Personal Independence Payments (Wales)

Siân C. James Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Siân C. James (Swansea East) (Lab)]

I will be brief. We have heard much today about the replacement of the disability living allowance with the personal independence payment. I am not going to cite any personal examples from Swansea East, but I will be talking on behalf of a Swansea-wide organisation, the Maggie’s centre, which serves the south and south-west Wales area, providing very important cancer support services for anyone suffering with cancer. We have heard about the various problems and dissatisfaction, and how we all feel about the introduction of PIP and how Capita is proceeding. If I may say so to the Minister, through the Chair, it is not going very well.

Since January, I have written to Capita on 20 occasions. Last Friday was a red letter day, because I received my first answer. We got quite excited in the office that we had received a letter and rang the constituent concerned to inform her, only to find that she had received a telephone call from Capita with information that was diametrically opposed to everything we had been told in the letter. Capita totally contradicted itself. It was a case of the right hand definitely not knowing what the left hand was doing. There are a lot of examples like that, and we have heard about how the lack of a dedicated telephone line adds to people’s problems.

I want to turn to the stress and strain placed on people who are very unwell. It was sad that, when a group of local MPs were invited to Maggie’s centre last Friday to speak to its disability benefits adviser, who has huge experience working across the sector, I saw despair. In the briefing and facts and figures we were given, we saw despair. It was not the frustration that I feel as an MP, which we have heard expressed in this debate and is shared by my office staff; it was despair. It was a person who is working really hard on behalf of people going through the most dreadful experiences of their lives, and basically hitting their head against a rock. It was very sad.

There are many reports of hold-ups with PIP, but I have heard of and experienced cases in which people have been waiting for responses for several months. I have come across one case of someone waiting for more than a year for a decision on payments. Earlier, the Minister mentioned other benefits, but in many cases, the people we are discussing have had to give up really well-paid jobs. They have been managing to keep their heads above water, but suddenly, because decisions are taking so long, they are tumbling into debt and need. I have been told about people going through chemotherapy who are dependent on the local food bank. Can we imagine coping under such circumstances? It is very sad indeed.

The staff at Maggie’s are doing excellent work, as are my staff and those of the other MPs here, under really difficult circumstances. We are becoming more and more frustrated by the system. Capita must surely have internal systems to monitor and evaluate the length of time that assessments are taking—surely there must be internal safeguards. We are coming across staff who, although they are working under difficult circumstances, really do not seem to care that they are not meeting deadlines. They are not rushing things, and that is sad.

People were keen to tell me on Friday that—we all know this as constituency MPs—we are not talking about people trying to swing the lead. This is not a case of people trying to buck the system and get money to which they are not entitled; these are people in genuine need who have enough stresses and strains without additional problems with PIP. Many organisations, such as Hardest Hit, We Are Spartacus and the Disability Benefits Consortium, are expressing serious concerns about the Government’s introduction of PIP. We are even hearing noises of disquiet from health professions about the Government’s having failed to reform the work capability assessment. As I have said, there is little, if any, evidence of performance monitoring in organisations such as Atos and Capita. They are responsible for the assessments; how are we monitoring and assessing how they are achieving things?

I have many stories and examples that I could pass on to the Minister, just like those mentioned by many of my colleagues. I am confident that the fundamental problem with PIP is that it was introduced to save money. How mean. I understand that these are difficult times for the country and that finances are challenging for us all, but we are talking about the least able people. Many of them tell me, “If I could work, Mrs James, I would be there.”

The staff at Maggie’s asked me to ask the Minister one particular question: why does Capita not accept implied consent from a third party? They are ringing up and working on behalf of cancer sufferers, but they are hitting a brick wall. We do not mind as MPs—PIP is the biggest issue in my postbag and I have an increasing responsibility and work commitment to it—but accepting implied consent from a third party would save time for people who are having tremendous difficulties.

I am sure that the Minister and others have heard our dissatisfaction. PIP assessments must be reformed urgently, because people are suffering unnecessarily on top of all their other problems.