If my hon. Friend will excuse me, I will not. I said that I would not give way, and I want to be fair and consistent.
As Baroness Grey-Thompson pointed out on Monday, the cuts will also affect disabled people in low paid work, who will receive less under universal credit. I acknowledge the Government’s concessions in the increase in support to the jobcentre flexible support fund of an extra £15 million in the coming year. However, the payments are flexible and discretionary. I also acknowledge the removal of the 52-week limit on permitted work in ESA and some protection for people with progressive conditions, but they are frankly inadequate.
On the health issues that people on ESA face, we know from the Government’s published data from last year that the death rates of people on incapacity benefit/ESA in 2013 was 4.3 times greater than those of the general population. That is an increase of 25% since 2003. People in the support group are 6.3 times more likely to die than the general population, and those in
the WRAG group—the people who we are saying that we will take this money from—are 2.2 times more likely to die than the general population.
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The innuendo that people with a disability or illness might be faking it or are feckless, and need incentivising into work by having their support cut, is frankly grotesque and belies the epidemiological data. Incapacity benefit and ESA are recognised as good population health indicators, and the release of the Government’s own data proves that point. This vulnerable group of people need our care and support, not humiliation.
There is a real risk that these cuts will exacerbate the health and well-being of this vulnerable group of people. The concession that allows disabled people to ask for a reassessment of their work capability assessment is a process that eminent academics in a peer-reviewed journal estimate to be associated with severe adverse mental health effects, including 590 additional suicides between 2011 and 2013. That is hardly reassuring.
All that we know from the Government’s impact assessment is that by 2020-21 approximately £640 million a year will have been cut from social security support to disabled people, with £100 million a year to provide unspecified support to help disabled people into work. That is on top of the £23.8 billion that has already been cut from 3.7 million people by the Welfare Reform Act 2012, and it does not include cuts that affect disabled people in social care, education, housing, transport or access to justice. Some 5.1 million disabled people are living in poverty, and last year that number increased by 2%, which is equivalent to 300,000 people. There is no assessment of what this Bill will do to the financial position of disabled people.
Although this is the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, it contains nothing about work. There is nothing about how many disabled people will get into work, or how many extra employers will be involved to reduce the disability employment gap. That is all pushed down the road to the White Paper. As Baroness Campbell said on Monday,
“the Government are demanding a massive leap of faith as financial support to disabled people is cut before publishing details of what a reformed employment and support system will look like.”
I also reject the content of the Secretary of State’s letter to Conservative MPs last night, and what we have just heard from the Minister, and the suggestion that the Lords have abused parliamentary process and that the impact assessment is too difficult to do. I suggest that the Secretary of State comes to the Dispatch Box to say that—it is absolute rubbish. He is putting as much spin into the Bill as he is into the EU referendum.
The notion put forward by the Secretary of State is that the Lords are somehow usurping parliamentary procedure and doing something illegitimate, but in fact they are following parliamentary procedure. Ping-pong, as it is affectionately known, is a fundamental and recognised part of the legislative process. All that the Lords are doing is what every constituent expects their MP, as a legislator, to do, which is to know and understand the impact on their constituents of the laws they vote for. We expect our Government to take their responsibility seriously and provide evidence of the impact of the proposed legislation.
The Secretary of State claims that his Department cannot make a comprehensive assessment of the Bill, but that does not stack up. Five months ago, the Equality and Human Rights Commission wrote to the Minister to say exactly how such an assessment could be undertaken, and it even offered the expertise of its staff to do that. Again, the Secretary of State refused, but any responsible Government should undertake such work. Today MPs are effectively voting on whether they want to make a life-changing decision for their constituents, in the dark or with an understanding of the consequences. It is obvious what their constituents expect, and what they should do.
Lord Low, Baroness Grey-Thompson and Baroness Meacher’s report raised the issue of the impact assessment, as have disability charities, disabled people and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. In correspondence to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff), the EHRC said:
“We consider that the Government’s impact assessments make very little attempt to set out comprehensively how the three aims of the”—
public sector equality—
“duty have been considered. On 16 September 2015, the Commission wrote to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to set out our concerns about the impact assessments for the Welfare Reform and Work Bill. We believe the assessments would benefit from a more detailed consideration of the likely impact of the proposals on people with different protected characteristics. They contain very little in the way of evidence and this limits the accompanying analysis and the scope for parliamentary scrutiny and informed decision-making on the proposed legislative changes.”
I am most concerned that the Government have failed to fulfil their public sector equality duty. Under the Equality Act 2010, the Government must properly consider the impact of their policies on the elimination of discrimination, the advancement of equality of opportunity and the fostering of good relations. Supporting the amendments will help to put that right. I urge Members on both sides of the House to support the amendments.