Work Capability Assessments

Baroness Clark of Kilwinning Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Chris Grayling]

A situation in which people are treated like that can never be acceptable. Of course, we have an issue with some people not turning up to appointments, and because it is an intensive programme, we do not want a health care professional sitting there without anything to do. Sometimes, we will get it wrong. We will try hard not to, but there is no such thing as a perfect system. That is true of all parts of the system. I openly accept that we will sometimes get it wrong, but we have done everything that we can to create a system that gets it right as often as possible. We have changed the nature of the work capability assessment in the process.

We make a much greater effort to ensure that we have proper medical evidence at each stage of the process from the consultants and specialists working with the people concerned. One reason why so many appeals were successful was that new evidence was emerging only at the appeal stage. We have worked hard to ensure that such evidence comes in much earlier in the process, so if we get it wrong in Jobcentre Plus, we will get new evidence there at a point of reconsideration. That is a crucial change. We are now ensuring that we seek out additional information in Jobcentre Plus before we take the first decision, but we have bolstered the reconsideration process to make it much quicker and more straightforward, so that if we get it wrong the first time, people can get a quick second opinion in Jobcentre Plus. That is crucial to getting the process right.

[Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Grayling]

I will not take interventions, because I have only five minutes and must get through a lot.

We have also tried to make the process more humane. People now get phone calls instead of the generated, standard letters that I regard as impersonal and inhuman. All our measures are part of a process of change that I hope will make a real difference to individuals’ experiences—and it is. Indeed, in his second report, Professor Harrington praises those involved in the process for creating a system that he, as an independent figure, regards as much improved.

As constituency MPs, we will always have people coming to our doors saying, “I am being done wrong by,” because sometimes, in an imperfect system, we will not have got it right. Equally, however, some people will still think that we have done wrong by them, but three years later, when they are back in work, they will say that it was the best thing that ever happened to them.

About a month ago, I sat with a woman in a Work programme centre who said that she had been off work with chronic depression for 13 years. She told me that she had arrived on her first day in the Work programme and said, “I can’t possibly work. This is ridiculous. I don’t know why I am here. I am being traduced.” A month later, she was doing voluntary work in a charity shop, applying for jobs and beginning to say, “Actually, this is good.” We are taking people through a difficult period in their lives.

I said “rubbish” to the final comment made by the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West not because he is not raising genuine issues—although I hope that I have explained their context—but because the system is not about forcing people into work. It is about finding the right number of people whom we can help into work. The alternative is to leave them on benefits for the rest of their lives, doing nothing. I do not believe that they benefit from that.