Oral Answers to Questions

Nadine Dorries Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Overall, as the hon. Lady will have seen from the figures that we published before Christmas about expected numbers in the Work programme, we are likely to see more people in the harder-to-help groups go into the programme than was previously expected. However, she will also have seen from the previous sets of statistics on ESA that we have a larger than expected support group, which is partly because of policy changes that we have made in areas such as cancer, addiction and mental health in which we are trying to provide better long-term protection for people who are genuinely vulnerable.

[Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

2. What steps he took to consult disabled people and representative organisations on the development of the personal independence payment.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

We have consulted disabled people and their representative organisations at all stages of the development of the personal independence payment. That included a formal consultation in December 2010 and our response which was published in April 2011; an informal consultation on the draft assessment criteria in May 2011; and a 15-week formal consultation on the revised assessment criteria, which started on 16 January this year.

[Nadine Dorries]

I thank the Minister for that answer. Agate house in my constituency, a Leonard Cheshire home in Ampthill, looks after some of the most severely disabled residents. Some are born disabled and many have degenerative illnesses that mean that they will need greater levels of care in future. They will never need less care than they do today or be less disabled, yet they all have to go through the ignominy and bureaucratic process of an assessment of their allowance once a year. Will the Minister examine that matter? It seems an incredible waste of money, a bureaucracy, a waste of civil servants’ time and an embarrassment to residents. Could we change that?

[Maria Miller]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and say to her that we absolutely share the objective of ensuring that the people with the severest challenges in living independently in our society do not receive undue assessments. At the moment there is no in-built reassessment under disability living allowance. She put her question in the present tense—I am not sure whether she was referring to other things for which people are assessed. I reassure her that under PIP, we do not intend to have fixed annual reassessments. They will be made based on individuals’ personal circumstances.