Work Capability Assessments

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Williams. I am following a very powerful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson). In securing this debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) has done a great service not just to the House but to the many thousands of people in the country who are affected by the issues. I had a number of points that I wanted to make, but as others still want to contribute, I will restrict my comments to two specific problems with the work capability assessment that arise from my constituency.

My first concern relates to people with sensory impairments. In particular, I want to raise an issue that was brought to my attention by a constituent with a visual impairment. In fact, I raised this case in a parliamentary question with a Minister a few months ago because my constituent was having problems filling in the ESA50 form through the audio systems available to people with visual impairment. After months of difficulties, which I do not have time to go into today, it turns out that my constituent may not have actually needed to go through this process because in November, the DWP changed the criteria by which people are allocated to an ESA support group. I am told that the new rules mean that someone with a hearing or a visual impairment could qualify for a place in a support group, whereas between April and November, the position was that someone had to have both a hearing and a visual impairment to qualify for the support group. That has certainly caused my constituent a great deal of concern. By giving her the wrong guidance, she felt that the DWP had sent her down the wrong road for months.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene. I will respond to all the detailed questions in my remarks. On this specific point, there have been no changes to the rules around referrals. There were no changes in November. We have updated our guidance, which we do as a matter of routine, but there have been no changes to the formal rules.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I understand what the Minister is saying, but the guidance was updated to reflect some of the difficulties that had been raised. The view of the Royal National Institute of Blind People is that Atos may well have been wrongly assessing people between April and November. That may have been the fault not of Atos, but of the incorrect guidance. Will the Minister tell us how many people were wrongly assessed and why there was a need to issue new guidance? Why was my constituent required to go along a road which she did not need to, given the fact that new guidance was issued?

My second point covers the position of people with mental illness, which has been raised by a number of colleagues in this debate. I refer to a report produced by the Consultation and Advocacy Promotion Service, which is an independent advocacy organisation that operates from Edinburgh, Midlothian and East Lothian. The report describes the experience of people with mental health problems going through the work capability assessment process. Again, if time had been available, I would have gone into great detail. Instead, I will simply report its main conclusions.

The work capability assessment for employment and ESA is not designed to assess accurately the needs of people with mental health conditions. It causes a high level of stress and anxiety in people with mental health conditions and, in some cases, it may even make their condition worse. It does not cater for fluctuating conditions, nor does it accurately record how those conditions affect people’s ability to work. That is an experience that many Members will have heard about in their surgeries. I hope, following the Harrington review, that we will see some improvements in that area.

Finally, we are all experiencing these difficulties because of the way in which the process was hurriedly rolled out across the country. We will face, over the next few months and years, even more dramatic changes to the whole welfare system. If we do not learn from the mistakes that we have made so far, we will find that the problems relating to the work capability assessment process are repeated many times throughout the country. Many more people will suffer. Many more people who could get into work might not be able to because they will not be given the support. Many people who will not be able to get into work will be driven to desperation because of the difficulties that they will face. At the end of day, it will also cost the public purse much more money, which none of us wants to see happening.

I hope that the Minister will recognise that we are not trying to make political points. It is not a political issue; we raise it because we hear from our constituents in our surgeries throughout the country every week and we want action. Opposition Members would certainly be beating down the door of a Labour Minister if we were in government and there were the same kind of problems. We need action and assurance. We certainly do not need complacency from the Minister and I sincerely hope that we do not get it in his reply today.