Personal Independence Payment: Regulations

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) on securing this debate and on the important case she made from the Dispatch Box.

I wish to challenge some of the assertions the Secretary of State has made in commenting on the changes in the regulations since they were announced. I have no doubt that his comments were made in good faith, but I think they were incorrect. In particular, the changes do not restore the original intention of the benefit. The Secretary of State suggested that the changes are not a cut, but they obviously are, and they affect a substantial number of people. The equality analysis produced by the Department tells us that of the current case load, 143,000 people would have had their mobility award reduced to zero had it been made under the new regulations, and that a further 21,000 would have had their payment reduced. This is not, therefore, a minor or insignificant cut; it is a substantial cut that will affect a large number of people.

Table 6 in the equality assessment is titled, “Conditions most likely affected by reversing effect of UT”—upper tribunal—“judgment on mobility activity 1”, and the list includes schizophrenia, learning disability, autism, cognitive disorder due to stroke, dementia and post-traumatic stress disorder. According to the Government, those are the people most affected.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend clearly knows something about the new regulations, and I do, too. The reality is that those with psychological illness cannot now qualify for enhanced mobility payments because activity 11e attracts only a maximum of 10 points. Twelve points are needed to allow mobility payments, so this is clearly a cut and the Government should just fess up.

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is right.

I wish to say a little more about the precise content of the regulations. The Secretary of State told us at the beginning of the process that nobody would have their current benefit cut; I think Ministers now accept that that statement was incorrect. Regulation 2(4) states:

“In the table in Part 3 (mobility activities), in relation to activity 1 (planning and following journeys), in descriptors c, d and f, for ‘Cannot’ substitute ‘For reasons other than psychological distress, cannot’.”

The changes explicitly carve out people who cannot plan and follow a journey because of psychological distress.

The Secretary of State has said not to worry, because people with cognitive impairments can still qualify for the highest rate of the mobility component. That may well be the case, but that is a different group of people. The changes explicitly carve out people whose mobility impairment arises from psychological distress. Was that the original intention? On 7 February 2012, the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller)—if I remember rightly, she was the predecessor but two of the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson)—said in a written answer that

“when considering entitlement to both rates of the mobility component we will take into account ability to plan and follow a journey, in addition to physical ability to get around. Importantly, PIP is designed to assess barriers individuals face, not make a judgment based on their impairment type.”—[Official Report, 7 February 2012; Vol. 540, c. 232W.]

That is a clear statement of the original intent of this benefit. If the Secretary of State has been advised that the original intention was something different, he simply needs to check the record.

The changes in the regulations are different from the original intention. They introduce an explicit judgment based on impairment type; the original intention was to have no such distinction. The regulations introduce a distinction that was not in the benefit’s original intention. They say that someone is in if they struggle to plan and follow a journey, but if their problem is because of psychological distress, they are out. It is an explicit judgment, it is explicitly contingent, and it carves out a large group of people with mental health problems.

[Norman Lamb]

Does not that carve-out ultimately amount to nothing but discrimination against people suffering mental distress? Also, is it not the case that any references to spend on mental health in any other area are totally irrelevant to this issue? This rule change is about discrimination.

[Stephen Timms]

That is absolutely explicit in the regulations. That group is now being discriminated against, which is contrary to the original intention. The Secretary of State talked about restoring the original aim of the policy, but the change does not do that; it is different.

The Secretary of State suggests that it was never the intention to include this group of people with mental health problems, but his predecessors told the House, in terms, that it was the intention to include people irrespective of their impairment type. That was the intention of Ministers in 2012, but these regulations will thwart it. I hope that, like the other place, we will say no to these changes.

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[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Penny Mordaunt)]

I start by thanking hon. Members, from all parts of the House, who have contributed to the debate. There are many points that I need to answer and I do not have much time, but I will do my best, and I will write to hon. Members about any outstanding points.

As hon. Members know, at the core of PIP’s design is the principle that awards should be made according to a person’s level of need, not whether their condition is of one sort or another. Those who have higher need, greater limitations on their ability to participate in society and higher costs associated with their condition will get more support.

[Stephen Timms]

Will the Minister give way?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I will answer the questions that have already been raised, and if I have time I will take interventions at the end.

That approach—using the social definition of disability—is important, and assessments are therefore complex. The assessor will try to understand the impact on a person’s life and how their disability or health condition affects them in their caring duties, parenting, social life and daily living.

As the House has heard many times, recent legal judgments have interpreted the assessment criteria for PIP in ways different from what the coalition Government originally intended. The upper tribunal judgments were concerned solely with the interpretation of the wording and, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) has said, not with policy. We have therefore made amendments to clarify the criteria used to decide how much benefit claimants receive. The changes restore the original aim of the policy, which was agreed by Parliament following extensive consultation, and they add essential clarity for all.

[Stephen Timms]

Will the Minister give way?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I will make some progress. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions said in the House and in his letter last week to the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), it is important to be clear about what these regulations are not. They are not a policy change, they are not intended to make new savings and they will not result in any claimant seeing a reduction in the amount of PIP previously awarded by the DWP. There is no change to the budget and no change to the guidance that we give to assessors.

To answer the point raised by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), she is right to say that between the making of the rulings and the coming into force of the regulations, a handful of people—we think about eight—will have been awarded a higher amount in the tribunal rulings. We will not claw back money from those people, but we will look at those cases and our intention is to restore them to the original benefit level. That is one reason why we have acted quickly. There will be no change in the amount of PIP paid to people who have previously been awarded a certain amount by the DWP, or in the amount paid to people who will be assessed on the same principles and the same policy in the future.

It is entirely appropriate for the Government to act to restore clarity to the law, as Governments have done before and will no doubt continue to do in the future. Indeed, Labour, when in government back in 2000, introduced a change to the rules for disability living allowance that overturned a commissioner’s decision holding that telephone conversations with someone with severe depression and chronic anxiety should count as qualifying attention for the care component of DLA. That decision was seen to have significantly widened the gateway not only to DLA, but to attendance allowance, and the then Government took a similar decision to the one we have taken to restore the original policy intent.

Let me assure the House that we want to ensure our policies are working and being delivered effectively, and we will continue to review our policies, including on PIP, regularly. I remind everyone that this Government have already introduced two formal statutory reviews of the PIP assessment, and we remain committed to publishing Paul Gray’s independent review, as set out in legislation. We remain committed to making continuous improvement in the PIP assessment and our decision making, and to improving the advice we provide to guide people through the process.

We know that feedback from claimants and stakeholders gives us valuable insight into the services we deliver. That is why we are setting up service user panels for PIP and ESA claimants, their carers and advocates, and representative groups to gather views on PIP and ESA. The panels, which will start next month and will initially run for 12 months, will ask for people’s views on their experiences of claiming, capture new ideas for improvement and test reactions to specific changes and proposals. We wish to reach as many people as possible.

[Stephen Timms]

rose—

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am coming to the right hon. Gentleman’s point, if he will give me a moment.

We are working with charities and representative organisations to promote awareness and draw on their expertise. Following references to the panels in another place last month, we have started to see requests from claimants who are keen to participate. We are carrying out pilots to test whether there are any benefits to audio recording face-to-face assessments. The pilots, which started on 13 March, will last for six weeks and involve 400 claimants. We are trialling telephoning claimants to ensure all that the evidence they wish to be considered has been collected and submitted. That is critical to reducing the number of cases going to mandatory reconsideration and appeal, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) pointed out. We are giving people fuller reasons why they have not been successful to ensure that they understand those reasons exactly.

We have strengthened clinical support and clinical mentoring for the healthcare professionals who carry out assessments. Our assessors discuss with people the impacts on their life before taking a medical history. The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) raised the critical issue of ensuring that there is support throughout the assessment process, particularly for people with a mental health condition. I will not list all the things we do, but he will know that processes are in place, with special markers for such individuals. We are always interested to hear how we can improve those processes, but they are already part of the system.

[Stephen Timms]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I want to respond to the points that have already been raised. I will take an intervention if I have time, if the right hon. Gentleman will bear with me.

The health and work Green Paper and Paul Gray’s second review will both look at the issue of shared health records, which hon. Members mentioned. We have also been working more closely with Motability to ensure that the issues of appeals and counterproductive bureaucracy—hon. Members also referred to those issues—are resolved, and we will report back to the House as soon as possible. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Victoria Borwick) that the particular focus has been on young people and students. We are looking at what further we can do, and I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Nusrat Ghani) that we are indeed working closely with the RNIB.

Let me turn to the specifics on mental health and the regulations. Supporting people with mental illness is a priority for this Government. That is why we are spending more on mental health provision than ever before— £11.4 billion this year alone. We have introduced the first ever access and waiting standards for mental health services. These changes and investments are already making a difference. Since 2010, the number of people accessing mental health services has risen by 40%—

[Stephen Timms]

rose—

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am coming on to the right hon. Gentleman’s point.

The number of consultant psychiatrists in this country has risen by 5%. We are working to join up the healthcare system, the welfare system and society more widely so that we focus on the strengths of people with disabilities or health conditions and what they can do if properly supported. It is for that reason that in the summer of 2015 the health and work unit was created in the Department of Health, and why in October last year we published, “Improving Lives”, the work and health—

--- Later in debate ---

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am coming on to the regulations, but I think that the key to this whole debate is that people are questioning the parity between mental health and physical health. I point out to the House that mental health was never more prominent on any previous Government’s agenda.

[Stephen Timms]

rose—

[Penny Mordaunt]

If Members will allow me, I will turn to the regulations—I will not repeat the statistics that show that PIP is more favourable than DLA for those with a mental health condition. Let me tackle the issues relating to the regulations.

Several Members have concluded that if someone is suffering from psychological distress, that would not count towards their score and they would somehow be prevented from scoring the maximum on the descriptors. That is not the case. As time is tight, perhaps I could place some case studies in the Library if that is in order, Mr Speaker. As has been pointed out, if someone is suffering from autism, PTSD, depression or a similar condition, they can score 12 points on that descriptor.

Let me cover the issues on process. We have used the most appropriate parliamentary procedure. It is set out in the Welfare Reform Act 2012. In the light of the significant and urgent consequences of the judgments, the amendments were passed to the Social Security Advisory Committee on 8 March—that is, after the regulations were laid. We have welcomed the Committee’s response and the fact that it did not wish to have the regulations referred to it for public consultation. We have also responded in full to the Committee’s recommendations. In particular, we have made it clear that we are committed to continuous improvement, as we recognise that it is important, for both quality and consistency, to ensure that PIP policy is clearly articulated. We have also made it clear that we will ensure that healthcare professionals who carry out the assessments fully understand what those amendments mean. The regulations were today passed by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.

In the seconds I have left, I reassure the House that the regulations simply restore the original aim of the policy, as previously debated, and that we are delivering PIP in line with its original intent. We stress again that the changes will not result in claimants seeing a reduction in the amount of PIP awarded by the Department.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered changes to Personal Independence Payment Regulations.