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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People (Justin Tomlinson)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian C. Lucas), who cares passionately about his constituents. I have enjoyed working with him on a wide range of issues relating to my role. I genuinely understand why he takes such a close interest in this subject, and I will do my very best to address the points raised both by him and in the interventions that he kindly allowed.
I want to make a few basic points absolutely clear at the beginning. This is not about reducing the number of claimants or the amount of money spent; it is a fact that the number of claimants and the amount spent will increase in every single year of this Parliament. PIP is a modern and dynamic benefit to help cover the extra costs faced by people with disabilities. By way of comparison with the old system, 16% of DLA claimants would expect to get the highest rate of benefits; it is 22.5% under PIP. An example of where there is a big difference is in hidden impairments, such as mental health conditions. Only 22% of those with a mental health condition would qualify for the highest rate of DLA, but under PIP it is 68% because the system is better designed to take such cases.
That situation comes about because, under DLA, claimants were predominantly assessed on the form they filled in—it was a long, complicated form. I accept that the PIP form is still not the simplest form, but it is better than the old DLA form. Some 70% of people who were given a benefit under DLA had no medical evidence, and the problem with that is that people will often under-diagnose, particularly if they have a hidden impairment. They might take for granted the challenges that they face and think that they are the norm and not something for which they should get support, whereas we recognise as a society that they should get that support.
The job of the assessors is, in effect, to help people fill in their form to a better standard than under the old DLA system. The Government determine how much is paid and how many points people need in order to qualify, so we are at the end of the system, but the assessors are there to assist claimants in making the very best case that they can make.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
I appreciate that people with mental health conditions or learning disabilities are likely to do better, but the 2010 Budget clearly set out, on page 40, table 2.1, line 23, that DLA reform was solely designed to reduce spending on working-age DLA expenditure by £360 million by 2013-14 and by more than £1 billion by 2014-15. To claim that PIP is about being more generous to disabled people is just plain dodgy.
Justin Tomlinson
No, it is the reality that every year the number of people either on DLA or PIP—as Members can imagine, people are increasingly switching to PIP from DLA—is rising and the amount being spent is rising. That is what is happening. As things stand today, 1.32 million people have gone through the PIP process. About 745,000 claimants are now on PIP, and about 1.5 million claimants remain on DLA.
Christina Rees
Will the Minister explain why people who have been in receipt of DLA for more than 10 years are no longer eligible to receive disability benefit? Why are they no longer classified as disabled under the current Government guidelines?
Justin Tomlinson
I say gently that that is a little muddled, but I will come on to explain things. Under DLA, not only was the form complicated and people did not necessarily have the medical evidence, meaning that they could be under-diagnosed, but they were not reassessed. Many Members have implied today that we should not reassess people, but the reality is that every year the condition of one in three people will change so significantly that they should be on a different level of benefit. For the majority of those people, their condition is getting worse, not better.
Under DLA, we found that people were on a lower rate than they should have had for decades. Under the PIP process, there is a lot more evidence, which we use to say, “Right, this person has a fluctuating health condition, or a degenerative health condition, that will probably get worse, and they are currently only on the standard rate, but we have an expectation that they will probably progress to having a requirement for an enhanced benefit at a certain period of time.” We flag that up in the system, and that person would then automatically come in for reassessment.
People who are already on the highest rate and have a degenerative condition are not likely to have intense reassessments on a regular basis. It may very well be that many years pass before there is a telephone call to ask, “Are conditions still the same?” That is something that the old DLA system failed—
Justin Tomlinson
The hon. Lady can shake her head, but that is why only 16% of claimants on DLA received it at the highest rate, yet the figure for PIP is 22%.
Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)
Does the Minister appreciate that my constituent Linda Isaac, who is currently receiving chemotherapy for bowel cancer, who has waited for 19 weeks only to be denied PIP and another nine weeks for a mandatory reconsideration, will not appreciate the modern “dynamic” PIP system that he is talking about?
Justin Tomlinson
I understand that point. It is difficult to comment on an individual case, and I am happy to look at such cases after the debate. The hon. Lady and I have worked together carefully on a number of cases, and I am happy to extend that invitation again.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
The Minister is giving the impression that people on the old DLA are all being upgraded under PIP and retaining their payment. What we see in our constituency casework, however, is people coming off benefits altogether, and he is not addressing that point. Some of those people’s conditions are either getting worse or remaining the same.
I will make one final point, if I may. Will the Minister or his Department take action after the “Dispatches” programme on Channel 4?
Justin Tomlinson
In fairness, I am trying to respond to those points. I will make some progress, then I will cover the TV programme that was shown on Monday.
Justin Tomlinson
I will be very generous and give way to my shadow, then I will make progress.
Debbie Abrahams
I am grateful to the Minister. He talked about the increase in the number of disabled people claiming PIP, but can he explain the impact assessment of the 2012—
Justin Tomlinson
I am sure there will be many other opportunities for the hon. Lady to ask me questions, and I look forward to them. Perhaps I have got a foresight of what her next question at Work and Pensions oral questions will be.
I acknowledge that when we first introduced the PIP process there were major problems with timings, but there has been a settled position for about a year now. It currently takes seven weeks for an assessment and 13 weeks—median end to end—to get a decision. The time taken has been reduced by about three quarters since June 2014.
I will now touch on the TV programme, which is obviously topical. I was as appalled as everybody else who watched that programme. To the credit of Capita, it has reacted quickly and the individual concerned— Mr Barham—has been dismissed, and rightly so. We have not been made aware of any evidence that this is a significant issue; it seems to be a disgracefully appalling but isolated one. We have been told, “The overwhelming feedback gathered so far is one of frustration, disappointment and anger about how this individual has let everyone down, undermining the hard work and effort that everyone puts in daily to deliver and continually improve the level of service provided both to the Department and the PIP claimant community.” Capita has assured me that it will conduct further checks to make sure that this incident was an isolated one, and I was genuinely as appalled as everybody else who saw that programme.
Ian C. Lucas
Before the programme was screened, individuals had been saying to me that the assessors’ attitudes were wrong. I recounted one particular case, and I have been given other examples that I did not have time to cover today. Will the Minister please speak firmly to Capita and tell it to start treating people with respect?
Justin Tomlinson
Let me make some progress, please, because I am on eight minutes and 40 seconds—
Justin Tomlinson
Let me make some progress and then, if I have time, I will take some more interventions.
The hon. Member for Wrexham made a fair point about the limited time for a claim. It is actually a month, but people can ask for longer. They automatically get two weeks without any questions, and further extensions are considered depending on the circumstances. For example, if somebody says, “I will need assistance in filling the form in”, additional time will be given. If people struggle to fill in the initial forms on their own for a variety of reasons, the Department will send people to help them do so as quickly as possible.
As I highlighted earlier, the PIP forms are shorter and simpler than the old DLA forms. That does not mean that they are absolutely perfect yet. However, part of my role and my officials’ role is that we regularly meet charities, other stakeholders and users of the service, who make suggestions. There are continuous improvements, and I would expect that to keep happening. The hon. Gentleman raised a fair point, and we have a taskforce on our wider communication, with representatives from all the major charities going through things with a fine-toothed comb. I am grateful for all their help and support in that regard.
At the very beginning of the process, if an individual has a condition that means that we have concerns about their ability to return forms, that is flagged up so that we do not just automatically let them drop off the system. We can then be proactive in trying to contact them and contract people who can provide support for them, to make sure, as I say, that they do not simply drop out of the system. That is a very important point.
We are constantly reviewing the quality of the system—that is really important—and one change we made recently was to add a further 10 days for the assessment providers to be able to gather and consider further evidence. That came about because of the 60%-odd success rate in the appeal process, which a number of Members have mentioned. To put that into context, it involves about 2% of total claimants; as I have said, about 1.3 million people have gone through the system. When I first became the Minister and I saw the figure on successful appeals, the first thing I did was to visit the Cardiff office. I said, “Right. Presumably every time one of these is assessed on appeal, you down tools, sit down, analyse what we have done and make sure we never do that again.” Actually, more often than not a decision is overturned because of additional evidence that has been provided—the key word is “additional”—either oral or written. So in theory the decision at the beginning was right, based on the evidence that was given, but we as a Department rightly provide people with two further opportunities to submit additional evidence for a reconsideration.
All Members will share our frustration in this sense—in an ideal world someone would phone up for a claim, give their national insurance number, we would have full access to all their medical records and they would not have to go and find the reports from their doctor or occupational therapist. Former Governments had a good go at achieving that, but for a variety of reasons it has not happened. We therefore ask people to submit new evidence.
A typical example of what can go wrong for a claimant is that they get their GP’s evidence and put that in with their application, but they do not think to get the evidence from their occupational therapist. However, when we send them the letter that does not give them the benefit rate that they were hoping for, the information in it is clear enough for them to think, “Ah! If only I had done that.” They then have those two further opportunities to submit evidence. So the majority of the 65% or so successful appeals are because of additional evidence being submitted, not because of mistakes in the system.
Justin Tomlinson
I will take just one last intervention, because I have a bit more to say.
Neil Coyle
I am grateful to the Minister. His position seems to be that the process is right and that it is the fault of individuals for not submitting information at the right time. Would it not be in the Department’s best interests to save money by ensuring that the decisions are right first time, by allowing individuals enough time to get their medical information in.
Justin Tomlinson
We have just added a further 10 days to the process, recognising that point. We want to get the right decision for the claimant first time. That is an absolute given, but we rely on individuals to present evidence. Everyone is unique. Everyone involved is facing a different challenge, which is why they are applying for the benefit. In an ideal world, we would have access to all their information and no one would have to provide it, but as I have explained, that information is not available. My colleagues in the Scottish Parliament are doing some interesting work in this area, and we will look carefully at how that progresses, but we have added that extra time and are trying to be as clear as we can in the letters.
Beyond this debate, I will be interested to look more closely at the points that the hon. Member for Wrexham made about how the information that comes back to people is sometimes not clear enough. However, all claimants can request a copy of the full health professional’s report at any stage in the decision-making process. That is automatically triggered at the independent appeal stage, but it is available before that if people wish to have it.
We are also working on the online application process, to put all the information in one place. A lot of people want to be able to apply online for convenience. An added benefit will be that we can put additional help and support online, but people will still be able to claim in the traditional way if they want to.
I do not have long, but I want to address the point that was made about locations. All claimants in north Wales are offered—
Steve McCabe (in the Chair)
Order.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).