Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Welfare Reform (Disabled People)

Gordon Marsden Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

I listened with care and some sympathy to the hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer). I remind him of the Quaker saying that he or she who would do good must begin with minute particulars. That is why today I want to touch on some of those particulars, which are not minute at all for my constituents in Blackpool South, which has a larger than average number of people with disabilities, often people who do not have family or close friends in the area. That is why two years ago when we were having all sorts of difficulties with Atos and the work capability assessment, I initiated an Adjournment debate when I pointed out some of the real issues with Motability, the revolving door of appeals, and the inability of Atos to deal with work capability assessment. Sadly, some of those issues are still relevant today. Even though Atos has been removed from the work capability assessment, it has not yet been replaced, and in the north-west it remains in charge of the personal independence payment process. On top of all the problems that we have heard today, my area has a particular problem because people cannot even get to an assessment centre nearby.

Our citizens advice bureau wrote to me last year about a matter that I have raised with Ministers and on the Floor of the House and with all sorts of people. We only have a medical assessment centre for PIP medicals in Preston, which is some way from the centre of Blackpool, not near public transport and certainly off the beaten track. It is fraught with issues such as costing residents more money to get there, longer journeys with people not familiar with where they are going and probably needing a taxi, and so on. When I asked why clients were expected to travel that distance, the reply from the PIP implementation team directed me to the Atos website, which stated that DWP guidance permits a client to travel 90 minutes one way for work or a job interview. Indeed it does, but that totally misses the salient point that these are people with illnesses, disability and stress.

I have spent some time trying to winkle out of Atos and the Minister and his officials where we are up to in the process. I had a meeting with them at our party conference and I was then told by the Atos manager that they were working on it and would have an assessment centre by mid-2015. When I asked whether he had been from Blackpool to the Preston centre, he said he had, and when I asked how, he said, “By car.” That really sums it up. On 17 August the Minister wrote to say that he was sorry that there was nothing that he could usefully add to what I had been told, which was basically that we would have to wait until mid-June. It is not surprising that he had nothing useful to add because neither he nor his officials had had anything useful to say to prod Atos into action on this and a series of other areas.

The best way of looking at these issues is to look at what comes to us from our caseworkers. In particular, I pay tribute to my caseworker, Gillian Tomlinson, who works tirelessly in this area. I want to quote a couple of examples. She talks about Mrs B, who contacted us in June 2014, who receives the highest rate care and mobility and is practically housebound. She applied for employment and support allowance in January and Atos told her that a home visit would not be authorised. Finally she has been placed in the ESA support group. Mrs W contacted us in extreme distress. She failed a work capability assessment and ESA stopped immediately. She is a vulnerable lady who found the whole process difficult to understand.

My caseworker says: “The whole mandatory reconsideration process continues to be concerning, in as much as ESA benefits are stopped immediately after a claimant is advised that they are fit for work. It seems to me that the whole process is now being made so complex that the Government are hoping that people will not go through it and will accept the decision made.” That is indeed the case. The excellent Alan Reid, who manages my Disability First centre, says: “To us people come desperate and, in some cases, suicidal.” That remains the case. That is why Lord Freud’s comments were so damaging and so difficult for disabled people to accept.