Welfare: Personal Independence Payment

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, the Minister is on record as saying that not every PIP claimant will require a face-to-face assessment. In the case of autism, will the Government ensure that evidence is collected from professionals who know an autistic person well, before a decision is taken on whether a face-to-face assessment is needed? When one is considered necessary, can he confirm that the assessors will be fully trained to understand the communication difficulties associated with autism?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, autism is, as the noble Lord points out, a really difficult area for people. It is difficult to understand and see sometimes, but we have a comprehensive training set-up for ATOS and Capita, which will be conducting the assessment. Clearly, each of those people will need to be approved by the DWP. Autism is among a group of quite difficult things to assess, and I personally take his point about its importance. The Government take his point and we will make sure that, when we give the approvals for that, it is one of the issues that is dealt with absolutely properly.