Kate Green
Main Page: Kate Green (Labour - Stretford and Urmston)Department Debates - View all Kate Green's debates with the Department for Transport
(12 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Maria Miller
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to want to drive through more good decision making in that process, and we are doing so across the board by working with Atos to make sure that it adheres to the contracts we have with it, and through the changes that we are making as a result of the Harrington reports, but importantly mandatory reconsideration, which begins in April 2013 for all decisions on benefits, will ensure that more decisions are right first time.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
The Government say that their welfare reforms are intended to enable more disabled people to get into work, but a case has been raised with us about a young man who is a wheelchair user, had been desperate to work, found a job but had to turn it down because he would have needed to move and could not find affordable adapted housing. Why are the Government delaying the reasonable adjustment provisions that would help such people to work?
Maria Miller
The hon. Lady will know that we have a broad range of support available for people such as the gentleman she refers to through the access to work scheme, for which we are increasing funding by about £15 million over the spending review period, and through local housing payments, such as the one I referred to in a previous answer, in order to ensure that local authorities have the flexibility to support such individuals, so that they can get into work and stay in work.