Official Report 732KB pdf
Our next item of business is a round-table discussion on the UK Government’s welfare reforms. I welcome our witnesses to the meeting. We are joined in the room by Hannah Randolph, economist fellow at the Fraser of Allander Institute; Fiona Collie, head of public affairs and communications at Carers Scotland; Chris Birt, associate director for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation; and Emma Jackson, head of social justice, Citizens Advice Scotland. Dr Sally Witcher, the director and founder of Inclusive New Normal, joins us online.
The meeting is in a round-table format and we hope that we can have a free-flowing conversation. The committee is very much in listening mode today.
If those of you who are online want to speak, please let me or Diane Barr, our clerk, know. We will focus on four main themes, and we have about an hour and 10 minutes for the evidence session. I encourage members and witnesses to be succinct in their questions and answers.
I invite Liz Smith to introduce the first theme.
Thank you for joining us. The most important thing for the committee, as we are looking at all the welfare reforms, is to drill down into the evidence on what works and what is clearly not working so well. I thank the people sitting around the table who have done some great work through their different agencies to try to provide that evidence; it is immensely helpful to us.
Before we get going on some of the other issues, I am interested to know from you, in the context of the difficult debate about welfare reform that is taking place in Westminster and at Holyrood, what evidence is the most important in showing us the direction in which we should be going to get the best possible returns for the most vulnerable people. That is the big question that we are all facing.
Dr Randolph, you are an economist with the Fraser of Allander Institute. Would you like to start us off?
Sure. The thing that strikes me is that we know that, in the past, projected decreases in case numbers from cutting benefits have not always materialised, because people changed their behaviour.
I was thinking about this on my way here today. One of the most important things to say is that we do not know that cutting benefits will result in a fall in caseload. We have seen an increase in caseload, but it is a bit unclear whether that is because of a rise in prevalence or because of a rise in the number of people who have some sort of long-term health condition or disability claiming an entitlement that they already had. That certainly needs to be unpicked, but I am sure that others will have more to say about what they think is driving that increase.
We also know that a lot of the increase is coming from mental health claims, and there has been a fairly marked rise in the number of musculoskeletal claims since before the pandemic. Those seem to be the areas of focus.
Are those particularly difficult to measure? The issue of mental health claims is obviously very sensitive and covers quite a lot of psychological illnesses, for example, as well as mental illness. Is that difficult to capture?
Another question that the committee has been wrestling with for a long time is how we can balance the need for benefits of those who are genuinely in need against the desire to get more people back into work. Governments all over the world are struggling with that, particularly post-Covid. How easy is it to measure how many people could go into the workforce if they were well supported, particularly when it comes to things such as adult disability?
It is very difficult to measure, but from speaking to people who work in employability, I would say that the focus needs to be on the right job. There has been success for people with long-term health conditions and disabilities if they are supported into work, if it is the right job for them, and if they can work with the employer to create the right conditions in the job for them. Good work is being done in Scotland by the specialist employability services that are available to try to advance that type of thing.
10:00
It is laudable to attempt to provide additional employability support for disabled people because that has been sorely lacking. However, the debate has failed to recognise the right type of employment and the role of public services within that.
Employability support is one thing, but what services are there to enable people to be in employment? I was at the carers and employment conference yesterday, at which a number of carers talked about employability and the fact that social care services and support services are simply not involved. If they are not, the support that somebody needs to be in employment cannot be provided.
Removing social security and the foundations that people have in their lives does not help in the slightest. It makes them more ill, physically and mentally.
I am sure that they will also have more anxiety.
To answer your question about the evidence that we have, we must begin the conversation by looking at the disproportionate levels of harm that disabled people are already experiencing right now. Disabled people face some of the worst of poverty, both here in Scotland and across the UK.
More than two thirds of the almost 200,000 people to whom the citizens advice network provides advice annually have a disability or long-term health condition. Disabled people need advice on multiple issues, including housing, food insecurity, energy debt and social security. Our advisers are seeing at first hand the harrowing choices that ill and disabled people are being forced to make daily, including skipping meals, not being able to turn the heating on and not being able to charge essential medical devices. We know that that has a devastating impact on people’s physical and mental wellbeing.
Given where we are right now, the starting point should be the fact that many disabled people do not have sufficient income to live on, so the premise that we would consider reducing the incomes of those who already do not have enough to live on is simply unconscionable.
We know that poverty is a cause and a consequence of disability. That has been a direct reason for some of the increase in claims. We must therefore begin our conversation by looking at the experience of disabled people now and the solutions that need to be put in place before we have any type of conversation about what needs to be reduced or taken away.
First off, I just want to say that I am attending at very short notice. I am not prepared, so I reserve my right to follow up with a written note that says something different.
My starting point is that, in order to understand what is driving the rising number of claims, you have to get to grips with it. The reason for the increase is the fact that we still have an on-going Covid pandemic.
The statistics and the trends in personal independence payment claims show that the figures were relatively stable from 2013 until about 2021, and then they shot up. If you bear with me, I will give you the statistics for the onflows—the new claims. Working-age PIP onflows increased by 98 per cent from 175,000 in 2018-19 to 348,000 in 2022-23.
We have to ask why that was. It was not that there was a sudden outbreak of idleness; it was the fact that a lot of people were getting very sick and becoming disabled. We are still dealing with that. Covid has destroyed people’s immune systems. People say that they have long Covid, but it is not being monitored, so the data is not there. It causes massive damage, leading to all kinds of health issues, including heart attacks, strokes, brain damage and reductions in IQ.
All kinds of issues are going on. The health of the working-age population has got worse, and long Covid is experienced most by people of working age, which is possibly due to a lack of workplace safety.
Then we have to think about whether employment support is the answer. I was chair of the disability employment advisory committee for the previous Labour UK Government. I have counted the number of different programmes for employment support since 1945. There have been many—there was even another pathways to work programme when I was chair of that committee. Those programmes have never really made much of a dent. They help—I am not saying that they should not be done. However, the reason why disabled people are not in work is not because they lack employment support. There are many other reasons, which I do not have time to go into now, but on which I will be pleased to follow up.
Thank you for your comments, particularly about the Covid pandemic. According to material from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Scotland seems to be struggling more than other countries to get people back into the workplace. Do you have any reflections about why we in Scotland have those specific problems, whereas other countries seem to be coping a bit better?
Again, I do not think that there is time to go into that today. There are many factors, such as the economic trends. When the economy increases, the difference in employment rates between non-disabled people and disabled people narrows a bit, but the rate changes more slowly for disabled people. When there is a recession or the employment rates go down, disabled people are the first to lose work, usually because the kind of work that they are in is precarious, part time or short term. There is a raft of issues.
We also need to look at the health service, including mental health support. Disabled people are not in work because they are sick, because they are disabled and because there is an increase in mental health issues as a result of the huge struggles of living in this era. There is huge anxiety—well-founded anxiety, not pretend, it’s-all-in-your-head anxiety.
However, there is also a lack of good data. I do not think that we even know how many people in Scotland have long Covid now or how many have any of the conditions that have wiped out—no, that is an exaggeration—or have done a huge amount to damage the economy. There is a lot of international research on that, including on the economic impact.
We have to look more widely. It is about the state of services, the reality of illness and disability, and the fact that employers cannot employ people who have serious, fluctuating illnesses—those who may be able to work very well for a few weeks but then not for weeks, months or days. You have to look at it from the employer end, because a key reason why disabled people are not in work is that employers either will not or cannot employ them. By problematising disabled people—by saying that they are the deficit and that they are the ones who need support—you are missing the picture. You are missing everything about why disabled people are not in work. They cannot work; very often, employers cannot employ them; and, when they can employ them, they often do not do so, because the discrimination laws are not well enforced—and even if they were, proving anything is a hard challenge.
Basically, my message is that your starting point should be completely different. What happens in social security is an indicator of wider economic and public health failure.
I would want to give further thought to the extent to which the picture is different in Scotland—I simply have not had time to do that since I was invited yesterday afternoon to appear this morning.
When it comes to evidence gaps around the reforms, which are important, we know a lot less in Scotland about the overlap between the health element of universal credit and adult disability payment, because those are now handled separately. It is pretty shocking that the UK Government has not done more. I know that Social Security Scotland is digging more into the number of people who have different points and so on, but the situation is a big risk.
We also do not yet know how people in Scotland will be assessed for the health element of universal credit. That is another big gap in our knowledge. However, it is important to note what we do know. Emma Jackson has set out the extent of poverty and destitution among disabled people. I will not go into detail now, but we could write a book on it—and people have done so.
We must also look at the spike in new claims. Hannah Randolph’s colleagues at the University of Strathclyde saw that, and the IFS did work for the JRF down south. Claims for disability benefits are concentrated in areas of higher deprivation, as are new claims. Poverty drives demand for those benefits.
We have evidence on welfare reform—I would put “reform” in inverted commas. We have seen that the austerity changes to universal credit have not reduced poverty. They have increased employment to an extent; however, because social security was cut at the same time, people’s incomes have not gone anywhere.
We also see that people are disadvantaged in the labour market. Often, disabled people, women and people from minority ethnic backgrounds do poorly and are discriminated against, so the net outcome is no change in the hardship that we have seen over the years.
Sally Witcher and Fiona Collie have set out a lot of the issues on employability. It is the same for everyone, really. We see employability as something that is very simple but, in reality, it is not. The barriers to work are complex.
It is also about a sense of scale. For example, work has been done to look at the additional employability support that the UK Government promises. It has been estimated that that could help 45,000 to 90,000 people into work—at the UK level—yet the cuts will impact on millions of people. As a comparator, the Scottish Government has a goal of halving the so-called disability employment gap in Scotland, which would mean increasing the work of 120,000 people in Scotland alone. The UK Government, through its commitment to additional employability support, is looking at increasing employment for 45,000 to 90,000 people across the UK.
There is a sense of frustration over the lack of scale or urgency when it comes to social care, transport, healthcare and, as Sally referred to, employers. There are big, structural problems in our economy, and the reforms will only make them worse; they do not touch the edges of the real issues that people face.
The role of those with caring responsibilities needs to be considered, as does caring as a social determinant of health. The reforms have the potential to double the impact for people who lose their health element and their carer support payment or anything else that is attached to that.
A third of carers in Scotland are disabled, compared with 24 per cent of non-carers, and more than a quarter of carers have said that they have bad physical or mental health. Both figures have increased since the last time we did the survey, which was a year ago. Two thirds were struggling to make ends meet. Worryingly, 14 per cent use food banks. All those things contribute to poorer health. We need to tackle many different issues; however, for carers and disabled people, those are structural issues and we need to make big progress on them.
10:15
Thank you, Fiona. I believe that Sally Witcher wants to come in
Yes—just quickly. One thing that I missed out is that the pace at which claims are processed and the drop-out rate can also be quite a big factor. The more resources that there are, the faster claims are processed. That can also mean that the number of claims, including new claims, looks greater.
One thing that I would want to look at is whether the pace slowed during the pandemic because people were off sick, in lockdown or whatever, and at whether more resources were put into processing a backlog once the emergency was over. Something like that could make a difference when considering what the figures are telling you.
Also, it is important to understand the backdrop to the reforms. I mentioned that disabled people have already borne the brunt of austerity. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, having looked at the UK state’s record on benefits, accused the UK Government of “grave and systematic violations” of disabled people’s rights. It also described the Government’s record as a “human catastrophe” in 2017. In March this year, a separate UN committee urged the UK Government to make good the devastating cuts that there have been to disabled people’s benefits. That was literally a few weeks before the UK Government announced the cuts.
We need to understand that the starting point for disabled people is extreme poverty. There is simply nothing left to give. Eighty-eight per cent of people on the lower rate of PIP and ADP would lose support. That is a huge number. Let us not underestimate how devastating the cuts could be.
We move on to theme 2, which is the impact of the UK reforms on disabled people and their carers. I invite Marie McNair to come in.
It is great to have you all with us this morning. The disability charity Scope has said that the reforms could push 250,000, I think, people into poverty, including 50,000 children. Do the witnesses agree with that assessment? I will open that up to whomever wants to come in first.
Yes and no. We think that some of the UK Government’s communications on the reforms are—I will use parliamentary language—slightly misleading. Our analysis shows that maybe 400,000 people would be driven into poverty. Scope has not counted the previous cuts that the previous UK Government was going to make, including the changes to work capability assessment. I can provide the committee with that analysis if it would be helpful.
Sally Witcher eloquently set out the position that disabled people are already in. I have got a list of various stats that I could mention. If there is ever a vote in this Parliament as to whether to copy the changes that the current UK Government is making, I would encourage members to take a look at the scoring system for PIP or ADP and at what gets you two points. The UK Government requires a score of four points to get the standard allowance that Sally was talking about. Read the criteria for scoring two points, see whether you can add up a few of those to get to eight points and ask yourself, “Do those people not deserve support?” I think that it will chill you to read some of the criteria. I really encourage people to do that.
We point to the analysis that organisations such as JRF have done to highlight some of the impact that it is believed that the reforms could have on people. We really need to grapple with the fact that they will have a catastrophic and far-reaching impact on sick and disabled people and their families. They will undoubtedly push more people into debt and into destitution, with devastating impacts on people’s physical and mental wellbeing.
None of that is hyperbole: it is the reality of what we will see, so we absolutely must grapple with that and do everything within our power to prevent those things from happening. Citizens Advice Scotland is ardently against the reforms and we have been doing everything that we can to share evidence and insight with the UK Government.
One of the things that deeply challenges us and that it is important for us to grasp as we look at the proposals is the fact that both PIP and ADP are intended to be known as “enabling” benefits or payments. They are there to cover the additional costs of having a disability or a long-term health condition. They are not means tested and are not linked to a person’s ability to work. I must say that again: they are not linked to a person’s ability to work.
A narrowing of the criteria means that we are going to see some pretty devastating things. Chris Birt has already highlighted the proposal to change the daily living component and I will go a step further to spell out what some of that means. It will include taking away points for things such as needing help to prepare food or manage incontinence. I do not know about you, but I think that accessing food and being able to go to the bathroom are pretty foundational in all day-to-day lives, so the idea that society might not want to value that or to enable someone to do those absolutely fundamental things is really difficult to grapple with.
If people are not able to eat properly or to use the bathroom, how on earth do we think that they will be able to maintain or hold down the jobs that they already have? Citizens Advice Scotland provides ADP advice to a significant number of people all across Scotland. More than a quarter of those who access that advice from us are in work. ADP payments are enabling people to access and hold down work and to have independent lives, so lowering the payments in this way could have the direct consequence of removing people from the workforce. That is completely nonsensical in the light of the overarching goals that the reforms are allegedly trying to move towards.
That is really helpful. Sally Witcher wants to come in and then I will bring in Fiona Collie.
As someone has already said, the kinds of things that someone would not score more than two points for include being unable to wash or dress below the waist without assistance or needing prompting or supervision to go to the toilet. People will lose support for that, but I presume that they will be offered support to do something like preparing for a job interview or getting their CV in shape. Let us be realistic and understand that some of those costs will be displaced on to local authorities, which will not help because it will just move the money around.
If you look at the total cost, which I believe the UK chancellor compared to “pocket money”, the total potential loss for a household that includes carers would be about £14,000 per annum. I do not know about you, but that does not feel like pocket money to me and if that is the amount of pocket money that ministers are paying their kids they might want to rethink that. It is seriously huge, and even people who are on the lower rate are going to lose about £8,000, which is a massive amount when you have no money.
I am sure that Fiona Collie will have the most up-to-date figures, but the amount that unpaid carers already contribute to the economy is something like £184 billion a year. Is that not enough? Why take more money off them? That will be disastrous and it is not an isolated attack. Social care is being removed and care workers are not getting visas. It is coming at us from all sides. People cannot get healthcare because the healthcare system does not understand some of the conditions that the people I work with have and it cannot test for those conditions if it does not understand them. People have been left to rot.
I honestly do not know what will become of disabled people. Perhaps they will be offered assisted suicide or assisted dying—I am not joking. I was at a meeting yesterday and one speaker said that one of the leading causes of death for people with myalgic encephalomyelitis is suicide. It is grim. I have worked in this area for more than 30 years, and I have been scared before, but I have never been quite as alarmed at what is happening as I am now.
That is absolutely brutal. I thought that the figure was 250,000, but thank you, Chris Birt, for clarifying that it is 400,000. It is not just numbers; there are real people behind that. Chris, some of your briefings have been really helpful, as are the case studies that you provided. Fiona Collie touched on similar ones.
The example that I was looking at was a single person losing PIP in the health element of universal credit. It would mean that they would get £818 less a month, which is equivalent to a reduction of £10,000 a year. Can you provide further examples of how people have been impacted and how it will affect those who are in work?
The cuts—let us call them what they are—will be devastating for disabled people and carers. We do not believe that there is sufficient understanding of the knock-on impact on carers. We can talk about things like loss of carers allowance or health elements, but what does that mean for carers’ employment? We know that about a third of carers have to give up work to care. People reduce their hours or take lower-paid jobs, simply to manage. The fact is that people will continue to care. Removing funds does not mean that people will stop caring, nor, incidentally, does it remove disability or ill health.
We think that significant work needs to be done on the cumulative effect, for example on parent carers, and on the impact on child poverty. We know from our surveys that carers who are caring for a disabled child, or who are caring for someone else and have parental responsibility for a child under 18, have a greater chance of poverty than other carers. They are far more likely to be in debt, and they are twice as likely already to be cutting back on essentials such as food and energy. That group is 10 per cent more likely to have given up work to care and a third more likely to have reduced their hours.
We need to think about the other services that are around that. About half of that group are worried about how they will afford the rent and mortgage increases. Already, 7 per cent have been forced to sell their home because of their caring role. The levels of struggle on the very basics—electricity, gas, transport, food, rent or mortgage, repairs to the home—are higher across the board for parent carers and those who have a child under 18. The levels of poor mental health are higher than for all carers. The assessment of impact does not take into account the cumulative impacts on individuals who have multiple roles. We are all people who have multiple roles. Someone might be a parent and also have a caring role. A number of carers in the survey were caring for two, three or four people. What happens if we remove the financial support from them? Caring does not stop, but their poverty will increase and they will end up in destitution.
Have carers in Scotland been consulted on the proposed cuts?
We are directly consulting carers specifically on the health element, because that is part of the reserved benefits system. We are encouraging carers to make their voices heard in the consultation and to say what the cuts will mean for them. They can do that through us, through the national carer organisations, through our colleagues in Carers UK or through other carer organisations across the UK.
10:30
On the point about consultation, we have to acknowledge that not all the proposals are being consulted on. For some of the proposals that those of us from the third sector have the deepest level of concern about, no public consultation is taking place—for example, on the narrowing of the PIP criteria. The fact that we are not able to actively engage disabled people, first and foremost, and those who work alongside and with them in organisations is of deep concern.
We also feel very concerned specifically about the lack of in-depth and meaningful consultation about the interaction of these reforms with devolved social security. Our primary concern is about Scotland, but I refer to our colleagues in Northern Ireland as well.
There are real concerns about whether this is being consulted on in such a way that the right level of information can be gathered.
If no one else wants to come in before we move on to the next theme, I will invite Jeremy Balfour to ask his questions.
I thank the witnesses for coming in this morning.
I want to explore two areas under this theme, the first of which Emma Jackson and Chris Birt have already picked up on. The criteria for ADP—which, I should acknowledge, I am in receipt of—and PIP are almost identical for most individuals. ADP acts as a passport to other benefits, which are reserved at present. If the PIP criteria are changed and the Scottish Government decides not to go down that road, what concerns do you have that the UK Government might then not use ADP as a passport to those benefits? What implications would that have for people in Scotland?
That is a huge concern, and I think that so far the UK Government has bordered on being flippant about the extent of those issues. Consultation documents and the other documents just blithely state that we need to think about this, but hundreds of thousands of people in Scotland and Northern Ireland will be impacted.
The consideration by this committee and its predecessor of the transfer from PIP and disability living allowance to ADP provides a lesson on some of the fear that Sally Witcher has spoken about. A clear message that the committee and the Scottish Government heard was that disabled people want stability and predictability. They are saying, “Things have been really flipping hard for years. Do this carefully, please.” This is a perfect example of how not to do it.
The absolute core principle, which the UK and Scottish Governments will have to co-operate on—it is incumbent on them to do so, whether they like it or not—is that the burden must be placed on the bureaucracies, not on individuals, to make these decisions. The idea that people in Scotland would have to go through another assessment, on top of the assessment that they must have for UC and ADP, just to get the health element of UC has to be seen as completely unacceptable.
Emma Jackson has highlighted a key point, which is something that is a problem with the current proposals as they stand. The assessment for PIP or ADP is not related to a person’s ability to work; the work capability assessment, by its very name, is. Those are different calculations. We have concerns about what will happen with the people down south who currently do not get PIP but who do get the health element of UC. So, there are fundamental differences in the assessment processes already.
If the Scottish Government were not to copy what the UK Government is doing, we would still be asking the same questions. There might be a data-sharing issue, but what if the Scottish Government were to, say, significantly change eligibility for ADP and—heaven forfend—increase its adequacy?
These are difficult questions, and it is very problematic that the UK Government has not taken the time to get this right, which it needs to do. Some of these things look rushed. They have not been consulted on and have been hammered through to balance the books on the back of disabled people, which is completely unacceptable.
I agree with everything that Chris Birt has just said. I will not repeat the point, because I know that we are pressed for time, but we agree that there seems to be a huge lack of insight in the relationship between devolved and reserved payments.
Our biggest concern, which seems to be rising to the top, is the passporting element, in that ADP can enable other people to receive payments from other parts of the social security system. The direct link to carer support payment comes to mind. Nothing about that element is clear; none of it is known at the moment. Because there is no clarity, it is quite hard to make exact recommendations.
We need to think about other things that are happening in our social security system in Scotland at the moment. As committee members well know, we have been carrying out an independent review of ADP, which has brought up some really interesting things, and a series of recommendations on ADP will be coming to the Scottish Government in the very near future.
It is hard not to feel that there is a divergence in the two approaches to disability payments and health-related payments, and the most important thing is what that means for individuals. Chris Birt is absolutely right that the burden cannot be placed on individuals. We see that day and daily across the citizens advice network, with individuals in Scotland having to navigate two social security systems that are administrative and can be complex, perhaps despite the best efforts of the Governments to work together. It is quite difficult to comprehend that we would think about adding more complexity and more burdens to that system.
Social security uptake is not as high as we would like or as it needs to be. Social security is a right, and people should be able to access the payments that they need. Any level of complexity places barriers in front of people to claim the things that they are entitled to, outwith the administrative barriers that people face.
We have to acknowledge the impact on disabled people of the conversation that has been happening of late. The language and rhetoric surrounding the issue has been deeply villainising in its attempt to portray people as not needing the payments or swinging the lead—I do not want to repeat any of the other horrible language that has been used. That is having a very significant impact on people right now, even before any of the potential reforms have gone ahead.
In November 2023, I gave evidence to the committee on the complex interconnections between the two systems and the potential constraints on devolved power that they could constitute. My fear is that the cuts will—inevitably and unavoidably—significantly constrain what any Scottish Government could do to exercise devolved power.
Now, some of the following are questions, but they are questions to which I have not seen answers. I am particularly interested in how the fiscal framework would apply, as well as, potentially, article 14 of the European convention on human rights on discrimination and inequitable provision.
Basically, if PIP assessment is to be the assessment for universal credit and those kinds of additional payments, adult disability payment would, structurally speaking, fulfil the same function. However, if ADP eligibility is better in accurately reflecting and accommodating people with severe functional limitations who are currently excluded—I am working with many such people—what would happen? Would it still serve as that route?
Even if it did not do that, and it was just significantly different to PIP, we would have two different eligibility processes to grant access to the same thing. If it were decided that it would continue, regardless, to provide access to universal credit and suchlike payments, how would the fiscal framework apply? As I understand it, that says that if the Scottish Government does something that causes the UK Government to incur extra costs, the Scottish Government pays, so who would meet the UK Government’s additional universal credit payment costs?
Then we have article 14 of ECHR, which is part of the Human Rights Act 1998. If eligibility criteria for reserved benefits varied without a justifiable reason and had a disproportionate and inequitable impact on the vulnerable group, that could be challenged. Even then, if the Scottish Government decided that those criteria did not serve as a passport or a route to the payments, there would need to be an additional assessment. Again, I do not know who, under the fiscal framework, would pay for that.
These are important questions. I hope that I am not just casting a shoal of red herrings at you, but it would be worth checking them out.
Thanks, Sally—that is noted.
I believe that Fiona Collie wants to come in.
I do not have answers to any of those questions, but I do want to highlight other interactions with devolved systems, particularly around employability for young disabled people, what resources being switched to an expanded use guarantee would mean in Scotland, and how the UK Government would work with the Scottish Government to develop that. We are generally concerned about that change.
It is really difficult when young people with a disability or long-term condition and their carers transition. Services can be reduced as they move from children’s to adult services, and stability at that time is really critical. The Scottish Government has invested in a reopened independent living fund transition fund for young disabled people, but it is placing additional barriers in front of them and their families by changing the support for young people, who already get less financial support from the social security system. There are some questions about that, but the specific question is about the devolved employability systems.
I thank everyone for their answers. It is disappointing that the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions have not been willing to come and give evidence to the committee, because the questions, particularly those posed by Sally Witcher, are ones that the committee would want to pursue. However, we are unable to do so, due to their lack of availability.
I am conscious of time, convener, so I will move on to the million-dollar—or in fact billion-dollar—question. The Scottish Fiscal Commission has identified that, by 2029-30, the Scottish Government will need to find approximately £2 billion if we are to continue down the road that we are on. That can be found if more money comes from the UK Government—or from tax-raising powers here in Scotland, although they are limited—or it can come from cutting other services and budgets. I appreciate that this is the question that none of you wants to answer, but what would you suggest that the next Scottish Government should do to find that £2 billion?
I will start with the economist.
That is the million-pound question. One thing to consider carefully is Emma Jackson’s earlier point about cuts to disability benefits, in particular, placing more pressure on other services and local authorities. This is not necessarily an area in which direct savings can be made, and that is something to be aware of.
I think that a question about fiscal sustainability was raised in the documents for this meeting. Some social security elements have been devolved, and there has been concern about higher spending in the Scottish system on certain types of benefits, particularly disability benefits, but that is why we have a devolved system. It is important to remember that the system has been devolved to allow us to make different decisions in Scotland, but we need to be aware of where the money is coming from. I have no easy answers, unfortunately, about where the money could come from, but maybe Chris Birt has some.
Chris, do you have the answer?
10:45
Politics is all about choices. You are hearing a chorus of people tell you that the UK Government is making the wrong choices in those areas, but our social security system has been in a withered state for years now. Loads of evidence shows that that causes poverty.
The magnitude of the mitigation of changes to disability payments is significant—there is no denying that. I completely understand that politicians have to defend their spending decisions—sometimes, I have been guilty of rolling my eyes at the Scottish Government when it has said, “Oh, we just have to mitigate all this UK Government stuff”—but it is the right thing to do. It is not even getting us particularly far—it is just stopping things getting a lot worse.
Frankly, if I were forced to make a decision, I would rather stand on a doorstep and defend modest tax increases than make disabled people destitute, which is the choice that people face and the choice that politicians take on when they do their job. Perhaps it is not as easy as that, but so be it.
I go back to what is causing the rise in claimant numbers and what the trends are based on. Presumably, the projections are based on current trends, but if you go back to what is driving the trends, it is clear that they are not inevitable, so they can presumably be changed. If the rise is being driven by unmitigated airborne infections and, as a result, on-going illnesses, you could do things to change the numbers of people becoming sick and disabled, which means the claimant figures would change, too. It is about being tough on—if I can put it—sickness and disability instead of being tough on sick and disabled people.
If the Government goes ahead with the cuts, what will happen is precisely the opposite of what is intended, because more poverty will make people more sick and disabled. The cuts will make them less able to work because, as Emma Jackson said earlier, although PIP helps people into work, disabled people who are in work have extra costs to meet. Therefore, the cuts will be very counterproductive, and all that will happen is that expenditure will be displaced to local authorities and elsewhere. Ultimately, if disabled people cannot accommodate the cuts, they will go under.
You have to go back to what is at the start of all this, which is the issue of unmitigated and unaddressed sickness and disability. You might think this a very odd suggestion, but one thing that the Scottish Government could do to make a difference is to take the issue of indoor air quality seriously, because that is where the pollution is. So much of the sickness and disability is driven by the infections that are spread in indoor air. Every winter, the national health service is near to collapse because it is overwhelmed by airborne infection, yet nothing is done to prevent it when something could be done.
I am repeating what others have said, but we cannot allow the cuts to happen here in Scotland, and we cannot follow suit. The cost of mitigations is eye-wateringly staggering, but I urge the committee and, indeed, the Scottish Government, if it comes to making such decisions, to think about the cost of failing to meet the service demand that will be caused by the cuts. The impact on other services will be astronomical, and the long-term impacts will last for generations. We cannot take a short-term view on that.
I absolutely agree with Sally Witcher about some of the long-term actions that are needed. We have to look at the systemic issues that we have as a society and continue to prioritise them—perhaps the most pertinent is tackling poverty. The Scottish Government needs to continue to make that a burning platform and the number 1 issue that it is looking at.
If we do not put mitigations in place to support disabled households, I do not know how we will have any chance of meeting the legally binding child poverty targets that this Parliament has set. All those things are inextricably linked, so tackling poverty is of critical importance, as is investment in public services. We have spoken about the things that disabled people need to access so that they can attend work, live independent lives and be able to stay healthy and well. Investment in the NHS and care services is absolutely critical.
We must also continue ensuring that employers are fulfilling their responsibilities to deliver on their duties under the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments so that disabled people can not only access but maintain good jobs. All those things must happen—and I would argue that they need to happen at the same time, so that we can deal with the short-term issue in front of us while also thinking about the long term and having some ambition for disabled people to be able to live decent and dignified lives with sufficient incomes.
I will be brief because Emma Jackson has spoken far more articulately than I can.
I absolutely urge Scotland not to follow suit on ADP and to find a solution for the health element of universal credit, but we must also look at tackling the causes of ill health and think about them holistically, rather than working in isolation. We do a lot of that. We think about reducing waiting lists, which is fantastic, but we do not necessarily think about how to provide the right social care so that we can discharge people from hospital. We think of things in boxes when we should be thinking about the whole.
We will move to our final theme, abolishing the work capability assessment. Bob Doris has a question.
I think that we have been speaking about that for the past few minutes, so I invite people to make any additional comments. We have heard about how Scotland might need an alternative system and about the relationship with the DWP if the Scottish system diverges from the UK one, so that we have an alternative assessment process. I think that we have covered all that. I can raise one or two other matters if you think that that would be helpful, convener. If the witnesses have any other comments about abolishing the work capability assessment, they should raise those, but I think that we have covered most of it.
There is a thought in my head about those who get the health element of universal credit. It is not clear who will or will not be pressurised into seeking employment once the work capability assessment is abolished and it is also not clear when conditionality will kick in. Are there additional concerns about that? It would be helpful to hear about those.
PIP is an entitlement for those with disabilities and is not related to being in work. I hate to make the matter sound worse, but do the witnesses think that there has been a deliberate blurring of that? If there is, might we be looking at a future situation where there are questions about whether people should be getting both PIP and the health element of UC? That is not something that I would ever suggest, but might that be the UK Government’s wider direction of travel? That could cause further serious damage to those living with disabilities.
I know that the question theme was supposed to be work capability assessments, but I think that we have fleshed most of that out with Jeremy Balfour’s line of questioning. Does anyone want to take up the cudgels based on my wider thoughts?
I will probably not answer the second part of the question, but we do have concerns about a new conditionality regime. There is talk about that feeling softer and more supportive, with support conversations, but what does that actually mean? The reality is that more disabled individuals and unpaid carers will fall into the regime of conditionality. We see that happen to carers when a person has lost their disability benefits and is in the process of appealing that decision. As I said, just because financial support stops does not mean that disability and caring stop. We have real concerns about that.
I could give you a long rant on conditionality, if you have the time. The massive cut to the health element of universal credit is particularly worrying. It may not have been a deliberate blurring, but there has certainly been a careless blurring of the means-tested and non-means-tested elements of it. By their very nature, people who are currently in receipt of the health element of UC are poorer and at great risk of destitution. We see that showing up in food bank use and so on. The whole thing is just toxic.
Disabled people have talked for a long time about the right-to-try policy and the risk of going into work, and, if that does not work out, having to go through the process again. Even just the name—the right to try—implies that disabled people and their carers are not currently trying. Through the Parliament, we have heard about people’s distrust of the DWP and the previous PIP and DLA system. The UK Government is trying to push a line of, “Don’t worry; we’ll help you out more,” but it is doing that through a system that people do not trust and using condescending terms such as right to try. We require a complete reset.
What that talks to, and Emma and Fiona have both mentioned it, is the deeply unfair and unequal society that we have. We have extremely high levels of poverty. For 41 per cent of people in receipt of disability benefits, when you take those benefits out of their income, they are in poverty. Part of the demand is driven by the fact that we have an ageing population. We have an ageing population and an impoverished population. There is a 25-year gap in healthy life expectancy between our poorest and our richest communities. That is shocking. We will not make progress on this until we get into those structural causes and until we flip the conversation on its head. We do not talk about people being far away from the labour market. The labour market needs to get closer to them. Until we look at it through that prism, we will continue to fail.
That was an interesting suggestion about putting all the extra costs in one place and separating that from out-of-work benefit. One of the key challenges for the way in which the systems are structured is how closely they are interconnected: what one of them does rebounds on the other. If the Scottish Government could do what it can to disentangle those systems, that would massively increase scope, potentially, for devolved power to be exercised.
As for blurring what PIP is, if you look at social media—which I try not to—nobody out there understands that PIP is not an out-of-work benefit. They just do not get it, and they would not understand why people have extra costs in work that even access to work will not meet—if you can get it after waiting for however many months. It is not understood that PIP helps people get into work by providing some income security. It enables people to take up low-paid work that they might not otherwise have even been able to attempt. The right to try is a good idea, but my question is how that will work for employers, because if it does not work for them, it will not work.
Ultimately, we have to look at it through the employer’s lens. I would like employers to be subjected to the kinds of sanctions and grilling that sick and disabled people could well find themselves subjected to. Employers need to be grilled about why they cannot employ disabled people and sanctioned if they could but are not. Let us turn it on its head, because we would then have a sense of whether the jobs are not there, so the employers really cannot offer them. I think that some people, if they understood reasonable adjustments and how to construct job descriptions—which they do not—could employ disabled people.
However, in many cases, people are too sick and disabled to work and employers cannot employ them. You need to get your heads around that. It does not matter how much you sanction people; they are not out of work because they lack motivation, do not know how to do a CV or need help with interview techniques. Those reasons may apply to some people, but it is a tiny number. However, I like the idea that was mentioned about needing to think more creatively and test out some other options.
11:00
There is a lot more that I could say on the work capability assessment, but we provided a written submission to the committee, which I ask members to look at. In particular, I highlight the section on something called “substantial risk”, about which we have a deep concern.
More generally—to answer the last part of the question—one of the things that Sally Witcher and others have touched on is the real lack of clarity in all this. There is confusing and conflicting messaging, and we must acknowledge both the real and deep impact that that is having on disabled people, as well as the fears and worries that they have.
We also need to consider the impact that the lack of clarity is having on advice services, such as the 59 CABs across Scotland. Our advisers tell us that, already, people are coming who are absolutely terrified by what is happening, and CABs are bracing themselves for an onslaught of demand for advice. This is at a time when they have never been busier and the issues that individuals are facing have never been more complex. There will be even more demand.
I was recently speaking to Alana Forsyth, the chief executive of the Glasgow North West CAB, which is one of our busiest CABs. I want to read out something that she said to me, because I think that it is so powerful. She said:
“We’ve already seen a spike in demand from people asking about what this is going to mean for them. People are so worried—I don’t know how much more they can take. Or our advisers. How do we tell even more people who are cold and hungry, facing mounting debts and deteriorating health that there is nothing else that we can do for them to increase their incomes? This will be devastating for all of us. We’re entering this new period ... from a position of much deeper ingrained and more widespread poverty than before ... In all honesty, all we have left to strip from people is their humanity.”
That is very powerful—thanks.
I want to go back to the assessment. I understand that the existing assessment of whether someone has limited capability for work or work-related activity includes consideration of whether the claimant would be a risk to themselves or others in the workplace. I believe that that consideration will not exist after the changes. Would having no assessment of the claimant’s ability in the workplace undermine the suggestion that the changes are about helping more people into work?
Would somebody like to come in on that?
I will repeat what I said earlier: the PIP or ADP assessments and the work capability assessment are fundamentally designed to do two different things. I think that that is something—I am looking at a chart from one of my colleagues—that is being consulted on, so it is definitely something that we need to consider. Emma Jackson may have a more detailed opinion on that.
If the information is not available now, you can always send a written submission. I do not want to put anyone on the spot.
I point to our written submission—we picked that point up there.
Paul O’Kane is online. I do not know whether he wants to come in on anything.
No, convener; I said that I would indicate if I wanted to come in.
My apologies.
That concludes all our themes on welfare reform. Thank you for your really powerful evidence and for the excellent written submissions that you have all provided. If there are any points that you have not had a chance to raise with us today, you are more than welcome to follow up in writing.
11:04 Meeting continued in private until 11:19.