Disability Benefits: Assessments

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the chance to speak in the debate, to the Petitions Committee for having arranged it, and to the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for opening it. He kindly referred to my Select Committee’s report on health assessments for benefits, which was published in April, and my speech will draw on what we said in that report. We also published the Government’s response to the report in June, since when I have been in correspondence with the Minister about some of the key points that arose.

The annex to our report is well worth a look. It is based on a survey of 8,500 people, who told us about their experience of using the system and going through the assessments. They included people with lifelong conditions and people with experience of the use of medical evidence, both of which are topics covered in the petitions.

I will not comment in the debate on the adequacy of the benefits—the Select Committee has an inquiry under way on UK benefit levels that is focused on that—but I must say that over the summer a good deal of concern continued to be raised about the benefits we are talking about not meeting claimants’ extra costs, as they are intended to.

The Government have recognised the need to transform the system, including in their White Paper. I welcome many of the reforms that have been announced—including, to pick up on a point made by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, in respect of the testing of the use of specialist assessors—but the problem is that they are going to take years to implement. We need to take further action, given the gravity of the problems that we have already heard about in the debate.

A very important recommendation in our report was that assessments should be recorded by default. They should always be recorded, unless the claimant chooses to opt out of having their assessment recorded. The Government have said no to that recommendation, presumably because it would cost a little more, but I really think that is a mistake. All the assessment providers that are contracted by the Department support the recommended change, as do many of the respondents to our survey. It is the only way to get to the bottom of why things go wrong so often.

The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington rightly gave the statistics that show that the great majority of appeals against the refusal decisions that come out of assessments are upheld. Surely that shows that something fundamental is wrong. We will get to the bottom of why that is only if assessments are routinely recorded, so that when things go wrong it is possible to look at what actually happened in the assessment and try to learn from the errors to get things right in future.

In his recent letter to me, the Minister said:

“claimants may need to discuss sensitive and personal information at the assessment and may not want this to be recorded”.

Of course, he is quite right about that, which is why we need a proper opt-out for applicants who do not want their assessment to be recorded. Has the Department considered how, if recording by default were introduced, it would be possible to mitigate those risks, which the Minister is right to be concerned about? Has it also looked at what the impact would be on mandatory reconsideration if recording by default were introduced, because I think it would be extremely helpful. If those assessments are not routinely recorded, we will never get the feedback needed to put these serious problems right.

I want to pick up the point about covert assessment, which was raised by both the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington and my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols). This is a serious and real problem. We called in our report for the Government to

“urgently investigate the use of covert surveillance by assessors”.

Unfortunately, in their response, the Government said no—I am afraid I will be using that word quite a lot in what I have to say today. They said:

“all assessment providers strongly refute the suggestion that they undertake”

covert assessment, but reports of this happening are much too widespread to be ignored, and the Government should look at that.

We are concerned as well about the system for claimants aged 16 to 18. On turning 16 in England and Wales, claimants must move from disability living allowance to PIP through a full-claim process requiring—until recently—a face-to-face assessment, but claimants in Scotland can stay on DLA until the age of 18. The Government’s White Paper acknowledged the need to help with the transition from DLA to PIP, but our conclusion was that young people in receipt of DLA should not be required to claim PIP until the age of 18, and where under-18s decide to claim PIP, they should have light-touch, paper-based assessments until the age of 18.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I will gladly give way to the former Minister.

[Justin Tomlinson]

It is a difficult and fine balance, because the counter-argument is that the current approach allows people, before they turn 18 and therefore become fully responsible for their own living costs and housing arrangements, to know exactly where they are. So it is not a black and white issue.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

The hon. Member is right: these are often difficult judgments, but I would like to know what discussions the Minister has had with Ministers in Scotland about how things have worked in practice there. I would also like to know what progress the Department has made on plans for 16 to 18-year-olds in work in the severe disability group. I take the point that there are often quite fine judgments to be made, but the unanimous view of the Work and Pensions Committee was that it would be right to move to a system where applicants were not required to move on to PIP until the age of 18.

The Minister will know of concerns that were raised over the summer about pre-application screening questions in the new online PIP application form, which is being developed at the moment, and of the fears being expressed that people will be wrongly put off claiming by those questions, which have not been a feature of the application process before. In winding up, will he say something about those concerns and update us on progress with the online claims system for PIP, which, in principle, is something I very much welcome.

At the moment, claimants have 20 days to return ESA and universal credit forms and a month for PIP forms, and of course they have to send all the supporting evidence in at the same time. Each of those forms runs to tens of pages. The Association of Disabled Professionals told us that this deadline is very difficult to comply with. The deadline starts from the date on the letter, not the date the letter was received. The Association said:

“it is extremely rare for a letter to reach the claimant within five to seven working days of the letter being sent.”

In the pandemic, claimants had three months in which to return the forms. I think there were considerable advantages to that. Mind told us that extending the deadline could

“reduce the need for Mandatory Reconsiderations or Appeals”

by ensuring that the right decision was made first time around. So we recommended a compromise whereby claimants would have two months in which to return forms. Unfortunately, in its response, the Department said no. However, I wonder whether the Minister recognises that the time to return forms is being reduced by delays in getting those forms out to people. We have been hearing that, typically, at least a week—seven of the 20 days—is disappearing before the claimant receives the request.

As we have heard, one of the e-petitions is about considering disability benefit claims on medical advice alone. I am sure the Minister will point out—he will be right to do so—that, as the Work and Pensions Committee heard, GPs and other medical professionals may not know exactly what is needed for a functional assessment. We certainly heard repeatedly that the British Medical Association is absolutely clear that doctors do not want to take on this additional job.

However, the Committee wanted better use of another kind of evidence, which is evidence from family and carers. We heard that the way in which their input is received “is incredibly patchy”, as is whether their input is welcomed or not. The PIP guidance for assessors is explicit that evidence from carers and family should be considered but, anecdotally, it appears quite often that it is not. So we called on the Government to review the guidance, and I am pleased to say that, on this occasion, the Government did respond positively to our recommendation. Will the Minister update us on progress with that review and say when it will be completed?

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Is my right hon. Friend as concerned as I am about the safeguarding of our most vulnerable claimants when they apply for PIP or have a work capability assessment and about their inability in some cases to complete that process? As a consequence, we are seeing an increasing number of prevention of future death reports from coroners that are directly related to work capability assessment or the PIP assessment process?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and she has done a great deal of extremely valuable and important work on this subject, both on our Select Committee and in the Chamber. I do share her concerns and, as she knows, because it was substantially at her instigation, we are undertaking an inquiry specifically on the safeguarding of vulnerable claimants to look at these issues. I do share her concerns, and they are reflected in our report. The point about the time people have to send the forms back is important for people who are struggling, for the kind of reasons she sets out, to complete the forms within the very tight deadline that is set at the moment.

Shortly before we published our report, the Department published its long-awaited health and disability White Paper. The Minister knows, because he has kindly given me the opportunity to tell him about it, of my concern that people may miss out on support under the new system because they will not meet the eligibility criteria, although they do under the current system. Quite how that will be resolved is not yet clear, but can the Minister provide reassurance today that claimants and groups representing them will be involved in developing the new system?

There is much more I could say based on our report, but it is absolutely clear—it is already clear from this debate—that these assessments are not working well. We need significant changes to make them work better in the future, and I hope that, before too long, more of the recommendations in our report will be accepted than have been as yet.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Tom Pursglove)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I thank colleagues across the House for their contributions to the debate, and I particularly thank the Petitions Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for facilitating it. I thank the petitioners who have gone about collecting signatures to get a debate in Parliament; I am very grateful to them for their interest and efforts.

It is important that we come together regularly to debate these matters, and that there is proper scrutiny of the Government’s work in this area. This debate follows on from what I would argue was quite extensive questioning during Work and Pensions questions in the House today. There is no doubt that issues including reforming assessment processes, the role of medical evidence in decision making and other such aspects of the system are vital to the Government and to people across our society, including disabled people and people with long-term health conditions. I am pleased to be able to say something about the current situation, the steps the Government are taking to improve matters, and our quite extensive reform plans, some of which we touched on at DWP questions. I would argue that significant work is already under way.

First, I want to put the assessments in context, because when we debate these matters it is vital to set out why the Government think assessments are important. We use functional assessments to help to determine entitlement to disability benefits. Each benefit has its own assessment criteria to ensure that people receive the right level of support. All our assessments are currently carried out by healthcare professionals with clinical experience. We recognise that assessments can be a difficult experience, so we are committed to improving our assessments and acting on feedback from claimants and stakeholders. We want to make the journey time and the overall experience as good as it can be. Why would any Government not want to ensure that? Where paper-based assessments can be carried out, because there is the required evidence, that should and does happen.

Diversifying the assessment channels is an important step that has been taken in recent years. There is the opportunity for people to have a face-to-face assessment, if that is right for them and if that is what they wish to have, but there are other people who would like a telephone or virtual assessment. It is right that those routes be available to people, so that they have some involvement and choice, but of course it is important that there should be the backstop that if somebody wants a face-to-face assessment, they can have one. That came up a lot in the debate. The changes that I have outlined have come about in recent times, but they are certainly not the end of the journey; that is why we have an ambitious reform agenda, with long-term transformation at its heart, to go alongside the positive steps that we are taking now to help us reach our goals.

There has been quite a bit of debate about informal observations, which were raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington, by the hon. Members for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) and for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green), and by other colleagues, so let me address the issue directly. Informal observations are important to the consultation, as they can reveal abilities and limitations that are not mentioned in the claimant questionnaire, in the supporting evidence, or in the history taking in the consultation. They may also show discrepancies between a claimant’s reported and actual needs. Health professionals are trained to treat claimants fairly and with respect. They are professional clinicians who use their skills in history taking, informal observation and examination to provide the DWP with an impartial, independent and factual assessment.

Of course, we want every report to reflect a high-quality, functional assessment that the Department can use to make benefit-entitlement decisions, and we do not want reports to be of an unacceptable standard. We have set for providers a threshold for unacceptable reports, above which there are performance guarantees. The DWP audits a statistically valid sample of assessment reports to ensure that the standards that the Department expects are met. Let me be clear: healthcare professionals should be clear and open about that when they assess people. If colleagues have examples where they do not believe that that has been the case, I am keen to hear them so that my officials and I can look at them carefully.

Earlier this year, we published the health and disability White Paper, which set out how we will transform the disability benefits system over the coming years. Our reforms will help more disabled people to start, stay and succeed in work without worrying about being reassessed and losing their benefits—that jeopardy that is most definitely out there. I regularly have conversations with people who want to try work, and have perhaps even identified an opportunity that they might like to have a go at, but they fear it not working out, losing their benefit entitlement, and then having to go back through reapplication and reassessment in the hope of re-establishing their benefit entitlement. That cannot be right. That is why it is crucial that the Government take forward the legislative reform that we are determined to make happen.

More widely, we intend to achieve our ambitious aims by improving the benefits system, so that it focuses far more on what people can do, rather than cannot do; by stepping up our employment support for disabled people and people with health conditions; and by ensuring that people can access the right support at the right time, and have a better overall experience when they apply for and then receive health and disability benefits. Fundamentally, it is not right that people should be written off, but of course in any civilised society there must be a safety net, whereby support is available for people when work is just not a realistic prospect or appropriate for them. It is with that principle in mind that we move forward with our reforms.

We developed the proposals through extensive engagement with disabled people, disabled people’s organisations, charities, GPs and healthcare professionals, businesses and other experts. As our work progresses, we will keep those voices at the heart of how we deliver our reforms. In fact, that engagement is ongoing, and we are beginning to progress the various work streams in the reform model. To pick up on a point made earlier, I reassure the House that people’s lived experience will be heard in that work, which will have stakeholder input, because fundamentally we want to get this right. I want the process to be inclusive, to make sure that we unlock people’s potential, to ensure that they are not written off, and to provide employment support to help people into work when that is right and appropriate for them. We want to unlock the ambition and aspiration that we know is out there among many disabled people and people with health conditions.

Ultimately, our aims will go a significant way towards reducing unnecessary reassessments and the duplication of information provided to the DWP, which is a change that I think we can all welcome. We will achieve that by legislating to remove the work capability assessment, so that there is only one health and disability assessment: the PIP assessment. That will mean that there will be no need to be found unable to work, or to be found to have limited capability for work and work-related activities, to get additional income-related support for a disability or health condition, and there will not be any of the negative connotations around people having to prove that they are unfit for work.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

On a point that was raised by me, and by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft), what will happen to people who are too unwell to work but not disabled, and therefore not eligible for PIP? The Minister’s proposal seems to be that they will not get any help at all, but I cannot imagine that that is what he intends.

[Tom Pursglove]

The right hon. Member will be aware that the Government have set out that there will be transitional cash protection. There was the statistical release that we undertook to make available, which has now been published. We are carefully working through what the reform model means, and how individuals can best be supported to ensure that we unlock the potential to work where that is right and appropriate for people. As I say, it is important that the transitional protection be in place as we move to the new system.

There was a question about timescales for reform. We will seek to legislate for the reform in the next Parliament; we will then roll it out in a safe, stable way, and bring about the change incrementally and gradually, area by area, to ensure that we get this right. These are live discussions as we workshop and work through specific aspects of the reforms.

I am conscious that the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee raised quite a lot of questions; I will answer as many of them as I can. If there is anything that I miss, I will gladly follow up with the Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 4th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Rents have risen very sharply over the past couple of years, but the support for people claiming means-tested benefits to pay their rent, determined by local housing allowance, has not changed at all since 2020—it has been completely frozen. I wrote to the Secretary of State about this over the summer. Is the Minister able to give the House any assurance that the forthcoming benefit uprating statement will include a realistic increase in local housing allowance?

[Mims Davies]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman is very interested in this subject, as am I. Again, there is help for households, with the local housing allowance rate being set at the 30th percentile in 2020. The Government are projected to spend around £31 billion, or around 1.2% of GDP, on support for renters in 2023-24. It is absolutely right that we support people to be better off. The LHA is not intended to cover all rents in all areas, but I take a close interest in this subject.

Department for Work and Pensions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee to open the debate.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to have been granted today’s debate about DWP spending.

I will focus in particular on universal credit, whose roll-out started 10 years ago in 2013. The DWP is forecast to have, by some considerable margin, the highest expenditure of any Government Department, at £279.3 billion in this financial year, followed by the Department of Health and Social Care, at £201 billion. DWP spending is the largest by a considerable distance.

Of course, the DWP forecast is uncertain. Almost all its funding counts as annually managed expenditure; it is hard to forecast demand-led spending. DWP’s admin spending—departmental expenditure limits—is 27% lower in real terms this year than in 2010-11. Universal credit spending is forecast to be £50.8 billion this financial year, which is £8.8 billion higher than forecast in these estimates last year, reflecting the recent much-needed uprating and a higher case load. In February, 4.5 million households were receiving universal credit payments.

A key argument in the business case for universal credit was the prospect of reducing fraud and error. Nearly a quarter of the £34 billion net present value gain expected over 10 years from introducing universal credit was due to come from lower fraud and error. In fact, fraud and error have been much worse than they were for legacy benefits. The Department’s statistics show that the universal credit overpayment rate decreased, but from an astronomical 14.7% in May 2021 to 12.8% last year. I know that the Department is setting out to address that problem, and that it has obtained resources from the Treasury to do so. Underpayments were at their highest-ever recorded rate last year, at 1.6%. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us about plans for tackling those problems.

An additional reason that it is so important to get decisions right at the moment is that universal credit is a passport to cost of living support payments. There was a strong case for merging the various benefits into universal credit, and the success of the system in getting urgently needed support out effectively during the pandemic was very important and very impressive. However, there are some big problems—above all, the problem of the five-week wait between applying for the benefit and receiving the first payment. With legacy benefits, the first payment would usually arrive a week and a half or so after applying. With universal credit, having spent hundreds of millions of pounds on what we were always assured was agile technology, the same thing now takes five weeks. That is a fundamental and unnecessary flaw; the security is absent from social security.

In January 2021, the Government rejected the Select Committee’s recommendations to eliminate the wait and instead pay all first-time claimants of universal credit a starter payment equivalent to three weeks of the standard allowance, just to tide people over. The Government response pointed out that claimants can access advances, but of course, those are loans. Repayments reduce the already low monthly awards, and repaying advances is a major driver of the explosive growth in food bank demand that we have seen. Our colleagues in the other place, those on the Lords Economic Affairs Committee—with its Conservative Chair—succinctly highlighted the consequences of the five-week wait in July last year:

“the five-week wait for the first payment…drives many people into rent arrears, reliance on foodbanks and debt.”

As such, I ask the Minister once again whether the Government will reconsider our recommendations, or whether we have to wait for a different Government for that fundamental flaw to be addressed.

I am very pleased to say that one area in which the Government have listened to the Committee is reimbursement of childcare costs for people claiming universal credit. I warmly welcome the lifting of the cap and up-front payments for childcare announced in the Budget, and I hope that our future reports will have comparable levels of success. Those changes will support people to be in work in future.

Last week, the Child Poverty Action Group published a fascinating report called “You reap what you code”, highlighting areas where the universal credit computer system does not deliver what it should. It gave the example that legislation and guidance allow some groups to submit a universal credit claim up to a month in advance, but the system does not allow that, nor is there an adequate workaround outside the digital system. As such, some care leavers and prisoners expecting release can miss out on an entitlement that they are due. For all its success in the pandemic—I am unstinting in my recognition of that success—the rigidity of the digital system is a problem. Can the Minister tell us whether a fix is planned for that problem of early claims, which the Child Poverty Action Group highlighted last week?

Does the level of benefits meet need in the way it is supposed to? Do benefits represent value for the taxpayer? The Committee is conducting an important inquiry into benefit levels in the UK, and will report in the first half of next year. Benefit levels are very low. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Trussell Trust told the Committee that

“the basic rate of Universal Credit—its standard allowance (or equivalents in previous systems)—is now at its lowest level in real terms in almost 40 years (CPI-adjusted) and its lowest ever level as a proportion of average earnings.”

They estimate from pretty careful research that a single adult needs £120 per week to cover essentials: food, utilities, vital household items and travel. That is excluding rent and council tax. Universal credit’s standard allowance is £85 per week for a single adult over 25. That is a shortfall of at least £35 per week, and deductions—for advance payments, for example—often pull actual support well below the headline rate.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Trussell Trust call for an essentials guarantee. They make the point—which has been suggested this week in the press—that we might get a below-inflation uprating of benefits next year, making those problems even worse. I would be grateful if the Minister gave an assurance on that front, because that would be very bad news indeed.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Does the Chair of the Select Committee agree that the Government need to resist the temptation to try to plug the gaps with one-off payments? They should actually look at the wider, more structural problems that they have with the social security system, rather than just try to plug gaps when the system is falling apart at the seams.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and I very much value his contribution to the work of the Select Committee. He is quite right, and I hope that we will be able to look at some of those structural issues over the course of the inquiry.

If universal credit did meet basic needs, other demands—including on food banks—would decrease. When the £20 a week uplift to universal credit was introduced, there was a significant drop in food bank use; when that uplift was removed, food bank use went straight back up again. Universal credit was intended to make work pay, but how can it achieve that aim if people do not have the means to pay a bus fare, for example? In evidence to the Committee, the Trussell Trust, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Public Law Project all highlighted not being able to buy public transport tickets as a significant barrier to work. As far as we can tell, the Government have made no assessment at all of whether benefit levels are adequate. If I am wrong about that, I would very much welcome the Minister telling us, but there is certainly no evidence of such an assessment ever having been made. I hope the Department will look very carefully at the findings of our report when they are published in due course.

One other point was highlighted in a briefing for this debate prepared by the charity Barnardo’s. That charity describes the two-child limit as the single biggest policy driver of child poverty in the UK, and says that ending it would be the most cost-effective way of reducing child poverty, lifting a quarter of a million children out of poverty and easing the poverty of a further 850,000 children. The cost of doing so would be £1.3 billion per year. I must say that I am puzzled about the justification for the two-child limit: it presumably reflects a belief that parents should not have more than two children, but as far as I understand it, that is not the Government’s view. Indeed, Government Members are understandably starting to worry about our falling birth rate, so why do we refuse to provide support for children beyond the first two? Is it not time to just scrap that limit, which does not seem to make any sense?

Another reason for higher DWP expenditure this year is the continuation of cost of living support. Expenditure is forecast to increase by just over £2 billion this year, due to higher payments—£900 in this financial year, compared with £650 last year—and higher take-up. Those payments have been crucial, but they do not fully meet need, particularly the £150 disability support payment. Last month, Maddy Rose of Mencap told the Select Committee that the payment is “clearly not commensurate” with the extra costs that those eligible incur, and we have heard other strong evidence to the Committee along those lines. Helen Barnard of the Trussell Trust told us last month that the cost of living payment

“has certainly helped the families that have got it, but of course, it is a flat payment. It is not calibrated for the number of people you are trying to feed, so it has clearly gone less far if you are a family with children than if you are a single person or a couple.”

That is one of the reasons why the Trussell Trust data shows a faster rise in food bank demand among families with children than among families without.

The lump sum nature of the payment is problematic. Citizens Advice, speaking for many, told the Committee that increments to universal credit would be better than one-off payments. Our colleagues on the Treasury Committee called on the Government last December to provide monthly payments over a six-month period to give more households support at the time of their greatest need and reduce the severity of the disincentives to work. The Government rejected that proposal, essentially due to the limitations of the IT system, but as we know from the pandemic, monthly universal credit can be increased overnight.

The need to meet a specific qualifying period for each payment window has led to what evidence to the Committee has described as

“a cliff edge where receiving a nil UC award one month—maybe due to a sanction or a higher salary due to backpay or a bonus—caused recipients to become ineligible for the entire cost of living support payment in that qualification period.”

I am looking forward to discussing cost of living support further with the Minister responsible for social mobility, youth and progression—the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies)—at the Committee tomorrow morning.

A very important aim in achieving effective spending is transparency over how the money is being spent and what is being achieved. The Department has had a very poor record in recent years, so I warmly welcome signs of a new commitment to transparency since the appointment of the new Secretary of State. Keeping things hidden, which has been the Department’s practice, has the short-term advantage for Ministers of avoiding having to answer sometimes awkward questions, but over the medium and long term, people depending on the Department form the impression that it is conspiring against them. The result is terrible mistrust, causing the Department very serious problems over time—for example, the very serious lack of confidence in the DWP among disabled people at the moment. It does not have to be like that, but changing things requires deliberate effort on the Department’s behalf.

None of the recently introduced employment support initiatives had regular performance reporting on introduction. I warmly welcome the Minister’s announcement of six-monthly performance reports for the restart scheme. That is one of the signs of welcome change in the Department’s approach, but it should be the norm and part of the arrangements built in at the outset, not something that has to be dragged from the Department kicking and screaming subsequently. Greater openness could deliver a wholly different relationship between the Department and the people depending on its services, with the Department seen to be working with those it serves, rather than conspiring against them.

An interesting suggestion in the Child Poverty Action Group report I mentioned earlier, “You reap what you code”, is that the source code for the universal credit computer system should be published. There would no doubt be some security concerns about doing that, but could not a small team—with experts from disability groups, Citizens Advice and software experts—be charged with reviewing that software and proposing improvements, perhaps in an annual report, a little bit along the lines of what the Social Security Advisory Committee does at the moment?

Let me briefly say a word about a different aspect of the Committee’s work. We have been worried by the cuts to the funding of the Health and Safety Executive, and one result has been drastically fewer inspections of workplace asbestos. We published a report on this last year, and called in particular for two things—a target to remove all workplace asbestos within 40 years together with a plan to deliver it, and a central digital register of all workplace asbestos and of its condition. The Government rejected those recommendations, although I do welcome the agreement of the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Mid Sussex, to meet a group of us, together with three industry groups and the Health and Safety Executive, to discuss further the idea for a register. That meeting will take place later this month.

I very warmly welcome the launch of the campaign by The Sunday Times at the weekend drawing attention to the continuing scale of the tragedy being inflicted by asbestos even now, a quarter of a century after its use was banned. It is still the biggest source of workplace-related deaths. The Sunday Times campaign headlines in particular our two recommendations, and I do hope that Ministers will now recognise the need to act. I welcome the fact that The Sunday Times will be running this campaign on a consistent basis.

I again thank the Backbench Business Committee for recommending today’s debate. I would be very interested to hear from the Minister specifically how Ministers are assessing whether the different cost of living support payments meet needs and whether they are reaching the right people, and also how and when Ministers will decide whether payments along these lines will be needed next year. I look forward to the debate we are about to have.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

No, I will not. I have already given way to the hon. Lady.

Let me say something about cost of living payments. We are building on, and extending, the one-off cash payments that we provided in 2022-23, when we made more than £30 million worth of cost of living payments, including the £150 disability payment to 6 million people, £650 for more than 8 million households on means-tested benefits, and an additional £300 on top of the winter fuel payment for more than 8 million pensioner households. That put hundreds of pounds directly and quickly into the pockets of millions of people.

Criticism was made of universal credit as a principle. The first—and simple—point that I would make, which I think was acknowledged by the Chair of the Select Committee, is that the legacy system would in no way have been able to provide the degree of support that universal credit provided during covid, and it would in no way be able to provide an ongoing degree of cost of living support. Universal credit, as we see, provides a massive amount of support on an ongoing basis, which is targeted to help those most impacted by rising prices throughout this financial year.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

Will the Minister give way?

[Guy Opperman]

There are about a dozen points made by the right hon. Gentleman to which I was going to respond, but I will give way once again.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I am grateful to the Minister. When does he expect to make a decision on whether the cost of living payments will continue for a further year? When, this year, is that decision likely to be made?

[Guy Opperman]

Because the right hon. Gentleman and I have worked together for many years—and I emphasise “together”—he will know that I have been a humble junior functionary at the Department for Work and Pensions for a very long time, never to rise any higher. Let me also say to the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) that I have had the privilege of serving under three female Secretaries of State before the present Secretary of State. I think I am now on my seventh Secretary of State.

These matters are monumentally above my pay grade, and, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman knows, having done my job and many other jobs in the Government, they will be decided by the Chancellor and the Prime Minister at some stage over the course of the coming year. [Interruption.] I have much to be modest about, to be honest. As I have said, these matters are above my pay grade and beyond my knowledge, but they will be considered. There will be an autumn statement in November, which will be the obvious time for decisions to be telegraphed, if not made.

The right hon. Gentleman raised a number of points, and I will try to answer some of them in the time that I have. He mentioned prison leavers. The Department recognises the need for prisoners and carers to be able to make advance claims for universal credit, and there is a working process in place to support that. I have met the prisons Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), who will welcome any questions that will follow during the justice debate, and the social mobility Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), who looks after most aspects of matters relating to prisoners, on several occasions to try to drive forward universal credit take-up. However, it requires the individual to desire to do that, and that is clearly complicated and not easy. It is a work in progress, but it is very much something that we are aware of.

I know that the social mobility Minister is giving evidence to the Select Committee tomorrow, so I will not address in too much detail the issues the right hon. Member for East Ham raised on the Health and Safety Executive, which is one of the few briefs I have not held in the last few years. He rightly raised the issue of transparency, and I would respectfully say that I agree with him. The present Secretary of State has transformed the position in that regard. The right hon. Gentleman knows my strong view that, save where we have to provide data on a monthly basis under labour market statistics, we should have six-monthly provision of the vast plethora of data, linked to the two fiscal events of the year, but that is a work in progress. The Department is definitely reviewing all aspects of those things.

The right hon. Gentleman raised the flexible support fund and particular issues about people taking buses to work. I want to take issue with that, because there is absolutely no doubt that a jobcentre can use the flexible support fund to support bus or other transport fares for agreed work-related activity. If it is for a work-related activity, that support can be provided as it is in other contexts—childcare being the one of which he will be particularly aware. I would certainly very much hope that the individual jobcentre that he referred to would be aware of that.

On fraud and error, the right hon. Gentleman will be aware that huge amounts of effort are being made by the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, who takes control of that particular part of the portfolio, and by the Secretary of State in a multitude of different ways. We have a large number of extra staff who have been brought in to address fraud and error. According to the latest national statistics, it has fallen to 3.6% from 4%, and overpayments from fraud are down to 2.7% compared with 3% in 2021-22. Universal credit losses have fallen by nearly 2% over a similar period. Bluntly, we are trying to crack down on those who are exploiting the benefit system, and we want to make it very clear that we are coming after those people. We want to ensure that the maximum amount of support goes to the people who need it.

The targeted support includes support for people on means-tested benefits such as universal credit, with up to three cost of living payments totalling up to £900. We have delivered the first £301 payment to 8.3 million households in support worth £2.5 billion. The two further payments of £300 and £299 will be made in the autumn and next spring. To help with additional costs, we have paid the disability cost of living payment to 6 million people as well as paying the winter fuel support payment. A huge amount is being done in jobcentres, whether that is through the in-work progression offer, the support of extra work coaches, the over-50s support, the administrative earnings threshold support or the 37 new district progression leads who are working with key partners, including local government, employers and skilled providers, to identify and develop local opportunities and to overcome barriers that limit progression.

The hon. Member for North East Fife raised a number of pension matters. Clearly, I continue to defend the actions of the Labour Government and the coalition Government on the rise in state pension age. She referred to both the LEAP exercise and what has happened at HMRC, and they are both works in progress. I do not believe there is any fundamental change to that of which she has been previously advised. On pension credit, she will be aware that there has been an increase in excess of, I think, 170% in applications. There is a slight backlog, but that is coming down dramatically. On the gender pensions gap, she will be aware of the changes to the new state pension, which are massively advantageous to women, and of the fact that successive Governments—starting with the Labour Government and the Turner commission, and then the coalition—have brought in automatic enrolment specifically to address that particular issue.

The hon. Lady raised a final point about those who change jobs in later life. I cannot overstate the importance of the project for which I have been pressing for only five and a half years now, which is the mid-life MOT. I am delighted to say it is now being rolled out across the country, whether that is online, in jobcentres up and down the country or, more particularly, in the three private sector bodies that are trialling particular processes. If she is not yet acquainted with that, I would strongly urge her to become so, particularly because in her area of Scotland in North East Fife there are, I know, providers that are offering that process. I can provide her with the details. Aviva and others are doing very good stuff there.

I am conscious that I have been speaking for some time, but the practical reality is that we believe we are removing the barriers that prevent people from working. We believe that we are reducing the number of people who are economically inactive, with a fifth consecutive month when inactivity has declined. I accept that there is more to do, and I am determined to leave no stone unturned in taking the decisive action needed across Government to see that downward trend continue.

In conclusion, I believe that we are tackling inflation to help manage the cost of living. We are providing extra support. The economic trends, as shown by the labour market statistics, are heading in the right direction and, with the Government’s ongoing significant package of cost of living support, that is worth over £94 billion in excess of the rises to state pension and benefits. We are protecting those most in need from the worst impact of rising prices by putting more pounds in people’s pockets, and I commend these estimates to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Stephen Timms]

Let me reiterate my thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for enabling us to hold the debate, and I would like to thank everyone who has taken part in the debate as well. The hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) spoke in the debate last year as well, I am pleased to say, and I want to pick up one point she made about the gender pensions gap. I join her in welcoming the fact that the Pensions Minister has now come forward with a definition of that, so that we know what we are talking about. But I also agree with her that we need a target to reduce it, and I hope that we will see that in due course as well.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) for all her work on the Committee and her very committed work on behalf of disabled people. This afternoon, she spoke about the scourge of disability poverty and some of the things that we need to do to tackle that.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) for combining his work on the Committee with his Front-Bench role. He makes a very valuable contribution to the work of the Committee. Let me endorse his tribute to the work of the organisation Christians Against Poverty, which is very valuable. It is doing a very impressive job all over the country.

I am grateful for the interventions we have had from my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood), the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens)—it is good to see him back on this beat—and the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil).

I am grateful to the Minister for suggesting that we will perhaps hear about the plans for further cost of living payments in the autumn statement. I think they will be needed. My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) was absolutely right to make the point from the Opposition Front Bench that in many respects the security has been removed from social security. That is a lamentable feature of the last few years. The level of benefits is much too low and it has not been properly uprated. I want to renew my appeal. We did have a proper uprating this year, thankfully, but we need that again next year. We are talking about a historically low level of benefits. That is the major reason why food bank demand is still rising. If we do not have a full uprating next year, it will rise further.

I am glad the Minister has confirmed that the Department is reviewing arrangements for transparency. I am grateful to him for that and the confirmation he has given of the direction of travel and the work in progress. I am also interested to hear about the staff being recruited to tackle fraud and error. The Committee would be very interested to follow progress on that and perhaps to table some questions about how many staff there are.

I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to have this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to everyone who has contributed to it.

Question deferred until tomorrow at Seven o’clock (Standing Order No. 54)

Ministry of Justice

Cost of Living Support

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Tuesday 20th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The cost of living payments have made a vital contribution to millions of families in supporting people through the current crisis and I welcome the contribution they have made. However, the need for them does reflect, particularly following the removal of the £20 a week uplift from universal credit, the historically low headline level of benefits—at the moment, in real terms, the lowest for 40 years. What consideration are the Minister and his colleagues in the Department giving to consolidating those occasional one-off payments into the mainstream benefits— universal credit and the rest—so that people can budget with confidence, week by week?

[Tom Pursglove]

The right hon. Gentleman will recognise that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has his annual review of benefits and pension levels, where all matters are properly considered in the usual way. Decisions are made and announced through those formal processes. It is worth saying in relation to disability spending more generally that in 2027-28 total disability spending is forecast to be over £41.6 billion higher in real terms compared with 2010. We are spending very significant sums of money on support for disabled people. We also have those cost of living packages of support in place for them. We will continue to be on the side of helping people through this difficult time, supporting where we can and cushioning the impacts of those challenges. Again, I invite Opposition Members to join the support for the overarching mission of this Government, which is to get inflation down and to relieve those pressures.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Very little data is being published on the outcomes of the restart programme in Don Valley or anywhere. There was a one-off statistical release last December, but nothing regular at all. In the past, we have had monthly data from the Work programme, and we still have regular updates from the Work and Health programme. Does the Minister recognise the value of regular publication of outcome data for the flagship restart programme?

[Guy Opperman]

With great respect, I think we do publish data on all aspects of the Department for Work and Pensions’ programmes, and I addressed this matter in great detail in front of the right hon. Gentleman and the Select Committee recently.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Tom Pursglove]

I really appreciate my right hon. Friend highlighting the concerns raised with her by her constituent. I know she supports the fundamental change we are determined to bring about, whereby we will focus more on what people can do. We will remove what is a structural barrier to work: the impediment that means people feel prevented from trying work because of the fear that if it does not work out they will lose their entitlement and have to go back through a re-application and reassessment processes. I hope she will welcome the steps we are taking, for example to link expert assessors with particular conditions to help us to get decisions right first time, as well as the commitment we have made to reduce the assessment burden more generally.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

The experiences of the constituent of the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) are, unfortunately, far too common. The assessments disabled people go through often go badly wrong and the great majority of appeals against refusal succeed. It all causes immense and unnecessary anxiety for disabled people. The Select Committee on Work and Pensions recommended that all assessments should be recorded to help put things right. The assessment providers all support that recommendation. Will the Minister give the House an assurance that he will give that recommendation very serious and sympathetic consideration?

[Tom Pursglove]

I am always grateful for the opportunity to hear from the Chairman of the Work and Pensions Committee. It is important to recognise that both the Minister for Employment, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), and I are set to appear before the Committee next week. What I will not do this afternoon is make specific commitments, but I can say—I have said this regularly now, including in the many conversations we have had with disabled people and various stakeholders that we want to work constructively to get the reforms right. This is the biggest set of welfare reforms for over a decade, so I am very willing to consider all views about how we can improve processes. Of course, people are able to make recordings of assessments at the moment, but we should look at that. I am very willing to do that, and to come back to the Committee formally.

Asbestos in Workplaces

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Loughborough (Jane Hunt) on securing the debate and on her speech. As she said, the Work and Pensions Committee published a report on asbestos management on 30 March last year. Ministers unfortunately rejected our recommendations but, for reasons that we have heard today, the case for action looks even stronger now than it did then.

Our report opened with this point:

“Asbestos-related illness is one of the great workplace tragedies of modern times.”

Asbestos is still the biggest source of work-related fatalities in the UK, and the fact that we used brown asbestos for a long time, and used it very heavily—

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the debate but there is a Division in the main Chamber. Please try to be back here within 15 minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Sir Stephen Timms]

The assumption in the current regulations, as the hon. Member for Loughborough said, is that if the asbestos is in reasonable condition and not disturbed, it should not harm anybody, but that assumption looks increasingly unsafe. We have heard from others about the extent of the problem of asbestos in schools and hospitals—I understand that the scale of the threat will be highlighted in a big article in The Sunday Times magazine this coming weekend—but I worry that there has not been enough focus on this problem over the last few years.

In 2019-20, the Health and Safety Executive conducted 907 inspections of work by licensed asbestos inspectors, which is 40% fewer than in 2012-13. The fall in number of asbestos enforcement notices from 2011-12 to 2018-19—a period when the HSE really struggled with resources and should have had more support—was 60%, which was much greater than the fall in the number of HSE enforcement notices in that period, at only 10%.

The Minister’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), told our Committee that the Government had “a clearly stated goal” that

“it is right to—over time and in the safest way—work towards there no longer being asbestos in non-domestic buildings.”

We agreed with the Minister about that, and I hope the current Minister will reaffirm that view, but we think we need a plan to achieve that goal, not just a hope that it happens by happenstance. As the House has been rightly reminded, we recommended a 40-year deadline to remove all asbestos from non-domestic buildings and a plan to achieve it, and that the HSE should develop a central digital register of asbestos in non-domestic buildings.

We know that we will have to do a lot of work to our buildings to deliver net zero in the next few decades, and that means two things. First, asbestos left in place will not be left alone for long; it will be disturbed. That potentially creates a big problem, but it also creates an opportunity, because we can remove asbestos at the same time as making the net zero changes that will have to be made, and so achieve removal relatively cost-effectively. That is what we should be doing.

Since the Select Committee’s report, published research has strengthened the case for action. We have heard about the report of the Asbestos Testing and Consultancy Association, which I am glad will become an annual report. One of the lessons from that survey is that producing a national central register of asbestos, as recommended by the Select Committee, will not involve massive new data collection. A lot of the data is already there. It needs organising, assessing and quality-assuring, but that is a wholly manageable task. The industry has done a large chunk of it already without any Government support; with Government support, the whole thing becomes a very manageable task.

I welcome the programme of inspections in 400 schools that the Health and Safety Executive has been undertaking. The HSE has made the point that a lot of those schools do not have a plan for managing asbestos risk. The Irwin Mitchell report, which has been mentioned, estimates that if we do not do anything, it will take 80 years to get rid of asbestos from all local authority buildings, so we really need to get a move on.

Finally, and to echo an earlier intervention, if the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill reaches the statute book in its current form, there will be no UK regulations on managing asbestos for the first time since 1930. I do not think that anybody wants that to happen, so perhaps the Minister can reassure us that there will be secondary legislation to fill that gap. Can she tell us when it will be published and whether it will be consulted on? I ask her as well to reconsider the Government’s response to those two crucial recommendations for a 40-year deadline and a central register.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mims Davies]

I have a feeling I will be sent a note on that, and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We have spoken about a lot of matters this afternoon, and I hope I will be forgiven if I do not respond to every question. I shall respond to some, and I assure right hon. and hon. Members and the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), that I shall put a copy of the responses in the Library of the House.

Under the law on dumping locations, asbestos must be disposed of in licensed sites, but we are aware of some issues of illegal dumping. The HSE supports local authorities in their enforcement responsibilities in this area, but I will take that point away.

Before I move on, I will try to answer some questions before progressing with my speech. On the question regarding asbestos research from the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw, the Health and Safety Executive has published a comprehensive science and evidence strategy associated with a delivery plan, and it includes commitments. It will continue to research and publish those findings.

On the retained EU law questions, the focus continues to be on ensuring appropriate regulatory frameworks, and maintaining the United Kingdom’s high standards for health and safety protection, but we balance that with reductions in burdens to business. The HSE’s approach is closely aligned with the Government’s pledges to do more for business, to promote growth, to deal with disproportionate burdens and to simplify the regulatory landscape.

Our standards are all about health and safety protections, and they are among the highest in the world. The HSE will continue to review its retained EU law to seek to look at the opportunities, but it always looks at what is happening around the globe, as has been mentioned.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I do not think the Minister would suggest that we should scrap all asbestos regulations for the first time since 1930, so that does imply that there will be some secondary legislation. Can she give us any indication of when that will be forthcoming?

[Mims Davies]

I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we are looking at exactly that at the moment. The rules and regulations are for the HSE. It has the experts and it needs to do what it sees fit. I will be looking very closely at the HOUSE, which will be bringing proposals to Ministers; that is being looked at currently. As soon as I have more to share, I will do so. We are clear that the HSE is committed to its regulatory role and to supporting wider Government priorities.

The right hon. Member for East Ham, who chairs the Work and Pensions Committee, talked about resourcing, as did other Members. We know that this area is highly risky. Licence holders—those who undertake removal work—are individually reviewed and that is followed up. The inspections are really important. Our end-to-end approach provides assurance that the licensing regime is fit for purpose and working effectively. The HSE takes that very seriously. In ’23-24, as part of its planned inspection activity, the HSE will continue to carry out inspections across the construction industry where asbestos exposure risks continue to be raised. Inspection work in schools and other organisations, which has been mentioned this afternoon, will continue to happen to effectively manage that asbestos legacy.

The HSE allocates budgets and resources on the basis of levels of expected interventions, including inspection, investigation and enforcement activity, and does not allocate budgets at sub-activity level, such as for construction and health inspection. We have a range of different interventions and a way of doing things on which the HSE is very strident, and I reassure the House that nothing has changed.

I will mention NDAs, because, like others, I have been appalled this afternoon to hear about the issues affecting teachers. This is a matter for the Department for Education, but I will ask my officials to raise it with the DFE so that a response can be provided.

The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw asked how we are supporting people suffering with asbestos-related diseases. In 2022-23—it says ’23-24 in my notes; I do not think that is right, but I will get my officials to check whether that is the case—1,890 payable industrial injuries disablement benefit assessments took place, and the scheme provides a weekly payment based on the assessed level of disablement. I will write to the hon. Lady with further details and confirmation for her. There are lump sum compensation payments as well, and I am happy to send her further details on that.

State Pension Age: Review

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am grateful for early sight of the statement. I understand why the Secretary of State has chosen to defer the key decision. Like John Cridland’s independent review six years ago, Baroness Neville-Rolfe’s report should have been published soon after the Department received it six months ago, rather than kept needlessly under wraps until today. John Cridland proposed early access to pension credit. Will the Secretary of State consider leaving access to pension credit at age 66 when the state pension age rises to 67 in three years’ time?

[Mel Stride]

The right hon. Gentleman raises the issue of when Baroness Neville-Rolfe’s report was published. We had a fairly detailed discussion about that when I appeared before his Committee yesterday, so he knows my arguments around that. It is something that I certainly would not rule out for future reviews as a perfectly reasonable practice, but he knows the reasons it did not happen on this occasion. In terms of early access to pension credit, that is not something that the Government are currently planning—nor was it something that previous Governments planned to do at any stage—but of course, as with all matters around pensions, we will keep that under review.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride]

The answer to the hon. Gentleman’s inquiry is in the early measures, which I was going to come on to. The Chancellor has dealt with the one-month requirement for the up-front payment by making it clear that jobcentres will fund that payment. That will come in in the short term, as will the increase in the cap—the maximum amount that those who claim those benefits can receive.

Before I come on to specific measures in detail, I think it is important to put workplace participation in the wider context of a robust and resilient UK labour market and economy. As confirmed again by Tuesday’s labour market statistics, unemployment is at a near-historic low of 3.7%, payroll employment is at an all-time high and economic inactivity continues its downward trend. However, there are still 1.1 million job vacancies, and we have many people who could work and want to work, but who do not work. This Budget will help to unlock that potential and fill the vacancies. It builds on our key Conservative belief that we should make work pay, and on our sustained efforts to reward and incentivise employment to get more people into work. That is why, as well as keeping unemployment low, I am determined to see participation in the labour market continue to rise and inactivity fall. In doing so, we will see more people fulfil their potential and more employers get the skills they need to support their businesses and ensure the economy grows for the future.

Over the past few months, I and my Ministers have been leading work across Government to look in detail at the issue of participation in the labour market. I have looked carefully at the cohorts that make up the 8.9 million inactive people in the economy and the nature of the barriers these groups face, and I and others have thought innovatively about how we can help many of them into the workforce. That involved examining in detail international comparators, as well as engaging with a wide range of stakeholders and experts, and I thank in particular those who served on my expert panel.

It is clear from this work that concerted action across the board is required, and yet it is important to recognise that the level of economic activity in the UK is lower than in the United States, France and Italy. It is below the EU average and below the average of OECD countries. However, it is equally important to recognise that, whereas for most other comparable countries the increase in inactivity that occurred during the pandemic has since returned broadly to its pre-pandemic level, in the UK it has remained elevated. So this Budget focuses on economic inactivity and on the key groups that I considered in my review: disabled people and those with health conditions, the over-50s, parents and carers, and people looking for work or working a low number of hours.

We know that many disabled people and people with health conditions want to work and benefit from the positive impact on health and wellbeing that employment can bring. We have made good progress, contrary to the remarks of the right hon. Member for Leeds West. There are over 1 million more disabled people in work compared with 2017—a milestone that I am particularly proud of and that we marked last year, having delivered on this commitment five years early. That is a record of which this Government can be proud.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mel Stride]

I give way to the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.

[Sir Stephen Timms]

I am pleased that the White Paper says the Department will keep a focus on the disability employment gap, which is the really telling indicator. Will the new target that the Secretary of State sets relate to that gap, rather than a rather arbitrary number of increased jobs?

[Mel Stride]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that hitherto we have indeed focused on a gap. The Department will come forward with something to say on that in the not-too-distant future, and he will have to wait until that point to know the exact kind of target, although I recognise that the current measure has value.

The measures we have set out in the Budget and in our health and disability White Paper will help to remove barriers, so that disabled people have the same opportunity as anybody else to thrive in work. Some 20% of those who have been assessed through the work and capability assessment as having limited capability to work and to look for work say that they want a job at some point in the future, but one of the barriers to work is the health and disability benefits system itself. For too many disabled people, the system feels like it focuses on what they cannot do, rather than what they can do.

Having listened to disabled people, the White Paper that we published at Budget yesterday sets out how we will fundamentally rewire the benefits system, changing it from a system that can often leave people feeling that moving towards work is too risky and that they might not be able to return to benefits if that work does not work out. I want to give people the confidence to try work without the worry that they will not be able to access benefits again promptly if a job does not last. Under our new approach, people will have the confidence that they will receive support for as long as it is needed. Our reforms will also provide additional support to those disabled and long-term sick who request it.

These reforms have been years in the making and follow the Green Paper that we published in July 2021. We have engaged widely on these changes, including with disability charities and disabled people’s organisations, as well as with disabled people themselves who have been through the current process and understand how and why it needs to change. Just as we have taken a measured approach to developing this way forward, so we will operationalise this approach with care.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I apologise for my late arrival in the debate.

It is striking how hard it is for Conservative Chancellors to resist the temptation to hand out big tax cuts to the wealthiest while raising tax for ordinary people. We can sympathise with the Chancellor in that he meets many such people—many people among the 1% wealthiest pension savers in the country—who are very courteous and very nice to him over convivial dinners, and they explain to him their frustrations with the Government’s pensions tax policy. These are good eggs, and who could possibly begrudge them a £1.2 billion tax cut? But the reality is that pension tax relief is already massively skewed in favour of the best-off, and the Chancellor, when times are hard, has decided to give another billion to the wealthiest in pension tax relief.

I do welcome the adoption of the Select Committee recommendations on support in universal credit for the costs of childcare, which was announced yesterday. As the Secretary of State explained, allowing the costs to be paid up front from universal credit and lifting the cap—absurdly, it had not been raised since 2005—will remove very important barriers to work, including a barrier to those who are working part-time from working full-time.



There is much to welcome in the health and disability White Paper, which says that the system will be changed so that it focuses on

“what people can do, rather than what they can’t”.

That is laudable, but precisely the same form of words was used by Alistair Darling to introduce changes to the incapacity benefit system 25 years ago. Whether the detail turns out to be a good thing will depend on the detail, which is largely absent. The Secretary of State spoke about consultation. The Government’s ill-fated disability strategy came to grief in the courts because had not adequately consulted disabled people. We must hope that that lesson has been learned.

Nobody will mourn the work capability assessment, which the White Paper says will be replaced by

“a new personalised health conditionality approach”.

Can Ministers tell us what that means? The White Paper goes on to explain that it

“will provide more personalised levels of conditionality and employment support”,

but I am afraid that leaves us none the wiser. The problem is that, despite being years late, much of the vital detailed work does not seem to have been done yet.

I welcome some of the specific proposals to reform PIP—for example, I am pleased that the call to match people’s primary health condition with a specialist assessor will at least be tested. Many PIP assessments come up with the wrong answer, as we know, because when people appeal against the determination, the great majority win their appeal—in fact, the proportion who do so has been going up. The White Paper proposes to place more weight on the PIP assessment in future, so it is even more important that we get it right. The only way to do that is to record all the assessments, so that if the decision is subsequently found to be wrong, it is possible to go back, work out why and consider how to avoid the same mistake being made again in future.

The White Paper says that there will be an increase in recording, which is a good thing, but the Select Committee proposed five years ago that all assessments should be recorded, with an opt-out for the claimant if they did not want their assessment to be recorded. In the new contract for assessments to be agreed this year, the Department should instruct providers to record assessments by default with a clear opt-out option. That proposition is supported by all three assessment providers. It will ensure that there is an objective record of the assessment, which will reassure claimants and allow assessment quality to be audited. When recordings are available and the findings of assessments are overturned, the recordings should be checked at least on a sample basis to see whether an erroneous outcome could have been avoided.

I welcome the White Paper’s commitment to test the feasibility of sending a copy of the assessor’s report to claimants automatically before the decision is made, which was also recommended by the Select Committee five years ago. I hope that the feasibility testing will be brief so that that can be introduced across the system soon.

It is disappointing that there is still not yet a target for disability employment in the White Paper. The Government congratulate themselves on achieving the previous very undemanding target early, but I am pleased that the White Paper says:

“Our goal to reduce the disability employment gap remains.”

In the 2015 election campaign, David Cameron announced a target to halve the disability employment gap. Unfortunately, that target was quickly scrapped as soon the general election was out of the way. I hope that a clear target on the disability employment gap will now be adopted.

Much will depend on the support that disabled people receive from work coaches. Polling by the charity Scope found that half of jobseekers with complex disabilities do not feel supported by work coaches. The initial training for work coaches does not seem to cover the barriers to work faced by disabled people, and jobcentres lack the specialist assistive technology that many disabled people need to look for and apply for work.

The White Paper refers to the potential of the UK shared prosperity fund to provide employment support. It is disappointing that there will be, I think, a two-year gap between the European social fund ending and the UK shared prosperity fund being allowed to support employment projects. A witness to the Select Committee yesterday suggested that the flexible support fund might be expanded, at least temporarily, to try to bridge that gap.

That could lead to a large amount of important employment support capacity not being lost, which it will be if the gap is allowed to take effect.

Lastly, I appeal to the Secretary of State to spare us the embarrassment of the Department’s appealing against the ruling this week by the Information Commissioner that the Department’s research on the impact of benefit sanctions must be published. The Department promised to publish it. As was her wont, his predecessor but one, the right hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), decided to hide as much as possible if it contained any hint of a question mark about the Department’s policies. I welcome his review of that approach, and I hope he will show with this particular case that things have now changed.

Health and Disability White Paper

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.

[Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

There are very welcome measures in the White Paper, although a lot of the detail is still missing. The work capability assessment is to be scrapped, starting in three or four years’ time, and replaced with

“a new personalised health conditionality approach”

to assess entitlement to what the Minister just referred to as the “health top-up” in universal credit. That sounds like a new assessment of some kind. Can he tell us what it means?

[Tom Pursglove]

I suspect that these issues will come up when I appear before the Select Committee along with my hon. Friend the Minister for Employment in a few weeks’ time. I look forward to that opportunity to delve into these reforms in some detail. The detail of our proposed approach needs to be worked through. I am clear that stakeholder engagement, working with disabled people and hearing views from this House will help to inform that. I want people to feel that they can engage with the programmes announced in the Budget, as well as with the existing provision. That will happen on a voluntary basis, but we need to move the reform forward in a pragmatic way. We will say more about it as we move forward with implementation.