Closure of centre will hit vulnerable

From: Thelma Walker, Labour MP for Colne Valley.

I STRONGLY oppose the plans to close the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) Assessment Centre in Huddersfield and have today written to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Esther McVey, to urge her to intervene. There has been no public consultation or engagement with myself or with Kirklees councillors and I know that Huddersfield’s MP, Barry Sheerman, is also opposed to the closure. Department of Work and Pensions guidelines say travel time to assessments should not exceed 90 minutes by public transport. Getting to the Huddersfield Assessment Centre is already difficult for many sick or disabled people from Colne Valley – but from parts of the constituency it would take approaching two hours on public transport to make a 9am appointment in the Halifax centre. Support and services for vulnerable people are already at breaking point and the chaotic rollout of Universal Credit is making people’s situations even worse. The closure of this centre is another step too far. It may help the private US firm Maximus to profit even further from outsourced Work Capability Assessments, but it is the sick and disabled who are paying the price for this Government’s flawed agenda. We must end this culture of contempt for disabled people, which has no place in the 21st century. As we have argued in relation to hospital services, with a 440,000 population, residents in Kirklees expect and demand core services in our major local towns – the same is true for health and disability assessments. There are over 17,000 claimants of ESA in Kirklees – 3,670 from the Colne Valley – who could be impacted by the proposed closure.