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ESA cuts victory in the Lords
The government has been defeated in the Lords over plans to cut £30 a week from the benefits of sick and disabled people who have been found unfit to work.
Peers voted by 283 to 198 to send the cut to employment and support allowance back to the House of Commons to be reconsidered.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jan/27/lords-defeat-tories-esa
Unfortunately the House of Commons have now voted by 306 votes to 279 to keep the clause removing the WRAG and also by 304 votes to 280 to keep the clause removing the LCW element from universal credit - debate here http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmhansrd/cm160223/debtext/160223-0002.htm#16022349000010.
It’s now ping pong between the Houses until they agree - http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/laws/passage-bill/commons/coms-consideration-of-amendments/
Interestingly Heidi Allen - conservative MP for south Cambridgeshire who made her maiden speech opposing the tax credit cuts - spoke out against the government again -
For them, I need to see more detail of the contents of the White Paper and to hear more about the financial support that will be made available before I can fully support the Government. If we do not get this right, we will damage not just the employment prospects and wellbeing of these vulnerable claimants, but our reputation and trust among the electorate. To secure my trust, I need to believe in the White Paper and that the £100 million will go some way to help those people. That is my warning shot to the Government. Today, I will not support them. I may abstain, but only for today. Let us get the detail right. Let us be a Government of sweeping strategic change, but let us also be one with the compassion and dexterity to look after the little man too.
She did abstain from voting on both amendments
From Hansard - http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmhansrd/cm160223/debtext/160223-0003.htm#16022349001127
[ Edited: 24 Feb 2016 at 11:11 am by Daphne ]The House of Lords has just voted 289-219 in favour of Lord Low’s amendment calling for a delay until a full impact assessment is carried out
Lord Freud announced as part of debate that government will be amending ESA Regs to remove 52 week limit on permitted work -
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201516/ldhansrd/text/160229-0001.htm#16022912000300
Thats great but confusing in that seems to be going against the grain in terms of overall policy intent given cuts to UC work allowances for those with LCW. Makes it look like a short term concession with no long term spending commitment.
Interesting reading from the Guardian on this.
Ministerial proposals to cut £30 a week from the benefits of ill and disabled people found unfit to work have been criticised by the government’s equalities watchdog.
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHCR) says the proposed cuts will disproportionately affect disabled people, widen inequalities and undermine the UK’s human rights obligations.
Separately, a scathing letter by the head of the EHCR warns that official assessments of the cut’s impact on disabled people “contain very little in the way of evidence” and “limited analysis” of the consequences for claimants.
Letters obtained under freedom of information and seen by the Guardian reveal that the EHCR wrote to Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, in September offering advice to ensure the welfare reform bill draft aligned with the government’s equalities duties and international human rights obligations.
Duncan Smith’s reply suggests the government did not take up the offer, but sought to assure the ECHR that he took seriously his “responsibilities under the Equality Act to pay due regard to the public sector equality duty during the policy development process and the implementation of these important welfare reforms”.
But a letter sent a fortnight ago from EHRC’s chief executive, Rebecca Hilsenrath, to the Labour MP Roger Godsiff, says the government’s impact assessments lack detailed consideration of the likely impact of the cuts on disabled people.
“[The assessments] contain very little in the way of of evidence and this limits the accompanying analysis and the scope for parliamentary scrutiny and informed decision-making on the proposed legislative changes.”
It concludes: “These are the kinds of matters that we might have expected a more thorough analysis to have considered.”
Read the whole article here Equalities watchdog criticises planned cuts to work support allowance
Lords forced to back down last night on ESA WRAG cuts, as Commons invoked financial privilege rules which effectively meant that they couldn’t seek to overturn again. This from Tanni Grey-Thompson probably sums up the general mood quite frankly.
Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB): My Lords, I am deeply disappointed that we have got to where we are today with the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, but I thank the Minister for continuing to meet Members of your Lordships’ House. I and others spent a great deal of time last week working through every possibility of tabling another amendment to send this dreadful and punitive part of the Bill back to the other place. Unfortunately, because of parliamentary procedure, that was not possible. Placing financial privilege on these amendments means that the other place ultimately has its way, and it is entitled to do that—just as we were entitled and absolutely right to ask the Commons to think again.
As a Chamber appointed because of our expertise in areas such as this, we know and understand the impact this Bill will have, even if no formal impact assessment was carried out. I apologise to the people affected by this Bill that, at this point, we could not do any more. This may be the end of the legislative process, but it is the start of the negative impact the Bill will have on thousands of people’s lives. It may be
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seen as a victory in terms of voting numbers in another place, but we cannot forget that there are many disabled people who will lose out. That may be realised only when the letters come flooding in.
See BBC news for more Peers accept cuts to disability benefits after battle with MPs and Hansard transcript here Welfare Reform and Work Bill
Fair play to Tanni . Never a truer word spoken.
I think the government have badly misjudged this, as even within the wide acceptance of anti-scrounger propaganda it will be too obvious that people seen as deserving will be hit.
The significance of the new ‘package of support to work’ has been obscured by the sheer vindictiveness of the financial cut itself, but it’s hard to believe that it’ll be anything other than more conditionality and sanctions, further unofficially trying to turn the WRAG into jobseekers.
Never mind… by the next election Maximus will probably have hit the wall; nobody who made an ESA claim since April 2017 will have been assessed so the impact will be felt early in the next parliament and everyone will have forgotten about it by 2025.
The more I think about this, the more I think it could backfire spectacularly.
Anyone who successfully claims ESA and is placed in the WRAG has a wonderfully perverse incentive to immediately pursue MR/appeal to be placed into the SG. Forget the WRA, but think about the extra £36 a week.
Of course, there’s a chance your appeal will fail completely but financially, it makes not a jot of difference if you’re booted back onto JSA. Many people already are having to try and claim JSA anyway whilst they pursue ESA claims, MR and appeals.
The Tories have managed to break the social security system completely. No we haven’t, you hear them chorus, look at Universal Credit coming in…..