Employment and Support Allowance — House of Commons, 2017-04-18
Topic: Social Welfare
Neil Charles Gray (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed I understand that submissions to that effect have been made to the Government’s consultation on the industrial strategy All of us—colleagues across this House, Members of the House of Lords, expert disability charities, which have opposed this cut, and disabled people themselves—are expecting detail from the Minister this evening. She has had two weeks’ notice of this debate. She will have known what I was going to raise because I have been asking the same questions for months. There can be no excuse for not being very clear and for not providing great detail on how her Government are honouring their many promises in debates past to placate their own Back Benchers Of course I can predict one thing the Minister will say. The Scottish Government now have limited powers over some aspects of social security and she will claim that the Scottish Government can therefore mitigate this cut for the people of Scotland. I hope that I can pre-empt her reading out that nonsense by telling her that I am standing here defending employment support not just for disabled people in Scotland, but for disabled people up and down these isles. Secondly, the Scottish Government have already spent almost £400 million since 2013 mitigating Conservative cuts to social security in Scotland. At a time of austerity, when Scotland’s budget is being cut back to the tune of £2.9 billion in this decade, and the Scottish Government are having to divert depleted funds to mitigate Tory social security cuts, I do not think that telling Scotland to pay twice for disability employment support would be the strongest position for the Minister to take, and it does nothing to help or answer the questions of disabled people elsewhere. So perhaps she will stick to finding a credible argument to justify this cut and outline what additional support she will provide rather than deflect responsibility for it The Disability Benefits Consortium brings together 70 different expert disability charities and they have opposed this cut from the start. On the same day as the cross-party motion presented to the Backbench Business Committee was debated in November, they signed an open letter to the Government calling for the cuts to be stopped. They have criticised in particular the Government’s idea that somehow disabled people are disincentivised to work by receiving an extra £30 per week. The Government completely ignore the fact that the majority of sick and disabled people are desperate to work but struggle to find a job. The Government ignore the fact that a third of ESA recipients sometimes cannot afford to eat on the old ESA WRAG rate. Almost seven in 10 say that this cut will cause their health to suffer. The Government have done nothing to assess how this cut will impact on the mental health of recipients. Nobody could suffer a one third cut in their income and not see their health deteriorate in some way as a result, especially when they are already struggling to get by The people we are talking about today are people with disabilities or mental health conditions. They want to work, but they cannot. They are faced with the double indignity of wanting to work but being unable to find a job, and then being told that the financial support they are struggling to live on is a disincentive to find work. I am aware—not just from the debate in November when a number of Tory MPs followed MPs from eight other parties through the Lobby to call on the Government at least to pause these cuts, but since then—that all is not well on the Government side of the House in relation to this policy. I understand that the Prime Minister attended a meeting with concerned Tory MPs a few weeks ago and was told directly by them that she needed to do more. Perhaps we will get some clarity tonight as a result We need to hear from the Minister what she is going to do to live up to that quote about liquidity. What is she doing to ensure that disabled people, who are already struggling to get by, will be financially supported in addition to any enhanced employment support that may be forthcoming This will be one of the final debates of this Parliament. So far the Government have failed to listen to the disability charities, Opposition parties, the Work and Pensions Committee or the will of the House, given the vote in November. Perhaps in the coming weeks, Government MPs will hear more from the electorate about this devastating cut and come back in the next Parliament with a more serious response.