Personal Independence Payments

Anna McMorrin Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Laura Pidcock]

The balance is that thousands of people are locked out of the system and never even get an award because they are so ground down by the process. The Government need to realise what a cruel and callous system they are putting people through and the knock-on effect that has on our constituents. I am a bit shocked by the disbelief on the Conservative side—they look stunned that this is taking place. That is the reality for disabled people in this country. People are falling further into depression and self-harm, having suicidal thoughts and becoming reliant on food banks. All of those things are harmful for our society. Losing Motability cars was a consistent theme, along with falling into debt. The NHS is also being put under much strain.

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Laura Pidcock]

I will make a bit more progress.

In the past seven years of this Government, the Department for Work and Pensions has become a harsher and colder organisation. A culture has grown through successive Secretaries of State that sees claimants as numbers and fraudsters instead of people with needs, and a burden on the state rather than citizens with potential. The Government’s own figures put the rate of fraud for PIP at 1.4%—not even worth talking about—yet the system is built on the presumption that people are lying and need to be found out.

Here is a symbol of that callousness: a few weeks ago in my surgery, one of my constituents showed me a decision letter telling her that she was no longer entitled to PIP—her lifeline. The letter was dated 25 December—merry Christmas from the DWP. That is far from the most shocking story. Over the past week, I have read several hundred testimonies from people who have suffered under the system.

A whole community out there has been frightened, mistreated and intimidated by the Government, the media and the DWP. I will read a few of those testimonies—they put things much better than me—before drawing my speech to a conclusion. One says:

“I hope change can be made as presently the PIP system is too brutal, rigid and unfair to people like me who want to live an able life despite disability”.

Another says:

“Why are they treating disabled citizens as though we are undeserving of welfare support?”

Another says:

“I do not want to be in this situation. I am not choosing this life or lifestyle. I am a human being with feelings and emotions. I need help, support and understanding, not being ridiculed or made to feel like a criminal and waste of space and a burden on society or that I am going to be caught out at any opportunity for my disability.”

This one was the most striking:

“being on benefits is like being in an abusive relationship with the state. We cannot escape our abusers, we need them, we are financially dependent on them”.

This is what I ask of the Government: remove the contracts from Atos and Capita with immediate effect and bring the assessments back in-house; remove the assessors’ bonuses; abolish the mandatory reconsideration step of the process, because it is utterly pointless; make it compulsory to take medical documentation into account at the initial assessment, because it is traumatic for people to have to go through their medical conditions in detail, and the evidence from professionals is already there. There must be consequences for inaccurate assessment reports about people’s health conditions, and we should redesign the assessment process alongside disabled people so that it accepts a social model of disability, not a medical model.

The judgment against the Government towards the end of last year when, as was mentioned, a High Court judge said the changes were “blatantly discriminatory,” should give the Minister pause for thought. It is an opportunity for reflection. What has become of not just this Government but our society when we treat people as criminals and fraudsters for being disabled? Do they really know what fear is experienced across this nation at the clatter of the letterbox? People are scared that there might be a brown envelope from the DWP. It is time for the Government to admit that the system is a disaster and that a review of PIP and the whole benefit system is urgently needed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock) on securing this important debate. I will reinforce the points made by a number of Members this morning. To put it quite bluntly, I believe that the emotional trauma caused by PIP and the Government’s approach to its administration has led to suffering on what can only be described as an enormous scale.

I will give one example of a constituent, as her case illustrates the fundamental problems with PIP, and then make two other brief points. My constituent suffers from chronic long-term and debilitating back pain, which was made worse in the aftermath of an operation, during which she suffered terribly. However, after her disability living allowance was terminated, she was awarded much less support through PIP and her mobility car was taken away from her because she had not scored enough points in the arbitrary assessment. Ironically, it can be said that, in this and many other cases, personal independence payments reduce people’s personal independence and mobility. That is one of the fundamental problems with this system that we need to consider today.

I will briefly address two other points; I realise other colleagues would like to speak. First, the length of time that people suffer because of the trauma caused by the system is a problem. It is important to note that, all too often, the ordeal does not stop with the assessment, which is just the beginning of a very lengthy process. My constituent lives in flat so small that there is not even room for her husband to stay. She has to contend with living alone in cramped conditions and in pain. As if that were not bad enough, she is having to find the strength to challenge her initial assessment report formally, because it does not reflect her condition or what she said to the so-called health professional.

There is a wider issue, which was mentioned earlier, about whether due weight is given to medical evidence. In certain cases, the written evidence of GPs and consultants has been discounted or not given proper consideration because, according to the DWP, they are regarded as the applicant’s advocate and are therefore, in the warped world of PIP assessments, somehow biased. The irony is that the Government give total credence to the advice given by their own so-called health professionals, who, as we have heard, are not necessarily trained in the area of medicine that they are due to assess. Reconsideration of that issue in particular should be a top priority for the Government.

[Anna McMorrin]

I want to set out the case of a constituent who came to me. A medical professional, he was terminally ill and had weeks to live, but he was advised that he would be eligible for PIP only from December of that year. His partner was distraught, as was he. He wanted to use that money for the last few weeks of his life. It turned out that there had been an administrative error, but they had to come to me to sort that out. That is a disgrace.

[Matt Rodda]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I would like to make a suggestion to the Government. How about going back to the drawing board and designing a system that listens to people and allows them to express their issues in their own words. Above all, how about developing a system that demonstrates real compassion and decency, which we had for many decades in our welfare state? The Government can and must do better. It is so obvious that the current system is designed and contrived to cut public spending. I ask the Government to think again.