Personal Independence Payments

Debate between Gerald Jones and Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock) on securing this important debate and on making a powerful opening speech.

At Prime Minister’s questions a few weeks ago, I asked the Prime Minister whether she agreed that the PIP assessment process was fundamentally flawed, and what action she intended to take to avoid the undue stress and hardship being caused to my constituents and thousands more across the country. It is very clear to hon. Members here and the people whom we represent that the process is not fit for purpose.

The chaos that is being caused is having a cruel impact on thousands of people across the country. The Prime Minister’s reply was that the assessments are being conducted as well as they can be, and that people are getting the awards that they should be getting and are entitled to. She also stated that since the Government introduced the personal independence payment, 8% of cases have been appealed and 4% of the decisions are changed on appeal. In my easy calculation, about 50% of decisions are overturned on appeal, and things are getting worse.

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree with my view? My constituent, Sarah Hassell, has cystic fibrosis, a degenerative disease. She is 30 and will not see retirement. Not only was she taken to a tribunal, but after that process, she was brought forward again for assessment. Her benefit was taken away, and she tried to kill herself because of this process, which she had already gone through once. The system is simply not working, and the tribunals are not working. When I wrote to the Secretary of State to ask for a response, I was just sent to a civil servant and was not graced with a response. My constituents need much better from this process.

[Gerald Jones]

My hon. Friend outlines a very sad and tragic case. It is one reason among many why the Government have to take note and listen.

The Prime Minister also stated that in the majority of cases, the change at appeal is due to the presentation at appeal of new evidence that was not presented at the original case. However, in the vast majority of cases that are brought to my attention at my constituency office and through Merthyr Tydfil and Caerphilly citizens advice bureaux, no new evidence is presented at appeal. The appeals are agreed, because the appeal panel recognises that constituents are genuinely in need of PIP and it supports the appeal. Furthermore, a growing number of assessments are consistently refused, and people are forced to go to mandatory reassessment and to appeal. I understand that currently about 65% of claims are overturned on appeal at tribunal. The growing number of appeals means that tribunals are taking longer to get to court—in my area, they are taking anything between four and seven months.

Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Debate between Gerald Jones and Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th November 2017 Public Bill Committees

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend and the Minister know, I pay close attention to this issue. The complaints are not necessarily about response times, but about where the key performance indicators have been set and how they do not meet the needs of our armed forces. CarillionAmey is meeting its KPIs. It will turn up within 24 hours, but it takes eight days to fix the boiler, and I think that is more of a problem. I can empathise with that, given how cold it is in here today.

[Gerald Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She has highlighted one of the many concerns that we have around the work of the contracts, or the way that the contract is not working for families in our armed forces.

Last year’s National Audit Office report on service family accommodation was damning of Carillion’s performance:

“The performance of CarillionAmey has been totally unacceptable”.

Although I welcome the action that has been taken, the Government had the option to terminate the contract, yet they did not, which leaves me with some concerns about how seriously the matter is being taken. I appreciate that there have been some improvements, but reports have shown that continued dissatisfaction with the delivery of the contract is still widespread. For those in service family accommodation, satisfaction with the quality of maintenance/repair and with response to requests for maintenance/repair fell to just 28%, which is very alarming indeed.

Of course, this is all in the context of many personnel seeing increased costs for their accommodation and ongoing pay restraint. The pay review body commented on that in its latest report:

“A key consideration in people accepting the increases in charges being seen…will be a clear improvement in both the overall quality of the housing stock and the effective delivery of maintenance services.”

I would like to hear whether the Department has any specific plans to take action to improve performance and at what point we might see that happen.

Recruitment and retention issues are at the heart of the Bill, and housing is a crucial factor in that. I hope the Minister can give me some assurance and answer my questions about how the new working practices will impact on housing allocation, what the latest progress with the future accommodation model is and how the Government will deal with housing contracts if marked improvements are not shown.