Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Thomas of Winchester and Lord Touhig

Wednesday 16th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester]

My Lords, I strongly support this amendment and perhaps I might read it out, because it is a long time since we first started talking about it. It would insert:

“including a requirement for the decision maker to collect evidence from the claimant’s own health care professionals as a part of the decision making process”.

There is a strong suspicion that this is not always done. The only thing that I would quibble with in that amendment is that not only does the decision-maker have to collect evidence, it has to be taken into account when the decision-making process is gone into.

My question for my noble friend is about a sentence that I found in one of the documents we were given—I cannot now remember which one it is. It says:

“Decision Makers will change erroneous decisions rather than send them to a Tribunal”.

The next sentence says:

“If a claimant’s points at issue are not resolved, they can still appeal to the HM Courts & Tribunals Service”.

I had to go to a tribunal having had my papers re-examined, presumably by a decision- maker. What will change about the process now with PIP? I am not quite sure, reading between the lines, what the two sentences that I have read out mean. Are things going to change from now, or not?

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, I have already spoken in this debate but I ask the Committee’s indulgence to make one other brief comment. The noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, has tabled Amendment 86ZAA in this group. Yesterday, she was mortified when she realised that she has a commitment today which it is impossible to break and she cannot be here. I know that she has apologised to the Minister. She has asked me to extend that apology to the whole Committee and asked that I make one brief comment on her behalf. If she had been here, she would have said that if a person has a clearly diagnosed and irreversible condition, they should not be required to have continuing assessments as it causes them concern and adds unnecessary cost to the system. I think that point has been made by other noble Lords in the debate, but the noble Baroness was really keen to get that point on the record and, again, she apologises for not being here today.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Thomas of Winchester and Lord Touhig

Monday 14th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Touhig]

What’s in a name? I come from south-east Wales where these things are important. We all call the Department for Work and Pensions the DWP, but in my part of Wales “dwp” is a word; it means “stupid”. It seems to me that if we are creating a new benefit, it ought to have some relation to the people it is supposed to support.

I am president of a group at home called Access. It campaigns on behalf of people with disabilities. Our members are middle-aged and militant. If they see cars parked on pavements, they stick stickers on them saying, “Pavements are for people. Shift it”, and they go back to check whether the cars have been moved. When the town centre was being redesigned, they persuaded two council officials to sit in wheelchairs and said, “You try to get into town and see the problems”. I talked to some members recently about this because they were asking about the new benefit and what a personal independence payment is. One, who I have known for many years, said to me, “I am not independent. I am wheelchair-bound and dependent on my husband, my family and my friends. Surely the benefit ought to reflect the fact that it is support for me as a disabled person”. So I have every sympathy with those who have tabled this amendment. It is important that the name reflects the people that it is to support and aid. It is quite reasonable to propose that “disability” should be in the name of this new benefit.

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester]

My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with this amendment. I shall get my interest out of the way at the outset of this Committee stage as I, too, receive DLA. I shall be very brief. It is almost as though the Government want to airbrush the word “disability” out of the picture. I cannot think why, except that they want to signal a change of approach. It is this very fact that is making disabled people so worried that they may not qualify for the new benefit. Can my noble friend say why the words “personal independence payments” were used and whether it is too late to change things? This is not something I would die in a ditch over because there are so many other things in the Bill that may be in that category, but not having the word “disability” in the name is a terrible mistake, so I support this amendment.