Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Wilkins Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Freud]

As I said in the previous debate, taking on board advice from a claimant’s own medical practitioner and other sources is part of the process here. To pick up the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, for claimants in the work preparation group, we intend to carry forward the current system of home visits to claimants with mental health problems to ensure we understand why they fail to comply. Of course, all sanction decisions can be referred to an independent tribunal, helping ensure we get it right. But equally, we intend to move away from extensive—and ultimately incomplete—lists and regulations. It is impractical for legislation to catch all the relevant matters that may arise in every single case of non-compliance, and the lengthy JSA regulations—which have matters that must and may be taken into account in determining whether a claimant has good reason—are not actually helpful for decision-makers or claimants.

To pick up the point from the noble Baronesses, Lady Meacher and Lady Hollins, on the work capability assessment, we do rely on the WCA and therefore Professor Harrington’s review is critical to help us get it right. Claimants should be placed only in a work preparation or a work-related requirements group where they are capable of meeting these very basic requirements. Once in those groups, clients will need to take account of their health condition. They are designed to take on board all the available evidence on that individual.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, asked what happened with the Harrington review. As noble Lords know, we took on board the entirety of Malcolm Harrington’s first recommendations. The main thing was to empower decision makers to make the right decisions. In response to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, we have introduced a mental health co-ordinator in each district who has an outward-facing role working with mental health services and an inward-facing role developing the knowledge and confidence of advisers. The other area of Professor Harrington’s advice that was taken up was on improving our communications so that claimants understand the process and the result and are able to add additional evidence if they need to. In response, we have also made improvements in mental health with mental function champions across the network at Atos. Professor Harrington is currently undertaking his second independent review. We are waiting for it, and we will then look very hard at what to do with those recommendations. We will take them very seriously.

Turning to Amendment 51E on work-focused health-related assessments, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, will know that these assessments have been suspended because they were not working as intended. We will re-evaluate, as I have already said. I have already offered to write to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, on care leavers, and I will add that topic to that letter.

I do not want noble Lords to feel that I am being negative in this area, and it is over-easy to think that I am. I have valued the contributions noble Lords have made. I do not see these things as appropriate for the Bill, but I am clearly going to consider deeply the points that have been made today with the aim of applying them appropriately as we implement the system. I value what noble Lords have said. It resonates. We need to get it right. On that basis, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Wilkins]

I totally take the fact that the Minister is setting out a system in which claimants should be confident that they are being helped and that that is the purpose of the system. However, does he accept that existing claimants have to overcome an enormous amount of negative experience because of the Atos system so there is an enormous mountain to climb?

[Lord Freud]

The noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, makes a point, which we have actually discussed in the Chamber in the past. She knows my concern about this. I think that the Atos and WCA process is genuinely improving now, with the changes that have been made. A lot of the stories that we have are of the system as it was, unreformed. It is gradually improving. That is not to say that it is now perfect—that is not my claim. We are committed to getting the process right, and we inherited that process. I know the concerns that there are, seeing them at first hand in many cases. It is a terrible balance between abandoning people and saying, “You’re out of the economic life of this country” and then trying to pull them in in a coherent way. Getting that balance right, as all noble Lords here today understand, is complicated and a path that we are moving down. But I am determined that we will get to a position where we are doing it with the right balance.