Work and Pensions select committee member and Labour MP for Edinburgh East Sheila Gilmore is calling for an inquiry into the government's apparent spin of welfare figures - but will her Tory committee colleagues agree to one?
In recent months I’ve become increasingly concerned about the use of statistics on benefits claimed by disabled people, both by Ministers and the press. As some of you will have read, I complained to the Sunday Telegraph last month when they suggested that 900,000 people on Incapacity Benefit had dropped their claim rather than undergo a medical assessment for the new Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).
The true figure was a mere 19,000. I’ve since escalated this to the Press Complaints Commission and they are now set to force the paper to print a correction and apology.
While this is welcome, it won’t stop the continual stream of stories that appear in the right wing press. Just this week we had Iain Duncan Smith in the Mail and the Express referring to one million workshy benefit claimants, when in reality, one third have been certified as medically unable to work for the time being (although this may change in the future) and another third are single parents looking after children of school age.
That’s why I’ve decided to call for the Work and Pensions select committee – of which I am a member – to hold an inquiry into this issue.
However persuading the Tories on my committee won’t be easy. The government that they support relies on this practice of misusing statistics to give it political cover. In its attempts to reduce the deficit, cutting welfare is seen as more of a priority than taxing the richest. That’s why in the same month that disabled people are being hit by the Bedroom Tax, 13,000 millionaires are getting a tax cut of over £100,000.
Conservative Central Office have clearly decided that, as the government has failed so spectacularly on the economy, welfare is now their only hope of getting the public back on side. Thus my Select Committee colleagues know that any deviation from the strivers versus scroungers narrative is unlikely to be tolerated.
So getting an inquiry won’t be easy. But I’m determined to try.
And this isn’t for Labour’s political advantage.
It’s for people like my constituent John, who uses a wheelchair. He stands to lose his DLA and specially adapted car, forcing him to give up his job.
It’s for people like my constituent Marjorie, who worked hard all her life, took early retirement in her late 50s, but is now being asked to find an extra £14 per week in rent.
If ministers and the press continue to use misleading figures unchallenged, then when the time comes, the government will be able to make further cuts to benefits, and more people like John and Marjorie will suffer.
Total Politics
