Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Justin Tomlinson and Christina Rees(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Justin Tomlinson
My hon. Friend raises an important point. One lesson we can take from these unprecedented times is to look to extend the principle of the severe conditions criteria and, where possible, use clear evidence to remove unnecessary assessments. We will explore that further, working with disabled people and health and disability charities, in the upcoming health and disability Green Paper.
Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)
The Department is committed to delivering an improved benefit system for claimants nearing the end of their lives, and we are working across government to bring forward changes.
Christina Rees [V]
Will the Minister urgently correct the anomaly whereby someone with a severe condition eligible for an ongoing award under the normal rules has a light-touch review after 10 years, but someone with a terminal illness such as motor neurone disease has to reapply after three years under the special rules or risk having their benefits stopped?
Justin Tomlinson
I thank the hon. Member for raising that important point, referring to someone who qualifies under special rules for terminal illness normally having an award for three years. The point was raised during the review of changing the rules around special rules; we are considering it and I welcome its having been raised.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Justin Tomlinson and Christina Rees(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab)
9. What steps his Department is taking to ensure that staff carrying out personal independence payment assessments act in a professional manner.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Disabled People (Justin Tomlinson)
The Department has set clear requirements regarding the professions, skills, experience and training of the health professionals that providers can use to carry out PIP assessments. We expect the highest standards from the contractors who carry out assessments on our behalf, and measure their performance against several targets, including quality and customer experience.
Christina Rees
My constituents have reported huge inaccuracies between the information that they provide against PIP descriptors and the conclusions drawn by Capita’s staff, which causes great stress for people already in difficult circumstances. What is the Department doing to ensure that Capita’s staff are trained to take the appropriate time and care over assessments, so that they are as accurate and as fair as possible?
Personal Independence Payments
Debate between Justin Tomlinson and Christina Rees(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Justin Tomlinson
No, it is the reality that every year the number of people either on DLA or PIP—as Members can imagine, people are increasingly switching to PIP from DLA—is rising and the amount being spent is rising. That is what is happening. As things stand today, 1.32 million people have gone through the PIP process. About 745,000 claimants are now on PIP, and about 1.5 million claimants remain on DLA.
Christina Rees
Will the Minister explain why people who have been in receipt of DLA for more than 10 years are no longer eligible to receive disability benefit? Why are they no longer classified as disabled under the current Government guidelines?
Justin Tomlinson
I say gently that that is a little muddled, but I will come on to explain things. Under DLA, not only was the form complicated and people did not necessarily have the medical evidence, meaning that they could be under-diagnosed, but they were not reassessed. Many Members have implied today that we should not reassess people, but the reality is that every year the condition of one in three people will change so significantly that they should be on a different level of benefit. For the majority of those people, their condition is getting worse, not better.
Under DLA, we found that people were on a lower rate than they should have had for decades. Under the PIP process, there is a lot more evidence, which we use to say, “Right, this person has a fluctuating health condition, or a degenerative health condition, that will probably get worse, and they are currently only on the standard rate, but we have an expectation that they will probably progress to having a requirement for an enhanced benefit at a certain period of time.” We flag that up in the system, and that person would then automatically come in for reassessment.
People who are already on the highest rate and have a degenerative condition are not likely to have intense reassessments on a regular basis. It may very well be that many years pass before there is a telephone call to ask, “Are conditions still the same?” That is something that the old DLA system failed—
Justin Tomlinson
The hon. Lady can shake her head, but that is why only 16% of claimants on DLA received it at the highest rate, yet the figure for PIP is 22%.