Housing Benefit (Abolition of Social Sector Size Criteria)
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Sheila Gilmore(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
Once again, we are debating the bedroom tax—the policy that I believe will come to define this Tory-Liberal Government and their four-year-long assault on people with low incomes who live with disabilities and health problems. The bedroom tax has caused real hardship for some of the most disadvantaged people. More than 70,000 households in Scotland are currently liable for the tax, 80% of which are home to a disabled adult. Those are the people who already have the least choice about where they live. They are already living in the cheapest housing available—housing that has been allocated on the basis of need, not of household size.
The bedroom tax is making those disabled and disadvantaged people the scapegoat for the systemic problems in the housing sector, as well as reducing their incomes. It is a policy that should never have happened, and I hope that people will remember, when the election comes round, that the Tories, backed up by their little helpers on the Lib-Dem Benches, were prepared to put disabled people on the front line of austerity cuts.
My colleagues and I will be pleased to support the Opposition motion today, but I have to ask those on the Labour Front Bench what took them so long. It was only in September 2013 that Labour announced that it would repeal this pernicious piece of legislation, and reports in The Guardian on 25 October suggest that the Scottish Labour leader was actively prevented from criticising the bedroom tax for a year prior to that while Labour made up its mind.
Sheila Gilmore
I understand why the hon. Lady wants to make those remarks, but I find it extraordinary that she should suggest that we did not speak out against the bedroom tax. We voted for various amendments in Committee and we voted against the Bill’s Third Reading, so it is not true to say that we did not vote against the bedroom tax.
Dr Whiteford
I did not say that Labour Members did not vote against the bedroom tax; I was talking about what was alleged in the report in The Guardian on 25 October. If that is true, it is a shocking indictment—[Interruption.] That is what I said.
I am pleased that the Scottish Government have taken action that has fully mitigated the effect of the bedroom tax for those affected this year and in the next financial year. I understand that, as of next week, the section 63 orders will be in force to allow local authorities to make discretionary payments—as they have been doing for some months on the basis of assurances—to ensure that no one in Scotland will lose out. I am relieved that tenants will no longer be experiencing hardship or accruing rent arrears due to the bedroom tax, but we should make no mistake that while it remains on the statute book, legal liability will remain with the tenants. Moreover, the £35 million that the Scottish Government have allocated to mitigate the bedroom tax this year has had to be found from other devolved budgets at a time when public spending is under pressure. So this is far from being an elegant or sustainable solution, and it is interesting to note that the Welsh Assembly has refused to go down a similar route.
The issues underlying the problems with the bedroom tax are the chronic shortage of social housing and the serious mismatch between our existing housing stock and the needs of present-day tenants. In Scotland, research by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has found that the implementation costs of the bedroom tax exceed the projected savings by around £10 million—money that could have been reinvested in social housing.
I recognise that the Government want to cut the housing benefit bill, but squeezing disabled tenants is a vicious way to do that. When we look closely at the increases in housing benefit over the past 10 years, we see that almost a third of the UK increase is attributable to London alone. By contrast, in Scotland the total cost of housing benefit has increased by 22% in inflation-adjusted terms over 10 years, but the increase has been much lower in the social rented sector, at only 6% over 10 years. Housing benefit inflation is being driven by out-of-control rent increases in the private sector, a problem that is most extreme in the London area.
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Sheila Gilmore(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Dr Whiteford
I am anxious to make progress and conscious of the time constraints for this debate and the need to move on to consider further clauses. I am going to finish my speech shortly.
Increasing the regulatory burden on charities, which this Bill will do, will not improve transparency one jot, and it will not improve accountability. At best, it will add to and fuel the bureaucratic process, and at worst it will deter smaller organisations from engaging in public policy processes.
The purpose of my amendment 169 is simply to mitigate what I see as the worst potential side-effects of the Bill, but I believe that this part of the Bill needs wholesale redrafting, so I will be happy to support other amendments to that end.
The great irony of the Bill is that it fails to tackle the real problems in our culture of lobbying where certain parties have undue influence; instead, it creates a new layer of regulation on civil society actors who already operate with appropriate levels of transparency and accountability, many of which are already adequately regulated. This part of the Bill places obligations on some third parties that are not commensurate, proportionate or fair. I fear that it will be simply unworkable.
In speaking to amendment 169, I urge the Government to listen to those 200 organisations—not just to tell them that they are wrong, but to understand why they are concerned and accept that the drafting is well below par. Overwhelming concern has been expressed by civil society organisations about this Bill, which really needs a thorough overhaul.
Universal Credit
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Sheila Gilmore(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Sheila Gilmore
There is undoubtedly a reduction in resources. Many of the advice agencies that I have contact with are having to tell people that they cannot get an appointment for three weeks, or even four.
Dr Whiteford
Does the hon. Lady welcome the fact that in Scotland Citizens Advice has had an increase of £5.7 million in recent weeks to cope with that situation?
Sheila Gilmore
I certainly do, although I rather regret that that money was so long in the coming given that it was available to be paid out some couple of years ago—but better late than never.
Finally, I want to discuss a particular group—single parents. Some of the problems I am going to consider do not necessarily result from universal credit as such, but they will not be cured by universal credit and may even be made worse. For many single parents, getting back into work is not easy. There is a great deal of evidence that many of them, when they do find work, find that it is low-paid and low-skilled work. There is a high level of churn because of the type of work or because of the practical difficulties that can arise. They may find that arranging child care is unexpectedly expensive or difficult—for instance, when they run into the summer holiday problem. All these things can lead to a single parent who wants to work finding a job and doing it for a period, but then having to leave and go back to the beginning again. Skilling up is particularly important.
Over the past few years, including under the previous Government, there have been several changes to the rules for single parents, particularly about their registering for work once their children reached certain ages. Considerable flexibilities were built into the system whereby, for example, a single parent would not be required to apply for a job, go for a job interview or take a job where it would not fit with their child care responsibilities. There are several such flexibilities, none of which, bar one, are in the new regulations that have been produced for universal credit. They are in guidance, but the problem is that guidance is not legally binding and these matters are at the discretion of an individual adviser.
There are currently 12 flexibilities, only one of which has been migrated into the new regulations in its entirety; the other 11 are not there or have been very much qualified. For example, under the regulations a single parent is still able to restrict the hours they work, but only if they can demonstrate that there are jobs with those hours available locally. If there are not, they cannot have that flexibility, so presumably they will have to look for a job that does not accord with their child care responsibilities or look for one outwith their area, which creates a whole new set of difficulties. Anyone who has had to pick up their child from nursery at a fixed time and has experienced the reception they get when they arrive back late because the bus has been delayed will know that working a long distance away is not easy.
It is not at all clear why these changes are being made. They might make it more difficult for single parents to get back into work. If the flexibilities are not there, the other problem that arises is sanctions. If people do not have those flexibilities, they may be required to take on a job—or to refuse a job—that does not meet their needs. If they refuse to take the job, they can be sanctioned. The level of sanctions was increased substantially in the Welfare Reform Act 2012 and the number of people who are being sanctioned is increasing. We are all seeing those people already. I would like the Minister to explain why the decision has been taken not to put the flexibilities for single parents into the regulations.
Gingerbread, which represents single parents, feels that getting skilled has been made more difficult of late. Again, there does not seem to be anything in universal credit that will help that situation. Previously, a single parent with a very young child who was on income support got a fee remission if they did a college course. That fee remission has been removed, so although a single parent with a child under five can still do a college course if they can fit it in around everything else that they are doing, they have to pay for it. When they hit the requirement to sign on for JSA, they will get fee remission for a course, but if a job offer comes up that they have to accept, they will either have to drop the course, which they might be part-way through, or continue the course and be sanctioned. That is not the way to upskill people. Gingerbread has proposed that a single parent who is undertaking a further education course, up to and including level 3,
“should be treated as fulfilling work search and work availability requirements”
until their youngest child reaches the age of seven or the course ends. That is a practical proposal.
There is serious concern that the structure of universal credit, far from enabling single parents to work, will not be of great assistance and might even be harmful. The Gingerbread report, “Struggling to make ends meet”, with which I am sure the Minister is familiar, points out that a single parent who is earning the minimum wage cannot expect their disposable income to increase by much once they start working 10 hours or more. We are talking about very short hours. For anyone who does not understand, we are not talking about 10 hours a day, but 10 hours a week. Somebody who works only three, four, five, six or seven hours a week will be better off under universal credit, but because of the structure of it, once they are working 10 hours a week or more, they will not be much better off. For all that has been said about universal credit making people much better off and encouraging them to go into work, the structure is not quite as good as has been made out.
Housing Benefit (Under-occupancy Penalty)
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Sheila Gilmore(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Dr Whiteford
The hon. Gentleman makes a really spurious point. Given the impact that the measure will have on his constituents, he would be better sticking to the real issue, which is the fact that the measure will not work and will harm people across Scotland.
Sheila Gilmore
That is an important point. The council tax freeze which has been going on for nearly six years now—people in England will share the joys as well—has resulted in local councils being unable to go to their populations and say that they would like to put up council tax, so that they can perhaps borrow money to build more council houses. Of course, the people who do not benefit in any way from the council tax freeze are those on the lowest incomes, who do not pay council tax directly because they receive council tax benefit, but they are the very people who will be affected by the bedroom tax. For the lowest earners, the council tax freeze is not a blessing; it has reduced the services they received and hamstrung a lot of councils. I hope the Scottish Government will look again at the policy, which might appear populist but does not benefit the lowest paid.
Sheila Gilmore
I am not going to give way, because I have done so several times already.
If councils are going to put their money into this policy, by increasing discretionary housing payments, or trying to acquire or build more houses, they must be given support. In Scotland, as in England, sadly, we are seeing a substantial reduction in the building of affordable homes. In Scotland, the number of such homes was boosted briefly, but it has gone down from 7,900 two years ago to only 3,400 this year. Some of those homes are for mid market rent, which has its role but is expensive, so it could lead to higher housing benefit payments. The outcome of more mid market rent housing is similar to what is happening in England. We have heard people on the Government Benches saying that the Government will ensure that more affordable houses are built, but I thought they had made it clear that those so-called affordable houses were going to be at up to 80% of market rent, which is expensive. In Edinburgh, a council one-bedroom property is £275 per month, but a mid market one-bedroom property is currently being advertised at £439 per month. Mid market is no substitute for low-cost affordable housing.
The high housing benefit bill will be reduced not by measures such as the bedroom tax, but by measures that address the supply of housing and the huge cost of the private rented sector. A couple came to see me who, after six years, had got the two-bedroom wheelchair-accessible house that they need. It is no use saying to them, “You can apply for a discretionary housing payment.” In a Westminster Hall debate recently, the Minister said that discretionary housing payments might have to become permanent in such cases, but that couple will still have to apply every year, and will have uncertainty, and that is not fair to them. If such payments have to be permanent, where is the saving? Why not have an exemption?
Public Service Pensions Bill
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Sheila Gilmore(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Sheila Gilmore
I was going to come to that point, because I am surprised that that opportunity has not been taken, given the context. As my right hon. Friend will know, this is a difficult and sensitive subject, but—this point might well be speculative and I am sure that people will wish to deny that it is the case—it is no secret that we are in a particular stage of politics in Scotland, and it would—
Dr Whiteford
I think I might be rescuing the hon. Lady from the point she was trying to make. Earlier, she stressed the importance of considering what is actually in the legislation rather than the world as we would like it to be. Does she welcome the fact that John Swinney has not exercised his flexibility to increase contributions to the local government pension scheme?
Dr Whiteford
I am glad to have an opportunity to speak briefly about amendments 29, 30 and 31, which stand in my name and which would exempt Scottish schemes from the requirement that new schemes should link pension age with state pension age. Amendment 33 is simply a definition of what is meant by “Scottish scheme”—namely a scheme relating to those in local government, teachers, NHS workers, firefighters or the police—for the purpose of clarifying the other amendments.
On Second Reading, it was clear that the linking of normal pension age to state pension age was a central bone of contention. It has certainly been the main topic of concern mentioned to me by constituents who will be affected by the proposed changes, including teachers, NHS workers and prison officers. It has also been the top priority for unions and other staff representatives taking part in negotiations. It has been the key sticking point in those negotiations, and has caused a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty among employers.
As has been pointed out by other Members, many people who do physically demanding and stressful jobs will struggle to work into their late 60s. The change will create real difficulties and hardships for those who develop health conditions as they age. It will also make life much more complicated for employers who will have to work around and adapt to the physical limitations of employees who should really have retired.
The reason this is such an acute issue in Scotland is very simple: our life expectancy is almost two years lower than the UK average. In fact, ours is among the lowest life expectancy levels in Europe. Even given recent improvements and an upward trajectory, male life expectancy in Scotland is only 76 years and female life expectancy just over 80. We also have an unenviable health record. I have previously referred to the widening gap between rising life expectancy and what is defined as “healthy life expectancy”—the years before the average age at which people develop serious physical health problems that impair their normal day-to-day life. At present, women in Scotland have a healthy life expectancy of only 61.9 years, while for men the figure drops to 59.5. In other words, people are already having to work beyond the age at which they can expect to be in reasonably good health.
Dr Whiteford
I am sorry, but Mr. Speaker has asked me to keep my remarks brief. I hope that the hon. Lady will bear with me.
A large number of people end up taking early retirement or receiving disability benefit in later middle age. The TUC has done some sterling work in highlighting the large proportion of people who are in that position. Many are having to retire early on reduced pensions, in some cases at a significant cost to their employers. When workplace pressures have contributed to the premature collapse of an employee’s health, that becomes a very costly exercise for everyone involved. I am thinking particularly of prison officers.
We know that people in physically demanding occupations and those on lower incomes die significantly earlier than affluent people in white-collar jobs. The new hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) mentioned that earlier. Our public sector encompasses a range of occupations, from civil service desk and office jobs to the work done by people such as prison officers, paramedics and nurses, which places intense physical demands on them.
Although the Bill has acknowledged the physical strain that is placed on some workers, such as firefighters and police officers, it does not take proper account of the human limitations of our work force as a whole. In applying such a broad brush to changing demographics, it takes no account of occupational and geographic variances that cut across other aspects of social class. We can legislate on paper as much as we like, but forcing people to work until their health caves in is not a sustainable long-term solution for pensioners. A little more pragmatism from the Government would go a long way, not only in enabling meaningful negotiations to progress, but in designing genuinely sustainable public sector pension provision in the Scottish context for the longer term. If we do not get the design of schemes right, public sector employees are likely to lose confidence in the process, and we will run the risk of individuals choosing to opt out, with all the negative unintended consequences that entails, with additional cost to the state through means-tested benefits.
Working-Age Disabled People
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Sheila Gilmore(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Sheila Gilmore
Certainly the system had been operating for some time before the roll-out to all the existing invalidity benefit claimants, but it is not clear that the evaluation was put in place first. I think at the time we said that as some concerns were being considered, and new ways of doing things were being found, it would have been more sensible to put those changes in place before moving everyone else across.
The WCA experience tells us that IT is a tool, and should never become the master of the process. The computerised test should not be the whole of the assessment process. What comes through loud and clear from Professor Harrington’s report is the importance of seeing the computerised assessment as only a part of the whole. Gathering essential documentary evidence early in the process is important. I often heard the previous Employment Minister say that people come to WCA appeal tribunals with information that was not there in the first place—as if people keep it hidden at home and deliberately wait for the appeal to produce the information. Many of the appellants say that no one asked them for it. Some people have even said that they turned up at assessments with information that was not looked at. We must ensure that information is made available from the outset.
The other important thing, according to Professor Harrington, was that DWP decision makers should not simply rubber stamp the computerised assessment. They should consider the position in the round—look at the documentary evidence and consider the situation again. That change should now be in place for the WCA, and there are signs that that is happening, although when I have asked the Government questions about how many Atos assessments are changed by DWP decision makers, I have been told that the information is not kept in that form. Again, it is quite difficult to know exactly what is happening.
The Minister’s predecessor gave us to understand that the PIP assessment would be very different. In the Government’s response to our report, they said:
“The face-to-face consultation, as part of the Personal Independence Payment assessment, is fully intended to be a two-way conversation between the claimant and the health professional, allowing a detailed exploration of how the claimant’s health condition or disabilities affect their day-to-day lives. The discussion at the consultations should not be mechanistic and should be tailored to individuals. This is being clearly expressed to potential providers as part of the tendering for Personal Independence Payment assessment contracts and will be set out in detail in the supporting guidance for providers and their staff. The guidance will stress the importance of positive interaction throughout all aspects of the assessment. The contract will require assessors to have excellent interpersonal and communication skills, including the ability to interact with people sensitively and appropriately.
The Department is not placing targets on the time required for face-to-face consultations and is making clear to potential providers that consultations will need to be as long as necessary to reach evidence-based conclusions on individual cases.”
That sounds wonderful, and if it happens we will definitely have a much better assessment process than the WCA one that we have criticised. I have a problem reconciling it with the contract approach. Has it been built into the contracts? How will it work? If an assessment on one day, for one person, takes as long as is needed, what happens to the other people sitting in the building waiting to be assessed?
Are those people going to be sent home or asked to come back another day? What effect will that have on the number of assessments carried out? What are the targets or expectations of how many assessments should be carried out each week or month? There is a conflict—a tension, at least—between those hopeful and optimistic words and a contract-based system that has expectations of putting through a large number of people over a short space of time.
The Committee was also concerned about the frequency of reassessments. Although we accepted that there should be more reassessments than previously, we had concerns about how often people should have to go back through that process. It is very stressful and expensive for claimants. Stress can affect people’s health and make them worse rather than better.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
I am glad the hon. Lady has raised that point. The whole question of getting to assessments has been one of the biggest issues around the WCA for people who live far away and often depend on relatives or friends to take them. It can mean a whole day trip for a simple—and sometimes unnecessary—assessment process.
Sheila Gilmore
That is where I hope we will see a more flexible approach that in some cases allows for a decision to be made without the absolute necessity of a face-to-face assessment. That should certainly apply in the case of reassessment, even if not always for the first assessment. There will be some cases, even when it is the first occasion, when the obviousness of someone’s situation should make a face-to-face assessment unnecessary.
There is sometimes a reluctance to accept that anybody falls into that category. It is important to give people optimism and hope. I had a constituency case concerning WCA, although it could have applied equally to DLA. A constituent’s son has a number of conditions but basically he is a 21-year-old toddler. He had no concept of what he was to be put through, but his mother did. He had been kept at his special education school for some time beyond normal school leaving age. However, he now had to apply for the benefit. His mother asked whether it was absolutely necessary to take him to an assessment. His inability to handle new situations is so great that she cannot get him into strange places and buildings.
When she phoned to ask about that, she was repeatedly told that there would have to be an assessment and that she would just have to do it. She filled in the form and sent it in. She was then told that he had been granted the benefit without an assessment. That is good, but she had been put through a lot of unnecessary stress, because one bit of the Department did not seem to know that that was possible under certain circumstances. Anyone who had met him would quickly see that the young man was clearly entitled to the benefit and to be in the support group. There was no way he could undertake employment any more than any toddler could.
There are real cases of people who should not be put through all that and the extra difficulties. Apparently, one of the providers is proposing to do quite a lot of home visits and that might take out some of the difficulty. However, that prompts the questions of whether the process will take longer and of how to deal with the large numbers involved. It has been described as a much bigger challenge than the migration from incapacity benefit to ESA. The Department is taking on a bigger challenge before it has completed the previous one.
One problem encountered by people who appeal under the WCA process is that the reassessment comes through quickly thereafter. One oddity is that the decision on the reassessment period is based on the recommendation of the original assessment. The original assessment might say that someone should be reassessed within a year. The person might then appeal and win. If the appeal takes 10 months, that person could still be called back for reassessment two months later, even though the decision to call someone back within a year was based on an original flawed assessment. It does not seem sensible to operate such a procedure. There seems to be no reason why a decision about reassessment should not be reviewed if someone wins an appeal.
The Government response said that the recall time for reassessments could be almost any length; they could be a year or 10 years. They would never again be indefinite. A year is a very short time when one considers that to qualify for the benefit in the first instance, it is necessary to demonstrate that the condition is likely to last for at least a further six months. I would suggest that over-short periods will put everybody through unnecessary difficulty.
Other speakers have mentioned the piloting phase. It defies belief that a proper evaluation of a pilot can be done within two months and then the results applied. That is what is being suggested. The initial roll-out in the Bootle office will start in April. The roll-out to new claimants in the whole of the UK will start in June. There is barely time to get enough data to make an appropriate evaluation, let alone carry out that evaluation and then make changes.
The Department constantly tells us in connection with this benefit and universal credit that it now has an agile system that allows details to be changed as things go along and it can keep rolling out in different ways. That was not our experience with the Harrington changes in WCA. It took months for most of those changes to be put in place. When we asked about it, we were told, “We have got to draw up new instructions to staff. They have to be sent out to staff. New training has to be put in place.” In effect, between the first Harrington report in November 2010 and the following summer, some of the changes began to be rolled out. The explanation we were given for the time lag was that that was the time it takes to go through a process of getting staff ready for the changes.
How is it that suddenly, only a year later, the Department is confident that it can have a pilot, evaluate it and roll out changes and make a real difference to people who are making claims? In October next year, the process of ending people’s DLA claims and inviting them to apply for PIP will begin. The whole process is quite tight and does not give opportunity for proper evaluation and tracking of what is happening to people. Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether there will be a proper evaluation of the Bootle pilot. Who is to carry it out? When will the results be known? Does she think it makes sense to move to the full roll-out in June?
Monitoring and tracking changes of this sort is important. We need to know how this will be monitored in an ongoing way. I was appalled to discover how little tracking seems to go on of the results of the ESA process. Parliamentary questions that I have asked about the destinations of people who are found fit for work are often answered with, “We do not keep that information. We may know who is on benefit and who is in employment, but as for other things, we do not know.”
The previous Government put in place a research project that started to track such information, but I think that it has now stopped. It had a first and second wave, but there is no sign of the research continuing. Perhaps the Minister will let me know whether I am wrong.
On ESA, the project found that within a year of people being found fit for work, 43% were neither in work nor in receipt of an out-of-work benefit. That is an awful lot of people simply to disappear. There are a whole lot of reasons for that; people may have gone on to jobseeker’s allowance, run out of the contributory JSA or they may have a working partner. Some may have a small pension because they were retired from work early on health grounds—even though they were then found to be fit for work, which is not uncommon.
There may be lots of reasons, but, as a responsible Parliament and Government, we really should know the effect that this measure is having. These people are seeing a substantial reduction in their incomes. They may have been in a two-income household, which then becomes a one-income household plus a benefit and then a one-income household possibly with the additional costs of having an illness of some kind.
What happens to those people and their standard of living is important. It is the same with the change we are discussing. Some may say that making the change will be good. We were even told by the Minister’s predecessor that some people who previously did not get this benefit—especially mental health applicants—will do so now. We may have even more people getting the benefit. We need to know all the information. I hope that we will have a proper research project and that the Minister will tell us that it is being fully funded by Government.
As for the housing benefit changes, the Government have put in place a research project, which is being carried out by one of the universities. A baseline piece of work has been done, so that we know what we are measuring against, and then it will look at the effect of the changes. If we are going to do that, we should have been doing the baseline now, but perhaps we are and I simply do not know about it.
Data collection is important as well. There have been some hints that the Government will be doing less reporting and data collection on benefit recipients. However, if we do not collect the data, we cannot do the research, even if we try to do it later. At the moment, we can find out how many people claiming DLA are doing so in relation to different conditions. We can tell the proportions of people who are receiving the benefit because of Parkinson’s or other such conditions. If we stop collecting these data—I hope the Minister will reassure me that there is no such intention—we will have a much less clear view of what is happening. Hopefully, we will go on collecting them.
Finally, the implications of the change not being a migration are important. People will consider it to be a migration if they had received incapacity benefit and are now on ESA—of course, not every DLA recipient is in that category. The notion that people will necessarily respond, and respond in time, is fraught with difficulty. Possibly the first time people will notice it is when their benefits stop. Suddenly the benefit will stop, and they will say, “What has happened here?” They will go and get advice and then discover that they have missed the boat—they had not gone ahead as they should have done.
The time scales are short. From the letter’s dropping through the door, a recipient has four weeks to get in the first part of the application. When they get the stage 2 form back, they have four weeks in which to return it. Voluntary and advice agencies say that if people are going to get assistance with some of this process—for some people it is very important to get such assistance—four weeks is not a long time. In many areas, people can wait that sort of length of time for an appointment with an advice agency or a welfare rights adviser, so the time scale can be a serious problem.
If people have to get additional information, which the form will apparently ask for, people will need time. The time scale seems short, and that may be revealed by the pilot. Will the Minister assure us that if it turns out that a large number of people are either not making the claim that they should be—they are not responding to the stage 1 letters and are dropping out—or are having difficulty with the four-week period for returning the form, the Government will move to change the process fairly quickly?
We do not want to see a lot of people losing out over this. If, as the Government claim, the change has genuinely been made to improve the situation for people with disabilities and to give them a personal independence payment that enables them to play a full part in our society, we have to get it right. No Government should be unprepared to accept that.
Let me touch briefly on the issue of our Olympians and what people can and cannot do. Sadly, the success of the Paralympics could turn out to be a double-edged sword for some disabled people, although I hope that it will not. Not everyone can be a Paralympian. Just because some people can, it should not be assumed that other people who are not able to find work, volunteer or play sport are somehow not trying very hard. Although it is good for people to see that disability is not about being a victim and that people can do lots of things when they are disabled, we should not make the obverse mistake of thinking that everyone is up to that and that they are just not pulling their weight.
As many of the Paralympians said, DLA was one of the benefits that helped them to achieve some of the important things that they did, whether it was getting to their training sessions or being able to have a carer so that they could concentrate on getting to places, doing their training and having a home. Many of them specifically said how much they benefited from DLA. We must remember that someone can be a Paralympian and still need benefit.
Work Capability Assessment
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Sheila Gilmore(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Sheila Gilmore
They are indeed, and the issues involve both the still considerable waiting times for appeal, and the fact that appeals may be specialised. We know that those who are represented have a different outcome from those who are not.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady not just for giving way, but for her persistence in pressing the issue, particularly in parliamentary questions to obtain information. A key recommendation in the Harrington review that relates to this debate and particularly the point she is making is that each and every assessment centre should have a mental, cognitive and intellectual champion. Only two assessment centres in Scotland have one, although all centres were supposed to have champions by this time last year. Does the hon. Lady share my concern about that?
Sheila Gilmore
I do share that concern, and the recommendation, which the Government indicated initially that they would accept, was that there would be such champions in all assessment centres. I appreciate that some centres are small and isolated, but two in the whole of Scotland is low, and it will be difficult for them to make a significant impression on the system.
Welfare Reform Bill
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Sheila Gilmore(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Dr Whiteford
I will try to keep my comments brief, given the time pressure on us.
The Lords has done us a big service by highlighting the impact and implications of these measures for sick and disabled people. The 12-month limit to contributory ESA is arbitrary. Regardless of the people in the support group, the measure will affect people who are adapting to radical and serious changes in their health, income and life. They might be suffering from life-limiting conditions, long-term disability or fluctuating conditions. They might be people who have been used to living on an average income, but will have to get used to living on a very low income. Those adaptations take time; getting better takes time. Some people will take less than 12 months, some considerably more. Macmillan thinks that 94% will need support in the work-related activity group for more than 12 months. In that respect, while I do not accept the principle of an arbitrary time limit, I suspect that two years would catch more of those people and see them getting the support they need.
Fundamentally, these measures will upset the contract that we all like to think we have when we pay our national insurance contributions—that there will be some limited safety net for us if we are unfortunate enough to become sick or disabled. That could happen to any one of us in this Chamber, at any time. We do not know when we are going to have an accident or develop a serious illness, so not only cancer is involved, although we know that people across society are affected by it. Other conditions are just as serious, and the same principles apply.
On insecurity, I should draw an analogy with what happened when banks tried to prey on people’s insecurities about the future by asking them to take on insurance for loans they had taken out. The banks have had to pay out seven-figure sums in compensation to people who were mis-sold insurance policies. I hope that that does not happen again as people think, “If I get a serious illness, there will not be support for me.” I am worried that there will be an opportunity for unscrupulous selling of insurance policies to vulnerable people at the most vulnerable times in their lives.
I am concerned about the knock-on impact of the proposals on carers too. In my constituency, I have seen families working longer hours, often in low-paid jobs, just to provide financially for family members who are no longer able to work, but who once were. There is particular concern around young people; that was mentioned earlier in the debate, but it has not been focused on so much. Parents of disabled young adults have often saved throughout their lives as they are concerned about what will happen when they are no longer able to look after their children. They have saved for their children to ensure that they have independent means and a bit of money behind them for when they are adult and their parents are no longer in a position to provide.
It would be unfortunate if the capital of those young people were eroded at a time when they still had some support from their parents. They might be prevented from having an independent old age and might be made more dependent on the state than they would otherwise be. That is about the dignity of young disabled people as much as anything.
I urge the Government to consider the fact that ESA needs to be assessed on the basis of medical need, not an arbitrary time limit. People should get the support they need according to their health, not some arbitrary category that they may or may not fit into.
Sheila Gilmore
What we have heard today is that there is a big divide between the parties on our views of what the welfare state is for. The Minister opened the debate by saying that the welfare state is a safety net, by which he meant a safety net only on financial grounds; those who are very poor get help, but those who are not do not. That is not how I see it. The welfare state was set up to help us through the times when we are in difficulties, including illness and poor health. It is the social security that gives us the confidence that we will be provided for when we need it. This distinction clearly illustrates the divide between the parties.
It was very odd to hear the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jenny Willott) argue that this matter was somehow not as important as the Opposition think it is because people will end up in the support group. That goes against everything that many disability organisations are saying, which is that people who have an illness or a disability do want to get back to work. Perhaps they are not quite ready to go back to work within a year, but they do want to work. Parking people in the support group is a very odd solution indeed, because we will end up going back to the situation that the Government have so heavily criticised. Where people have saved, they should have that opportunity. If someone falls ill at that age, they will already have incurred considerable financial losses and no doubt bitten into their savings. We are talking not about welfare, but about people who will start to lose benefits when they have savings of over £6,000 a year.
Unemployment
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Sheila Gilmore(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Dr Whiteford
Not at the moment, thank you.
It has been evident in Scotland over the past year that the growth of private sector employment has outweighed falls in public sector employment. We now have the highest share of private sector employment that we have had since the advent of devolution. [Interruption.] Although unemployment has fallen across the piece in the past year, it shows that the Scottish Government’s decision to boost investment in the public sector and in infrastructure as far as possible has been a way of offsetting the problems of investment that have been apparent in other parts of the UK—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann) wants to make an intervention, I am happy to accept it. If not, perhaps he could stop heckling.
If we are serious about tackling unemployment, we need to accept that the cuts introduced by the Government are biting very hard indeed across the whole UK, and that the announcements in the Chancellor’s autumn statement do not go far enough. Crucially, they will not address the immediate challenges of high levels of unemployment and a high benefits bill. I am not sure how we will pay for that in the current circumstances.
Dr Whiteford
I will not at the moment, thanks. Time is pressing.
In Scotland we are experiencing 32% real-terms cuts to the capital budgets and even after the announcements in the autumn statement, the Scottish capital budget will still be cut by £3 billion over the spending period. More importantly, 70% of the new consequentials announced in the autumn statement will not be available until the year after next. Waiting until 2013 will not deal with the problem that we need to tackle now. What we need is investment in infrastructure.
Much has already been said today about youth unemployment. For those of us who came of age in the 1980s there is a horrible sense of déjà vu. I was one of those who had to put up with the 1980s and see the problems at first hand. When I hear young people in my constituency bemoaning to me the prospects that they are now facing, I have great empathy. It was exactly the same in the 1980s, when we were all told that unemployment was a price worth paying, and a whole generation was relegated to the scrapheap. We are still living with the legacy of that and dealing with the social consequences of it. It was not just about economics. It was about our society and the prospects of a whole generation.
Across the UK we have seen diverse approaches to tackling youth unemployment. It is far too high everywhere, but, as we have heard today, there has been a range of approaches in the devolved Administrations. In Scotland there have been 25,000 apprenticeships, a significantly higher number than before. It even exceeds what the UK Government are doing. University and college places have been maintained. Efforts have been made to ensure that apprenticeships that fall through because companies have gone under as a result of the recession are continuing and those young people are getting back into work. The Opportunities for All initiative is making sure that every young person aged 16 to 19 will get a work or training opportunity.
I hope Ministers will take the opportunity to sit down with Finance Ministers across the devolved Administrations and look specifically at how we can tackle youth unemployment. There are different approaches and there are good ideas coming from different parts of the UK. It is such an urgent problem and such a challenge with such serious long-term consequences that I hope the Minister will take action. We were told in the 1980s that unemployment was a price worth paying. It was not a price worth paying. It is never a price worth paying. It must be the Government’s top priority.
Disability Allowance
Debate between Eilidh Whiteford and Sheila Gilmore(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
Yet again, we have an example of how not to do welfare reform—if indeed that is the intent. The Government have attempted to pray in aid the fact that the Opposition had said that they were willing to consider reforming DLA. However, I thought that that meant looking at the benefit in the round, examining how it operates, and assessing what needs to change and what can be done better. I did not think that it was about picking out one brick without looking at the way in which the whole benefit operates. From my perspective—and, I am certain, that of my whole party—that was what we meant when we suggested that we were open to considering changes in DLA.
We are considering something that was clearly proposed as a saving—or a cut. It is about reaching that £18 billion figure, which was why it was announced in the comprehensive spending review rather than as a part of welfare reform. Having decided to do that—ex post facto—all sorts of things are then presented as to why it might be done, why something could be done better and why there may be money somewhere else.
A similar thing happened during the proceedings of the Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Public Bill Committee, of which I was a member. Having decided to make a series of reductions, a number of reasons were suddenly conjured out of the air, and then a whole host of ideas was proposed to find the money to make up for some of the cuts, but those ideas were not costed or fully thought through. The Government were not even able to say whether those proposals would cost more than the savings that were being suggested.
As someone who comes from Scotland, I want to know what consultation has gone on with the Scottish Government. What consultation has been carried out with local authorities in Scotland? I can assure the Minister that, over the past three years, my local authority has already seen substantial reductions in the money going into social care. I have several constituents whose direct payments, which they were receiving from the local authority, have been cut substantially. In some cases, “substantially” means halved. Such cuts have largely come about because of the financial constraints under which the council has found itself. Yes, the cuts have been dressed up in terms of my constituents’ personal needs, but as their needs and capacities have not changed at all, it is clear that this is really about making savings. I am not confident that my local authority has the resource to put this in as a substitute for removing DLA when it is already making so many cuts, and that is before the even further reductions in local authority spending that are coming our way in Scotland and elsewhere.
Moreover, it is important to consult. The Government should not make a decision and then wait for people to react. I heard the Secretary of State for Health talking on Radio 4 this morning about the importance of consultation over public health matters. He was discussing whether to implement the regulation on tobacco and the display of tobacco. He said that it was very important to consult, but if it is so important to consult even on something that has already been passed and subjected to consultation, why is it not important properly to consult the users, care homes, local authorities and the devolved Administrations that are all involved in this change? If it was then felt that there was a need to consider the way in which the benefit is provided and that was better for it to come down the local authority route, so be it, but I do not think that that is why we have got to this position.
Dr Whiteford
The mobility component of the DLA is one of the few parts of the benefit system to which personalisation already applies. Does the hon. Lady not agree that the Government’s proposals will take away that aspect of the personalisation agenda at the very time they are talking about promoting it?
Sheila Gilmore
I certainly agree and, as I have said, I have seen some of that personalised agenda being placed at risk in other ways over recent months, which is a substantial concern, especially to the recipients of this component.
I think that we have an opportunity to look again at the proposal and to get it right, if it is genuinely thought to be necessary to fund this scheme differently. However, if it is being seriously suggested that this change can be made—it involves a substantial sum for an individual, but the collective cost of any substitution will be very substantial for a local authority—and if the Government will ensure that it is made, I would ask whether there is a costing of how much will be involved in monitoring the change, in checking that it is made and in managing that whole process, when in fact the system appears to be working well.