Olivia Blake

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan) for securing this debate. It is clear from some of my colleagues’ comments and from some of the discourse on this topic that many politicians do not understand the lives of disabled people. In the UK, disabled people face an extra average cost of nearly £1,000 a month. That is not optional spending; it is the unavoidable price of navigating a society that was never built with disabled people in mind. A persistent and damaging myth is that the personal independence payment is a benefit for those out of work. It is not a benefit. PIP is not income replacement; it exists to help to cover the extra costs of disability, whether someone is in employment or not. In fact, many recipients rely on it to stay in work, using it to overcome the additional barriers that working life presents. There are significant and deeply concerning disparities between disabled and non-disabled people in employment opportunities and fair pay—17%, according to the TUC. That is really unfortunate, but I fear that we are focusing on the wrong things. This system should not be about punitive measures; it should be about encouraging employers to do the right thing, including making reasonable adjustments.