Personal Independence Payments

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this important issue. I welcome the new Minister to her post and wish her well.

I have brought the matter of preparing for personal independence payments—PIPs—to the House as a representative of a good number of people in my constituency who have come to me to ask for advice and to express their concerns about the replacement for the disability living allowance. I feel that the issue is so crucial and of such great concern to disabled people, in my constituency and the rest of the country, that we should keep it on the agenda. It is vital that we discuss the plans for personal independence payments now, so that we can be proactive in solving any issues, rather than waiting for them to become problems and reacting to them too late.

Let me start by saying that disability living allowance needed to be reformed. Crucial problems had to be addressed, about which people across the board were in agreement, but the reforms that have come through have raised a great number of concerns. I do not, however, want to talk about any of the flaws in the policy as a whole. It is far too late for that. We need to move past them now and look to the future, to ensure that the philosophy behind the policy—the slashing of the welfare budget—does not undermine its implementation and that the final regulations and guidance are designed around the needs of disabled people.

In its research, the Department for Work and Pensions has calculated that half a million people who would have been eligible for DLA, had it continued, will not be eligible for personal independence payments. That tells only half the story. Many other people will be significantly affected by changes to the system: 280,000 claimants will lose their entitlement to the enhanced or higher rate mobility allowance and some 370,000 fewer claimants will be entitled to standard or lower rate mobility allowance. Those people will also lose many of the benefits and necessities associated with DLA.

Scotland’s disabled people will be severely affected, with an estimated 74,000 people losing some or all of their mobility allowance. I can see why so many people in my constituency have come to me with their concerns. Library figures show that 1,260 people are likely not to be transferred on to personal independence payments. That is a huge number of people, and let us remember that many more will lose their entitlement to higher levels of benefit.

With so many people losing so much, we need to discuss what will happen to them. People who do not qualify for PIPs will need to look elsewhere to cover the loss in their income; people not entitled to PIPs may appeal such a decision and be left in limbo; and people will lose some of their passported benefits, because of the difference in the number of levels in the daily living category. There will be carers who lose their benefits, which will impact on both themselves and the people they care for.

We must discuss what happens in those situations and where people are to go for help. Why? Because so many of the constituents who are coming to us about the issue want to know exactly that. They are scared, and as their representatives, we need to ensure that we have done everything that we can to protect their rights. Their concern, which is mine, is about the process itself and how it will be conducted.

The PIPs system is intended to provide more face-to-face assessments than the DLA one. That raises several issues, the most important of which is that assessors should be given adequate training to enable them to identify disabled people’s issues and how they face such issues. That is an extremely difficult challenge, and I want guarantees that that has been thought through.

The number of disabilities is vast, and they vary from extremely physical ones to those that are less obvious to someone who has not been trained adequately. The system involves a very medical model, looking at what people can do, rather than what they cannot do. That might be appropriate for some types of disability. However, someone with a learning disability, for example, might be asked by an assessor, “How are you?” and they might reply, “I’m good.” Of course, they may be good physically, but such a conversation would not necessarily pick up the many problems that the person with a learning disability does not realise they have but needs support for.

Face-to-face interviews will be very stressful for those with mental health problems, who find it difficult to communicate with strangers. People with a different category of disability, such as those with acquired brain injury, need more time to consider and understand issues and find it difficult to grasp the scope and complexity of interviews. Will we have trained assessors for people with all those and other examples of disability? Will assessors have access to medical records with written consent? They need to be able to identify all issues correctly and must have the expertise to conduct interviews effectively. For example, I do not want what happened to one deaf-blind person during the trial period to happen to others. She was unable to be assessed as the assessors could not find, and had not asked for, a deaf-blind manual interpreter.

Will we have trained assessors for disabilities the symptoms of which cannot be seen, such as those caused by a stroke? I asked that very question about whether additional training would be provided to assessors, and I was told that clear guidance has already been received and that there are

“no plans to provide additional training.”—[Official Report, 29 October 2012; Vol. 552, c. 64W.]

I have heard many horror stories that suggest that that might not be the case. We need to learn from the problems caused by the lack of training and awareness in employment and support allowance and work capability assessments and incorporate the lessons learned into a better system for PIPs.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share this concern? I welcome the fact that there will be some piloting with a small number of applicants, but that pilot is scheduled to last for only two months before the start of the wider roll-out to new applicants. That will not give sufficient time to ascertain what the problems might be and certainly not to evaluate them and make changes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey]

If I had reached the end of my paragraph, I might have answered those questions.

Assessors will have broad knowledge and specialist knowledge, but the assessment will not be medical; the assessment focuses on outcomes and how the health condition affects the individual. We recognise, however, that assessors might need support on mental, intellectual and cognitive impairments when assessing individuals with, for example, mental health conditions, learning disabilities or autism. As such, we require providers to have mental and cognitive champions, as recommended by Professor Harrington.

[Sheila Gilmore]

There are more people to be assessed and reassessed for this new benefit than there were for the employment and support allowance, which I accept is very different. One problem that we have encountered is that there are only two mental health champions for the whole of Scotland. Can the Minister reassure us that that number will be increased, because we are dealing with larger numbers?

[Esther McVey]

Absolutely. The hon. Lady is right that the assessment is very different, but we have to take forward the knowledge that we have learned. I have had many meetings on the need for more champions to provide the knowledge, so that people can have confidence when they are being assessed.