Incapacity Benefit Migration

Debate between Chris Bryant and Sheila Gilmore

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant]

I do not want to leap from that to the suggestion that someone who is in receipt of disability benefit is not a hero. The situation often depends on someone’s family and community support, the nature of their condition and so on. Sometimes a single condition may be predictable in how it will play out for the rest of the sufferer’s life. Other conditions, particularly degenerative ones, are much more chaotic and their effects cannot be predicted.

[Sheila Gilmore]

There will always be people at all levels of society who try to exploit the system. Many people who are being found to be fit for work may need much more attention to their special situation. Many people with learning disabilities need a lot of help and support to hold down jobs. A voluntary organisation in my constituency runs a café and bakery, and trains learning-disabled youngsters, but the problem for many of them is that working in mainstream catering would be difficult, and they could not cope with McDonalds or Starbucks.

[Chris Bryant]

I do not go to Starbucks any more because of tax issues, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right.

I do not want to stereotype the Rhondda, but my surgery is held in a room with thin walls and by the end of the encounter with my constituent we were shouting at one another. When he left the room saying he was going to report me to the police—I was not sure what for—everyone queuing outside applauded me, not him, because they had the same attitude as everyone else: stealing from the system is fraud, and it is theft from other people. There is no innocence, and in one sense it is the worst form of theft. However, the level of such fraud is small, and such stories are sometimes blown up out of all proportion so people get the impression that everyone is at it, which is not true.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

No, not him personally—paying the Government. Will the Minister clarify exactly how anyone is arriving at a figure and what that figure is likely to be, because it will undoubtedly affect whatever the tender process is for a new contract? Will he also lay out exactly how he thinks that new tender process will go? Does he have a time scale for it? When does he think that might be in play?

I note that Atos said that it has been worried about death threats for its staff and so on. Even if we were to take out of the equation the fact that lots of people think Atos has done a terrible job—people have been able to point to some terrible mistakes and hideous instances where people who were either already dead or nearly dead were being told that they were fit for work, which has undoubtedly inspired a great deal of anger—whoever is doing work capability assessments in future will have to make unpopular decisions, by definition, because they will be turning some people down. What assessment have the Government made of the provision that there needs to be in any tender process, or for that matter, in future ongoing relations with whatever company will be doing this, to make sure that there is protection and that security is not compromised?

Capacity is another issue. Certainly by mid-2010 or by the end of 2010, it was pretty clear that there were not enough doctors and other medical staff—or, for that matter, administrative staff—to be able to do the work at Atos, so how do we make sure in any future tender that that does not happen all over again? It means that even if the Government want to say, “We are going to do more assessments,” they are unable to do so, which is why, because of the capacity problems, the Government have had to change what they are doing about people who are already coming up for reassessment after two years. Making sure that the capacity is there from the start is an important part of it.

As I said, the Government have now suspended reassessment for those on ESA for two years. I wonder what the cost of that is now going to be. I presume that the Government have made an assessment of that, because they would have been presuming that the reassessment was there for a purpose and that it would take more people off ESA. I wonder how many people they reckon will stay on who, in a sense, they would have thought otherwise might not be on it. The Government made assumptions when they introduced the policy, which they are presumably now unbundling. What are they assessing the future cost to be for each of the future years? How many people does that affect? How many people on ESA for two years would have been being assessed now, but are not being assessed?

On cost, the Office for Budget Responsibility report states:

“ESA is higher by £0.8 billion in 2014-15 and 2015-16…because the latest evidence suggests the caseload is higher than we assumed in December, despite substantial upward revisions made at that time. We have also updated the modelling on repeat work capability assessments, which has increased our assumption about the length of time and number of claimants waiting for a repeat assessment, meaning more claims continue for longer”.

It may be that I have just answered my previous question to the Minister, because it may be that the £800 million is all to do with not doing the extra reassessments—in which case, does he have any idea when we might be able to start doing reassessments? That might be a capacity question, but that £800 million is a significant cost.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Given that reassessments have been delayed or suspended—out of necessity, it appears, rather than conviction—does my hon. Friend agree that this might be an appropriate time to look again at reassessment periods? Part of the criticism has been that people, even those in the support group, are being called back for reassessment relatively frequently, and that that is an expensive, distressing and probably pointless activity. Given that we now have a hiatus in the system, is it not time to look at all that again?

[Chris Bryant]

I think that we always have to keep the matter under review; otherwise we are wasting time and energy on a process that is just injurious to the health of people whom we are trying to help, and at a cost to the taxpayer that does not provide a dividend. So, yes, of course the Government should do that. I was just hoping that the Government would be able to say whether the £800 million relates to the people who would have been reassessed. How many people will continue to receive benefits even though the Government have basically decided that they should not?

I want to talk about access to mental health services, because one of the issues that arose in Health questions earlier this week was that there has been a significant fall-off in the availability of talking therapies, and there is clear evidence that talking therapies, whether cognitive behavioural therapy or others, are predominantly concentrated in areas where there are fewer people on the various kinds of incapacity benefit. That is rather unhelpful to the process of trying to get people with mental health needs back into work, so I wonder what strategy the Government have to try to ensure that it is addressed.

Incidentally, one other thought occurs to me in relation to the point that my hon. Friend has just made. There are only so many doctors in Britain. If the Government decide to take a lot of doctors into Atos to make assessments of people’s fitness for work, there is a danger that they will simply be taking doctors out of the national health service, and that may have an impact locally on whether people are being helped back into work by getting better, rather than being forced back into work by being assessed by Atos. Of course, that is where there has to be a joined-up Government approach.

I want to ask the Minister about the Work programme, because, as my hon. Friend rightly said, there is a significant problem in that respect. The Secretary of State effectively admitted that in Work and Pensions questions on Monday. I think that he had hoped and expected that a much larger percentage of people would have been helped into work through the Work programme. Of those with disabilities, it is something like 5%, which is a very low level.

Of course, we all know from our constituency case load that some people need dramatic intervention to be able to get into work. Drug and alcohol abuse, leading to and coming from chaotic lifestyles, often makes it very difficult to assist people, even though there are many people with addictions of various kinds who are fully functioning in a work environment—we have only to look at the history of Parliament to see that. What assessment have the Government made of how the Work programme could be improved to enable more people with disabilities to get into work, or do the Government believe that the situation is not improvable and that 5% is what the level is going to be?

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Sheila Gilmore

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore]

My comments arose out of the confidence issue. If we have a clear definition in relation to confidence at least, the proceedings of the House will be clearer to the public, which is important. If we agreed to the definition in the amendment, we would all be clear about when we were dealing with such an important matter. That is a very simple change.

[Chris Bryant]

As my hon. Friend is on the Select Committee, will she comment on its recommendation that there should be greater clarity regarding the circumstances in which a Government lose the confidence of the House and when that would trigger a general election? Were she and members of the Committee satisfied with the Government’s response to that recommendation? This still seems immensely ambiguous to me.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Sheila Gilmore

Tuesday 16th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore]

I absolutely agree. The problem is not to do with people taking different positions; it is to do with what will happen in the month or few weeks before an election when the issues are being debated on the hustings and being reported in the newspapers. I have an awful vision of us running two sets of hustings and trying to get people to come out to slightly chilly church halls to listen to completely different debates on different nights—although it is perfectly possible to get people to come out to such events when elections take place at different times. Why make this happen when we do not have to?

[Chris Bryant]

Is the point not that elections to the Assemblies of Wales and Northern Ireland and to the Parliament in Scotland feel like general elections? Indeed, effectively the law treats them like general elections in that a free post is allowed through the Royal Mail and the broadcasters have to report events in certain ways. A conflict will arise if every 20 years we hold these elections on the same day.