Personal Independence Payments

Mark Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 28th October 2014 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Harper)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) on securing the debate. I used to sit in debates that he led when I was a shadow Minister, so I know that he has long-standing interest in disability matters and it is good to hear his views.

I also pay tribute to Citizens Advice. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Citizens Advice Scotland, but my constituency team works closely with the citizens advice bureau in the Forest of Dean. We assist some of its clients, and sometimes it assists a number of ours.

As the right hon. Gentleman referred to our overall treatment of the most vulnerable in our society and disabled people, I will begin by putting on record that the amount of taxpayer money spent on personal independence payments and disability living allowance for working-age people has been more in real terms in each year of this Parliament compared with the year that we came to power. To be clear, more resources are going to support people with disabilities to enable them to live independent lives and to work.

I have been frank in oral questions in the Chamber, and during a lengthy evidence session with the Work and Pensions Committee, that the delays that people face are unacceptable. I have not tried to hide from that and I am committed to putting it right. It is literally my top priority, and it was one of the things that the Prime Minister specifically asked me to address when he appointed me in July. The right hon. Gentleman, having set out his concerns and those in the reports, will want to know what the Department is doing to deal with the issues.

[Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Harper]

I may at the end of my speech, but if the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will try to deal with the points raised by the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill. As this is his debate, it would be discourteous if I did not do so.

We have a new team of officials in the Department that is working on a daily basis with our assessment providers. Atos deals with assessments in Scotland, while Capita is the other provider in Great Britain. I look at their performance on a weekly basis to ensure that we are driving through improvements. The capacity of the providers has increased. We have doubled the number of health professionals carrying out the assessments. We have increased the number of assessment centres and extended the opening hours. We have also increased the number of paper-based assessments, which occur when the evidence that the claimant sends to us makes it sufficiently clear that a decision can be reached without needing to get them to attend a face-to-face assessment. We follow that process when we can. If claimants have also had a work capability assessment, we are looking at using the report from that as part of the evidence, and that is enabling us to make more decisions on paper, thus sparing the claimant the need to come in for a face-to-face assessment.

We have made a number of changes to our processes and IT systems to ensure that the transmission of information from the provider to the Department is streamlined. We have also looked at what we communicate to claimants regarding the information with which they provide us in the first place to ensure that we get the right information that enables us to make a decision earlier in the process.

We have increased the number of decisions we have taken. We made more than 35,000 a month according to the latest published statistics, which cover up to July. Since then, we have continued to build significantly on those numbers week on week. I will not pretend that the problem is fixed, but we are moving in the right direction. We will deliver the Secretary of State’s commitment to ensure that, by the end of this year, no one will have to wait more than 16 weeks for their assessment, and we will look to improve that further next year.

In Scotland specifically, Atos, which is the assessment provider there, has more than trebled its output this year. It is now clearing more cases than we send it and working through its backlog. The picture is improving, but I do not want to take away from the fact that people have been inconvenienced and experienced some delays. In Scotland, we have seen one of the best improvements for any part of Great Britain. There has been a 40% increase in the number of home consultations. The right hon. Gentleman and the report to which he referred said that given the geography and population density of Scotland, travelling to an assessment centre can involve a lengthy journey. More home consultations are taking place, and there is a new assessment centre in Edinburgh, with more to follow in Aberdeen and Dundee in the coming months.

We have improved the communication to claimants at the front end of the process so that they know the best evidence to supply and how long their claim may take to be assessed. We stress the importance of sending us relevant information to speed up the claim. We have also been communicating better with claimants to confirm when we have received their forms so that they know that their claim is in the system.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the performance of the system for claimants who are terminally ill. I am pleased to say that our dealing with those cases is now pretty close to our target. He is right that the performance earlier this year was not adequate. My predecessor, the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), put a lot of work into dealing with that, working closely with Macmillan Cancer Support. I think we have got that part of the process working well, as is right, because it is important that we make timely decisions for those with terminal illnesses and give them support. The assessment providers are giving claimants better information about where they are in the process, how long a claim may take and who to contact at each stage of their claim.

On assessment outcomes—while the right hon. Gentleman talked about delays, he also touched on the assessment itself—we want to ensure that people get high-quality, objective and fair assessments. We want everyone to get the right decision first time. The report included several quotes from CAB customers on both sides of the argument, a number of which demonstrated that once people had received their assessment, they felt that the process was fair and that it reached the right outcomes. There were, of course, some quotes setting out other experiences, but I thought that the Citizens Advice report was fairly balanced and demonstrated that the quality of assessment is good.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about the impact of some of the delays, and we also heard about that in interventions. Of course, a delay in a claim can cause claimants a cash-flow issue. It is worth saying that if someone is successful in getting PIP, their award is backdated to the date of claim, but I accept that some face such a issue. PIP is not an out-of-work benefit. It is not designed for those who are unable to work, as that is what jobseeker’s allowance and the employment and support allowance are for. Under the ESA, people are paid an assessment rate from when they put in the claim. If people are unable to work because of their disability or health condition, PIP is not the benefit that deals with their lack of income.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about the important issue of passporting, which is where getting PIP entitles someone to other benefits. I was asked about carer’s allowance, and when someone gets PIP, that will be backdated, and the carer’s allowance can be backdated, too.

[Michael Connarty]

The Minister must accept that if housing benefit is not backdated, people can be left with a substantial debt, even if they get PIP on appeal.

[Mr Harper]

I listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said about that. PIP and DLA are not passported benefits for housing benefit. There is a disability premium in housing benefit, but getting PIP or DLA does not entitle someone to housing benefit. If he wants to write to me about a specific case, however, I will look into it. PIP and DLA can give a bit more housing benefit if someone is entitled to that. However, they do not determine whether someone is entitled to housing benefit, so I am not sure I follow his point.

[Michael Connarty]

I will do what the Minister suggests. After the debate, I will be meeting the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), about that very point.

[Mr Harper]

Okay. On other passporting issues, blue badges can be issued without PIP being in payment, so if someone is not getting PIP, it does not mean that they cannot get a blue badge. NHS help with travel expenses and prescriptions is based on the receipt of income-related benefits. Local authorities are able to provide social care or help with adaptations on the basis of their assessments, and they should not exclude people just because they are not entitled to the personal independence payment.

In the couple of minutes remaining, I shall say a little more about claims relating to those who are terminally ill. In addition to the things that I have mentioned, we have put in place a dedicated phone service for such claims, as well as an electronic form so that the medical information we require from GPs and consultants can get to the Department as quickly as possible. As I said, we are now achieving the performance that we would want from the Department, so we have made progress in that area.

I understand the frustrations that people have experienced. There have been cases in my constituency of people waiting too long. I have been frank about that, and my top priority is to improve that situation. We are making progress and moving in the right direction, and we will hit the Secretary of State’s commitment by the end of the year—I give the right hon. Gentleman my assurance about that. I have clearly set out that we are spending more money on supporting those on DLA and PIP in every year of this Parliament compared with the year we came to office. It is not the case that we are dealing with the deficit off the backs of disabled people, and I want to ensure that the customer experience is improved.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about an independent review. He will know that Paul Gray has been appointed to carry out the first independent review. He has taken evidence from a range of people involved in this benefit. He is due to provide his report, which the Department will publish, by the end of the year. It will set out, according to his terms of reference, information about the quality of assessments, how the providers are performing and whether the assessments are correctly putting people into the right categories.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Harper]

So long as the hon. Gentleman is very quick, as we have 35 seconds left.

[Mr Cunningham]

I will be as quick as I can. On the 75,000 claims waiting to be assessed, what progress has been made in England? The Minister has talked about Scotland, but what about England, where there are similar problems?

[Mr Harper]

I recognise that the hon. Gentleman represents an English constituency, as I do. We are making progress in England. By focusing on Scotland, I was not trying to say that that is the only place where we are making progress, as we are making progress across Great Britain. I was simply making the point to the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill that the performance in Scotland is better than it is elsewhere in Great Britain, and I hope that what I have said will reassure constituents.