Disability Benefits Assessments

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I congratulate and thank the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for introducing this important debate.

The UK Government are failing disabled people, who have been hit hardest by the pandemic and the rising cost of living crisis. Some 42% of families who rely on disability benefits are in poverty, and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has said that 49% of all those living in poverty in the UK are either disabled people or live in a household containing a disabled person. According to the Disability Benefits Consortium, the financial situation of 78% of disabled claimants has worsened during the pandemic.

The long overdue national disability strategy was an underwhelming wish list, with few real commitments. It failed properly to take into account disabled people’s experience. Last week, the High Court found the strategy’s consultation process unlawful, due to its inadequate and inaccessible attempt at engagement with disabled people. The Green Paper was long overdue, but did little to convince disabled people’s organisations and disability charities that the UK Government have their best interests at heart. The Green Paper has failed to address benefit sanctions, the payment cap within Access to Work and the accessibility of the UK Government’s kickstart scheme and, worryingly, it considers merging benefits assessments to cut costs.

The DWP disability benefits assessment is an ineffective, deeply stressful and often traumatic process for disabled people. That would fairly sum up what many Members have said today. The assessment process often impedes rather than facilitates access to vital financial support. On average, more than 12,000 disabled people successfully overturn wrong PIP decisions every month. From 2017 to 2019, 2,500 people in my constituency appealed the outcome of their assessment and 18% had the outcome overturned. That figure was relatively low, which meant that people had to continue fighting for benefits they were entitled to by going on to a tribunal, causing more stress. Having an appropriate professional with relevant knowledge and understanding of a disabled person’s condition or impairment is vital to getting the right decision the first time around. Survey data shows that 70% of disabled people felt that their benefit assessor did not understand their condition.

Z2K, which I met this morning, has given me examples. I do not want to waste too much time, but they are important. One person said:

“I repeated several times how much pain I was in which was visible. They still asked me to do physical tests, leaving me in tears and in pain”.

Another said:

“When I received the assessor’s report, I cried, because it reflected a perfectly healthy person, not someone who cannot clean their house or hold down a full-time job”.

One Scope person said:

“I find it deeply dehumanising.”

I will stop there because it is distressing to read these accounts.

The UK Government must end punitive disability assessments to build on the positive temporary changes seen during covid, such as removing conditionality and sanctions for disabled claimants, as well as the need for face-to-face assessments. Claimants must be able to choose the method of assessment best suited to them and what makes them most comfortable. Disability organisations such as Sense have called for the DWP to retain the option of offering applicants the option of telephone and video calls and non-in-person assessments.

The Green Paper’s proposals for a new approach to sanctions are at odds with the Tory Government’s new Way to Work campaign, which is sure to push many, including disabled people, on universal credit into a corner and see sanctions rise. The Government must permanently end benefits sanctions for disabled people and those who are unwell. It is particularly cruel and does nothing but hurt those most in need.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) outlined briefly the Scottish Government’s approach to disability assessments. I will not repeat what she said, but I stress that the whole system in Scotland in based on dignity, fairness and respect. I think that should be rolled out right across the UK.

I have a few asks of the Minister. How will she ensure the White Paper on health and disability benefits properly consults disabled people, beyond an inaccessible lifestyle questionnaire, and does not repeat the Department’s failure of engagement seen in the Green Paper and national disability strategy? Will she permanently end benefit sanctions for disabled people and those who are unwell? Will she confirm that the UK Government’s Way to Work campaign will not push disabled people on universal credit into a corner and see sanctions rise? Will she fight for the cut of £20 in universal credit uplift to be reversed and for that money to be extended to people who are on legacy benefits who did not get it? That is another court case we are waiting for a result on.

Will the Minister consider following Scotland’s lead and create a person-centred approach that removes the burden from the claimant of providing supporting information and considers a wider array of evidence outside one-off assessments? Will she take steps to ensure that assessors carrying out disability assessments have the appropriate knowledge of the claimant’s condition or disability—basic stuff—and have proper disability sensitivity training?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chloe Smith]

We are talking about a Green Paper. The point of a Green Paper is to improve the system, so we should continue the debate that we are having.

We are committed to ensuring that people get a good service from our assessment providers. On training, all assessors are of course subject to ongoing quality checks and an audit process, so they all have access to specific training and guidance on a wide range of clinical conditions. To the Labour Members who want us to end the use of private providers, I simply confirm that we intend to continue to use providers.

I now turn to some of the statistics that have been used in the debate.

[Marion Fellows]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chloe Smith]

I am terribly sorry, but I now need to make progress to cover as many of the points that have been raised as I can.

Since October 2013, 3.2 million completed work capability assessments for ESA have taken place. Just 3% of those have gone on to complete an appeal against a fit-for-work decision, and 2% have been overturned at a tribunal hearing. Since PIP was introduced, 4.6 million initial decisions following an assessment have been made; 9% have been appealed and 5% overturned at a tribunal hearing. It is important to set that broader context around appeals and tribunals.

Although we know that most people who claim health and disability benefits have a positive experience—indeed, people themselves tell us that—we recognise that that is not always the case, and we are working hard to improve the assessment system for our claimants. We are committed to assessing people as quickly as possible, so that they get the benefits to which they are entitled. As several hon. Members have rightly said, we want to get backlogs down. Managing journey times for claimants is a priority for the Department. That is why we are using a blend of phone, video and face-to-face assessments to support customers and deliver a more efficient and user-centred service. We are increasing case manager and assessment provider health professional resource, and we are prioritising new claims.

I will briefly touch on the very sad points made by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald). He asked me to look at some specific cases; he will appreciate that there are boundaries to my powers to do so, but I can tell him that of course we want to do all we can to ensure that people get the right support as quickly as possible. We also have processes in the Department for identifying possible improvements from serious cases to prevent such things happening in the future. Of course, it is incredibly sad and tragic whenever any person dies, and I convey my condolences to his constituent’s family.

During the pandemic, we introduced a series of easements to help disabled people and people with health conditions to access our services. We made changes to ESA to help people who had covid, or had been advised to self-isolate, to access the benefit more quickly.

I will move on to some of the key points in the Green Paper and provide some updates to the House. We announced our intention to replace the current six-month eligibility rule for the special rules for terminal illness with a 12-month end-of-life approach. That is extremely important and there will be more details before the House soon on various parts of that implementation.

Our health transformation programme is integrating the services that deliver personal independence payment assessments and work capability assessments into a single service supported by a single digital platform. I note the example provided by the hon. Member for Battersea of a constituent who felt that they had had a particularly disjointed service from those two. We recognise the need to go further and rightly, therefore, consulted on several initiatives in the Green Paper to change the application and assessment process for the better, guided by the three priorities that I already mentioned.

We announced our intention to test a service that provides support for the most in need to help them to navigate the benefits system and other Government services. We will be setting out more detail in the White Paper. I note the points made by the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) about severe disability. We announced our plans to test a new severe disability group for those with severe and lifelong conditions. Again, in the White Paper, I will be able to provide further details of the work on that.

The Green Paper also looked at how we might separate the assessment for financial support from employment considerations, encouraging people to take up employment support, leading to better employment and independent living outcomes. Again, we will be beginning various tests of an employment and health discussion over the next couple of months regarding that.

We received more than 4,500 responses to the Green Paper proposals. We are very grateful to all those who fed in their views. Listening to disabled people is critical. We are now analysing the responses, along with the views expressed to us by people who attended one of the more than 40 consultation events that took place over that period. That included the first meeting with our newly founded ethnic minority forum, where we heard from people from ethnic minority backgrounds about their real lived experiences of the benefits system. As I say, we will be able to bring forward a great number of updates in the White Paper later this year. I continue to work closely with disabled people, disabled people’s organisations and many of the charities also mentioned today. There are several areas of work where I hope to co-produce the outcomes with them.

I reiterate my and the Government’s commitment to improving the lives of disabled people. I am proud of the progress we have made so far. We have put forward some important reforms to go further and build trust and to ensure that disabled people have every opportunity and support that is needed.