Social Security and Employment Support for Disabled People

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I thank my hon. Friend for his long-standing and passionate championship of the vulnerable people in his constituency and across our country. We have listened very carefully to what he has said and we have increased the number of home visits that can be undertaken but I definitely want to go further and, wherever possible, make decisions based on the information provided by the medical profession, the disabled people themselves or those people supporting them so as to reduce the number of face-to-face assessments. They are all undertaken by qualified healthcare professionals, whose training we keep under review. I want to ensure that we have only those face-to-face assessments that are really necessary.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) on securing the urgent question. I share the welcome for the exemption of those over state retirement age from routine reassessments. Will the Government look again at exempting all those with learning disabilities and progressive conditions, including all those who only secured their benefit—ESA or PIP—through the tribunals process? The Minister is right that some disability organisations will welcome fewer assessments, but the fear or anxiety for disabled people is that the high error rate in existing processes will be transferred. Will the Minister give more detail about how that process will be improved and how individual disabled people and disability organisations can help to shape any new process, and when that will begin?

[Sarah Newton]

I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that that work is all under way. There have been several independent reviews of PIP and ESA, including one by the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, which made the recommendations that we are working through now, to ensure that the assessments are as accurate as they can be. We are not waiting. The huge benefit of the transformed service is that the DWP will own the whole claimant journey—we are building a whole digital platform—and we will be able to use the medical and other information far more easily to make the right decision the first time. As I said at the beginning, the whole new process will be co-designed with disabled people.