My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 44 in this group but I also have some comments that relate to Amendment 41. Like many in previous sections of this debate, I have been looking at disabled people getting into work, not what will happen, under Clause 14, to disabled people who are in work. There are some shocking and severe implications for this. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, was absolutely right that 116,000 disabled people who currently receive the disabled worker element in working tax credit will lose £60 a week. I cannot believe that it would be the intention of the Government to affect disabled people in work in this way. However, if Clause 14 stays in the Bill, that will happen.
In numerous debates, we have talked about universal credit being more simple; quite frankly it is not. I apologise for the somewhat technical nature of what I am going to say, but this is going to affect hundreds of thousands of disabled people. We have been told that a similar amount of additional financial support for disabled people in work would be available in universal credit and would be accessed through the work capability assessment even if the person was working full-time. Any disabled person who is working and requires additional financial support because of the extra costs, which have already been mentioned, would have to take the WCA. If they still qualified as having a limited capability for work, they would receive the £30 element in their universal credit, regardless of the hours that they worked. They would also receive the disabled person’s work allowance. For single people in rented accommodation it is worth a further £30 a week. Together, the limited capability for work element and the work allowance would replace the additional support offered in the current system through the extra element in working tax credit. Removing the limited capability for work element will therefore reduce by about £30 a week, or £1,500 a year, the additional support available to many disabled people in work once universal credit has rolled out. Only those who are working but qualify for the support group will receive an additional element.
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For disabled parents who are in work, the position is even more serious. There are 43,000 households with at least one disabled parent who is receiving the disabled worker’s element of working tax credit. Under universal credit, disabled parents do not get any advantage from the work allowance for disabled people because they get a work allowance as parents, and, unlike in the current system, you can have only one or the other.
This means that, if this measure goes through, a disabled parent who is working and qualifies as having limited capability for work will, under universal credit—the flagship element of government policy—have no extra support in work compared with a non-disabled parent in otherwise the same circumstances. What will this mean for a disabled parent? Single disabled parents working 16 hours or more, living in rented accommodation and making a new claim for universal credit in 2017, will receive about £70 a week, or £3,500 a year, less than they would receive now on tax credits, despite the rise in the minimum wage.
Disabled single parents with a mortgage who make a new claim are likely to have an even lower disposable income under universal credit compared with under tax credits, amounting to about £100 a week, or £5,000 a year, less. Couples making a new claim where the disabled parent is working more than 16 hours are also likely to be entitled to less under universal credit in 2017 than they are under tax credits now, even though some households in similar circumstances, but where no one is disabled, may be better off under universal credit. Couples with two children and both parents working more than 16 hours a week, but with one parent needing additional help for the first time because they have become disabled, could receive about £3,000 a year less on universal credit in 2017 than under the current system.
I have had numerous examples from the public, charities and from 38 Degrees about how this measure will affect people. I checked two minutes ago and so far 98,477 people have signed the 38 Degrees petition. Therefore, some 98,500 people do not believe that this cut is fair.
There has been a lot of discussion on the evidence around cutting ESA and encouraging people into work. The Government’s evidence to support the proposed cut is now being drawn from an OECD report entitled, Sickness, Disability and Work: Breaking the Barriers. A Synthesis of Findings Across OECD Countries. However, the previous report on getting disabled people into work, which has often been cited in this Chamber, did not look specifically at the situation of sick and disabled people and the unique circumstances around that. My noble friend Lord Low covered many of the issues. However, at this stage, it is very important to note that the OECD report that was used so many times to justify this cut looked at 13 countries but the advice of a number of expert organisations in the UK has been refuted. The advice of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which looked at specific proposals in this context, has been turned down, and inconvenient findings and caveats in the OECD report appear to have been disregarded. We have to question how valid and reliable this report is in the context of what we are trying to do in the UK.
For hundreds of thousands of disabled people, keeping Clause 14 in the Bill will be devastating. It means that far from there being an incentive for disabled people to get into work, find work and contribute to society in the future, those with deteriorating conditions will be less likely to stay in work.
I ask the Minister just one question: is it really the intention of the Bill to make it so hard for hundreds of
thousands of disabled people to get into work? Frankly, I cannot see where the incentive is: far from there being an incentive, I see a huge disincentive.