I rise to disagree with Opposition new clause 12, which would indefinitely block the provisions of the Bill. I am speaking today not only as the MP for Beckenham and Penge, but from personal experience, as one of the few Members of this House who has been a recipient of the higher rates of the disability living allowance and mobility allowance, and having relied on a Motability car throughout my teenage years. I will speak to why the provisions in the Bill are so welcome, and to the damage that the Conservative new clause would do to it.
First, this legislation and the wider debate we are having do not exist in a vacuum. The Bill cannot be separated from the impact of more than a decade of savage cuts to our NHS and community care services, which have led to what one NHS manager describes as “medieval” levels of untreated illness. In poorer parts of the country in particular, community care has been decimated, and A&E attendance has almost doubled since 2010. This country now has the lowest life expectancy in western Europe, one of the highest rates of preventable deaths among rich countries, and one of the lowest numbers of neighbourhood nurses and GPs per head among wealthy nations. The dismantling of preventive care has not only brought our NHS to the brink; it has done more than anything else to drive the increase that we are discussing in the number of people who are on health-related benefits and who are disabled. I can speak to that from personal experience.
When I was 13, I had an accident in which I shattered my right hip. It left me unable to walk for four years. I needed nearly 10 major operations on the NHS at the Royal London hospital and the Royal National orthopaedic hospital, and when I was a sixth former, I became one of the youngest people in the country to have a hip replacement. When I had my first hip replacement in the 2000s, under a Labour Government, the average waiting time for a hip replacement in Britain was under nine weeks, although, thanks to the staff at the Royal National orthopaedic hospital, I was seen even quicker. I then received excellent rehabilitation care, with hydrotherapy every other day.
After 14 years of Conservative Government, the waiting list for a hip replacement has trebled from nine weeks to 27 weeks. That is up from two months to more than six months. It is not uncommon in Britain today to wait up to two years for a hip replacement, and rehabilitation services are non-existent.
This situation is replicated for other treatments. The Nuffield Trust notes that there was an increase in waiting times of nearly 300% for respiratory medicine services under the previous Government. The ballooning of NHS waiting lists and the list of people on health-related benefits go hand in hand, so we cannot divorce progress on the issues that we are discussing today from progress on the NHS. We are already seeing great strides forward. Following record investment from this Government, our NHS is on track to achieve a target of 92% of patients waiting no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment. There has also been investment in rehabilitation services, such as hydrotherapy, which are essential.
We must also understand this debate in the context of cuts to other community and preventive services, including programmes such as Sure Start. I was very proud to have had the opportunity to work for Tessa Jowell, who created Sure Start under the last Labour Government. Tessa understood the importance of a child’s first 1,000 days, and designed Sure Start as an early intervention programme, which had a significant and positive impact on the long-term outcomes for hundreds of thousands of families and children in this country. The programme was savagely cut by the previous Government in one of the most short-sighted and cruel things that they did over 14 years. That has led to increased hospital admissions. Evidence shows that young people who had access to Sure Start were more likely to be in very good or excellent health.
Alongside this investment and the great progress that this Government are making on health, we also need to reform the DWP and the systems around health-related benefits in this country. That is why opposing new clause 12 is so important today.
I want to touch on what happens when a person has had medical treatment and is looking to get back into the world of work, and also on the right to try, which is in the Bill. In essence, the Bill says that trying work will not trigger a PIP award review or work capability assessment. The importance of this is borne out in research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, published in November last year, which said that almost three quarters of work-related disability benefit claimants whom it surveyed cited a fear of losing benefits as a significant or very significant barrier to work.
The right to try matters, because people with a disability or a significant health condition often will not know what they are capable of doing until they have tried to do it. They may not know what adjustments they will need to get back to work. Eight years ago, I was told that I would need a series of operations on my ankle and knee, followed by a second hip replacement—a revision to the one that I had received a decade earlier. After this, I optimistically thought that I would be able to return to work five days a week in the office as soon as I could walk unaided. I was not able to do so; it would take several months for me to do that again. I was fortunate that I had been with my employer for several years, and I had six months’ unpaid leave, which allowed me to try and initially fail to get back to work. However, for anyone relying on support from the DWP today, the reality is often very different.
We have a perverse and inflexible system in this country, which has been designed to penalise and issue sanctions, rather than incentivise and provide support. It is a broken welfare system, designed by the previous Government, that is failing people. It traps people by telling them that the only way to get help is to declare that they will never work again. It creates a climate of fear—a fear that if they try to work, they will lose their support. This Government are absolutely right to challenge and reform the system, and I am fully behind them doing so. If implemented well, the right to try will make a really big difference to getting people back to work, and will go some way to dismantling the fear that surrounds the DWP for disabled people. It is a positive measure that will empower disabled people, rather than patronise or infantilise them. It has been campaigned on for decades. It is long overdue, so I am pleased to see it in the Bill.
Finally, I wish to touch on co-production. I am pleased to see it in the Bill, but new clause 12 would block it. Co-production brings people together. It leads to policy that is more person-centred and effective, and outcomes that are more equitable and sustainable. It is not only essential in all conversations about disability policy, but particularly important when legislation passes through a Chamber like this one, which so starkly under-represents the voices and lived experiences of disabled people.
Although disabled people make up 20% of the population, only 2% of MPs are disabled. I think everyone in this Chamber has received an A1 print-out of an election map. I have one in my office. The top right-hand corner of that poster lists the women, ethnic minority, and LGBT MPs, but it has never been lost on me that there are no disabled MPs included.
Disabled people are a marginalised minority who are so often overlooked in every corner of public life. As we look to reform our welfare system and the institutions across society, I hope we will stick true to the principle of co-production so that services and policies are designed and implemented in a way that empowers disabled people and meets their real needs.