This summer, we launched our national disability strategy, setting out more than 100 practical actions and a long-term vision for reform that will make a real difference to disabled people’s everyday lives. Our strategy sets out the actions, ambition and accountability in helping disabled people to overcome the remaining hurdles. We will publish annual reports setting out progress and further actions, and the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work will chair cross-Government meetings to hold our ministerial disability champions to account for delivery across Departments.
Just as you praised a recent sporting achievement, Mr Speaker, I would like to pay tribute—fresh from the Paralympics GB homecoming yesterday and the celebration on the Terrace just now—to all our amazing Paralympians. I was able to cheer them on in Tokyo and talk to them about aspects of the national disability strategy and the daily barriers that they face. In addition to praising Emma’s remarkable success in winning her championship, I say well done to Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid, who won the gold medal at the Paralympics for wheelchair tennis doubles. They flew straight to the USA, and I am pleased to say that on the same night they also won the grand slam. Those are fantastic sporting achievements—well done to them.
I join the Secretary of State in those comments; it was a pleasure to bump into some of those athletes and Ms Balding this morning in Westminster Hall. It was lovely to see them here—well done.
The latest figures show that 50% of personal independence payment mandatory reconsiderations result in a change of award. This is causing huge stress and anxiety to vulnerable people in Bristol South and additional work for advice agencies. What sanctions have been applied to the private companies that are wrongly assessing the applicants?
I am conscious of what the hon. Lady has said. Over the past couple of years, we have tried to improve the decision-making stages along the way. One of those important elements involves mandatory reconsiderations, and how we take what we have learnt into the initial decision making, which is still done by DWP civil servants on the advice of assessors. We have further plans, as set out in our Green Paper, which we published before the summer recess, and I am sure that the hon. Lady will take a close interest in that progress.
T5. We will be heading into difficult times with the end of furlough, so I want to thank my right hon. Friend for all the work she has done in support of the Leigh and Bolton jobcentres to help them prepare for those difficult times. Will she continue to ensure that they have all the resources that they need in order to support my constituents?
My hon. Friend is right to praise his local jobcentres. One thing we have done as part of the plan for jobs is increase the number of work coaches, and indeed the number of jobcentres, thus demonstrating to people—particularly those who have been out of work already but are coming off furlough—that we are ready to support them so that they can get back into work as quickly as possible.
This morning, during her television appearance, the Secretary of State said that a person could make up for the Government’s £20 a week cut in universal credit by working just two extra hours a week. I am sure she is aware by now that she got that completely wrong: the taper rate would of course remove a proportion of those additional earnings, so the net earnings for those extra two hours would be far less than £20. May I therefore ask her if she now knows how many more hours a single parent working full time would have to work to make up for the money the Government is cutting?
Every single universal credit payment depends on the individual, so I cannot articulate that, but it is fair to say that a number of different levers appear when people work more hours, and that includes the lifting of the benefit cap. There are a number of ways in which people can earn more and keep more of their money when they are working more hours.
The figure is 10 extra hours a week, so the cut would force that person to work 50 hours a week in total to get what he or she is receiving now. That is why I have said that reducing the taper rate will be our absolute priority in our replacement for universal credit, but it is also why we oppose the cut. It is why six former Conservative Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions oppose the cut. It is why every Labour Mayor, and even Conservative Mayors such as Andy Street, have spoken out against it. It is why the Government’s own analysis, leaked last week, says that the cut will be “catastrophic”.
This is a Government who half the time do not know what they are doing, and the rest of the time they just do not care. Is not the truth that the only way to get the Government to see sense will be the House of Commons voting to defeat them this Wednesday?
I do not know the basis of the hon. Gentleman’s calculation and his suggestion, but what I do know is that the Labour Government did nothing to help people in the midst of the financial crisis of 2008, whereas we have injected more than an extra £7.5 billion. We recognised the need for the temporary uplift, particularly for those who were newly unemployed and coming on to benefit for the first time. That is why we made the temporary uplift similar to that of the minimum paid through statutory sick pay. We will continue to do what we have been doing: investing in our plan for jobs, helping people back into work and helping them to make progress in work.
T7. Despite the Government’s best efforts, many freelance and self-employed people in my constituency and throughout the country had a very tough time during the covid restrictions. Within the remit of her own departmental responsibilities, but also in her discussions in the Cabinet, what is my right hon. Friend doing to encourage people to take that extra risk in pursuing a future means of access to work by becoming self-employed?
My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that we are currently working across Government to understand local labour market needs and opportunities, and to understand how best to support those who wish to enter self-employment and be self-supporting and, above all, self-starting. We have learned from the new enterprise allowance and we also understand the impacts of covid, and we are working on all that right now.
Many pensioners will be relying on pension credit to get by after the Tories’ brutal triple lock betrayal. Will the Secretary of State follow Scotland’s lead and commit herself to introducing a proper take-up strategy for reserved benefits, including pension credit, and will she consider the automation of payments to ensure that more people receive the support to which they are entitled?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that pension credit take-up has improved, not least through the actions of this Government. For example, we have seen the pension credit action day in June this year, the partnership that we have entered into with the BBC and Age UK, and the working group that we have. I continue to work with the BBC and I met the chief executive, Tim Davie, only last week.
T8. It is vital that disabled people are able to play an active role in public life, particularly those with visual impairments. Will my hon. Friend therefore update the House on what the Government are doing to support this?
We are committed to seeing more disabled people becoming elected representatives. In addition to political parties doing more, the national disability strategy sets out the Minister for the Constitution’s work to bring forward a new scheme in 2022 to support candidates and, importantly, those already elected to public office.
It was disappointing that the Government chose to sneak out their disability strategy over the summer recess, meaning that we had no opportunity to question the Minister on its failure to address barriers to employment for disabled people. Why are his Government not introducing mandatory reporting on the disability employment and pay gaps? Why does the strategy contain no proposals to work with trade unions? Most importantly, can he explain why no parliamentary time has been given over to the scrutiny of this strategy?
I am very much looking forward to going to the Work and Pensions Committee to discuss this very topic this coming Wednesday. It is disappointing that the hon. Member does not recognise that, despite the unprecedented challenges of covid, we once again saw an increase in disability employment over the past year. The figure now stands at 1.5 million since 2013, with the disability employment gap continuing to close. This Government are absolutely committed to their target of 1 million more disabled people in work by 2027.