My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 50, moved by my noble friend Lord Patel. I also support the call of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, for Clause 13 not to stand part of the Bill. I put on record my thanks to the charities that worked tirelessly to produce what I think was an excellent report for the review, and in particular Rob Holland of Mencap. I also express my gratitude to the hundreds of disabled people who took time to share with us their stories, experiences and concerns. I thank the Minister for a very helpful meeting yesterday focusing on our review.
We need to be conscious of the fact that the cut in the income of WRAG claimants is just one of many cuts to the benefits of sick and disabled people, as has become apparent through these debates. The OBR report shows that there will be a steady fall in the percentage of GDP spent on benefits for sick and disabled people between now and 2020, which I would have thought is something the Government should be rather ashamed of. This is being achieved of course through freezing a number of benefits, tighter criteria for eligibility for PIP—which will lead to 500,000 disabled people no longer qualifying for the benefit by 2018—cuts in the level of disability benefits and, of course, the cut in WRAG benefits by £30 per week, the subject of Clause 13.
Amendment 50, if agreed, would in my view ensure that Clause 13 would never be implemented. There is no doubt in my mind that the implications of this
clause for the mental and physical well-being, the financial situation and, more particularly, the ability to return to work of WRAG claimants will be devastating. The first problem concerns the inadequacies of the WCA—the work capability assessment. Many people in the WRAG should very obviously not be there, and should be in the support group instead. One of the problems, but a very important one, is that the WCA is a functional assessment that does not take any account of the real world, in which employers simply will not employ someone with a progressive disease who is already assessed as unfit for work—someone with Parkinson’s disease, for example. The early stages are fine, but then they would be assessed as fit for work. In addition, over half of WRAG claimants have mental and behavioural disorders, including learning disabilities, autism and mental illnesses, which generally fluctuate in their severity.
The Royal College of Psychiatrists reported new research by the universities of Liverpool and Oxford which estimates that the increase in WCA assessments may have led to 590 additional suicides, as well as an increase in mental health problems and in the number of prescriptions for anti-depressants. One has to think about the cost of all these downsides. While some WRAG claimants are, no doubt, quite properly preparing to return to work, many are being inappropriately required to jump through all sorts of work-preparation hoops and, no doubt, being required to make dozens of fruitless job applications, even if they are aware of the electronic screening of such applications, which I learned about from the Minister, most helpfully, yesterday.
Many of these claimants are having to try and come to terms, at the same time, with the fact that they have long-term mental or physical illnesses, terminal health problems or unpleasant symptoms which in many cases will only get worse, as well as with the misery of thinking that no employer may ever take them on again—quite a lot for someone to cope with.
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According to Parkinson’s UK, nearly 8,000 people with progressive and incurable conditions, including Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis and, worst of all from my point of view, motor neurone disease, were placed in the WRAG between October 2008 and September 2013. I suggest that a high proportion of those 8,000 should simply not be there. The MS Society claims that between 2008 and 2014, 4,900 people were placed in the WRAG with a prognosis that work was,
“unlikely in the longer term”.
If these very sick people can perform the conditionality activities, maybe this would be acceptable, or even perhaps helpful in some cases. But to deny them the ESA rate of benefit as well seems simply cruel. I would be grateful for the Minister’s comment on the 8,000 figure, which came from a freedom of information request, and the implications for the planned cut in the WRAG benefit level.
So my first plea is that the Government urgently consider introducing a real-world employability test into the WCA. I know that it is somewhat countercultural but it seems important. The assessor should be required to ask themselves whether an employer will, realistically, employ the person within a finite period. Whatever
functions the claimant has, if the answer to that question is no, the claimant simply should not be placed in the WRAG.
The aim of ESA is to replace the earnings of the disabled or sick person to enable them to meet their costs of living—food, clothes et cetera. As other noble Lords have said, the longer someone is out of work, the greater the preponderance of poverty, as clothes, household items and other things need to be replaced. The Minister is of course perfectly well aware of all that. I understand from the MS Society that a study by Scope revealed that on average it costs an extra £200 a week to live with a neurological condition. Does the Minister accept that figure? It is rather a striking one.
There is no evidence that the reason WRAG claimants spend longer on benefit than JSA claimants is in some way related to the fact that ESA is at a higher level than JSA. As my noble friend Lord Low said, the OECD study quoted by the Government did not consider disability, to my knowledge. There are instead very obvious reasons for the difficulty in finding work: if the claimants are not fit for work, employers, perhaps understandably, will not wish to take them on.
Most people with a health problem actually want to work, in my experience, and are perhaps more motivated than others who take their health for granted. People with Parkinson’s, for example, know that they may well face heavy bills for social care and want to work as long as possible. A small-scale study found that people with Parkinson’s, on average, worked for 3.4 to 4.9 years after diagnosis. Parkinson’s UK estimates that 30% of people with Parkinson’s are wrongly placed in the WRAG because the WCA fails to take account of their real-life situation. Again, that 30% is a very striking figure.
Some 53% of appeals against WCA decisions are successful. Will the Minister agree that this alone makes clear that yet another radical shake-up of the WCA is needed? Relevant to Amendment 50 is the fact that the impact assessment for Clause 13 fails to mention the known problems with the WCA or the impact on the health outcomes and needs of sick and disabled people. The Equality and Human Rights Commission expressed its concerns about the cuts to disabled people’s benefits in its correspondence with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. What has the Minister done to address those particular concerns?
When an MS Society survey has revealed that over a quarter of claimants have already had to cut their spending on gas or electricity and nearly a third have cut the amount of food they eat, it is unthinkable that this further £30 per week cut in disabled people’s incomes can go ahead. We need to have a clear analysis of the consequences for the mental and physical health of claimants, their financial situation and again, most particularly, their ability to return to work, since that is apparently the objective of all this. The study will need to be independent of government.
There are further implications of the proposed WRAG benefit cut down the line. Disabled lone parents stand to lose £3,500 a year if they are put on the JSA rate of WRAG and later claim universal credit because, at least for a time, they can return to work. This huge
amount comprises the loss of £1,500 from WRAG and the rest from the work allowance. I find such a loss for disabled lone parents utterly unjustified and cruel. I am told that such parents will be no better off under UC than able-bodied lone parents. I actually find that quite hard to believe but am told that it is the case. I would be grateful if the Minister could comment on that.
I hope that the Minister will heed the warnings of the speakers in this debate and think again about the WRAG benefit cut. At the same time, will he heed the calls for a specialist employment support programme? I hope that the plans for personal employment coaches will include specialist disability training with some considerable breadth. One problem we have had for years is that a disability adviser may know about one or two disabilities but not the full range and certainly not physical and mental issues, drug addiction and so on. If this is a viable option, it might begin to move claimants in the right direction towards work.