Personal Independence Payments

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) on securing the debate, which is certainly timely. Like other Members, I was impelled to come to the debate by the experience I have had in my constituency surgery, where I have seen case after case, week after week, of people suffering from delays in PIP assessments, with all the difficulties that arise from that.

In passing, I should say that I am surprised that there are no Members from the Government parties in the debate. I am not one of those MPs who jump to conclusions as to why Members are not present in debates, or who accuse them of base motives, but it is hard to believe that no constituencies represented by Conservatives or Liberal Democrats have similar problems. I will charitably assume that Government Members have raised these issues with Ministers—I am sure they have—and that they are too embarrassed to come along today because they know they cannot defend the delays and the chaos, and because they would have to mention the types of experience that we have had in our constituencies. People have certainly had a bad experience, and the Government need to address that much more directly and seriously.

[Jim Shannon]

Perhaps they are away campaigning.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Perhaps they are. If they are, perhaps they will hear from people on the doorsteps about some of the problems the Government’s policies are causing.

Like all Members here today, I have a fat file of cases, and if I were to read out all of them I would take up all the time available to me. However, I want to highlight three cases that demonstrate some of the wider problems affecting the system. The first is that of a constituent who wrote to me just before Christmas, saying:

“I am currently a student nurse who works part time as a chef. As a result of my PIP assessment waiting time I have been forced to sell my house and am unable to claim housing benefits to help towards my rent.

I am epileptic and am unable to work more hours to make ends meet. I am already far into my overdraft and I have been told I have to wait around 26 weeks for my assessment.”

Obviously, I took up that case, and things were moved forward a little. However, that is an example of how people’s lives are being turned upside down by the delays all of us experience in the system up and down the country.

Another case, which is quite interesting for a reason that will become apparent, involves a constituent who told me that he had made a claim for PIP in February 2014, following a heart attack in November 2013. In January this year, he told me that a decision had still not been made on his application. He is on a heart transplant list. In the meantime, he has a pacemaker, which is due to be replaced in Glasgow, but he is worried that he will not be able to meet the travel costs for hospital appointments. Again, that is an indication that financial costs and difficulties lead to other stresses and difficulties for those who suffer under this process.

I refer to that case because it illustrates the delays that affect so many people. The response I received from the DWP when I took up the case with the complaints resolution service was interesting. I have to say that DWP staff are normally very helpful when I get in touch with them, and they try to move cases forward, and the same is true of the Minister and his office. However, the reply I got from DWP staff said there had been some issues at the beginning of the case because there were not always up-to-date address details for the constituent—I do not have enough details to know whether the delay could be ascribed to the DWP, my constituent or Atos. In any event, I was told that the uncertainty

“resulted in the request for an assessment”—

presumably by the DWP—

“only being made on 3 October 2014. Although it was a little early for us to try and push for an appointment I got in touch with Atos”.

I was then told that a home consultation had been booked for 4 February.

As to the comment that

“it was a little early for us to try and push”

for an assessment, here was a case where somebody applied in February and, for whatever reasons, there was some delay in the process; but someone in the DWP felt that they had to allow it to go on a bit longer, no doubt because they knew that there were so many cases that they could not just press for an assessment. When an assessment was finally allocated, it was only at the end of a 16-week period, which as we know is the Government target.

The third case that I want to refer to highlights the difficulties of a constituent who was previously on the higher rate of the care component of DLA, but did not have the mobility component. He applied for PIP on 14 March 2013, and he was finally awarded it on 25 September 2014, about 18 months later. He was awarded the higher rate of both components of PIP, including the mobility component, but of course the higher rate could not be backdated by more than 28 days. We see such situations time and again, of course, and that shows the problems with the system. The idea that if someone gets the higher rate it is not backdated, but if they get the lower one they do not get money taken off them, sounds fair—at least, it sounds a simple approach to delays. However, surely no one can think it acceptable when people experience delays of not just 16 weeks but six months or a year.

The situation might not be particularly unfair if those assessed at the higher rate had it backdated but those assessed at the lower rate did not have their previous higher-rate payments taken away from them. We are not talking about large sums of money—well, we are talking about large sums of money, but not for the people receiving the benefits. That should be an incentive to the Government to get their act together and ensure that cases are dealt with more quickly, to prevent a situation in which someone assessed at a higher rate—in my example, for 18 months of the mobility component—is deprived of what they should have had over the relevant period because of delays that are no fault of theirs.

In that context, Paul Gray’s review is welcome. I think the limited scope of the recommendations disappointed many people, but that is not Mr Gray’s fault. It is the fault of his remit and the way he felt obliged to address the issue, given the time scale he was given and other factors such as the timing of the election. However, the fact that people are disappointed means that there is a need for a much more direct Government drive to deal, above all, with delays and associated problems. Let us not forget that the Government must take the blame for delays and failures.

Hon. Members will be aware of the damning report of the Public Accounts Committee. Its Chair said:

“The implementation of Personal Independence Payment has been nothing short of a fiasco. The Department of Work and Pensions has let down some of the most vulnerable people in our society, many of whom have had to wait more than 6 months for their claims to be decided.”

That is true. The Committee’s report said:

“Critical assumptions about the process were not fully tested and proved to be incorrect, resulting in significant delays to benefit decisions and a backlog of claims.”

That is a failure. It is a failure of Government, and the Government need to accept that responsibility.

We want, however, to deal with the problems. I am sure that we all want much more comprehensive action to deal with the delays that affect so many people. The present arrangement, whereby higher awards are not backdated beyond 28 days, needs to be replaced with backdating to the time when the application was submitted. I am sure that other hon. Members have received a briefing from Leonard Cheshire Disability, as I have, urging the Government to consider providing financial help to those who are in difficulties precisely because of delays in dealing with their applications.

Many hon. Members will be aware of a current and well-known campaign in Scotland led by Gordon Aikman—I am sure that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) is aware of it. Gordon Aikman is suffering from motor neurone disease and is using the last few months of his life to campaign for better treatment for sufferers in many areas. One of the issues that he has raised is the fact that delay in assessment has a particularly serious effect on those whose condition is terminal, but whose prognosis is not that they will die within six months. Someone whose life expectancy is six months or less will be given an accelerated assessment, but I understand that the average prognosis for people with MND is 14 months, and those people are not given an accelerated assessment. However, it is clearly unacceptable that they should wait a year or so. The Minister should look at providing an accelerated assessment process for people whose prognosis includes limited life expectancy.

Leonard Cheshire Disability also proposes a general halt to further plans to extend benefits to more people until the assessment system is fit for purpose. That seems sensible to me, and it brings me to my final point, which is about the implications of recommendations to devolve PIP to the Scottish Government and Parliament. As the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan pointed out, the Smith commission’s report included those recommendations, and it is widely known that the Government will put forward details of the next stage in that process on Thursday. I accept that the Minister may not be able to respond today with reference to an announcement due on Thursday, but I hope that he will recognise that it would be crazy to continue to roll out PIP in Scotland under the present arrangements, with all their difficulties, just when we are about to provide for full devolution of PIP to Scotland with the agreement of all the parties.

[Jim Shannon]

In the context of the devolution of welfare reform, it is important to look at other parts of the United Kingdom, such as Northern Ireland. Sometimes we should be careful what we wish for.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

That is an interesting point, but all the parties want devolution, and we will have to live with the consequences. I welcome the devolution of large elements of the welfare system to Scotland. I think it will be better for Scotland, for those on benefits there, and for the UK, but I hear what the hon. Gentleman says.

My final point is that, as has been pointed out, one difficulty in making a judgment about the failures of the PIP system is the lack of data about the extent of the problems and the length of time people must wait for assessments. As the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan pointed out, we get the tip of the iceberg in our constituency offices. We take up cases and hopefully get them moved forward, but of course people tend to come to us only when they have gone through every other avenue and have not been able to resolve their problems. I suspect that there are still people who are not even coming to MPs or to benefit advice centres, and they are probably suffering worse than those who come to us, whose problems we can at least try to resolve.

We need action from the Government, and answers. I would like a commitment from the Minister on the situation in Scotland. I hope that the Department will give a statement quickly after Thursday’s expected announcement, explaining how PIP roll-out will be carried out in Scotland as the Smith commission proposals go into their next stage of delivery, which we know all the parties want.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Disabled People (Mr Mark Harper)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) on securing the debate. In the time available, I will do my best to answer as many as possible of the questions that she and others asked.

A number of colleagues raised the issue of delays and statistics. I think that colleagues got the message that I gave before, because a number of them helpfully repeated it, about dealing with the delays that claimants have experienced. It was and remains the issue on which I am spending a lot of time, to ensure that we resolve it. Both I and officials have been working very hard to do so, as have both the assessment providers.

We have quadrupled the number of assessments cleared each month since January last year, and the number of people with a PIP claim in payment almost doubled between July and October. This morning, the Department has pre-announced that we will publish next Wednesday information on the number of PIP claims processed. I have written to the Chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee, the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), to inform her of that fact, and I will of course take the Committee through those key pieces of information on the day on which I give evidence.

The normal publication of clearance times and outstanding case times, which we pre-announced in December, will take place in March, and the exact date will be pre-announced in the usual way. That will be the publication of the normal set of statistics, which will then take place on a regular basis. However, there will be an ad hoc publication next week, so that my conversation with the Select Committee will be informed by properly verified statistical information, which I think will be helpful, rather than unverified management information. As I said, I have written to the Chairman of the Committee this morning to let her know.

Hon. Members referred to the impact of the delays. It is worth making the point that PIP is designed to meet the extra costs of someone’s disability or health condition; it is not a benefit designed to meet normal day-to-day costs. In this and other debates, hon. Members have sometimes talked about someone who has had to leave work because of their health condition. PIP is obviously not designed to deal with the costs of that. Those costs will be dealt with by other benefits—for example, employment and support allowance.

All new claims for PIP are backdated to the date of the claim. I recognise, of course, that that presents a cash-flow problem for people, which is why we are working hard to deal with the delays. Of course, in the case of all reassessed claims, people will continue to receive their DLA while awaiting the PIP decision. Other support, which is not tied to receipt of PIP, is available for those on a low income. I am talking about help with energy bills, concessionary bus passes and help with NHS transport costs; and there is the ability to get a blue badge through an assessment, rather than being passported through PIP. Carer’s allowance can be backdated to the point from which PIP was awarded, as well. Again, I recognise that there is a cash-flow issue there, but people are able to backdate the costs.

I thank Paul Gray very much for his report. He did a thorough job. He talked to the assessment providers, to a lot of people who have had experience of claiming the benefit and those who have assisted them, and to many organisations involved in the process. It is a thorough report, and we will of course respond to it in due course. I can say some things today, because some of the recommendations are about things that are already under way. For example, we are reviewing and rewriting all the letters to claimants to make them simpler, easier to understand and clearer. We are also exploring the use of other medical evidence held by the Department. For example—this relates to a question asked by both the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green)—if someone has gone through a work capability assessment and we have an ESA85 report from that assessment, we are using that information to support and help inform the decision to award PIP. Sometimes that will enable us to make a decision without a face-to-face assessment. It may mean that we have enough information to make those decisions on paper—it is obviously welcome if we can do that—or it may help to inform the decision, so we are looking at doing that.

We are looking at using more proactive communications. For example, since last April claimants get a text message to confirm that their form has been received, so that they know that it is in process. We are also building better relationships between the DWP case managers who make decisions and the health care professionals who make assessments.

We have made changes to some of our internal processes and IT to further streamline clearances of claims. We have improved communications to claimants at the beginning, to try to ensure that they know what the best evidence to supply is and how long their claim may take to be assessed, and to stress the importance of sending us information and following the process. We have a dedicated customer claim line for terminally ill claimants. The assessment providers are also providing claimants with better information about how long a claim may take and whom they should contact at each stage of the process.

As a number of hon. Members mentioned, including the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz), there is a fast-track service and a dedicated claim line for terminally ill claimants with a prognosis of six months or less. We are clearing those cases in about 10 days, which is in line with expectations, and 99% of the decisions lead to an award. In the review, Paul Gray acknowledged that the process for terminally ill claimants had significantly improved following the work that the Department and my predecessor did with Macmillan Cancer Support.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I hear what the Minister says, and perhaps he will come to this later, but what about the situation that I described of people whose prognosis is more than six months but still relatively short, who will be hit badly when there are delays of much more than 16 weeks?

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman makes a perfectly sensible point. The solution is to fix things so that people are not having to wait so long. Clearly, we have to state a time. People have various health conditions and disabilities, and we have to draw a line somewhere, but the real solution for the cases that the hon. Gentleman mentions is to do what we are doing, which is to ensure that people going through the process have an assessment within a sensible time. Then the issue that he set out simply does not arise, because they are getting an assessment, a relatively speedy decision and the support that they need. That is the solution for those with a progressive condition, with a longer prognosis, but obviously for those with a terminal illness who have a very short time to live, we have put in place a much faster process, which is working well.

The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead mentioned interventions. The point of them is to ensure that the amount of PIP paid is correct, so that awards can be adjusted upwards if someone’s needs have increased or downwards if they have decreased. That has happened in a very small volume of cases to date. The hon. Lady gave a specific example of one of her constituents. Interventions are set on the basis of when needs change and when awards are made. Given that interventions can go in both directions, it is certainly not in the interests of the Department to review awards more frequently than is necessary, because to do so creates unnecessary work.

The hon. Lady mentioned reassessment. There are two kinds of reassessment going on. For those who have time-limited awards, there is a process called natural reassessment—the names are not brilliantly informative—which is being switched on only in areas where we know that we have the capacity to carry it out. One of the things that I do before I take those decisions is to ensure that our assessment providers have the necessary capacity, and I have been switching the process on only when where there is that capacity.

The hon. Lady mentioned managed reassessment, which has previously been announced as starting in October, under which those with an indefinite DLA claim will be reassessed. We have made it clear that we will roll that out only where and when we have the capacity to do so. It is clearly not in our interest to start reassessing people if the system does not have the capacity to do so. By the way, I thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith for his positive comments about DWP staff and staff in my private office, where he has had to raise issues. People do not often say nice things, so I acknowledge his comments on behalf of the Department.

Colleagues from Northern Ireland raised a number of matters. The hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) and for Foyle (Mark Durkan) talked about the Stormont House agreement. I have been in correspondence with Mervyn Storey, the Minister with responsibility for welfare in Northern Ireland, and he and I are trying to get a date in the diary to meet. One thing that we will talk about is the progress that has been made on the Stormont House agreement and welfare reform. I am sure that we will both want to talk about the lessons learned from rolling out PIP in Great Britain, which may apply to the roll-out in Northern Ireland.