Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Universal credit will be of enormous help to people with caring responsibilities, and others who are periodically required to be at home, because it will pay to be in work for every single hour. Moreover, under universal credit, as part of the in-work allowances, we have included an extra piece of support for those who care for others, on top of the carer’s allowance.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Disabled people do not want kindness; they want justice, and access to the benefits that can help them to live their lives. Will the Secretary of State give them a cast-iron guarantee that there will be no cuts in their benefits, no cuts in tax credits, and no cuts in the disability premiums that tax credits can bring? Disabled people need those assurances, given that, we understand, the Secretary of State has now agreed with the Chancellor that we are to expect welfare cuts amounting to £12 billion.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Let me remind the hon. Lady what happened during the last Parliament, under a Conservative Government. Spending on disability living allowance was up by half in the decade before PIP came in, and just 6% of new claimants had face-to-face assessments. Under PIP, 20% of claimants receive both the higher rates, as opposed to 16% under DLA. Our reforms are about helping those in the greatest need. Let me remind the hon. Lady of something else as well, just in case she has forgotten. We did debate the overall figure of £12 billion, and Labour lost the election. I remember something that was said by the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), who is not with us for the moment—I send her my best. She said:

“Labour will be tougher than the Tories when it comes to slashing the benefits bill.”

Is it not a bit of hypocrisy on the part of Labour Members to come here and make their claims, having said that they would be tougher than we are?

[Kate Green]

Labour will be tougher in cutting benefits when that is a response to the wrong drivers of those benefits. What we will not tolerate is cuts in benefits for people who are in work and who need those benefits to enable their work to pay. May I ask the Secretary of State about some of the work-related benefits for disabled people? Will he confirm that there will be no cuts and no downgrading of the payments to people on employment and support allowance in the work-related activity group, and will he tell us whether industrial injuries disablement benefit will be protected from cuts?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The hon. Lady really needs to think carefully about what she says. Labour Members say that they will be tougher than us. Let me give the hon. Lady a simple pledge: we will protect the most vulnerable. There is only thing that is tough at the moment —tough on Labour Members: they lost the election. They had no idea of how they were going to end the deficit, and that is why they are sitting on the Opposition Benches.

Personal Independence Payment Applications

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Westminster Hall

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) on securing this important debate. I am pleased to congratulate the Minister, too, and welcome him to his new position.

As we have heard, this debate is important for many of our constituents who have applied for PIP and experienced long delays, anxiety and hardship. We heard about the recent case of Ms C and Mr W, where it was found that the delays were unlawful. It is regrettable that we have not yet had any expression of apology from the Government for those delays. I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to offer that apology.

Many MPs know of cases in our constituencies where assessments and decisions have taken a long time. In my constituency, in at least one case the waiting time, end to end, was more than a year and the Department had to pay compensation. This afternoon we have all welcomed the improvements in the time taken for assessment and processing since the benefit was first introduced, including welcome improvements to speed up assessment for special terminal illness cases including cancer. We have also welcomed today’s figures from the Department that show further improvements; it is now 15 weeks, end to end, for new claims, and 11 weeks for reassessments. However, we must recognise that these have been achieved because of a significant increase in the number of healthcare professionals and fewer face-to-face assessments than had been envisaged. In fact, this represents a significant policy change by the Department. An early criticism of DLA by the coalition Government was that it lacked face-to-face assessments; those were to be one of the marks of a new approach under PIP.

We are pleased to see the improvements. However, as hon. Members have noted, Ministers now face a significant new challenge in embarking on the mass migration of the 1.5 million DLA cases to PIP, which is due to commence in October. The independent reviewer, Paul Gray, has said that this is the most challenging phase of the roll-out of the benefit. It is not just challenging for the Department and the assessment companies; it is causing uncertainty and anxiety among many DLA recipients. It is also causing uncertainty in respect of the public purse. The Office for Budget Responsibility, which has already revised spending forecasts upwards by £1 billion per annum between 2014 and 2015, said in the welfare trends report last week that structural changes to welfare benefits, such as migration from DLA to the new benefit, PIP, mean that any spending forecasts made are

“subject to even greater uncertainty”.

It is important, as we have heard, that this mass migration is not botched or rushed. That is the lesson from the earlier phases of the roll-out of this benefit, and from the roll-out of other benefits with intrinsic assessment processes, particularly the work capability assessment.

The Minister said on 15 June, in a written answer to my question 1541, that roll-out will be “commensurate with capacity” and

“on a post code basis”.

That still causes a great deal of anxiety to claimants: they are not sure where they fit in that postcode lottery. It is not clear what it means for the overall profile of public spending on the benefit, and it is unclear when the end date of the migration will be. Will the Minister assure us that there will be sufficient capacity, both in the Department and among the independent assessors, and say what extra cost is being incurred to ensure that that capacity is sufficient? During the migration, how many face-to-face assessments does the Minister expect there to be, or what proportion of assessments would be done face to face? How many home visits will there be? What use is the Department making of the opportunity to share information with other assessment processes, as Paul Gray suggested?

The hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) rightly highlighted appeals. It has been assumed that 40%—a very high level—will go to appeal. I hope the Minister assures us that not just the Department, but the Courts and Tribunals Service, can handle the appeals that are expected. Can he say how many people are expected to lose benefit or receive a lower payment than under the disability living allowance? We know from Motability that 40% have already lost the higher-rate mobility award and therefore their Motability vehicles. It would be interesting to hear what further forecast the Minister makes.

Most worrying, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) said, is the backdrop of £12 billion of welfare cuts—“Newsnight” suggested yesterday that it could be as much as £15 billion—and what they might mean for the roll-out of the personal independence payment. In the House of Lords on 10 June, Baroness Campbell of Surbiton pointed out that the Prime Minister said during the general election campaign that PIP would be enhanced and protected. In response, Lord Freud only confirmed that disabled people would be “supported”, which is not quite the same thing. As has been pointed out, in response to a question from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) on 3 June in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister failed to rule out cuts to disability benefits. Indeed, he claimed that the Government had increased the benefits paid to disabled people by introducing PIP, which he said was more generous to the most disabled. That is a startling statement, given that there has been no change in the top rate of payments as regards PIP and DLA, that 40% have already lost the higher-rate mobility award and that the Government introduced the benefit with the intention of making a 20% budget cut.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

A little patience might be useful, might it not? We have heard in this debate about the very vulnerable people who rely on this payment. Rather than shroud-waving and trying to second-guess the Chancellor and what might be announced on 8 July, might it not be better not to further worry people who might already be worried?

[Kate Green]

What would give disabled people the most reassurance is if the Minister categorically said this afternoon that PIP will not be subject to the proposed £12 billion of cuts. Perhaps he will take that opportunity.

Finally, will the Minister say what progress has been made with the independent reviewer’s recommendations? Paul Gray highlighted a disjointed claimant journey, a lack of trust in the process and a lack of transparency. He also highlighted the nonsense of so-called interventions, which mean starting a new assessment process pretty much as soon as the last one has been decided. He proposed a series of actions to address some of those concerns. We have also heard about ongoing operational problems with venues, inaccessibility, long journeys and difficulties in rural areas. Sheffield citizens advice bureau in particular has highlighted problems in that regard. Inappropriate expertise or behaviour from assessors was mentioned in a recent report from Inclusion Scotland. As one Member said this afternoon, there have been delays when circumstances have changed in the middle of a claim. I am grateful for the chance to ask the Minister questions. This issue is the major challenge facing the Department when it comes to disability benefits, and the history is not entirely encouraging. We need to know that lessons are being learned, and we look forward to his response.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. What this is all about is understanding how we can help people, especially those with disabilities, and getting them into work. I am glad to say that, over the past year, employment for people with disabilities has risen by 141,000. Nearly half a million people with disabilities have set up their own business. That is what a Conservative Government and a coalition Government can do.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

A moment ago, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), I heard the Minister say that the Work programme was exceeding all its targets. Just 7% of those on employment and support allowance in the Work programme have got into jobs, compared with the tender document that said that, by year two, a 15% success rate would be achieved. The programme is not achieving even half that. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people are stuck in a queue waiting for a work capability assessment with no idea when they will be reassessed. The Access to Work programme, which should help people get into work and get on at work, is supporting fewer people today than when Labour left office in 2010. It is no wonder that the bill for disability benefits is set to be as much as £10 billion higher, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility. Is the Minister satisfied with that catalogue of failure and waste?

[Esther McVey]

Once again, let me give the Opposition the latest and correct figures. One in 10 of ESA new claimants has found lasting work, which is above anything achieved in the past. What we expected was a level of one in 14, which was already there. Disability employment is up by 141,000 in the past year, and it now stands at more than 3.1 million. We are supporting disabled people into work and into education, and we are proud of our record.

Mental Health and Unemployment

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I thank all Members who have contributed to what I think has been a very interesting and rich debate. I especially thank the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) for introducing, in a wide-ranging speech, all the issues on which others have expanded.

There is clearly widespread concern about the poor employment outcomes and poor employment experience of people with mental health disorders. Those concerns are wide-ranging. There is obviously a concern about the poor employment rate among people with mental health problems and the fact that unemployment is both a cause and a result of poor mental health. Particular concerns were rightly highlighted by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about the implications for young people who experience unemployment at the very start of their adult lives. There are also concerns about people with mental health illnesses being dismissed or exiting work prematurely, about a lack of not just joining the workplace but progression in the workplace—relatively reduced chances for promotion—about lack of support in the workplace for people with mental health problems and, as was highlighted in the debate this afternoon, about so-called presenteeism, which is damaging for both the health and well-being of the individual and business productivity.

Such concerns about the cost both to the individual and society have been highlighted a number of times this afternoon. Poorer mental health outcomes are suffered by poorer people, who are less likely to be in employment. We also know that 39% of sickness absence is as a result of mental health problems, amounting to 11.3 million working days lost to our economy each year.

We have also heard concerns about the wider context in which mental health problems in the workplace arise and are then addressed. There are problems with people accessing therapies and treatments to deal early with mental health difficulties, and we have rightly heard quite a bit about stigma and discrimination and what can be done to tackle that.

I welcome the comments from the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) about the importance of dealing with mental health difficulties among children and young people and intervening early to address them. Many mental health problems begin in childhood—before the age of 18—yet we know that only 6% of spending on therapeutic mental health services is through child and adolescent mental health services, so there is clearly a massive imbalance in the way in which we are spending our resources to address the problems in the pre-adult years, as compared with picking up the pieces afterwards when so much damage has been done.

Concerns were also expressed about the extent to which programmes that should be helping are not doing so. We heard quite a lot about difficulties with the benefits system and problems with some of the work support programmes, which mean we cannot be complacent about an employment rate of 37% among people with mental health problems against an overall employment rate of 77%.

As we heard, in most cases being in work is beneficial for mental health, although in her 2013 report for the Government on mental health and work Dame Carol Black rightly set out a number of caveats to that, including the quality of the job and the degree of autonomy or control that is enjoyed by an employee. However, we also know that people who are not working because of a mental health problem represent the largest proportion of those who would like to be in employment. The reasons why they are not working are partly to do with lack of access to the therapies and care that would make work possible.

We have heard on many occasions of significant delays in accessing so-called talking therapies, and we must be concerned that one driver of the rise in the number of people being placed on the support group of employment and support allowance because of mental health problems may be that people cannot get access to the health care they need.

We must also pay attention to the particular anxiety identified by the independent reviewer, Dr Paul Litchfield, about the very large number of young people in the support group or the work-related activity group of ESA who have mental health difficulties. The fact that we are parking some of those young people on to a benefit without properly intervening early, and the fact that the way in which the system operates exacerbates and encourages a disregard of early intervention, is something I know the Minister expressed his own concerns about in his appearance before the Select Committee recently.

Repeated reports have recommended the much more effective joining up of employment support and mental health services. I very much welcome the introduction of specific indicators for mental health and employment in the NHS outcomes framework, but we also know that there are long delays in accessing therapies and that doctors can be reluctant to identify a mental health problem or sometimes fail to recognise that a patient could work or that work would be beneficial for that individual. The introduction of the fit note offers doctors the opportunity to provide more useful fitness advice to patients with mental health conditions, but there remains a significant challenge to ensure that health care service professionals support rather than work against the grain of increasing and sustaining employment.

We also know that stigma and employers’ fear play an important part in the poor employment outcomes of those with mental health disorders. Half of employers say that they would not employ someone with a mental health condition, although I strongly suspect that a large majority of them in fact already do so. Too often, sickness absence as a result of a mental health problem leads to dismissal under capability procedures or to early exit or early retirement. The introduction of fees for employment tribunals under this Government makes it harder for an individual who has been forced out of work to gain redress, which I guess could make it more likely that employers will put people under pressure to leave a job.

As has been said, we need the workplace environment to be much more effective in supporting people with mental health disorders. A few days ago, I met representatives from my own union, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, and they highlighted some of the difficulties that their members were facing at work. They talked about the stressors that people face at work, including unrealistic performance targets, zero-hours contracts and the insecurity associated with them, low pay and the difficulty of balancing family and working life.

Those problems are not confined to one particular industry sector. Workers in the public sector—teachers, probation officers, police officers and people in the armed forces, for example—also experience high levels of pressure and stress. We should also note that those pressures cut across all levels of jobs, from the most senior to those in basic and entry-level jobs. In fact, stress is particularly high among lower-paid workers who do not enjoy autonomy and control over how their working day is spent, or who feel that they have low status at work. Stress levels among low-paid and more junior workers can be particularly high.

There are lots of opportunities for us to intervene to improve workplace support. We have heard some helpful and imaginative suggestions and examples this afternoon. I hope that the Minister will comment on the role of the Health and Safety Executive in relation to this agenda. There is a real opportunity for managers to work with trade union workplace representatives to address some of the issues. There is also an important role for the public sector, as an exemplar employer, to adopt appropriate strategies to support staff as well as proactively recruiting those with a history of mental ill health, as was rightly suggested by the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie).

Sir Stephen O’Brien, who is chair of the Barts Health NHS Trust, was recently commissioned by the Leader of the Opposition to advise my party on a mentally healthy society. He has suggested that accreditation schemes could do more. In addition, we need to pay attention to manager training and to providing information in the workplace to enable people to self-refer to mental health services, as well as to the positive use of the fit for work scheme, which is something the USDAW representatives told me that people were quite fearful of. The scheme could be helpful in supporting people to get back into work quickly, and I hope that employer bodies will take positive steps to engage with and reassure their workers about the way in which they are using the new scheme.

The Government also have an important role in supporting into employment those who are out of work as a result of a mental health problem. Despite the raft of initiatives and pilots described in the Government’s disability and employment strategy, the number of people being placed in the employment and support allowance support group is rising, and labour market programmes that ought to be getting more people back into work are continuing to let them down. The Work programme has been a failure for those with a mental health condition, as the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam pointed out, getting just 6.7% of them back into work. The black-box approach and the national contracting regime have shut out specialist provision, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and others. We have also seen a 20% reduction in the number of specialist disability employment advisers in jobcentres. As the Minister acknowledged in a written ministerial statement on 18 December, the Access to Work programme last year suffered from significant delivery problems, which will have inhibited access to some of the support that could have been provided through the mental health component of the programme. That could have enabled more people, more quickly, to have functioned better at work.

There is a problem with the Work programme’s absence of a specialist programme for people who have been placed on ESA for mental health and indeed other chronic health conditions and disabilities, which means they are not getting the tailor-made support they need. That is why Labour has said that we would introduce a specialist programme of work support for those who have been on ESA for more than three months, which would mean that by commissioning that support locally, we will be able to make much better use of the kind of specialist organisations mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham that have expertise in mental health and employment, and will be able to offer appropriate support.

I agree with the comments made about the opportunity presented by the individual placement and support programmes run from a number of NHS trusts. I had the privilege of visiting the IPS team in south Manchester a few months ago, where I heard about the successes it achieves, both in placing people into, and sustaining them in, work, and in reducing the incidence of hospitalisation. We know, including from an international study—the equalise study—that such interventions can be cost-effective compared with other vocational support for some people, yet too often people are being referred to this kind of support too late. I will be interested to hear the Minister update us on the Government’s thinking on IPS and what the current learning is. I would also be interested if he commented on what I was told in south Manchester, which was that the NHS is funding these IPS programmes but if Work programme providers have referred or introduced someone to that IPS service, the Work programme provider claims the outcome payment. It seems mad that the Department for Work and Pensions is paying a Work programme provider when all the work is being done and all the cost is being borne in the NHS. I hope the Minister might be able to say something about that.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

That is exactly what is happening to the charity I mentioned in my contribution. It is doing all the work and the Work programme provider is doing nothing for individuals, apart from making a phone call at the end to ascertain whether that person has actually got a job and then claiming the money from the Government.

[Kate Green]

That is absolutely not how those contracts should be working. If subcontracting to specialist organisations is taking place from the Work programme, the organisations to which those subcontracts are being let should be properly rewarded. We face a number of problems in this area. First, a lot of local organisations do not have the opportunity or the wherewithal to participate in these programmes at all. As my hon. Friend says, those that can or try to participate find that the programmes are utterly economically unviable for them because they are not paid for the work they do.

Finally, I wish to pick up on the discussion introduced by a number of colleagues about the operation of the benefits system, and how that bears on those with mental health conditions and their chances for employment. The hon. Member for Windsor was absolutely right to talk about the complexity and forbidding nature of some of the system. I hope the Minister is not going to tell me that universal credit is going to resolve all that, because I do not think it will. In particular, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, the gateway into the system is as much a part of the problem as the way in which the benefits system is designed. Although it is right that moving people into employment is in many cases going to be good for their mental health, moving them into poorly paid jobs which leave them still struggling to make ends meet will not make them feel that their well-being is being holistically addressed. Poorly paid, poor-quality jobs are, in the long run, just not going to be consistent with good mental health. I also say to the Minister—and he will know this—that there has been a massive upsurge in sanctioning benefit claimants under this Government, which must mean that a number of those who are being caught are those with mental health problems.

Of course there must be conditions for benefits and sanctions for wilful non-compliance, but inappropriate sanctioning causes not only financial hardship for many but huge anxiety and stress. Despite repeated protestations from Ministers that there are no targets for sanctions in Jobcentre Plus, we hear again and again anecdotal reports that such targets—at least at managerial level—do exist. It is also true that the new regime is now much more punitive. Sanctions bite harder and last longer and a culture has grown up in which claimants are being sanctioned inappropriately.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was told of a case in the west midlands of a Work programme participant who was unable, because of his mental health condition, to discuss his situation in a public forum, as was required by his provider. The resulting anxiety left him unable to engage at all with the Work programme and he was sanctioned for 14 days.

It would be useful to know what analysis Ministers are undertaking of the people affected by sanctions who have a mental health condition. It is really quite shocking that we have so little information on their fate when a sanction has been imposed. I want to be clear that, under a Labour Government, there will be no targets for sanctions, that we will insist that assessors and decision makers at every stage of the process from the work capability assessment to the imposition of conditions to decisions about sanctions properly take account of the mental health of the claimant, and that expert advice will be available to ensure that relevant information is considered, with penalties on assessors for poor advice.

May I also highlight the concerns that arise from the recent regulations to allow data-sharing in relation to universal credit recipients with a range of other service providers, including housing associations, credit unions and debt advice agencies? Constituents have said that they are concerned that this could lead to data-sharing about their mental health, which they have not authorised and do not want to happen. The Minister must be clear about what protections will exist when the new regulations take effect.

In conclusion, I am glad that we have had this debate this afternoon and that we have shared our aspirations for the best employment chances and rights at work for those who suffer mental illness. As we all know, warm words will not be enough. There must be a rigorous focus on access, support and measurable outcomes. One in four of us will suffer mental illness at some point in our lifetime. We cannot afford the waste of potential when, so often, worklessness is the result.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates my remarks, because I had not yet got to that point. There are two points that arise from what he said, and he was supported in that by the shadow Minister. The first relates to the ability of smaller private sector companies and the voluntary sector to be subcontractors to prime providers, and we will consider how to make that easier as we look to develop what follows the Work programme. The second point—the central one—is about ensuring that Work programme providers are paid only when they have done the work. He raised a specific concern about a third sector organisation in his constituency. If he can give me a little more detail, I will look into it. If a Work programme provider has done nothing at all, it should not pretend that it has done so in order to claim a payment. Either it should not be paid, or it should effectively be subcontracting with the smaller provider. If the smaller provider is very successful, clearly we would want it in the programme, working with the prime provider. If he gives me some more details, I will absolutely task officials with looking into it. It is not very sensible for the taxpayer to be paying someone for work they have not done. Moreover, we should be making sure that the money goes to support those who are successful at getting people back into work so that they can improve their organisations and become more successful and sustainable.

[Kate Green]

Will the Minister also comment on, or ask his officials to look into, the report I received from the individual placements and support service in south Manchester that Work programme providers were being rewarded for work that was being carried out and funded by the NHS? It sounded as though the public purse was paying twice and the Work programme provider was getting a reward for very little, if any, activity.

[Mr Harper]

Yes. I listened carefully to what the hon. Lady said, and I will look into that specific example as well.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam referred to the Work programme. It is true that in its earlier phase the success rates for those on ESA as opposed to JSA were not very impressive—one in 24, I think. However, more recent cohorts have been more successful, and about one in 10 people have been getting into sustainable work. Obviously we want that performance to continue.

It is very apposite, Mr Speaker, that you are in the Chair as I draw my remarks to a close, because I know—I do not think it is a secret—that you take a close personal interest in this area. I remember when you allowed a discussion on mental health to run for a fairly reasonable length of time in the last session of DWP questions. You feel that it is a very important area. You referred to the changes we had made in law to reduce the stigma for the many Members of Parliament who might have a mental health problem. Earlier I referred to the hon. Member for North Durham and my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne, who spoke very openly in the House about their experiences.

The Government take this issue very seriously. There is a lot of working across Departments, not just with my Department and the Department of Health, but with the Home Office, where, as Members will be aware, the Home Secretary has been pressing a great deal to make sure that police cells are not seen as places of safety for those who develop a critical mental health problem. Work is being done by other Ministers across Government. We are moving in the right direction, but we are not complacent. Although some progress is being seen in the unemployment figures, there is still a considerable gap, and there is more work to do. I think there is a shared sense of purpose across the House about the direction of travel, and I want us to continue to move in that direction through to the general election and beyond.

Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) on securing the debate. I am delighted that we are joined by parliamentary colleagues from all parties who have long been doughty campaigners on this issue. I join colleagues in paying tribute to the asbestos victim support groups, which have kept us so well informed about the issues in relation to this matter. I also join colleagues in remembering the late Paul Goggins, my good friend and former parliamentary next-door neighbour. We miss Paul very much, but I think he would have been pleased to see that there has been further progress in the light of yesterday’s written ministerial statement.

It is just over a year since the Mesothelioma Act 2014 completed its parliamentary passage, and I warmly welcome the opportunity to debate what has happened since then. Although everyone recognises that it is early days still to assess the effectiveness of the Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme, even in its short life so far there have been a number of developments, some of which were welcome and some less so. I know that hon. Members who take a close interest in the matter appreciate the opportunity to raise issues of concern with the Minister today.

The Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme is an important and welcome development in offering a measure of justice to sufferers of that terrible disease. It serves to ensure that those who contracted the illness as a result of exposure to asbestos at work, but who cannot now trace an employer or an employer’s liability insurer, can receive payment in recognition of their suffering. Initially, as we have heard, the Government set the proposed payment at 70% of average civil damages, but an increase was made to 80% when regulations to implement the scheme were introduced last year, as a result of savings that had been found in legal and administrative costs. Yesterday, we learned from the written ministerial statement that payouts are to be increased to 100% of average compensation. Of course, that is very welcome, although I echo my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Walton and for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) in asking the Minister why the increase cannot be backdated to those who have already received 80% payouts under the scheme or who have already been diagnosed. The Department’s press release painted a rather rosy picture of the impact of the increase, suggesting that victims would receive an additional £54,000. In fact, that amount would be paid only to those aged under 40, and so far no victims as young as that have been compensated under the scheme. The average increase will be more like £21,000, which is welcome but not quite as good.

I am also concerned that the reason for increased payments is because the take-up of the scheme has been lower than expected. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton was right to express some scepticism about the assumptions that were made when the scheme was first proposed. Take-up has been substantially below expectation. It was originally envisaged, if memory serves me correctly, that in the first year of the scheme there would be some 900 applications, but I understand that the expectation now is that there will be only 300 claims in the first year. What analysis has the Minister made of the much lower than expected take-up and the reasons for it? What discussions has he had with the oversight committee on the matter? Is he confident that the application process is working smoothly and speedily for applicants? Is he confident that the scheme has been adequately promoted? What steps are the Government taking to ensure that potential claimants are made aware of it? What evaluation of the application process is he undertaking, and, in particular, what measures is he taking to ensure that he obtains feedback from the asbestos victim support groups?

Have any claimants yet resorted to arbitration when they have been unhappy with the outcome of their claim? Is the Minister confident that the much lower figure for expected claims represents a true picture of those who could make a claim under the scheme? What profile, over time, and what volume of future claims does the Department now expect? As has been mentioned, yesterday’s written statement referred to administrative changes being made as a result of discussions with the insurance industry to ensure that the scheme remains one of last resort. Will the Minister tell us exactly what those administrative changes are, and what impact they will have on victims and their ability to access the scheme?

As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton has explained, the scheme is funded by a levy on current employers’ liability insurers. When the legislation proceeded through Parliament, we were told that the levy would be set at 3% of gross written premiums, because the industry could accommodate a levy at that level without having to pass the cost on to its customers via increased premiums. In addition, because it was expected that claims would peak in the first few years of the scheme, which would mean that the cost of meeting payouts could exceed the levy, we were told that the Government would make a £30 million loan and £17 million gift to the industry to smooth the cost of the scheme in the early years. Although the expectation was that 3% would prove insufficient fully to meet claims in the early years of the scheme, there were always fears that the industry might try to get away with a lower payment. That is why I tabled amendments to the legislation, in Committee and on Report, to enshrine the 3% levy rate in law. The then Minister, the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), gave assurances to the Public Bill Committee on 12 December 2013 that there was no need for such amendments, because:

“Three per cent. is 3% and we have no intention of moving away from it”.––[Official Report, Mesothelioma Public Bill Committee, 12 December 2013; c. 117.]

In a written statement on 28 November 2014, however, the Government announced that in the first year the levy would raise £32 million, so it was in fact set at 2.2%.

Following yesterday’s written ministerial statement, the position on the levy is somewhat opaque. I hope the Minister will clarify the situation today. First, can he confirm whether the uplift in payments to 100% is met from a levy of 2.2%, a levy of 3% or some other figure? How much is the levy now raising in cash terms? Is it still £32 million, or is it another amount? How much in cash terms are the additional and total costs of meeting payments at 100%? In a briefing to MPs in December, the Asbestos Victims Support Groups Forum UK estimated that increasing payments to 100% would cost an additional £5.5 million and that increasing the levy from 2.2% to 3% would raise an additional £11 million. With lower than expected payouts, there would be plenty of surplus cash if the levy were set at 3%, even with payments at 100%.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, at whatever level the levy is set, it is perfectly clear that there is more than enough funding available to do the right thing by those victims and families who received under-settlements at 80%? We could do the right thing by those victims and give them the full compensation at 100%.

[Kate Green]

Absolutely. Given the relatively small number of claims and the relatively small amounts involved, it is a matter of justice, and I hope the Minister will address the mood of the House this morning by giving us some assurances.

Even if 100% payouts could be afforded from a lower levy, the 3% figure is important because, in addition to funding more generous payouts, surplus cash could be put to other uses, as we have heard. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton and the hon. Members for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) all asked about funding for research. Mesothelioma is always fatal. It is a truly terrible disease that is massively cruel to sufferers and their loved ones, who have to watch them die in the most horrific manner. There is a crying need for research into treatment of the disease, yet today research is woefully underfunded. Although the recently announced voluntary contribution to the British Lung Foundation by the insurers Aviva and Zurich over the next two years is welcome, the abundance of good research proposals, as evidenced by the written answer I received from the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), on 7 January 2015, suggests that mesothelioma research could benefit from more funding, which would benefit the insurance industry, the public purse and, of course, victims. What steps are the Government taking to place research funding on a sustainable footing?

With claims lower than expected, and with a 3% levy, another possibility is to backdate payments under the scheme to an earlier date. Under the legislation, the cut-off date for claims is for those diagnosed after 25 July 2012 but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck pointed out, we have known about the lethal effects of asbestos for many years—indeed, since the early decades of the last century—and for many years, the industry did all it could to evade its responsibilities to victims. There will now be very few, if any, survivors who received a diagnosis before 2012, given the speed and ferocity of the disease after diagnosis. The usual prognosis is less than 12 months, and personal representatives cannot make a claim where the sufferer died before the commencement of the scheme. None the less, in a few cases there may be an opportunity for greater generosity in relation to the cut-off date, or the Government might like to rethink their position on personal representatives. Has the Minister considered the scope for earlier eligibility? What will happen if claims increase over the next few years to the extent that the levy is insufficient to meet them after all? Will payments remain at 100%?

Can the Minister confirm that the cost to the industry will never fall below 3% in any given year? Or is it his intention that the levy will not average less than 3% over the whole life of the scheme? What is happening to the Government’s £30 million loan and £17 million payment to the industry to help it meet the costs of the scheme? Given the lower than expected number of claims, will that generous Government support now be reduced or removed? We know that the industry expected the scheme to run for 30 to 40 years because of the long latency of the disease. What discussions have the Minister or his colleague, Lord Freud, who has been leading discussions with industry representatives, had about the industry’s forecasts of future costs?

As my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck said, we would like the Minister to say something about the figure for benefits recovered by the compensation recovery unit. Under the legislation, social security benefits that have been paid to sufferers are clawed back if the sufferer makes a successful claim under the scheme. My understanding is that recoveries amounted to £8 million in the scheme’s first seven months. Does the Minister think that clawing back benefits at 100% is fair to sufferers who received less than 100% of average damages? Will he consider reducing recoveries from their benefits, at the very least, in line with the proportion of average damages that they actually received?

On other matters, what progress has there been on addressing the difficulty we ran into with the approach of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to releasing employment records, which are essential to making a claim under the scheme or, indeed, to pursuing a claim in the courts? I am pleased that a Government amendment to the Deregulation Bill has ensured that, in future, HMRC will be able to release those records without fear of breaching data protection law, but the Bill has not yet completed its parliamentary passage. Is the Minister aware of any cases in the meantime in which HMRC has been asked for records? What approach is HMRC currently taking? There has, of course, been a recent helpful legal judgment in a case brought by my own union, Unite, but I understand that the limitations of the judgment mean that the matter will not be fully resolved in all cases until the Bill becomes law.

Finally, and especially given the lower than expected take-up, has the Minister taken the opportunity to consider how the Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme might be widened to non-employment cases, to cases of collateral contamination—for example, where a family member contracts the illness as a result of exposure to the clothes or equipment of a relative who has worked with asbestos—to the self-employed or to Government employees, including veterans of the armed forces, who are not covered by the scheme? What steps are the Government taking to provide relief for sufferers of other asbestos-related diseases?

The legislation passed by Parliament last year and yesterday’s announcement have at last offered some justice to some victims but, as the hon. Member for Strangford pointed out, this country has the shameful record of having one of the highest incidences of asbestos-related illness in the world. We can, and we must, do much better for those who have suffered. I hope the Minister will indicate his willingness, indeed his determination, to look for ways to do so.

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady and to all hon. Members for their thoughtful contributions. I ask the Minister to respond.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I referred to the hon. Gentleman’s point first because I know that he has other pressing business on behalf of his constituents, and he had the courtesy to let me know, so I wanted to deal with his point while he was still in the Chamber. As he knows, I plan to meet the Northern Ireland Minister with responsibility for welfare to discuss other matters to do with welfare in the wake of the Stormont House agreement. I will ask my officials to place this issue on the agenda and we can have a conversation about that to make sure it is clear how it will be implemented in Northern Ireland.

One point flowed through the remarks of the hon. Members for Liverpool, Walton and for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford. I will set out my understanding of the position, which is clear. There was a lot of discussion about the levy on the industry. The scheme is effectively demand-led: people make applications to it and the costs of the scheme are then recovered through a levy on the industry. The 3% that has been talked about is a cap. The insurance industry agreed that if the cost remained below that level, it would absorb the cost of the scheme and would not pass it on to other employers who take out employers’ liability insurance through increased premiums. That was important. The Government did not want the cost of the scheme to fall on employers across Britain: we wanted it to be absorbed by the insurance industry.

So the 3% is a cap, not a target. The costs of the scheme are calculated and then the levy is calculated to recover the costs of the scheme. The hon. Members for Liverpool, Walton, for Strangford and for Stretford and Urmston referred to Lord Freud’s written statement on 28 November last year. He set out the costs of the scheme in the first period of the year, how much that encompassed and how much would therefore be recovered from the insurance industry. That position is clear. [Interruption.] Let me finish this thought and then I will take a question.

Hon. Members seem to have envisaged, although it was not envisaged by the Government, that there would be a 3% levy, some of the money from which would be used for settling claims and the rest would form a pot of money that could be distributed as Ministers or others saw fit. However, it is a cap on the costs that land on the industry. The industry agreed that if that remained the cap, it would absorb the costs of the scheme and not pass them on to employers more generally.

[Kate Green]

Unlike me, the Minister did not sit through all the Bill’s Committee sittings when we were passing the legislation. It really was not our understanding, when his predecessor said that 3% is 3% and not going anywhere, that that meant it was a cap. We took it as a figure that would be reached, and it was also what was understood by the victim support groups.

[Mr Harper]

I take the hon. Lady’s point that I was not the Minister at the time and was not present at those sittings. She asked me a written question following the written statement in November, and I made it clear in my answer that the 3% figure was the maximum percentage of the active employers’ liability insurance market to be levied on the insurance industry to recoup the costs of the scheme. I made it clear that the figure was a cap, rather than a set rate, and that the levy rate was based on the estimated costs of the scheme, extrapolated from the first seven months of the operation. The scheme is demand-led and calculations for the levy are done afresh each year. An upturn in applications to the scheme would result in a higher levy rate in future years, so the levy rate is kept under continual active review.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

There are two separate questions there. I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation—I suppose it depends where you start from. His understanding was that the 3% was an amount that was going to be levied to generate an amount of money, some of which would be used for the compensation and then, effectively, others could choose to spend it, but that is not my understanding and not the Government’s understanding of the scheme.

However, his general point—I am trying to answer his question about research funding—is that there is a clear view that there should be more research in this area. I will undertake to go away and look at the gap in the general debate between—

[Kate Green]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Harper]

Let me just answer the hon. Gentleman’s question; I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me for not giving way to her. As I was saying, I will look at the gap between the number of research proposals—my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford suggested there are not enough proposals, whereas the hon. Lady suggested there were quite a lot of proposals but not enough money. Let me look at what money is available from statutory funding sources; from the National Institute for Health Research and other funders in the area. It might be helpful if we can draw that funding information together, so that Members can see the overall picture of funding in this area. I would be interested to look at that and see how it is related to the need, based on the number of people who are sadly victims of this dreadful disease. That may be helpful to inform further developments—

Compulsory Jobs Guarantee

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

This has been a good debate and I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for their contributions.

Our motion is about how we tackle long-term unemployment, particularly long-term youth unemployment. While I welcome the belated increases in the numbers in work that hon. Members have talked about in relation to their constituencies—in passing, I point out that that rise in employment has been accompanied by record in-work poverty—today’s debate is about the fact that our long-term unemployment rate, particularly our long-term youth unemployment rate, remains far too high.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) pointed out in opening the debate, long-term youth unemployment, at 750,000, is not only rising but worsening relative to the population as a whole. Research by the House of Commons Library has shown that in 2010 youth unemployment stood at 2.5 times all unemployment. Now, on the latest figures we have, that proportion has increased to 2.9 times, so young people’s position is not improving; it is getting worse. As many hon. Members have noted, we should all be concerned about the scarring effect that occurs over lifetimes for individuals and communities if young people do not get the best start at the beginning of their working lives.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Does the hon. Lady agree that not having a role model and being brought up in a workless household are also sources of long-term youth unemployment? Does she welcome the fact that there are 400,000 fewer workless households under this Government?

[Kate Green]

Very few households choose to be workless. Indeed, very few—[Interruption.] I understand that the hon. Gentleman was not saying that. It is an issue not just of role models, but of opportunities. It is welcome that more people are in paid employment, but today’s debate is about that vulnerable minority who are scarred by long-term unemployment.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

One thing we should remember is that the Labour Government helped one-parent families through Sure Start, whose schemes allowed trapped housewives on council estates to get back into work if they wanted it.

[Kate Green]

I am extremely proud of the fact that, under Labour, lone parent employment rose from 44% in 1997 to nearly 60% by the time we left office.

An interesting debate opened up this afternoon about the proper role of Government in relation to long-term unemployment. One argument was expressed very well in a thoughtful speech by the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), who suggested that the role of Government was only to create the conditions for business to thrive and to make employment available. That is the real philosophical divide between Opposition and Government Members. We believe that it is the role of Government proactively to intervene as a backstop to tackle entrenched long-term unemployment. We believe that programmes that have attempted to do that—for example, the future jobs fund and Jobs Growth Wales—prove that such programmes, in those terms, are effective.

Those programmes were much criticised today by the Secretary of State, but they have been cost-effective and have created real jobs with real pay for those who participated. That, fundamentally, is what young people want.

Our compulsory jobs guarantee will be a quality offer for long-term unemployed people. It will be paid at least at the national minimum wage. It will guarantee work for at least six months. We expect, drawing on our experience of other programmes, that many of those jobs will turn into permanent jobs. It will consist also of support, to ensure that training and the opportunity to develop one’s career are embedded as part of the programme. Contrast those conditions with work experience which, of course, is important, but which fulfils a different function. I do not think it is appropriate to expect anyone, even our young people, to work for three months without proper pay, because at that point they must be doing a proper job.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), who is not in his place, made an important point about our compulsory jobs guarantee—the fact that it is founded on the concept of mutual obligation. For those who are out of work, we will make sure that after a period of one year for the under-25s or two years for the over-25s it will be our role to take the responsibility to guarantee them employment, and in return that individual will be expected to take up the opportunity that is offered.

The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), who made a very useful speech in many respects, seemed to think that the sort of conditionality that we propose in our compulsory jobs guarantee programme was not appropriate. I am entirely with her in the appropriate and careful use of sanctions—which I do not think we are seeing under the present Government—but I do not see what the problem is with having conditions for support which our compulsory jobs guarantee will offer, and it is right that they should be contained in the programme.

There was an important and interesting debate about engaging the private sector in our programme. As my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham pointed out in opening the debate, we have seen successful engagement of the private sector, particularly of the small and medium-sized enterprise sector, in Jobs Growth Wales. One criticism that many Government Members levelled at the future jobs fund was that it had not engaged with private sector employers. I readily accept that the programme was brought in as an emergency in response to a significant employment and financial crisis, and at that time the most straightforward way to do so was through the medium of the voluntary and the public sectors. But there is no reason at all why that could not have evolved to encompass private sector employers, and indeed those private sector employers who did participate, such as Jaguar, as my right hon. Friend mentioned, found it a very positive programme, as did those who went through it.

We heard some useful contributions from, for example, my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), about the importance of accompanying jobs programmes with investment in education, skills and vocational training. As the hon. Member for Stroud said, it is right that certain industry sectors struggle to recruit suitably qualified and appropriately skilled workers. That is why I so deplore some of the reforms that we have seen to the education system under this Government, which so erode the value of vocational education and training. Although Government Members like to tell us often about the growth in apprenticeships under this Government, young people aged 16 to 19 have not seen a growth in opportunities to take up apprenticeships. What is more, those apprenticeships too often take young people to only a level 2 qualification, and we know that many employers consider a level 2 qualification insufficient for someone to make a meaningful start in the kind of jobs that the hon. Gentleman rightly talks of.

Finally, let me address the concerns that were raised by a number of Government Members about whether our programme is fully funded and costed. May I take the opportunity to assure them that it is? It will be funded by the bankers’ bonus tax—[Interruption.] Not again, as the Minister says. This will be the only purpose to which an incoming Labour Government will put the funds raised by this one-off repeat of the bonus tax. When the Minister for Disabled People is sitting on the Opposition Benches after 7 May, I invite him to hold us to that commitment, because this is one that I confidently give on behalf of my party.

We also think it is right to impose further restrictions on pensions tax relief for the very highest earners. I can see no objection to those with the broadest shoulders bearing more of the burden of funding so that some of our young people have the chance of employment, and that is what we will do.

Many people lost out after the global economic crash and in the three years after the general election, when the economy hardly grew under this Government. Even now, as Ministers point to improving levels of employment, long-term and youth unemployment remain a scourge on our economy. Labour’s compulsory jobs guarantee is the key policy to change that, and the sooner we have a Labour Government ready to introduce it, the better.

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey]

I will not take any interventions, as the shadow Minister did not do so, but I will get through this in plenty of time for Members to speak—[Interruption.] Okay, I will take two interventions later.

What does the OECD have to say about Labour’s compulsory jobs guarantee? It says that there would be “displacement and substitution effects” and that it would not get anyone into permanent jobs. What did the Institute of Directors say? Like my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), it said:

“Wage subsidies for employers are not the source of sustainable jobs. Government must focus on creating the conditions for growth, as only businesses know when consumer demand will allow them to create more positions.”

That is exactly what we are doing, with business tax support, welfare changes, infrastructure and true fiscal discipline. I work with businesses pretty much every day, and we know that over the next 10 years, as a result of what this Government are doing, there will be 12 million new jobs created, fundamentally in science, engineering and IT. We have to ensure that our young people can take up those jobs, and that is what we are doing, with increased support for training and increased support for schools, for example through the pupil premium. We will help those who have been left on the unemployment list for so long and tackling the long-term youth problems and family problems through support for troubled families. We are systematically tackling unemployment and working with people to ensure that they are in work.

It is really important that we draw a clear distinction between what is working under this Government and what never worked under the Labour Government. My hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams) said that when Labour leaves office, it always does so with higher unemployment than when it came into office, and that is absolutely true. So why would anybody choose to move forward with this jobs guarantee without knowing where these guaranteed jobs are coming from?

Interestingly, even the European Commission, which likes to foist initiatives on people, has said that

“the draft Country Specific Recommendations published 2 June call for commitment to the UK’s Youth Contract to be maintained.”

In other words, it would not pursue Labour’s proposal on guaranteed jobs, and what we did was correct. We supported people and put money in place to create work experience, sector-based work academies, and incentives.

[Kate Green]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; this must be one of the two interventions that she is going to accept. Given that she is speaking of the European Commission’s comments on the youth jobs contract with such approval, why did her Government decide to scrap it, and how can it have been such a failure in delivering the outcomes it was promising?

[Esther McVey]

No, it is still going ahead. As I said, we have had the biggest falls in youth unemployment since records began. The Commission agreed that we are creating the right conditions, with more jobs being created in the UK than in the rest of Europe put together. That is why we have been having meetings with it to explain what we are doing rather than what the Opposition would do. The key point is that of course people would stay with those who have ensured that 1.75 million more people are employed.

I want to read out some of the predictions that Labour Members have made. They said that 1 million more people would be unemployed if we followed what we are doing. [Hon. Members: “Wrong!”] As all my Back Benchers are saying, that was wrong. In fact, nearly double that number of jobs were created. Labour Members said that what this Government were doing would lead to out-of-control inflation. [Hon. Members: “Wrong!”] That did not happen—we have brought it down. They said that there would be a double-dip recession. [Hon. Members: “Wrong!”] That never happened. No—the only recession was under Labour, and it was the longest and deepest since the war. They said that it was a fantasy that the private sector could create more jobs than were lost in the public sector. [Hon. Members: “Wrong!”] That was never the case; in fact, the private sector created over 2 million more jobs.

So why would anybody trust the Opposition with the economy, with jobs, and with the future of this country? The answer is that they certainly would not. That is why we are firmly saying today, three months before the general election, that their idea of how to create jobs is unfunded, ill thought through and unworkable, and we cannot find a business yet that wants to follow it. We reject the motion.

Question put.

Social Security (Statutory Instruments)

Kate Green Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his remarks. Labour Members welcome the uprating by 1.2% of payments made under these two important schemes. As he said, there is no requirement for those payments to be uprated, but it is surely right, at the very least, that those who receive awards under the schemes should see them rise in line with increases to social security disablement benefits.

As things stand, the uprating of the payments has to be confirmed by a Minister bringing forward legislation in the House in each year that uprating takes place. When the regulations were considered last year in the Delegated Legislation Committee that met on 24 March, my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) suggested that the awards should be put on a statutory footing. The then Minister for disabled people, the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), said that the Government were actively reviewing the way in which uprating could be done in future. What consideration have the Government given to that approach since then?

For a number of years, when uprating regulations have been debated, the main item of discussion has been the differential treatment of dependants and sufferers under the schemes. Dependants receive lower awards than sufferers in three ways. First, the cut-off age for dependants to be in receipt of an award under these schemes is 67, compared with 77 for in-life claims. Secondly, some in-life claimants can receive a 10% enhancement under the 1979 scheme, although not the 2008 scheme. Thirdly, awards to sufferers are in any event set at a higher level than those made to dependants.

Those anomalies have long concerned hon. Members, and furthermore they are at odds with the treatment of civil mesothelioma claims for compensation in the courts, where dependants actually receive higher awards. As hon. Members will appreciate, the speed and ferocity of these terrible diseases means that differentials can operate particularly harshly. Some sufferers, for example, may feel under pressure to rush through a claim to ensure that the maximum amount can be secured for their loved ones—a truly distressing experience when the life that remains to them is so short—while others may simply be too sick to claim at all before they die, and some may not be diagnosed while they are alive.

In 2010, my noble Friend Lord McKenzie of Luton took steps to eliminate the difference in treatment and began work towards equalising payments for dependants and sufferers. There has been no further progress, however, in narrowing the gap since then. I did not hear the Minister say anything about that, and it appears that it has once again been overlooked.

On 7 March 2013, when these schemes were considered by the Delegated Legislation Committee, the then Minister, the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr Hoban), recognised the wish to equalise payments for dependants and for sufferers and said that the Government were keeping the issue under active review, but at that time he blamed the economic situation for lack of progress since 2010. What further consideration have the Government given to moving towards equalisation, and what sort of economic performance do they believe would create the conditions for reducing the differential?

My understanding—I think this was confirmed by the Minister, although I may have misunderstood him—is that the vast majority of awards are made to sufferers and only a small number to dependants, so what estimate has he made of the cost of full or partial equalisation between the two schemes? How much has been recovered from civil compensation compared with the cost of the schemes, and is there any scope this year to fund some of the cost of equalisation from the civil compensation recoveries?

These matters have been raised each year we have debated the regulations, and I hope the Minister will at the very least be able to assure the House that they are not dropping off the radar. They are of deep importance to sufferers and to their families.

Finally, the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead told us last year in Committee that the Health and Safety Executive would launch a campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of asbestos and that there would be a full evaluation of that campaign’s effectiveness. Everyone knows the importance of repeatedly reminding people of the threat that asbestos poses—even today when so much is understood about its dangers—and how, in so many industrial and other settings, people continue to be at risk and exposed to it. Will the Minister update us on the progress of the HSE campaign and tell us what formal evaluation has been or will be carried out?

We certainly do not object to the uprating announcements that the Minister has made, but I hope he will be able to say something about the Government’s intentions in relation to becoming more generous to sufferers of some of the most terrible diseases that people can die of—diseases that are almost invariably contracted through no fault of the sufferer him or herself. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

Employment and Support Allowance and Work Capability Assessments

Kate Green Excerpts

Thursday 5th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Walker. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for this debate, which is based on a full and impressive report by the Work and Pensions Committee. It has been informed by other developments in this area, including the fifth report of the independent reviewer, which my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) referred to, the evidence-based review carried out by a number of independent organisations into an alternative assessment model and the Minister’s recent appearance before the Select Committee.

These issues are of huge interest to disabled people and the taxpayer. We face an £8 billion overspend on employment and support allowance and incapacity benefit in this Parliament because the DWP has not been able to assess people, reassess people or get them into work and off benefits. In 2010, the Government said that incapacity benefit would end, but 173,000 were still on the benefit in May 2014, the latest date for which we have figures; 527,000 cases were stuck in the ESA queue as of December. The new assessment provider, Maximus, has been contracted to carry out 1 million assessments in the first year of that contract. The Office for Budget Responsibility says it will take two years to clear the backlog and, as has been pointed out this afternoon, reassessments have been suspended for a little over a year now.

Will the Minister tell us when he anticipates the reassessments might restart? That would be helpful for the peace of mind of people who are still anxious about when the process might come back to hit them and helpful also because, from the point of view of Maximus and of the Department, it is an important question for planning work flow.

The costs and backlogs sit alongside a range of policy and operational issues that have been raised by the Select Committee, starting right at the very beginning of the process, when someone submits a claim for ESA and the evidence is gathered to inform an assessment and determine whether a face-to-face assessment is required. We know that there are difficulties with getting the relevant evidence together. We have heard this afternoon, in particular, about some of the difficulties associated with reliance on evidence by GPs. It seems from reports from claimants that evidence that should have been considered by the assessor and informed the assessment is often not available.

The Select Committee has made a number of helpful comments and suggestions on that concern—in particular, the suggestion that the DWP should take ownership of the process of submitting the ESA50 form and bringing the evidence together. It should not be the claimant or the health care professional who carries out the assessment for the independent company; the DWP itself should own the process of getting together the information for an assessment.

The Committee recommended that the taking on of that responsibility by the DWP should have been considered before the appointment of the new contractor. The new contractor, Maximus, is now in place, but as far as I am aware there has been no change to the process or to the responsibility of the DWP in relation to it. Will the Minister say what consideration the Government gave to that recommendation by the Select Committee? If there has not been a change of procedure, will he say why not?

The Select Committee made a number of recommendations about what I would call good housekeeping in relation to the assessment and decision-making process. There have also been recommendations from the independent reviewer and the evidence-based review of experts that looked at an alternative assessment model. It is clear that there are a whole range of really very helpful—and, I guess, obvious—suggestions that the Government should consider, and I hope the Minister will comment on those. For example, it has been recommended that the assessment process should be constituted on a semi-structured interview model; that we should ensure that the claimant can see what is being written and recorded during the course of the assessment; that assessors should avoid making inferences from what claimants say; and, as the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) said, that the assessment process should properly consider whether a task or function can be performed reliably, repeatedly and safely. There is also a need for much better awareness and understanding of, and training on, fluctuating conditions.

I welcome the fact that the new contract with Maximus is going to introduce more rigorous performance standards on access to assessment centres. It is obviously quite ridiculous that we are still hearing reports of claimants being asked to go to centres that they cannot get into or in which they cannot move around. However, access goes beyond the physical ability to enter and move around buildings. In particular, a key element of the Select Committee’s report focuses on improving communications, including written communication and communication with the claimant during the assessment.

In a debate in this Chamber on Tuesday, secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), the Minister talked about the priority he is giving to improving communications. Can he say more about that? For example, is he looking at ensuring that communications are presented in Easy Read and other accessible formats? What steps is he taking to ensure that communication during the assessment is appropriate to the circumstances of a claimant, in particular for those claimants with autism or learning difficulties?

I turn now to ESA itself. The Select Committee has made a number of comments. As has been noted by the hon. Member for Newton Abbot, since 2010 we have seen a significant difference in the proportion of people going into the support group or being found fit for work. In 2009, 10% of claimants were in the support group and 63% were found fit for work; now the position is 47% in the support group and 34% found fit for work. That has thrown up a number of issues.

First, as Dr Litchfield pointed out in his review, when assessors’ recommendations are overturned by decision makers, that almost always results in someone being moved into the support group. The previous independent reviewer, Professor Harrington, had suggested regular audits of decision-maker performance, and I wonder why that suggestion has not been followed. Dr Litchfield also pointed to the troubling rise in the number of young people at severe mental or physical risk being placed in the support group, with 34% being placed in that group without a face-to-face assessment. I would welcome the Minister’s observations on that. Does he intend to increase the number of face-to-face assessments? What steps is he taking to ensure that appropriate support is being given to that vulnerable group of people?

As has been mentioned this afternoon, the Select Committee also highlighted a number of issues about re-referrals. Thirty-six per cent. take place within three to six months and 63% of young people at severe mental or physical risk are reassessed within 12 months of being placed in the support group. Those relatively short re-referral periods make little sense. In some cases, they might suggest that people are being wrongly allocated to the support group; in others, the issue seems to lie with the so-called prognosis period—that language seems quite unhelpful, if not misleading.

In evidence given by charities, the Select Committee heard about a number of disturbing cases of people with degenerative conditions being assessed as improving, recovering or becoming fit for work. In the debate earlier this week that I referred to, the Minister said that he did not rule out the idea that some people in that group could become fit for work in the future or might want to work. He argued—I think I am right in saying this—that that explained why some people with degenerative conditions might be put in the work-related activity group.

The Minister told the Select Committee that even someone who had been deemed unlikely to return to work could still be doing some work-related activity. I have to ask him: what, and why? As the Chair of the Committee pointed out, given that there is a mechanism for reassessment of those in the support group and the opportunity for them voluntarily to work or prepare for work, there is no justification for placing in the work-related activity group people who are not fit for work now and for whom the prognosis is that they are unlikely to be fit for work in the future.

We have also heard that the suspension of the WFHRA has left a gap in the assessment process. The work capability assessment can take us only so far in identifying the level of benefit someone ought to be on or what group they ought to be in. Both the evidence-based review and the Select Committee have highlighted that those in the WRAG or found fit for work might need considerable adaptations or support to be able to work. There is nowhere in the process where that need can be appropriately reflected.

The Select Committee also raised concerns about former incapacity benefit claimants being placed in the WRAG via a paper assessment. I know that the Minister is keen to minimise the number of assessments where possible, but the Select Committee has pointed to some real problems arising from that situation. Many claimants do not understand the decision that has been taken or its implications; they do not understand the structure of conditionality that will apply, that they will receive lower benefits when in the support group or that, if they are on contributory employment and support allowance, they could lose the benefit altogether after 12 months—for example, if there is a partner working in the household that will mean that they might no longer be eligible for means-tested support. If the Minister is determined that people should be able to progress into the WRAG without a face-to-face assessment in some cases, will he say what steps he is taking to make sure that they fully understand the decision that has been taken about them and what it means for them?

My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East made a number of useful comments reflecting the Committee’s recommendations about mandatory reconsideration. I will say, for the record, that I welcome the potential for mandatory reconsideration to speed up the process of getting a decision for claimants. However, although there has been progress in recent months on reducing the time taken for mandatory reconsiderations, the most recent figures, as my hon. Friend pointed out, still show some 44,000 people—25% of cases—waiting over 30 days for the outcome. I do not think we have a breakdown of how much longer than 30 days they may be waiting.

The time scale for mandatory reconsiderations is especially important, because ESA is not paid during the reconsideration process. Although claimants can claim JSA during that period, many are reluctant to do so either because of the stricter conditionality that pertains or because they fear that it will compromise their ESA claim and their mandatory reconsideration. As was said earlier, the conditionality can and should be varied according to the individual circumstances, but that does not seem to be happening routinely in Jobcentre Plus. What plans does the Minister have to provide reminder training to Jobcentre Plus staff on that issue?

There is also an issue of transparency in relation to the mandatory reconsideration process and to the figures that are available. The statistics that we have seen do not separate out decisions overturned from initial decisions, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East pointed out, we do not have any figures for the outcome of mandatory reconsiderations. Therefore, we do not know how many are successful, how many are unsuccessful, how many go to appeal and what the total cost is to the taxpayer. The Minister said that he would get back to the Select Committee on the outcome of mandatory reconsideration, and I hope he will be able to say something about it today. The Department has not made available its guidance on mandatory reconsideration, so will the Minister commit to making it public?

The Select Committee and the independent review made a number of points about the ESA and WCA processes, and their relationship to improving employment outcomes for disabled people. The Minister told the Select Committee about a host of measures, pilots and initiatives, some of which are referred to in the Government’s official response. We now know about personalisation pathfinders, employer and young people portals, Disability Confident, the gateway employment tool, psychological well-being and work pilots, the employment and well-being toolkit to support Jobcentre Plus staff, the Fit for Work programme for getting people back to work, extra support in ESA hotspots, the well-regarded Access to Work programme, the less well-regarded Work programme and the six months’ intensive work coach support for those who have spent two years on the Work programme.

Some of those measures might be worth while, but, given that so much is going on, it is difficult to disentangle and monitor the effectiveness of each of them. It also makes it very difficult for Jobcentre Plus staff and work coaches to make the best choice about the support an individual should receive. What training do Jobcentre Plus staff receive identifying what is appropriate for individual claimants? That question is motivated by the fact that the number of specialist disability employment advisers has fallen by 20% under the Government.

There is widespread support for better information sharing from the assessment process with Jobcentre Plus, Work programme providers and others, which could be used for assessments for other benefits, such as personal independence payments. Will the Minister say a little more about how he envisages information sharing proceeding?

In conclusion, it is clear that the work capability assessment and ESA are complex, and that they continue to be a source of anxiety for claimants. I very much welcome the Select Committee’s report and the independent review. They produced many useful recommendations, and I look forward to hearing how the Minister will take them forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Green Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I do not know whom the hon. Lady has heard using that rhetoric, but it is certainly not me or members of this Government. [Interruption.] It is no good her waving at us. It may be reported like that in newspapers, but Ministers do not use that sort of language. I have been very clear that people who are able to go to work with the right support will receive employment and support allowance. I am sure she was listening to the long exchange we had earlier on mental health support. Half the people on ESA have a mental health problem. She will have heard me set out the considerable range of things we are doing to help them to get back into work.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

Ministers are spending £8 billion more than planned on incapacity benefit and ESA because they cannot assess people quickly enough, they cannot reassess them, and the failing Work programme cannot get them into sustained employment. Even the Minister for Employment, the right hon. Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), admitted a few moments ago that it is achieving a 90% failure rate. Now the Tories say that they want to cut £12 billion from social security spending, and disabled people are worried that they will be paying for this catalogue of Tory welfare failure. What reassurance can the Minister offer them?

[Mr Harper]

I listened carefully, but it is a bit rich for the hon. Lady to criticise the issues we had with the assessment process. There were issues with the assessment provider that her Government appointed, which is why we appointed a new contractor, Maximus, which will start work in March, and I am confident that that will improve the assessment process and get people back into work. Getting people back into work is how we will continue to reduce the benefits bill, which I remind her rose enormously when her party was in government.

Personal Independence Payments

Kate Green Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) on securing the debate, and I thank all hon. Members for their valuable comments.

For months, claimants have been telling us of problems with the administration of personal independence payments. It came as no surprise to read Paul Gray’s independent report and the concerns that he raised. Gray highlights a disjointed claimant journey, a lack of trust by claimants, a lack of transparency in the process, and a pretty poor experience all round for claimants seeking to apply for PIP. Gray states that

“the primary focus of early comment and attention on PIP has been the unfortunate reality of long delays and backlogs”,

thus reiterating what MPs have been hearing again and again from our constituents over the past few months. It is very clear that the roll-out of this benefit has not gone to plan.

The initial plans for PIP suggested that 500,000 fewer people would receive PIP than DLA by the end of 2015-16, and that all working-age DLA claimants would be reassessed by that time. That is some 2 million-plus claimants, but according to the most recent official figures, which were published just before Christmas and go up to the end of October 2014, the backlog of cases waiting for a decision stood at 287,000, and just 2% of affected DLA claimants had been reassessed.

The Minister has said—we heard it again this morning—that reducing the delays and the backlog in PIP is his top priority. Clearly, that is welcome, and I am sure we will hear from him about the progress that has been made. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) pointed out, on 15 January in the House of Lords, Lord Bourne told peers that the backlog had fallen to 107,000. There has been no official publication of that figure, and I have to say that it really is not acceptable for Ministers suddenly to pull figures out of the hat only a matter of parliamentary days after official figures giving a very different picture have been published. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us more information about the source of that figure of 107,000 and tell us when proper underpinning data about that will be publicly available, so that Members can scrutinise them.

It is welcome to hear that there has been progress in reducing the backlog, but it is also important to remember that the Government have shifted the goalposts. The original intention in the impact assessment was that it would take 12 to 16 weeks from application to receiving a decision. However, in June 2014, the Secretary of State said that the aim was that by the end of 2014 it would take a maximum of 16 weeks for an assessment—not a decision, but an assessment, which is one stage before a decision is made. The Minister reiterated the commitment to a 16-week time scale for assessments when he appeared before the Select Committee on Work and Pensions on 10 September. The DWP’s PIP online toolkit, which I checked last night, also confirms the ambition of a 16-week time scale.

However, even that less ambitious target still has not been achieved for all claimants, as we heard from hon. Members today. I hope the Minister will tell us when and whether the 16-week target has been met. It certainly seems to be being indicated to claimants that it will not be met. My hon. Friend pointed out the case of his constituent, who was told that there would be a 26-week wait, and what is more, that it would be too early to chase until 16 weeks had gone by. That does not suggest to me an ambition to clear that assessment within a 16-week time frame.

It is also very concerning, from another example that my hon. Friend pointed out, that where something is wrong in a claim, the clock seems to be set back to zero. An application that might have been made many months ago, as he described, but with a wrong or missing piece of information is not timed from the beginning of that claim, but only from when that piece of information is received. I understand that the Department will say that it cannot process an incomplete claim, but the consequence for that individual and others like him is that they have waited months and months to get an assessment and to get the money that they need.

I particularly want to ask the Minister about the situation with young people turning 16, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead. Kath Whittam is a parent living in Southwark, whose daughter received DLA. A letter was received from the DWP in February 2014 as her daughter approached her 16th birthday, advising her to prepare for PIP. The family were anxious about the situation, but they put in an application and Kath underwent an assessment to be the responsible fit and proper person to receive PIP payments and administer them for her daughter. However, because of the backlog, the PIP assessment still had not been undertaken by the time of her daughter’s 16th birthday, and because London, where the family live, is not yet in the area affected by migration to PIP, the daughter was no longer in the cohort due to be migrated to PIP, so the family were sent another DLA claim form. The daughter was, in fact, re-awarded DLA indefinitely in September.

That kind of situation is not just appalling for the claimant—and it is; it was stressful for Kath and her daughter, who were anxious about the PIP claim and about having to initiate a claim, and then being told that they had to apply all over again for DLA—it is wasteful of public money. There was all that pointless correspondence, the cost of a wasted assessment to establish that Kath was a fit and proper person, and then her daughter ended up back on DLA.

I asked the Minister in how many cases that had happened, and I received his written answer on 8 January, but it did not address that specific question. Perhaps he will tell us today how many 16-year-olds, or those approaching 16, have been through and successfully completed the PIP claims process, and how many have not and have had to return to DLA.

The cost of administering the benefit has been impacted by the need to draft in resources to deal with the backlog. The Minister, again in a written answer on 8 January, told me that 76 temporary staff have been employed to help, although he ignored my specific question about the rise in cost of staff time. Meanwhile, Paul Gray, in his report, highlights the fact that staff are undertaking evening and weekend work to help deal with the backlog.

There is considerable uncertainty about future costs, about the level of awards, and about the capacity to shift large numbers of reassessments once the full programme of managed reassessments commences. That uncertainty has been flagged up by both the National Audit Office and the Office for Budget Responsibility.

In February 2014, the NAO said that PIP was £140 million behind the projected £780 million savings in the current spending review period, and that the DWP had revised down the projected savings four times between January 2012 and December 2013 due to delays. It said that the administrative cost had risen from £49 for DLA to £182 for PIP, and that average waiting times for DLA were 37 days compared with 74 days for PIP. We do not know the current position on waiting times, because the DWP, as has been noted, will not publish all that information until March.

The NAO also said that the DWP had been set a budget of £101 million for delivering PIP in 2013-14 and £85 million in 2014-15. Will the Minister say whether that sum has been used in full or whether it has been exceeded, and if so, has it been used to deliver fewer of the assessments that had been planned when the budget was set? The NAO concluded:

“Because it may take some time to resolve delays the Department has increased the risk that the programme will not deliver value for money in the longer term.”

In October, the OBR published its “Welfare trends report”, which noted DWP projections:

“16 per cent of the DLA/PIP caseload will be on PIP by 2015-16, rising to 63 per cent by 2018-19. With comparatively little outturn data and a delayed rollout, we adjusted our forecast upward in March 2014 to reflect the emerging outturn data on the pace of the rollout. But it is too early to tell whether that was sufficient.”

Then, at the autumn statement in December, the OBR revised spending upwards by a further £400 million a year as a result of more people being found eligible for the new benefit than had been planned.

The Gray report shows that all those concerns about delays and costs to the public purse are matched by poor claimant experience. Starting right at the time of the application, Gray points out difficulties for some claimants with hearing impairments or learning disabilities using the telephone, and says that there is a need for alternative forms of digital access. Will the Minister say how he will take that forward?

There is a lack of information about the processing of people’s claims. Gray highlights that people are being told to ask the DWP, but the DWP says, “Ask the assessor” and the assessor says, “Ask the DWP.” As he said, that is “not an acceptable level” of customer service for any institution in 2014. He identifies problems with implicit consent; will the Minister say what steps he is taking to clarify that to staff and assessors? There are issues with the complexity of the claim form and the time taken to complete it, and people do not know that they can ask for an extension. As for gathering evidence to support a claim, Gray suggests better information sharing, which I think is a welcome suggestion, and I would like to know what the Minister is doing about it.





Gray also highlights uncertainty about who is responsible for gathering evidence—whether it is the assessor or the claimant. Sorting that out is pretty crucial, because the claimant has one month to gather information and submit a PIP2 claim, and many miss that deadline. In a written answer on 8 January, the Minister told me that there had been 159,000 disallowed claims, of which 48,500 were the result of non-return of the PIP2 form within the time limit. Is the DWP tracking what happens to those people? Do they apply again? That would mean additional cost to the public purse and more stress for the claimant. How many claims are treated as withdrawn, rather than disallowed? Does that include cases in which evidence has not been returned in time, and what impact has it had on clearance figures?

Gray highlights other problems, including appointments cancelled or people not being notified in time, the configuration of the room for assessments, and a lack of understanding by claimants of the purpose of some of the questions; it needs to be made clear that it is a functional, not a medical, assessment. Gray highlights some problems with the substance of the assessment: the descriptors on planning a journey, the use of aids and adaptations, and the problems with mental health conditions, fluctuating conditions and learning disabilities. He also highlights, very importantly, the use of informal observations as part of the assessment process and the need for transparency around that. He draws attention to poor communication of decisions. I am pleased that the DWP will review decision letters. When and how will that be done, and will claimants be involved?

In conclusion, Ministers need to be sure that the process of administering PIP is fair and effective. Better communications with claimants are clearly needed. Gray also suggests better liaison between assessors and claims managers. Decisions need to be timely and fair. Worryingly, Gray notes wide geographic variations in outcomes. He is right to recommend “horizontal” scrutiny of claims to ensure consistency, and a proper evaluation strategy; and he is surely right, in the light of all the delays, costs and confusion, to recommend action to redesign the PIP model regarding the claimant experience and business effectiveness. I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to answer the many questions that colleagues and I have posed, and I look forward to his response.