life-saving operation on the grounds that he feared he would be sanctioned. He had already had his ESA stopped after a work capability assessment—that is another story, which I cannot go into today, but which certainly needs to be looked at again. He was frightened of being sanctioned. Fortunately, I have been able to intervene and his ESA has been re-established, but that fear of being sanctioned is what people are experiencing.

Yet another constituent of mine, who was a Jobcentre Plus adviser for more than 25 years, came to me four years ago, saying how troubled he was about the targets that he was being set—or aspirations as a Member said earlier—to sanction claimants. Targets were being set for sanctions even when people had done nothing wrong. He explained how the system works—that appointments would be made when people were meant to come in for a work-related interview, and the people would then not be told. That was investigated by the Department for Work and Pensions and, shamefully, it did nothing.

[Michael Tomlinson]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Debbie Abrahams]

On that point alone.

[Michael Tomlinson]

The hon. Lady mentions sanctions. Does she approve of the sanctions regime overall, or would she also advocate getting rid of it in its totality?

[Debbie Abrahams]

I said, “On that point alone,” and the hon. Gentleman has not asked specifically about the investigation of the fraudulent activity that was going on in the DWP, so I am afraid I am not going to respond to his intervention. [Interruption.] I will come on to putting our position very clearly to the Minister.

This Jobcentre Plus adviser said people were being set up to fail to get them off flow. If claimants are off flow, they are not signing in. Not only do they not count in the JSA claimant statistics, but they are not drawing social security support. Wednesday’s National Audit Office report estimated that, last year alone, £132 million was not paid in social security support, but a significant amount—not quite as much as that—was spent on administering the sanctions process.

What many people are surprised to hear is that sanctions apply immediately and last for a minimum of a month. They are referred to a DWP decision maker, as we have heard, to decide whether they should be upheld, but that in itself can take a month. On top of that, although housing benefit payments are not meant to be stopped, they have been, and that was confirmed during the Select Committee inquiry last year. As has also been said, the ensuing debt builds up, and Sheffield Hallam University has shown the implications for sanctions-related homelessness.

Then I started to hear about the deaths of claimants following a sanction—first Mark Wood, and then David Clapson, and there have been many more. Of the 49 claimants who died between 2012 and 2014, and whose deaths were investigated by the DWP, 10 followed a sanction. By the way, I am still waiting for the Department to get back to me on the peer review details of nine subsequent claimant deaths.

It was after David’s death, and when I had met his sister, Gill Thompson, who is absolutely devastated—I pay tribute to her for the campaign she has launched to try to raise awareness of what is happening—that I managed to persuade the Select Committee to undertake an inquiry into sanctions that would explore the impacts of the Government’s 2012 sanctions regime. We found that, between 2012 and 2014, 3.2 million sanctions were applied. At a peak, in one month in 2014, 90,000 JSA claimants were sanctioned. The sanctions for sick and disabled people increased fivefold. One in five JSA claimants were sanctioned at that time; as we have heard, that has increased to one in four. Single parents and people with mental health conditions were particularly affected. Again, the variation across the country was quite staggering.

We found that 43% of claimants who are sanctioned leave JSA—they move off flow, distorting the JSA claimant count. Over 80%—this is a really important point—of those leaving JSA after a sanction do so for reasons other than work. One would think that the Government wanted to know what was happening to those people and where they were going. If they are not going into work, what exactly is happening to them? One recommendation from the all-party Select Committee inquiry was that we should follow up these cases. As the NAO has shown, that has not happened. We do not know what happens to the nearly half of the JSA claimants who leave and the 80% who do so for reasons other than going into work.

The rise in food bank usage was also linked to the increase in sanctions, and both the physical and the mental health issues of claimants were found to be exacerbated by the punitive sanctions regime. The Select Committee made more than 20 recommendations, including for the pre-sanction process that the Bill also calls for. It also said that all financial sanctions on vulnerable JSA and ESA claimants, as well as those on people who are on universal credit and in work but not full-time work, should be stopped.

Fundamentally, the Select Committee called for an independent inquiry into sanctions as a whole, and the NAO made the same recommendation in its report on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the Government did not accept the majority of the recommendations. They made some moves on hardship payments. We have heard about that already and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

Wednesday’s NAO report was the third in a month reaffirming and adding to the Select Committee inquiry’s findings. There is no evidence that sanctioning someone motivates them or modifies their behaviour in such a way that they move into work. Even the Government’s own behavioural insights team found exactly that in its review. We have discussed the fact that one in four JSA claimants were sanctioned between 2010 and 2015, and I have mentioned the appalling headline that said that they were abusing the system. As I have said, the Jobcentre Plus whistleblower said that claimants are being set up to fail.

We also know that 42% of UC decisions about sanctions took longer than 28 days, and that £132 million was withheld last year. Last month, the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics quantified the association between the increase in sanctioning and food bank usage: for every 10 sanctions, five more adults were referred to food banks.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Absolutely. Last week, the food bank in my own area launched a fuel bank, because people are choosing between heating and eating. That is what is going to happen up and down the country this Christmas.

Where do we go from here? I hope that, given the evidence and the new tone being used by this Government—I was disappointed with the autumn statement, but I am an eternal optimist and hope that the Minister is listening—they will support the Bill and implement it at the earliest opportunity.

I turn to the question asked by the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) about our position. I made it very clear in my conference speech in September.

[Michael Tomlinson]

I wasn’t there, but the hon. Lady can invite me next time!

[Debbie Abrahams]

I will certainly do that. The hon. Gentleman is very welcome to cross the Floor.

I said—and this was widely reported at the time—that we want to scrap the system. We must be driven by evidence, and the evidence shows that it does not work. It does not motivate people or change behaviour. All it does is have a very harmful effect on the most vulnerable in society. It also has some very difficult spin-off effects.

[Michael Tomlinson]

rose—

[Debbie Abrahams]

I am coming to a conclusion. As part of my party’s sanctions review, I want to explore approaches that better reflect the change that I want to see in the culture of our social security system. I want it to be based on support and positive reinforcement, not harassment and punishment. Again, if we look at the evidence from the Netherlands, we see that such an approach is much more effective at moving people into sustainable employment.

Our social security system is, like our NHS, there for all of us in our time of need. It is based on the principles of inclusion, support and security for all, and it should assure all of us of our dignity at all times. I do not think that we can say that about the present system, and we certainly cannot say that about the sanctions system. I hope that the Government are listening, because this is so important. I implore them to implement the Bill.

Disability Employment Gap

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Michael Tomlinson

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

I am sorry, but I will not—I have a lot that I want to say.

The Government set the tone for the culture of society explicitly through their policies and laws, and more subtly through the language they use and what they imply. Collectively, those things tell us who they think is worthy or not. The Government have made their views abundantly clear. Their swingeing cuts to social security support for disabled people—including the recent ESA WRAG cut of £1,500 a year—total nearly £30 billion since 2010 to 3.7 million disabled people.

The Government’s overhaul of the work capability assessment manages to be both dehumanising and ineffective, and it has been associated with profound mental health effects, including suicide. Their sanctions policy targets the most vulnerable, bringing people to the brink, and some have died under it. The PIP debacle is making it harder for disabled people to stay in work. There is also the closure of the independent living fund. I could go on and on. This is happening across all Government Departments—Business, Innovation and Skills; housing; Transport; Education; Justice; and Culture, Media and Sport. Disabled people are being completely marginalised.

[Michael Tomlinson]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Debbie Abrahams]

I am sorry, but I will not. As I said, I have a lot to say.

What needs to happen? Addressing these issues, including the disability employment gap, needs political will and leadership. The Labour party’s disability equality roadshow will work with disabled people, their carers, disabled people’s organisations and providers across the UK, listening to them and developing with them policies that address their needs and that will work. However, we will also engage the public at large, providing an alternative to the Government’s negative narrative and casual inaction.

If 90% of disability is acquired, why are we doing so little to help employers retain skilled and experienced employees who may become poorly or disabled? We need practical measures to support disabled people at work, enabling them to thrive, and protecting them from prematurely leaving the labour market. Some disability charities have recommended more flexible leave arrangements, as well as extending the Access to Work programme. Clearly, if the Government increase the 37,000 or so who used Access to Work last year by another 25,000, that will still be only a tiny, tiny proportion of the 1.3 million people who are fit for work.

The Disability Confident scheme needs to be rebooted. The latest revelation that only 40 mainstream private sector employers across the UK have joined it since its inception three years ago shows that it is, to put it mildly, completely inadequate. What measures are in place to measure the scheme’s efficacy? Where employers work hard to recruit and retain disabled employees, how does that apply to their procurement policies and supply chains?

More needs to be done to help disabled people back into work. As we have been arguing for over a year, the work capability assessment needs to be replaced with a more holistic, whole-person assessment. The current system that assesses eligibility for social security support is not fit for purpose and should be completely overhauled. I welcome some of the change in language on disabled people on this matter. That needs to be reflected in departmental and Jobcentre Plus performance indicators that do not just focus on getting people “off flow” as a successful outcome. Since so many of the same people also have PIP assessments, we should also look at how we could bring these together. It is pleasing that the Government say that they are considering this.

Instead of the increasingly punitive sanctions system, more appropriate support needs to be provided. It is essential to maintain and increase specialist disability employment advisers in jobcentres. There is currently one adviser to 600 disabled people, and even if that is doubled to one to 300, that is still a very low ratio for the Government to be working to. I would also like their role to be extended to working with businesses. The current commissioning and payments system for the Work programme and other welfare-to-work programmes also needs rethinking. We need to improve specialist support, looking at what works. Work Choice, while it has better outcomes than other programmes, may not be the only solution. The individual placement and support scheme for people with mental health conditions is another example. As I have said before, there needs to be greater integration between Departments —not just between the DWP and the NHS but with BIS and economic development. For example, if someone who has musculoskeletal conditions or mental health issues has to take time off work, they need appropriate early intervention to help them get back to work. That is not happening at the moment. We need to understand the bottlenecks in the local system that my impact on this. We need to reflect on the drive for “flexible” labour markets and what this means for supporting people with long-term and fluctuating conditions back into work, and most probably out of work and then back into work, and so on.

There are clear geographical variations in the disability employment gap, but also in the strength of local economies and the availability and types of jobs. It is well established that the prevalence and geographical pattern of sick and disabled people reflects the industrial heritage of our country. Contrary to the Government’s “shirkers and scroungers” narrative, incapacity benefit and ESA are recognised as good population health indicators. Local economic conditions, whether the economy is thriving or not, will determine how readily sick and disabled people will be able return to work. Geographical analysis shows that people with equivalent conditions in the economically buoyant London and south-east are more likely to be in work that those in Northern Ireland, Scotland, the north-east, the north-west, and Wales.

It is over 70 years since legislation was first introduced to prohibit employment-related discrimination against disabled people. Sadly, we are still fighting to address this discrimination and the inequality in employment that disabled people still face. Changing attitudes and behaviour needs cultural change and it needs leadership, and we will provide it.