Disability Support — House of Commons, 2018-12-19
Topic: Social Welfare
Sarah Louise Newton (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me make these points. I have been asked to address a lot of issues, and I really want to do that As well as the poverty figures, the Department for Work and Pensions publishes impact assessments for every new policy that carefully consider the potential impact of those policies on people with protected characteristics, in line with its legal obligations and its strong commitment to promoting fairness. The DWP has a continual and broad programme of research and evaluation of policies affecting disabled people, which is often contracted to independent research bodies, and all the findings are published. A recent example of such work is the research into the experience of PIP claimants, which was published in September and provided valuable insight into how PIP is working to inform policy development. We have had some appalling misuse of statistics tonight. Of all the people who have applied for PIP, 9% have gone to appeal and 4% have been overturned. I work with a great number of colleagues in this House, with the Select Committees, with the all-party parliamentary groups, with disabled people and with those who represent disabled people. When we hear recommendations on how we can improve the process, we implement them. The Work and Pensions Committee did an extremely valuable piece of work on assessments for ESA and PIP, and we are delivering on implementing those recommendations The hon. Member for High Peak (Ruth George), who is a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, spoke about the video recording of PIP assessments. I am determined to see that happen, because it will restore a lot of confidence in the process. We spent the summer carefully speaking to people with disabilities and to those who undertake the assessments—let us not forget that they are fully qualified healthcare professionals—about video recording. Putting all that information together, we started live testing the video recording of PIP assessments only a few weeks ago. That work will be completed in the new year, and we will be able to report back to the Select Committee and to the House on our progress and on how we will roll it out We are also undertaking a huge, large-scale test—it is actually the largest randomised control trial of its kind in the western world—as well as research into the employment and support package, to look at all the things that work to enable people with disabilities who want to work to get into work. It was interesting to listen to the personal experiences of the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), and there are many disabled people who want to work but face unacceptable barriers to work, although we have made a lot of progress The latest data from the ONS shows that 900,000 more people are in work over the last five years, which is a steady increase in the employment rate from 43% to 51%, but we are very ambitious and want to see that gap close completely so that employers can draw on all the talents of the nation. We have set ourselves the goal of having 1 million more disabled people in work, on which we are making good progress Not only are we helping those people who can work into work, but we are always looking at what more we can do to improve our main health and disability-related benefits. Let us be absolutely clear that we are spending record sums on those benefits—over £50 billion this year, which is much larger than our defence budget. The figure has grown by more than £5.4 billion since 2010, and it is forecast to rise in every single year of this Parliament. All those benefits that are about the additional costs of disability were not frozen and were not part of the benefits cap, and include payments for carers, so it is simply not true to say, as Members have this evening, that we have been reducing the amount of money that we spend on the social security system.