Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Crockart Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

6. What steps are being taken to improve the quality and accuracy of the work capability assessment.

[Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

9. What steps his Department is taking to improve the quality and accuracy of the work capability assessment.

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

We believe that the work capability assessment is effective at identifying a person’s functional capability for work and work-related activity, and very much more so than its predecessor, the personal capability assessment. However, I am clear that we must get this right, particularly with the large-scale migration beginning next year. On taking office we implemented some of the recommendations of a review carried out under the previous Administration. I have commissioned a new review under the chairmanship of Professor Malcolm Harrington of Birmingham university, with input from some of the leading figures among the mental health charities, to try to make sure that we get this right—that we deal with any rough edges that there may be in the system before the migration next year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is right. This is the central issue that we have to get right. It is one of the reasons I asked Professor Harrington to include Paul Farmer, the chief executive of Mind, in his review, and why I invited mental health charities to make practical suggestions about changing the work capability assessment to identify precisely the issues that my hon. Friend has highlighted. I want to get this right. It is in no one’s interest that people should be given a steer in the direction of work if that should not happen to them. I want to look after those who genuinely need ongoing support. We will do everything we can to get this right.

[Mike Crockart]

Many of my constituents complain that too much weight was placed on one chat with one individual on a particular day, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) stated. That might be a good day for their condition, and the chat with that one individual may not provide a long-term in-depth knowledge of the claimant’s work capability. What help can the Minister give to assure my constituents that proper weight will be placed on the opinions of the claimant’s full medical team?

[Chris Grayling]

As I say, we must get this right. I have sat through a work capability assessment, so I understand exactly the issues that people are raising. I have looked carefully at the structure of it and have invited people with expertise to take part in the process. We will do everything we can to get it right. What I will not do is condemn people with mental health challenges to a life on benefits, with little opportunity of getting into employment. That would be the wrong thing to do for them. They deserve better and they will get it from this Government.