Personal Independence Payments Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Work and Pensions
Debbie Abrahams
Main Page: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)Department Debates - View all Debbie Abrahams's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
Personal Independence Payments
Debbie Abrahams Excerpts(8 years ago)
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Justin Tomlinson
In fairness, I am trying to respond to those points. I will make some progress, then I will cover the TV programme that was shown on Monday.
Justin Tomlinson
I will be very generous and give way to my shadow, then I will make progress.
Debbie Abrahams
I am grateful to the Minister. He talked about the increase in the number of disabled people claiming PIP, but can he explain the impact assessment of the 2012—
Steve McCabe (in the Chair)
Order. I am sorry to interrupt, but in a half-hour debate it is not customary for a Front Bencher to intervene.
Justin Tomlinson
I am sure there will be many other opportunities for the hon. Lady to ask me questions, and I look forward to them. Perhaps I have got a foresight of what her next question at Work and Pensions oral questions will be.
I acknowledge that when we first introduced the PIP process there were major problems with timings, but there has been a settled position for about a year now. It currently takes seven weeks for an assessment and 13 weeks—median end to end—to get a decision. The time taken has been reduced by about three quarters since June 2014.
I will now touch on the TV programme, which is obviously topical. I was as appalled as everybody else who watched that programme. To the credit of Capita, it has reacted quickly and the individual concerned— Mr Barham—has been dismissed, and rightly so. We have not been made aware of any evidence that this is a significant issue; it seems to be a disgracefully appalling but isolated one. We have been told, “The overwhelming feedback gathered so far is one of frustration, disappointment and anger about how this individual has let everyone down, undermining the hard work and effort that everyone puts in daily to deliver and continually improve the level of service provided both to the Department and the PIP claimant community.” Capita has assured me that it will conduct further checks to make sure that this incident was an isolated one, and I was genuinely as appalled as everybody else who saw that programme.