Social Security and Employment Support for Disabled People

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I was not in Prime Minister’s questions to hear that particular example, but of course I will follow it up with great urgency. It is not acceptable for people to have appointments cancelled at the last minute or to be asked to wait. That is certainly not the service that we expect from our contractors.

I have made the commitment to publish the standards that we are insisting on in the contract. We monitor compliance with the standards very carefully, and there are penalties in the contract if people fall short of the high standards that we expect of them. Every person with a health condition or disability must be treated with respect and dignity.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend and her colleagues for listening so much and for making these changes, but will she look at the face-to-face assessments and at whether more could be done with paper-based reviews or home visits? It is pretty difficult for some people to get to the assessment centres, certainly from my constituency, and some people who have mental health conditions find the assessments incredibly stressful.

[Sarah Newton]

I thank my hon. Friend for his long-standing and passionate championship of the vulnerable people in his constituency and across our country. We have listened very carefully to what he has said and we have increased the number of home visits that can be undertaken but I definitely want to go further and, wherever possible, make decisions based on the information provided by the medical profession, the disabled people themselves or those people supporting them so as to reduce the number of face-to-face assessments. They are all undertaken by qualified healthcare professionals, whose training we keep under review. I want to ensure that we have only those face-to-face assessments that are really necessary.