Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Hollis of Heigham and Baroness Hollins

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hollins]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Rix. I suspect that, after days of assessing the increased cost implications of the amendments already discussed, there will be a genuine expression of relief on the Minister’s face at proposals that will almost certainly reduce overall costs and the administrative burden on the department. I have already declared my personal family interest—I have two disabled adult children—and my professional experience of working with people with severe learning disabilities and autism over 30 years.

I should point out that an annual or short-term assessment would almost certainly be a waste of time and money. This is true not just for people with learning disabilities, but would be true for people with other conditions such as some 69,000 with multiple sclerosis who are currently in receipt of disability living allowance and, on a smaller scale, those with motor neurone disease. After an initial assessment by experts confirming the diagnosis and the degree of severity, it is surely better to leave things as they are but to respond, on the application of carers or the individual themselves, to any deterioration in their condition. That is then the time for further examination, when it may well be found that the person may need greater support.

It is also important to recognise that annual reviews may only increase the anxiety of those undergoing them and will do nothing for their morale. I think with horror of the time—currently scheduled for 2014—when my son will be due for an assessment. I hope I will have the opportunity to go with him and that I will actually know about it. It is not that there would be any intention that I would not know, but rather because he cannot read and his supporters do not always realise the importance of involving me in certain aspects of his support. I hope to be with him when that review is done, but I also know how challenging it would be for him to be reassessed. For quite a lot of people, this constant reassessment would be costly in more ways than you can imagine. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s measured reply to these very modest and cost-saving proposals.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

In quite a lot of the publicity run in some newspapers preceding today’s debates, there has been—how can I put it—synthetic outrage about the number of DLA awards that have been made for life, as though they are somehow fraudulent, negligent or erroneous, thus apparently besmirching the entitlement of the holder of that lifetime award to it as of right, as though they have somehow manipulated or cheated the system and that the previous Administration has colluded with them at the taxpayer’s expense. That publicity has been extremely ugly and extremely unfair. Whether or not the Minister feels able to accept the amendments—and I hope he does—I hope he will accept that some conditions, on which the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, spoke so eloquently and movingly and of which two other Peers in your Lordships’ House have had intimate experience, do not change except for the worse and for which a lifetime award is a decent, sensible and cost-effective way of proceeding. Could he therefore ask his press hounds to lay off those people who have had them in the past and who ought, in all decency, to go on to enjoy them in the future?

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Hollis of Heigham and Baroness Hollins

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hollins]

My Lords, in speaking to the two amendments in this group, I want to mention a personal interest in the issue that I shall be talking about, as some years ago a member of my family was affected by it.

As noble Lords know, the capital of a claimant is taken into account when assessing the level of benefit to be received. If the amount of capital is greater than a prescribed amount—I think it is currently £16,000—then the person’s benefits are adjusted accordingly. There are several exceptions to what is counted as capital and these include any funds held in trust. This is clearly outlined in the 2009 Housing Benefit/Council Tax Benefit Guidance Manual, which states that certain types of capital should be disregarded in full, including the value of any funds held in trust and the value of the right to receive any payment under that trust following payments made to the claimant as a result of a personal injury, such as vaccine damage payments or criminal injury compensation. The value of these funds is not taken into account when calculating the capital of the claimant. Therefore, any payment made into the trust as a result of a personal injury, such as criminal injuries compensation, will not count when the claimant’s benefits are considered.

These amendments seek to apply the principle that claimants who have received criminal injuries compensation should not lose benefits, regardless of the form in which it is received or kept. A year later, the 2010 Housing Benefit/Council Tax Benefit Guidance Manual states that officials should treat lump sum compensation payments as capital. Examples given include lump payments, such as those made by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. However, the manual then reminds officials to disregard the value of any compensation payment for personal injury which is held in trust. I believe that criminal injury compensation payments should not be considered as capital at all when assessing the levels of benefit, regardless of whether this is a £1,000 payment for 12 weeks of blurred vision or the maximum of £500,000 which is paid out for injuries leading to indefinite loss of earnings. Recipients of larger sums are likely to put this into a trust, but recipients of smaller sums are not. They may intend to use it for a holiday—some recompense for the injury that they suffered. One of the purposes of criminal injury compensation is to give recipients the opportunity to improve their quality of life after their trauma.

These amendments would benefit some victims of crime, particularly people with mental health problems or learning difficulties. Not only are they more likely to be in receipt of benefits, they are also more susceptible to being victims of crime. The benefits that they receive are provided to cover essential costs, and any payments made as criminal injuries compensation are made in recognition of pain and suffering that the victim has gone through and perhaps for the purpose of making up any lost earnings.

The idea that the benefits that the person is receiving and the criminal injuries compensation provide for two distinct purposes is very important. It is for this reason that allowing one to influence the level of the other would be unfair. The Minister may consider that Clause 5 would have been a better place for these amendments. I hope that he will accept these amendments or undertake to bring them back at Third Reading in a more appropriate form. I hope he will reassure me that these simple amendments would be acceptable. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment. I had the privilege many years ago of being responsible for vaccine damage payments within the department and always tried to make a distinction between payments that were in lieu of earnings, which tended to be of the incapacity benefit sort, and payments which were a lump sum. Sometimes there was a structured payment of capital over a period of time as compensation for suffering and injury as opposed to an earnings replacement. We always excluded that second element from coming within the debiting of benefit. That distinction has been well drawn by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins.

I hope that the Minister can respect the ethics as well as the long history of making a distinction between getting an income replacement benefit—ESA, for example—and getting an element of compensation for damages, for suffering, for pain and so on. In my understanding that has always been protected and has not been debited against your rent. Otherwise it is not worth anything to you at all. That was never the intention of the law. I hope that the Minister can support the proposals of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Hollis of Heigham and Baroness Hollins

Monday 24th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hollins]

What I am going to talk about is very relevant to the discussion that has just taken place. I shall speak about Amendment 51CD first, whose purpose is to require Jobcentre Plus staff who are drawing up an individual claimant commitment to specifically address whether the claimant has a long-term health condition or impairment. There is growing evidence that the current system often fails to take adequate account of specific health needs of some individual claimants. This is relevant when considering compliance with the conditions that the claimant has agreed to as part of the assessment in the claimant commitment. It is a concern both when looking at a person’s performance during the work capability assessment and with respect to their ability to attend and fully explain their condition at the assessment.

The policy intention is for staff to make reasonable and appropriate adjustments as required by the Disability Discrimination Act. I was going to give noble Lords a different example, but last night I had a phone call from an acquaintance who is autistic—a middle-aged woman, who rang up to ask my advice about something. She does this quite regularly on a Sunday evening. I thought last night, “I really don’t want to have this conversation”—but in fact it was very useful, because halfway through the conversation she said, “I’ve just had this work capability assessment, and they have said that I have to join the work-related activity group”. She does not know what I do, apart from being a psychiatrist. So I said, “That’s really interesting. What conditions have been suggested and what is happening? Did they ask your doctor for advice?”. She is autistic, she has epilepsy and at the moment she has a neurological condition which is leading her to be quite unable to move very far or fast. She does not have very much insight and she has a recurrent depression, which is really not good at the moment. I find it quite difficult to imagine what conditions one would be able to put in place. I would love to see her back in work but, knowing her as I have done for 20 years, I really wonder. She said that as far as she knew, her doctor and her psychiatrist had not been asked for their opinion, so I thought, “I need to tell the Committee about her”.

The claimant commitment really should include specific reference to a health problem and to the agreed adjustments which should be made to enable a person to meet the conditions which are set. Another example was given: if somebody had agoraphobia and was perhaps unable to travel by bus or outside their own familiar neighbourhood, that would restrict where they could reasonably be expected to seek work. Yet there is some evidence that many quite ill people are being sanctioned because they have not been able to comply with conditionality, when such needs have not been taken into account.

Understanding that particular candidates have particular needs is the first step to ensuring that the claimant commitment is workable, which is of course what we are looking for. That awareness could be built on through training Jobcentre Plus staff. Good training is clearly vital but it is not enough to rely on, so that is the reason for this amendment. Many of these people will be covered by the Disability Discrimination Act and there is a requirement for the DWP to make reasonable adjustments, but I want to make sure that the question is specifically addressed in the claimant commitment so that it cannot be overlooked. I hope that the Minister will agree that staff training is not enough but that through this amendment, the requirement to make reasonable adjustments as part of the claimant commitment would make it more likely that appropriate action would be taken locally. I suggest that addressing the responsibility to make reasonable adjustments would in fact result in improvements in treatment for a lot of claimants and should be put into law.

The purpose of Amendment 51CE is to ensure that the work-focused health-related assessment process takes into account:

“Evidence from the claimant's own”,

doctors, who will of course have much fuller knowledge than the independent assessor. The purpose of these assessments is to highlight what they can do and what useful steps they can take to get back to work. It is important that they give as accurate a picture as possible of the impact of the claimant's condition on their daily life but the assessments carried out by an independent assessor, without access to the person's medical history, often fail to pick up vital information. If the healthcare professionals do not know somebody, a 40-minute assessment really is not long enough to fully appreciate the nature of a claimant's condition, particularly if it is complex. I propose that medical evidence from the claimant’s own doctors should become a key part of any work-focused health-related assessment.

Mind has written about a client who attended a work-capability assessment and failed to score any points, but what was not taken into consideration was that the client had a serious mental health problem and had been in hospital under Section 3 for six months prior to the assessment. She knew very little about her own condition and had a long history of hospitalisation.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

And she was found fit for work?

[Baroness Hollins]

Yes—she did not score any points. I would like to mention a small, recent study done by Citizens Advice and presented to the Select Committee looking into the personal independence payment proposals last week. It reviewed 37 reports. The claimants went through the report with the CAB adviser, looking mainly at the section where the healthcare professional is meant to record the claimant’s account of the impact of their impairment or health condition on their life. Sixteen of the 37 were reported to have a very substantial level of inaccuracy. The suggestion is that if information from the claimant's own healthcare professionals had been involved, the accuracy of those assessment reports would surely have been better. In another recent report commissioned by DWP, healthcare professionals working for Atos were interviewed and agreed that the provision of medical information from a claimant's own doctor is rather helpful in completing their own assessment.