Oral Answers to Questions

Alun Cairns Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Lady must understand that we are seeking to maximise the incentives in the system. What we inherited from the previous Administration is a system that is full of disincentives to go back to work. If we do not remove some of those disincentives, create a push to get people back into work and combine that with support to do so, we will end up with the same 13 years of failure as we saw under the previous Government.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

T10. The Barry branch of the mental health charity Mind often advocates in favour of service users at work assessment appeals, with a very high success rate. This demonstrates the difficulty in assessing people with mental health illnesses. What action is the Minister taking to ensure that they are treated fairly in the new work capability assessment?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend will see tomorrow, with the publication of the Harrington review, some innovative suggestions about how we can deal with that problem. It is a very real problem. I am determined to ensure that we do everything we can to avoid people with mental health problems being wrongly diagnosed by the assessment. I pay tribute to Paul Farmer of Mind, whose input into the process has been hugely valuable.