Oral Answers to Questions

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

5. What recent progress has been made on implementing the recommendations of the Harrington review of work capability assessment.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

19. What recent progress has been made on implementing the recommendations of the Harrington review of work capability assessment.

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

We are committed to taking forward Professor Harrington’s recommendations so that we can make the system we inherited from the previous Government fairer and more effective. Many of the changes he proposed are already in place, and we will implement the remainder by the summer, to coincide with the first work capability assessments of incapacity benefit claimants taking part in the full nationwide reassessment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sheila Gilmore]

One of the findings of the Harrington report was that the Jobcentre Plus decision makers were not, in fact, making decisions; rather, they were simply rubber-stamping the Atos assessments. What steps have been taken to ensure that that is no longer the case, and will the Minister publish some figures on this so that we can have some reassurance that that has actually changed?

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. That was clearly one of the flaws in the system we inherited. We have retrained decision makers, instructing them to take into account a broader range of evidence than simply the assessment so that claimants now have the opportunity to submit proper evidence from their own medical practitioners, and we have made it absolutely clear to decision makers that they are in charge. We have also introduced a process of reconsideration within Jobcentre Plus to reinforce that process.