Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Eilidh Whiteford

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

On that matter, the Minister of State wisely heeded the recommendation of the Speaker’s Conference on Parliamentary Representation, which enjoyed all-party support.

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

Voluntary sector organisations working with the most vulnerable claimants are expressing concerns that people with mental illness are still over represented among those being sanctioned. Does the Minister accept that there is still a problem here, and what more can he do about it?

[Mr Harper]

Just before I answer the hon. Lady, let me say that I am happy to agree with you, Mr Speaker, that your conference showed great leadership, which we were happy to follow. I think that it is wise to acknowledge that from the Dispatch Box—[Laughter.] The Secretary of State says keep going. The hon. Lady makes a serious point about sanctioning. We have to make sure in the Department and Jobcentre Plus that if someone on employment and support allowance does not engage with the help they are given, we understand why they do not engage with it and then deliver proper support. Last week, when I was looking at the pilots, I was trying to see how we better engage with that mental health support to ensure that we give people the support both to stay in work, and to get back to work, if they have a mental health problem.

Personal Independence Payments

Debate between Mark Harper and Eilidh Whiteford

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Harper]

I will certainly make sure that the meetings I have with the Minister are helpful. The hon. Members for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) and for Edinburgh North and Leith mentioned the Smith commission, which is relevant to the conversations in Northern Ireland and in Scotland. It may not be far in the future, but I cannot anticipate the Government’s comprehensive response to the report published by the Smith commission, for which hon. Members will have to wait patiently a little longer. It is worth saying that we have to be careful, because Ministers have to follow current legislation. All that has been announced in the Smith commission report is what will happen in the future. The Government have made commitments, but no legislation has yet been introduced. When legislation is introduced, the Scottish Government will have to decide what they will do, and our conversation today makes it clear that we will have to think about operational delivery. Ministers have to proceed on the basis of the current law.

[Dr Whiteford]

The point I was trying to make was that in looking forward—obviously, we do not know what is in the proposals—the Government’s evaluation of the current policy is important to inform any future decisions made elsewhere.

[Mr Harper]

I take that point, and Paul Gray’s review will partly inform that. If there are lessons to be learned about implementation when the proposals are published and changes are made, I am sure that officials in my Department and Ministers in the UK Government will want to work in partnership with Ministers and officials in the Scottish Government to ensure that things proceed smoothly. We will publish the response to the Smith commission in the not-too-distant future. As Members have said, a commitment has been made to do so by 25 January. I want to put on record that we will proceed on the basis of existing law.

The hon. Member for Foyle mentioned children. There are no plans to extend PIP to children; we have always said that we wanted to see how PIP for adults worked. If a decision was made to extend PIP to children—I emphasise that there are no plans to do so—it would be subject to consultation and to the affirmative procedure in Parliament, so both Houses would have to be involved in that decision. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that primary legislation would not be required, but parliamentary procedures would have to be followed.

On the question of the transition from DLA for young people, which the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston mentioned, people cannot claim PIP until their 16th birthday, but we contact people in advance to enable them to prepare and, as she said, to see whether the child needs an appointee to help them through the process. She asked some specific questions, following up on her earlier written question. I will look at the Hansard report of the debate and, if she is content for me to do so, I will write to her and place a copy of the reply in the Library, which I hope will help colleagues.

In summary, I have made it clear that delays, which several hon. Members have touched on, are unacceptable. The Department and providers have been working hard to deal with them. The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead mentioned that I will be giving evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee next week—I am looking forward to that, as is she—on a number of issues, including PIP. I will be happy to explain the progress that we have made. We will publish properly verified statistics to make sure that that is an informed discussion.

We have welcomed the Gray review. I have said a little about some of the areas in which we are already working on it, and we will publish a full response. I think I have answered seven of the nine questions asked by the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead—we will cover the two that I did not answer in our full response to Paul Gray’s review, which we will deliver in due course. I think I have touched on all the questions that hon. Members have asked. The debate has been helpful, and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for securing it.

Personal Independence Payments

Debate between Mark Harper and Eilidh Whiteford

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.