Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateAlun Cairns
Main Page: Alun Cairns (Conservative - Vale of Glamorgan)Department Debates - View all Alun Cairns's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(12 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am pleased to be able to reassure my hon. Friend on this. I was in his county of Cornwall last week to meet Work programme providers in both the private and voluntary sectors, and what I saw was very encouraging. The progress they are making is similar to that being made elsewhere in the country, and there is no obvious sign of the regional variation he describes. I wish to pay tribute to the voluntary sector organisations I met, which are very involved in the Work programme. I pay particular tribute to Groundwork, which is running one of the most innovative motivational programmes for some of the hardest to help I have yet seen in the Work programme. That is, of course, helping his constituents and will do the right thing to help them into work.
18. What progress has been made on the implementation of the recommendations in Professor Harrington’s review of work capability assessments.
We are continuing to implement the reforms recommended to us by Professor Malcolm Harrington. He argued for a number of changes in his first report, all of which have been implemented, and we are in the process of implementing the changes recommended in his second report.
I thank the Minister for his response. One third of employment and support allowance claimants have mental health conditions and a significant number of initial work capability assessment decisions are overturned on appeal when further evidence becomes available about their condition. What action is the Minister taking to ensure that medical evidence is taken on board at a very early stage in order to prevent a number of appeals?
This is one area where we have worked very hard to secure a change. A large amount of new evidence was indeed appearing only at the appeal stage and that was one of the key things that Professor Harrington suggested we address. We are now bringing in medical evidence much earlier—at the start of the process, when the decisions are taken or when a reconsideration is taking place in Jobcentre Plus. There are now few circumstances in which new evidence appears at the appeal stage, and that is really important.