Disability Benefits Assessments

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I thank the hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) for securing this important debate.

One of my constituents in North East Fife is a young man with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and autism, who has been refused PIP. Due to those disabilities, he has been struggling to gather the evidence needed to make an appeal. He is overwhelmed by the requirements placed on him, and is already struggling with simple tasks. In his own words, he would rather die than put himself through this process again. That is clearly a broken system. The disability Green Paper acknowledges that

“some people continue to find assessments difficult and stressful”,

but that does not begin to fully describe the distress felt by my constituent, and clearly by so many others.

The Green Paper is, however, a step in the right direction. I welcome, for example, proposals for the audio recording of assessments by default. That has long been called for by disability rights groups. In the context of immense distrust in the system, people need to know that what they have told their assessor has been accurately recorded. However, as it stands, the Green Paper does not commit the DWP to a timeline by which that will be implemented. It also does not commit to making it easier for people to access the written reports made about them. Transparency is vital if trust is to be restored to the system. I invite the Minister to address that in her response.

The Green Paper still presents missed opportunities. It acknowledges that it is vital for work coaches to have an understanding of the medical problems that their clients experience, but does not say the same of healthcare professionals involved in the assessment process. Why would we not want assessors to understand what they are assessing? It would increase trust in the process if claimants felt they had been understood. It would increase the number of decisions that are right first time, and would decrease the amount of taxpayers’ money spent on mandatory reconsiderations and appeals. To me, that is simply a win-win, and I hope that the Minister agrees.

The Green Paper also fails to address DWP’s approach to new illnesses, or to illnesses that are less understood due to the relapsing and remitting nature of their symptoms. That includes diseases such as myalgic encephalomyelitis, multiple sclerosis and now, of course, long covid. Long covid is currently a diagnosis of exclusion—has an individual had a positive covid test, and are they experiencing symptoms that cannot otherwise be explained? There are some 150 possible symptoms, of which the most prevalent is fatigue, but they can present in any combination in different people. It is not yet recognised as an occupational disease, and there is no coherent strategy from the DWP for supporting sufferers.

I ask the Minister to consider a few key points. The first is evidence of diagnosis. Diagnosis relies on a positive test, but those who continue to suffer symptoms from covid caught in the first wave will have never had a test result. How can they prove their illness? The second is guidance for businesses. The Green Paper sets out that the Government’s intention is to stop disabled people from falling out of work, but if we are to prevent long covid sufferers from falling out of work, action has to be taken now. The third relates to the broader point about relapsing-remitting diseases in which fatigue is a primary symptom. The Government must give proper guidance to assessors and work coaches about how best to assist people with those illnesses.

There is one final missing element in the Green Paper: it does not consider the adequacy of social security payments. Put simply, it is more expensive to be disabled or to be the parent of a disabled child. PIP might be a start, for those who can get it, but research released before the pandemic showed that even after receiving that payment, disabled adults face average extra costs of nearly £600 per month. PIP is not enough. The system is failing disabled people. I ask the Minister to commit to reforms that place disabled people at the heart of the social security system, and to urgently address the specific issues raised today.