"Outside agencies have attempted to do cumulative impact assessments—Scope and Demos, for instance, worked together on an assessment. Surely, given the resources of Government, we can do a better job than those organisations and make a good fist of it...." Ian Mearns - View Speech
"It has come to my attention through research conducted by several disability campaign groups that as many as four people a day are dying within six weeks of being declared fit for work under the Department’s work capability assessment. Will the Secretary of State reflect on those figures? When he …..." Ian Mearns - View Speech
"Surely the nature of the insurance business in this respect is that the risk is spread over a whole range of different liabilities. The very fact that the insurance companies have done that means that they should pay up when they ought to. They are not doing so; they are …..." Ian Mearns - View Speech
"The hon. Gentleman gave the House some statistics, but will he concede that, unfortunately, many of the vacant properties he describes are in the wrong places for the people who need them?..." Ian Mearns - View Speech
"I have seen an estimate that 375,000 children could be affected by the bedroom tax. Is it the Government’s deliberate policy that up to 375,000 children might have to move school because of moving house as a result of the bedroom tax, so disrupting their hard-earned education?..." Ian Mearns - View Speech
"My hon. Friend is right that there is a significant impact on housing associations. The Home Group, a large housing association that has many properties in my borough of Gateshead and thousands of properties across the north of England, has seen a 53% increase in arrears in the past 12 …..." Ian Mearns - View Speech
"The hon. Gentleman has not recognised that people with disabilities often get priority when it comes to public housing. That is why there is a predominance of people with disabilities and greater levels of ill health in publicly provided housing...." Ian Mearns - View Speech
"I am grateful to my Front-Bench colleagues for choosing to debate this cause, which I brought to the House’s attention in a Westminster Hall debate at the end of last year, on 18 December, when I urged the Minister for disabled people, the hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), …..." Ian Mearns - View Speech
"I very much welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention, as she describes exactly why we need this cumulative impact assessment. So many different strands to this debate are having an impact on disabled people, and their carers and families.