Disability Benefits: Assessments

Debate between Gill Furniss and Elliot Colburn

Monday 4th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

The hon. Member has made some fantastic points. Figures show that only 11% of applicants are successful in challenging the PIP award as part of the mandatory consideration process. Applicants who take their appeal to tribunals, where a judge makes a decision, are awarded their enhancement nearly 80% of the time. Does that not say that judges are becoming the doctors? Surely that is the wrong way round.

[Elliot Colburn]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady; she makes a good point. She has glimpsed a bit further into my speech, but if she is happy to bear with me I will certainly cover that point.

Without adding too much to the list of asks for the Minister, what does he think about giving a greater role to specialists who are more known to the claimant?

I want to move on to talk about the assessment process and the wider system. Often, claimants, faced with something with which they have previously had little or no contact, will talk about a sense of interrogation or mistrust between them and the assessor—I have heard those words from claimants many times. As I say, almost every conversation I have had with a constituent or one of the petition creators has been prefaced with a line about nervousness, stress or other emotions in the lead-up to the assessment, alongside any physical or mental difficulties that a claimant may have. All too often, perhaps unintentionally or unwittingly, they are left feeling like they are a case number rather than a person.

Let me bring up another example, which is also about a PIP claimant with mobility-based problems. They turned up for their assessment and the lift in the assessment centre was broken. Despite their mobility issues and fearing that if they were not able to attend there might be consequences, they attempted to climb the stairs. After a significant amount of time, they managed to arrive for their assessment, but it had caused them a great deal of pain and a lot of stress, and the fact that they were able to get up the stairs was then used against them in the report.

Road User Charging Schemes

Debate between Gill Furniss and Elliot Colburn

Monday 26th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for the way he presented the petitions. I totally agree with everything that has been said by my Conservative colleagues, and I do not want to be too repetitive. I will emphasise some really important points, not least of which are that this ULEZ expansion was not in the manifesto of the Mayor of London, that the consultation showed overwhelming opposition to it, and that, according to his own integrated impact assessment, it will do nothing to tackle air quality.

[Gill Furniss]

In 2020, the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), a deputy chairman of the Conservative party, said:

“I fully support the Mayor’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) and its planned extension. The majority of car journeys in the Two Cities are not made by local people. They are travelling through, ruining our air quality.”

Why does the hon. Gentleman think she said that? How can he say that the Conservative party does not support ULEZ?

[Elliot Colburn]

I am very happy to help the hon. Lady figure out what London looks like. Its geography comes from the two cities. The Conservative party did support the inner London low emission zone, but it does not support the greater London low emission zone, which applies to my constituency.

[Gill Furniss]

She is the deputy chair of your party!