Personal Independence Payments

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

I shall do my best to respond to the noble Baroness, who of course knows so much about this area. On waiting times, we are committed to processing PIP claims as quickly as possible while ensuring that we have all the evidence we need to make the right decisions. A key issue has been not having sufficient medical information in the first instance. We are working with the NHS to see what we can do to rectify that. In the last quarter, February to April 2019, 55,097 claims on average were processed each month. The average new claim or reassessment claim waits just six weeks for assessment. However, PIP is needs based and not condition based, and reviews are a key part of the benefit to ensure that the right support continues to be delivered.

In a nutshell, we believe that PIP is working so much better. There were originally some quite difficult issues around it. We are constantly working to improve the situation. That is why now have a mental health champion in each PIP assessment centre. We are making sure that there are experts behind each assessor. We have videos to help people understand what the process is so that they can feel comfortable about that engagement at the assessment centre. We also encourage people to come with a trusted third-party individual to support them through that often quite emotional process.

Yes, it is a complex process. We are committed to doing all we can. We will report back to the House with further information in relation to the Supreme Court’s decision, but we continue to spend more on supporting those with mental health issues—quite rightly.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, notwithstanding what the Minister says about the judgment, it is clear that there are still major problems with assessment of disabled people for benefits. Figures recently obtained from the DWP under the Freedom of Information Act indicated that more than a third of PIP assessments carried out by Capita were found to be defective—up 4% in the two years since 2016. This makes it clear that things are going in the wrong direction, and not the right direction as the Government habitually claim when such concerns are raised. What can the Minister say to assure the House that the Government are getting on top of these problems?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, we are working hard to get on top of these problems, and no one is working harder than my honourable friend in another place the Minister for Disabled People, Justin Tomlinson MP. We recognise that for the most severely disabled claimants the award review process can seem unnecessarily intrusive. That is why those with most severe lifetime disabilities are more likely to have their evidence reviewed by a DWP case manager without the need for another face-to-face assessment, which we know has caused issues. Additionally, in August 2018 we introduced updated guidance for case managers which will ensure that those who receive the highest level of support under PIP, where their needs are unlikely to change or may even get worse, will now receive an ongoing award with a light-touch review at the end of the 10-year period. As I said earlier, we are working hard with the NHS to see what more we can do to get the right medical evidence to make sure that we make the right decision in the first instance.

Benefit Changes: Vulnerable People

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, even if it was not always such a pleasure to listen to some of the things of which she spoke. I declare my interest as a vice president of RNIB, the Royal National Institute of Blind People, from which I got much of my information for this debate. The RNIB is the UK’s leading sight loss charity, representing the 350,000 people in this country who are registered blind or partially sighted and the 2 million or so living with sight loss.

This debate is about the impact of recent benefit changes on vulnerable groups. Blind and partially sighted people are a vulnerable group, so I propose to talk about them. The most significant change to benefits since 2010 has probably been the introduction of universal credit, replacing six pre-existing benefits with a single monthly payment for those who are out of work or on a low income. The numbers of blind and partially sighted people migrating to universal credit are so far too small for us to be able to say with certainty what impact the change to universal credit has had on people with sight loss. However, RNIB anticipates that the migration to universal credit will cause issues for blind and partially sighted people and has welcomed the announcement by the Secretary of State that the process will be slowed down to allow concerns to be addressed. RNIB shares the broader concerns of the disability sector about universal credit, including the built-in five-week wait, how the transitional payments will work and the obligation to make a new claim for universal credit, rather than being transitioned automatically.

For blind or partially sighted claimants, there are also some specific issues that need addressing around the accessibility of the process. There are at least 20,000 blind or partially sighted people who have still to migrate to universal credit, and accessibility issues must be resolved before universal credit is rolled out completely. The Government would do well to explore with RNIB how it can help monitor the rollout through RNIB’s benefits helpline. How will the department ensure that the universal credit application process is accessible to the 20,000 blind and partially sighted claimants who have still to migrate to the new benefit?

The process for assessment of benefits is often as important as the benefits themselves. RNIB was very pleased to be involved in a workshop on work capability assessments that took place last January. It was good to see how the views and experiences of a system that was not working for people with sight loss were taken on board by officials. However, the idea that emerged from the Secretary of State at the beginning of March, that the work capability assessment and the assessment for PIP could be brought much closer together, was concerning. While change is needed to better reflect the impact of sight loss, this is not the way to do it. The assessments are carried out for different purposes and use different criteria. RNIB receives too many calls to its advice service from blind and partially sighted people who have received a poor assessment to enable us to have confidence in the system. Some 90% of PIP appeals that RNIB has supported are successful, which makes it clear that much needs to improve with the assessments before they can be brought closer together. How will the department ensure that any rationalisation of the PIP and work capability assessment processes will not have a detrimental effect on blind and partially sighted people?

In its current form, the work capability assessment, which determines a person’s eligibility for work capability within universal credit, and employment and support allowance, unfairly differentiate between blind and partially sighted people who use Braille and those who do not. This is because the ability of a blind or partially sighted person to read Braille can prevent them being eligible for the limited capability for work-related activity component, which puts them in the support group—or, in some cases, from receiving any additional support at all.

Activity 7 has an equivalent under Schedule 3 to the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations 2013, and Schedule 7 to the Universal Credit Regulations 2013. The inclusion of Braille in activity 7 means that the ability to read Braille counts towards a blind or partially sighted person’s fitness for work. No points are awarded to someone who can use Braille to understand a basic message. In practice, this means that someone who has learned Braille could be prevented from meeting the criteria for ESA based solely on their ability to read Braille.

In income-related ESA, which is now incorporated into universal credit, this could mean that the claimant would not be entitled to the support component, worth £163.15 a month, and would be put into the work-related activity group and required to participate in work-focused interviews. Under universal credit, the claimant would not be entitled to a work capability element worth £328.32 a month, and would have work preparation conditionality in their claimant commitment. In new-style ESA, the claimant’s eligibility to contribution-based ESA would be limited to 365 days, after which time their entitlement would end.

RNIB has advocated for the removal of Braille since it was introduced into the work capability assessment in 2012. While it is acknowledged that the DWP has recently started to consult stakeholders on wider work capability assessment reform, this is at a very early stage, and the current assessment framework is likely to be in place for the foreseeable future. Braille should therefore be removed from the work capability assessment now to make it fairer for blind and partially sighted people and to improve future decision-making. I therefore ask the Minister whether the Government will take steps to remove knowledge of Braille from activity 7 of the work capability assessment.

Personal Independence Payment

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

The answer to all those questions is simply yes.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, what the Minister says is all very well but she will be aware of the publicity recently given by the chairman of Scope to inconsistencies that he experienced in his assessment for PIP, with different weightings being given to characteristics that had not changed from one assessment to another. What reassurance about the fairness of the system can the Minister give to people like the chairman of Scope, for whom this is an all too common experience?

[Baroness Buscombe]

I think it is important not to conflate the appeals figures with assessment or decision-making quality. Having said that, we are constantly looking at how we assess the quality of those decisions. On the appeals themselves, oral evidence, which is critical in determining appeal outcomes at tribunal, often greatly assists in drawing out the right evidence more effectively, as the Social Security Advisory Committee has said. New written evidence provided at the hearing that has not previously been seen by decision-makers can make the difference. Also, tribunals sometimes draw a different conclusion based on the same evidence. However, it is important to add that we are talking about nine different possible awards, and each and every one of those is capable of mandatory appeal. It is not so straightforward when people have such individual and complex needs.

Disabled People

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I join others in congratulating the right reverend Prelate on her impressive maiden speech and also the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, on securing this debate. It is extremely timely because the challenges facing disabled people are at a critical point. There is something of a stand-off between disabled people, their organisations and the Government, and the Government just do not seem to be listening.

In Being Disabled in Britain—A Journey Less Equal, the Equality and Human Rights Commission recently assessed the state of equality and human rights for disabled people in Britain and concluded:

“While progress has been made in some areas, the overall picture … is that disabled people are facing more barriers and falling further behind. … millions of disabled people … are still not being treated as equal citizens and continue to be denied the everyday rights non-disabled people take for granted, such as being able to access transport, appropriate health services and housing, or benefit from education and employment. The disability pay gap is persistent and widening, access to justice has deteriorated, and welfare reforms have significantly affected the already low living standards of disabled people”.


Since 2016, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has published two reports examining the UK’s record on disability. In both reports the committee expressed serious concerns that the level of protection and support provided to disabled people was not adequate. In 2016, the committee considered a formal complaint under the optional protocol from a number of organisations of disabled people and found that, as a result of austerity measures, there was reliable evidence of “grave or systematic violations” of disabled people’s rights to an adequate standard of living and social protection, to work and employment, and to independent living. After reviewing the UK in August 2017, the committee published its concluding observations, which raised significant concerns about disability rights in the UK and made over 80 recommendations for action by the UK Government and the devolved Governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

In March this year, the EHRC published a cumulative impact assessment of the impact of changes to the tax and benefit system since 2010 on different groups—something the Government said could not be done. Households with one or more disabled members are significantly more adversely affected than those with no disabled members. On average, families with a disabled adult have lost about £2,500 a year since the changes in 2010. If the family also includes a disabled child, the impact is just over £6,500—over 13% of average net income. This compares to a reduction of about £1,000 for non-disabled families. Negative impacts are particularly large for households with more disabled members and more severely disabled members. On average, disabled lone parents with at least one disabled child fare even worse, losing almost £3 out of every £10 of their net income. In cash terms, their average losses are almost £10,000 a year. Figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Professor John Hills of LSE tell a very similar story.

Of all the challenges facing disabled people, one of the greatest is the Government themselves. When opposing the £29 a week cut to employment and support allowance which the Government introduced in 2016, I said:

“By this action, the Government have betrayed the trust of disabled people and they should not be surprised if they forfeit it for the rest of their time in office”.—[Official Report, 7/3/16; col. 1074.]


That is still my view, but the Government could still begin to turn things round if they got behind the UN committee’s recommendations and began implementing them—and reversed the cut to ESA, of course. A good start would be for them to begin engaging with disabled people and their organisations, which they are not doing at the moment. They could hold a summit with organisations for disabled people to co-produce an action plan for taking the rights of disabled people forward or, slightly more long term, they could set up a task force with the same agenda, like the Labour Government did at the beginning of their term in 1997. I should be most interested to hear whether the Minister would be interested in taking either of these ideas forward with her colleagues.

Improving Lives: The Future of Work, Health and Disability

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s objective to get 1 million more disabled people into employment over the next 10 years. The Minister will recall the review, Halving the Gap, which I led with the noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Meacher, with support from disability charities. That review looked specifically at the £30 a week cut to employment and support allowance and the corresponding limited capability for work component of universal credit. Over half of the disabled people who responded to our call for evidence said that the cut would push them further from the workplace rather than closer to it. Does the Minister agree that, in the light of that, it is time to reconsider this damaging cut, which can only have the effect of making it more difficult for the Government to achieve their objective?

[Baroness Buscombe]

As the noble Lord, Lord Low, will know, employment and support allowance was introduced in 2008 to replace incapacity benefit and income support. Since the ESA, as we call it, was introduced, we have conducted five independent reviews of the work capability assessment and have accepted and implemented the majority of recommendations. As to cuts, we spend more than £50 billion a year on benefits to support disabled people and people with health conditions, an increase of more than £7 billion since 2010. This is 2.5% of GDP and over 6% of government spending. This demonstrates that we are doing all we can to support the very people the noble Lord references.

Work Capability Assessment

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Monday 9th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, the Improving Lives Green Paper was published in October 2016. I am pleased that we received around 6,000 consultation responses supported by 166 accessible events across the country. That is good; it is all about us listening to people, to understand what is truly needed and how we can tailor support to meet the needs of different people. Since the Green Paper consultation, our officials have been working hard to analyse that fantastic response. We are working towards an autumn publication which will set out our response to the consultation and how it has informed what we are going to do next.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, to ensure that the work capability assessment is fit for purpose, will the Government undertake to carry out a thorough inquiry into the alarming reports that assessors are disregarding evidence of unfitness to work put before them by claimants; and that claimants are even taking their own lives as a result of the stress to which they are subjected by work capability assessments, something which has been confirmed by coroners’ findings?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, it is important to point out that we are talking about approximately 2.4 million claimants who make up the employment support allowance caseload. Obviously the references made by the noble Lord to particular individuals are of concern, but the nominal expenditure forecast for 2017-18 is £15.3 billion. In that case, we have to proceed with care in the changes we make, to ensure that the delivery of assessments works for everyone. Since the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments took over the contract to carry out assessments in 2015, a number of improvements have been made to claimants’ experience of them. The number of HCPs has been increased by 68%—

Brexit: Disabled People

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for securing this debate and giving us the opportunity to discuss this important question. When we debated the question of withdrawing from the EU last June, I said it was clear to me that disabled people would get a much better deal by remaining within the EU. In my experience, it has always been possible to get much more for disabled people from the EU than from our own Government, of whatever complexion. Now that we have decided to leave, it is important to make sure that the benefits disabled people presently derive from being in the EU are maintained by the United Kingdom.

Most of the benefits come from the single market. To take just three examples, first, in 2014 disabled people successfully influenced the revision of the EU’s public procurement directive. Accessibility is now a mandatory criterion for all public tenders above a certain financial threshold. According to the European Commission, public procurement accounts for 14% of the EU’s GDP. At home, according to a 2015 House of Commons briefing paper, in 2013-14 the UK public sector spent a total of £242 billion on procurement of goods and services—33% of public sector spending. In sectors such as energy, transport, waste management, social protection, and health and education services, public authorities are the main buyers, so public procurement regulations offer a substantial lever for improving accessibility and bringing about change, just as they did in the United States many years ago.

Secondly, on the accessibility of the world wide web, despite strong resistance initially from national Governments, we now have a directive that ensures the accessibility of all public sector bodies’ websites. It covers their mobile applications and includes an enforcement mechanism. This means that disabled citizens can access e-government services right across Europe. In conjunction with the previously mentioned new rules on public procurement, this directive ensures that industry delivers digital solutions that are accessible to all. We already have European standards for accessible ICT, but technology is moving very rapidly in this area and it is good to have this new legislation to ensure that disabled people are able to keep up.

Finally on accessibility of goods and services, the European Commission has now tabled a proposal for a directive that would harmonise accessibility requirements across the EU for a wide range of goods and services, including smartphones, computers, ticket machines, ATMs, retailers’ websites, banking, e-books and associated hardware such as Amazon’s Kindle, and audio-visual media services and related equipment. Travel-related information is also included. Items not complying with the standards will not be able to be brought to market. This proposal does not include everything one would want and is still under negotiation—it does not include white goods such as washing machines and microwaves, for instance—but it goes much further than anything we have in this country. In the UK, the Equality Act does not apply to manufacturers and manufactured goods.

The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, referred to concerns that withdrawal from the EU will put at risk the implementation of disability awareness training for bus drivers as well as measures to ensure the audibility of electric and hybrid vehicles. Regulations requiring bus drivers to undertake disability awareness training are due to come into effect in 2018. The requirement was due to come into force in 2013, but the Government made use of a derogation to delay it. It would indeed be a perverse result of Brexit if, instead of being just delayed, the regulation was lost altogether.

The EU regulation on sound levels of motor vehicles would mean that all new quiet vehicles must be fitted with an acoustic vehicle alerting system, or AVAS, by 2021. But again, it is now unclear whether this regulation will be incorporated into UK law once the UK has left the EU. Will the Government commit to the introduction of disability awareness training for all bus drivers and to ensuring that all quiet electric and hybrid vehicles are rendered audible, with a clear deadline for installing acoustic vehicle alerting systems on all quiet vehicles?

From the point of view of disabled people, there can be no doubt that it would make sense for the UK to remain a member of the single market. If we do not, and if we are to safeguard the interests of disabled people, we need, on Brexit, to bring across as many of the benefits of the single market as possible. I trust that the great repeal Bill will do this and that we will choose to hang on to as many of the benefits thus transposed as possible.

Improving Lives: Green Paper

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

I too thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and would like to add my word of welcome for this Green Paper. The objective of halving the disability employment gap is commendable, and a lot of work and thinking have been going on in the department about how to achieve it. I commend the Minister and the department on that, and I look forward to studying the product of that activity in the Green Paper more carefully than I have had the opportunity to do so far.

Can I just make a plea for the Minister to revisit the reduction that was made to employment and support allowance going to those in the WRAG in the most recent session of Parliament? As the Minister knows, we had long discussions about this and there would be widespread agreement, even if the Minister did not share it, that although those asking the Government to revisit that cut lost the vote, they won the argument on this one. If the Government do not revisit this cut with a view to cancelling or at least ameliorating it, they will find that they have shot themselves in the foot and prevented themselves even getting to first base in the matter of halving the disability employment gap.

This cut to employment support allowance will hinder people’s ability to look for work by undermining their ability to pay for well-being activities that help recovery and enable them to consider paid work; will make people more worried and stressed, thus impacting their mental health; will have an impact on work-related activity such as travel to appointments or volunteering opportunities; and will make it harder to attend training courses and work-focused interviews if people are already struggling to meet basic needs. That is a substantial argument, which was developed in detail by the charities that produced the report on the impact of the cut to ESA. The case was well made and the deleterious impact of the cut was demonstrated beyond any doubt. Again, I ask the Minister to revisit this if he wants to attain his objectives.

[Lord Freud]

I very much regret having to say that we are not in a position to look again at that measure. The WRAG was not doing what it was designed to do. What we are now looking at in the Green Paper is how to separate the financial aspects of the benefit from the support that people require.

Unemployment: Disabled People

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

We are moving the emphasis away from more general support programmes such as the Work Programme towards the work and health programme because many of the people who need support have disability barriers. It is right for the new emphasis to be there. I absolutely accept the noble Baroness’s point about people with learning disabilities. There are some shocking figures on this and it is a key issue. There are some 1.1 million people with learning disabilities and only around 6% of those are getting into work. Clearly, if we want to halve the gap, that is a central group for us to pay attention to.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, there was a lot of disappointment on the part of disabled people at the Government’s response to my noble friend Lady Deech’s Select Committee. Is the Minister willing to consider coming up with a plan of action for implementing the Select Committee’s recommendations, or establishing a task force with disabled people and their organisations to come up with a plan?

Personal Independence Payment

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann]

I certainly join my noble friend in congratulating the new director-general. I have already been working on his excellent suggestion and have made inquiries about how many of our assessors are disabled. I am assured that applications for assessors are open to people regardless of disability. Indeed, we would welcome disabled people applying to be assessors as they would be very well placed to make these assessments, but we do not have the figures at the moment to be able to report to the House how many of our assessors are disabled.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, nearly 14,000 disabled people have been forced to give up their Motability car following implementation of the new PIP rules on mobility. Motability provides a support package to anyone forced to leave the scheme as a result. This helps people to remain mobile, in many cases by purchasing a used car. What support will the Government give to Motability to enable it to provide the support package for those forced off the scheme?

[Baroness Altmann]

The noble Lord rightly cites that Motability offers a support package. It has volunteered to do so given its financial position, and very generously offered to help those who lose their Motability car. I stress that although some people lost their cars, overall some 22,000 more people now have a Motability car under the PIP scheme.