Personal Independence Payments

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I will primarily raise issues around the access to assessments, and I will run through some examples of constituents who have approached me. This is by far the biggest area of casework that I receive in my office.

Mr M’s daughter had a stroke and is partially paralysed. She was expected to get to an appointment 40 minutes’ drive away in Scunthorpe for 9 am. There is no direct bus service so they would have had to have caught the 7.34 am train from Grimsby to get there on time, and they did not know how to get to the assessment centre from the railway station. That all put additional pressure on an older parent who is responsible for somebody who has suffered a stroke.

K has mental health issues and other difficulties, including domestic violence issues that impede her ability to freely leave the house. Despite being advised of those difficulties, requests for a home visit or a local appointment were refused and she was expected to attend in Scunthorpe. C is vulnerable because of her alcohol dependency, alongside her depression and anxiety. She has no means of transport but was expected to attend in Scunthorpe. M has learning difficulties, but no exception for that, or consideration of it, was made. There was no real humanity in dealing with that individual.

Another constituent, J, had a stroke. After parking his mobility vehicle away from the assessment centre, he made the extraordinary effort to walk what is a very short distance but what took him more than 25 minutes, with frequent breaks on the way. Having made that journey and dragged himself to the assessment, he was deemed to be sufficiently mobile not to require his mobility car, which has put enormous pressure on him, his family and his ability to live a normal life. Those are a few examples, but there are more: Hogan, Arnold, Snell, Read, MacDonald, Lamb, Jones, Stewart and Godfrey are just a few of my constituents who have all had barriers placed before them just to get to an assessment.

I have had conversations on this and have had questions responded to, and we managed to get additional assessors in the area. However, issues with appointments, maternity and sickness—the assessors made available were under such pressure with the volume of assessments that they went off sick themselves; I hope they did not have to go through the assessment process, because that would have been a double injustice—mean that we do not have enough assessors in the local area to support the needs of my constituents.

I have been able to assist in some of those cases and resolve some of the issues, but why do these people have to come to their MPs or place enormous stress and strain on other support services, which also have issues with their funding, to receive that advice? Why is the system so complicated? People should not have to come to see me to have these issues resolved.

When the courts ruled that the system was wholly inadequate for those with mental ill health, did that extend to the ability to access the assessment process in the first place? My constituents face not only the physical challenge of their condition but poor public transport links, the removal of Motability vehicles and the cost of alternative transport, such as private taxis. There is also a lack of consideration when those with autism or Asperger’s have to go somewhere different, travel in an unusual vehicle or simply be around other people in crowded environments, or of those who struggle with depression, anxiety or agoraphobia when they are asked to go on unfamiliar routes to unfamiliar places. It is all too much and too overwhelming and it is placing these people under enormous stress. 

I will make one final point, because I know lots of Members want to speak. Surely we deserve a properly resourced assessment centre locally, with more flexibility given for assessors to undertake home visits and support people, rather than to target them.