Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Griffiths and Mark Harper

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)]

1. What assessment he has made of the level of charges levied by doctors for completing benefit assessment information.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Harper)]

The Department is able to request medical information from doctors as part of the process of assessing an individual’s entitlement to benefit; for example, doctors have to complete the fit note and the ESA113 forms and they have also to complete, where we pay them, forms related to the application for the personal independence payment.

[Andrew Griffiths]

I thank the Minister for that answer, but East Staffordshire citizens advice bureau has raised with me concerns that GPs are charging vulnerable constituents of mine up to £135 to provide information requested as part of the work capability assessment. Although his Department is not responsible for those charges, does he share my concern that vulnerable people on benefits are being charged this amount of money and may actually not be able to access benefits to which they are entitled?

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. Certainly as far as the WCA for the employment and support allowance is concerned, GPs are contractually required to provide a fit note and to provide the ESA113 form, so perhaps if he and I speak afterwards I can get further details of the specific case he mentions, because it may raise some issues that need to be drawn to my attention.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Griffiths and Mark Harper

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

The Government have not made such an assessment, but the Electoral Commission found in its March 2010 report “The completeness and accuracy of electoral registers in Great Britain” that

“it is likely that the accuracy of the registers remains broadly similar to past decades”.

It is clear, however, that more can be done to support accuracy. To that end, I have announced that the Government will speed up the implementation of individual voter registration from 2014, which will ensure that only those entitled to vote get on the register, bringing greater protection against electoral fraud.

[Andrew Griffiths]

I thank the Minister for that answer. We hear a great deal from Labour Members about the missing 3.5 million people. Can he explain what was done over the past 13 years to help them? What are our Government going to do to ensure that people entitled to vote can do so?

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that, and I congratulate him on being elected to the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, where he can pursue his interest in these matters. He will know that when in government the Labour party did, to be fair, try a number of things, but the things it tried were not successful. We are going to introduce individual electoral registration and we are going to trial data-matching next year, so that we can see whether there are more effective ways of allowing electoral administrators to get people on the register when they are entitled to be on it.