Steve Darling

That is the crucial thing—PIP is there to support people getting back into work; my hon. Friend is quite right. Whether it is the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the Chancellor or the Prime Minister, they all say that the benefits system is broken, so let us make sure we reform it with some compassion. Liberal Democrats would like to see the benefits system reformed, but we want that to be done with people with disabilities, rather than it being foisted upon them. The Office for Budget Responsibility has said there is no evidence that the cuts will get people back into employment—actually, 300,000 people will end up in poverty. We must also remember that PIP is a passport to other benefits; for example, carer’s allowance is often married to it. Under the proposals, a number of households across the country could lose £12,000 if they lost PIP and carer’s allowance at the same time. That would be massive. I want to touch on a couple of case studies. One is from Scope: the case of a gentleman called Anthony who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and autism. He gets 13 points—brilliant—but sadly, all those points are collected up under the four-point threshold. That is extremely concerning. He is worried sick about what he will be able to afford, and he works part time. The citizens advice bureau in Torbay reached out to me about a lady whose condition got worse. She was assessed, but sadly she lost her PIP. She is almost a harbinger of what could go wrong for other people, because she is now not able to meet her living costs, particularly her housing costs. That is a massive challenge for her. I have a few questions for the Minister. I am particularly interested to know why the Government are introducing this cruel cut to PIP without undertaking reform in advance. As a few Members have highlighted, academics have found that there were about 600 suicides at the time of the change from DLA to PIP. As this cohort is much larger, has the Minister undertaken an assessment of how many suicides there will be? Is it over 1,000? Will he share with us what mitigating measures the Government are considering to ensure we do not hit those figures, which are extremely scary? As the Mother of the House highlighted, there was a by-election in the not-too-distant past. Will the Minister listen to the people who spoke in that by-election and make sure that some of the most deprived communities do not have the heart ripped out of them by cuts to PIP?