Meeting of the Parliament 08 December 2016
We just heard Kate Forbes talk about the constituent who came to her office. A constituent of mine spoke to me just last week, along with his mother. He has been suffering from mental health issues and is getting support from NHS Fife, but his benefits have been pulled and he has been told that he is fit for work. There is case after case like that.
Adam Tomkins needs to look at the evidence from organisations that support and advocate on behalf of disabled people. He and Ruth Davidson’s Tories in Scotland can play around with questions about who did what when in power, but the fact is that right now the welfare reforms that a Tory Government is putting in place are having a detrimental impact on disabled people and others in Scotland.
Mark Griffin referred to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report that came out yesterday and it is worth repeating what he said. He said that 26 per cent of people who are in poverty in Scotland are disabled, which is the second highest such rate in the UK. As the JRF has said,
“modern poverty is also increasingly linked with disability.”
If, for whatever reason, someone who is working hard in life, paying their taxes and getting on becomes ill and cannot continue to work, we can be sure of one thing—that the current Tory Government will penalise them, make them feel much worse and, in some cases, drive them towards starvation.
I turn to the Scottish Government and the issues that Inclusion Scotland raises in its briefing. It talks about social care being
“part of the essential infrastructure that is required to enable disabled people to participate in family, community and economic life”,
but it goes on to talk about
“Cuts to social care packages, whether as a result of ... eligibility criteria or reductions in”
services directly to people. That is a key point. It is great to have strategies such as “A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People”, and I commend everyone who has been involved in that, but what we need in Scotland is joined-up government.
As a result of massive cuts to local government funding, health and social care packages are being cut. We are beginning to see that, because one of the first things that happen when a budget is under pressure is that the eligibility criteria are changed. Suddenly, people who were previously eligible for the care packages no longer are. That is one of the techniques that are used, and it has an impact on people.
In the area where I live, it is not just the numbers of people who are trying to get out of hospital—that number stands at around 90—who are waiting for a care package, in a situation that is described as bed blocking. There are massive waiting lists of people who need assessments to get to the point of receiving a care package. When they have been assessed, there is another waiting list.
Our health and social care services are not being properly funded. Community care was never about care on the cheap. I do not doubt the Government’s commitment to trying to deliver such services, but it needs to recognise that we need joined-up care and joined-up government. Unless we fund health and social care, there will be a massive gap, and disabled people will pay a higher price because of how that goes.
The Inclusion Scotland briefing also talks about care charges, which have been one of the answers to the cuts in local authority budgets in many parts of Scotland. In Fife Council, under the minister’s party, home care charges were put up from £4 per week to £11 an hour. When the next administration came in—it included me—we abolished the charges, but that is not true across Scotland.