Atos

Debate between Mark Williams and Mike Penning

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mike Penning]

My hon. Friend—he has been a good friend, especially during my time as a Northern Ireland Minister—has read my mind, as usual. That is exactly what I am coming to. We are working closely on the descriptors to ensure that what we ask is exactly relevant to the conditions reported. Atos does not make decisions on diagnoses; evidence for those diagnoses will already exist. We are trying to ensure that the right decision is made based on the evidence provided, and descriptors are important in that.

Turning to why so many decisions are overturned by judges at tribunals, I have admitted that that is sometimes because we got them wrong. However, sometimes, on the day of the tribunal, new evidence, which we have never seen, is put before the judges. Within the rules, that is technically unacceptable, but the judges are allowed to use their discretion in allowing that to happen. I saw that the other day, and if we had seen the evidence that was put before the judge at that tribunal, the case would never have gone to the tribunal.

[Mr Williams]

I am grateful to the Minister for his last point. Charities have contacted me about progressive diseases and illnesses, and I know that he is working with them. With regard to his discussions about the descriptors, how satisfied is he that concerns about slowly progressive diseases and illnesses will be factored into any new descriptors?

[Mike Penning]

That is exactly what we are working on with the stakeholder bodies. I have asked them to sit down and work with us to address that. I completely agree that the descriptors must be fit for purpose. The matter is enormously complicated because of the sheer amount of different diagnoses across the medical spectrum.

I turn to the negotiations with Atos. I must be careful, because they involve contractual and legal issues. We have announced that we want more capacity. Otherwise, the backlog of people waiting for their assessment will increase, and the time they wait is increasing. We have said publicly that we want more capacity in the system. The balance is between quality of decision and throughput. One reason why so many cases go to a tribunal is that we based the system on throughput and we got too many wrong. I say “we” because I am the Minster responsible and the buck stops with me. Too many cases ended up in the appeal process and went to a tribunal. We have now improved the quality and ensured that our people spend time with the applicants, but that has caused a backlog. We are addressing that capacity issue.

[Mr Williams]

I welcome what the Minister says about the backlog, which is causing the huge delays and problems that I alluded to. May I plead for areas such as the one I represent—rural, sparsely populated west Wales—and raise the problem of people needing physical access to the assessments we are talking about? The position in south Wales and the cities of England, Scotland and Wales is very different from that in rural Ceredigion.

[Mike Penning]

I have a list of things I wanted to bring up, and if I have missed anything that hon. Members have raised, I will write to them after the debate.

During a meeting only the other day, my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) raised the issue of access. There are two sorts of access issues: distance, and the suitability of the building for people with disabilities. I am the Minister with responsibility across Government for disability, and it seems ludicrous that I receive complaints about buildings that Atos and other companies use on my behalf and are not suitable. We are working on that. The problem is not just distance, but the sort of buildings being used.

When someone has been told that they are fit for work and then appeals, they can apply for jobseeker’s allowance while they are waiting for their appeal to be heard. If their GP believes that they are unfit for work, they will provide a sickness certificate. Everyone accepts, as did the previous Administration, that there should be an independent review of people’s capability because of the relationship between GPs and their patients. That relationship is very personal, as I found with my GP all those years ago after my accident. He would say, “Well Mike, you can’t carry on being a fireman,” instead of saying, “What can you do?”