Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ruth George and Marsha De Cordova

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

11. What recent assessment he has made of the effect of the roll-out of universal credit on low-income families in Wales.

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

13. What recent assessment he has made of the effect of the roll-out of universal credit on low-income families in Wales.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Justin Tomlinson)]

Universal credit is available in every jobcentre in Wales. Our welfare reforms are incentivising work and supporting working families. In the past 12 months alone, the employment rate in Wales has increased by 3.4 percentage points, the largest increase in any area of the UK.

Disability Assessment Services

Debate between Ruth George and Marsha De Cordova

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) on bringing forward this debate. She made some really valid points. She is absolutely right that it is up to the Government to remove of some of the barriers that disabled people face to ensure that they can live independently and participate fully in society. I welcome the move to stop assessments for personal independence payment for pensioners, but we need to go further to ensure that those who do not need reassessment do not have to continue to go through the arduous assessment process.

We heard from Members across the Chamber about the fundamental flaws in the assessment framework for disabled people. We heard about the time that many ill and disabled people have to wait for an assessment. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Ruth George) highlighted that in her area people have to wait up to 48 weeks before they get to an appeal. We heard countless accounts of what happens at assessments and of poor decision making. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) shared his constituent’s experience of being given two days’ notice but still being recorded as a no-show, yet assessment providers can cancel at the last minute. We need to eliminate such double standards. The hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) pointed out some of the poor decision making that happens after assessments and highlighted the rubber stamping of decisions at mandatory reconsideration stage. That step was put in place to ensure that we got decisions right earlier, so it is really important that that issue is picked up.

Since 2013, more than 700,000 ill and disabled people have been forced to challenge decisions at appeal following poor decision making after their assessment. Last week, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions admitted that disabled people feel “put on trial” by these assessments. By her own admission, we need not just small-scale improvements of the assessment framework, but a wholesale overhaul of the system, which has created a hostile environment for disabled people.

Every week, I hear from constituents and from disabled people across the country who have been pushed to despair as a result of the failing assessment framework. I was contacted by a lady called Susan, who has Crohn’s disease. She is on DLA and has a Motability vehicle. Following her assessment, in which she did not score any points for her mobility, she lost her car, which she described as her one bit of independence. I share her experience with the House because it is not isolated; I hear these heart-wrenching accounts all the time.

Some 72% of PIP decisions are overturned at appeal, and more than 100,000 disabled people have been wrongly deprived of PIP. We heard that more than 4,500 disabled people were wrongly denied PIP when they transferred from DLA. Most shockingly, 17,000 people died before their PIP decision was reached. In the last three months, nearly three quarters of people who appealed their work capability assessment decision were successful.

We know the system is flawed and is not working. That is why it is worrying that we are looking at combining all these assessments. We cannot combine them when we know there is bad decision making and the assessment framework is flawed, so I ask the Minister: why not listen to people like Susan, and look at conducting a wholesale review and overhaul of the system?

[Ruth George]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Marsha De Cordova]

I will not; I do not have time, frankly.

The Government announced last week that they would extend the contract of the Centre for Health and Disability Assessments, better known as Maximus, to carry out work capability assessments. Nothing could be worse for any disabled person to hear. Since 2014, an estimated £595 million has been paid to Maximus to carry out assessments and in total £1 billion has been paid out to private contractors. These companies have repeatedly failed the DWP’s standards, so does the Minister agree that rather than extending the contract, it is time to bring these assessments back in-house? Will she confirm that the details of the new contract will be made available to Members?

It appears that I have only 20 seconds left, which is shocking, so let me be clear: we need a radical overhaul of the assessment framework before any moves are taken to combine the assessments. We need an assessment framework that will take into account disabled people’s lived experiences and treat all disabled people with the dignity and respect they deserve.

Personal Independence Payments

Debate between Ruth George and Marsha De Cordova

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Laura Pidcock) on securing this important and timely debate. She made some valid points and highlighted the sheer volume of responses that she received when she put out a call on social media. That demonstrates the clear problems with the PIP system and with the benefit.

My hon. Friend talked powerfully about the outsourcing of the assessment process, which we all know is simply not working from our experience with the work capability assessment. It is about time that those assessments were brought back in-house because there is poor-quality decision making and no scrutiny. Frankly, it is unacceptable that taxpayers’ money is going out to those providers.

[Ruth George]

Does my hon. Friend agree that outsourcing decisions waste money and are against the interest of claimants? Discrepancies between Capita, which sees 59% of claimants at home for a home assessment, and Atos, which does the vast majority of PIP assessments but sees only 16% of claimants at home, expose the divisions in the private sector and show why the assessments should be brought back in-house and monitored properly.

[Marsha De Cordova]

It is important that the Government listen to the valid point made by my hon. Friend, and I hope the Minister will address it. We have heard testimony about the Department’s approach to disabled people. People said that it felt cold and that they were not treated as human beings, but they have to engage with it.

I pay tribute to my many hon. Friends who have spoken—it is important that so many of them are here—including my hon. Friends the Members for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), for North Durham (Mr Jones), for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy), for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn), for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith), for Reading East (Matt Rodda), and for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), and the good interventions from my hon. Friends the Members for High Peak (Ruth George) and for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green).

My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby highlighted the points about face-to-face assessments well. The assessment process, the centres and the information provided have to be accessible, but that is not happening on all occasions. That needs to change. This debate has been called because of the crisis in the claimant experience of personal independence payments.