Atos Healthcare

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) on securing this debate about a matter of huge importance to hundreds of thousands of people, as well as on the work that he has done to highlight the problems that people face. I give the Minister my hearty congratulations on his appointment as Secretary of State for Justice and thank him for turning up to discharge his final responsibility in his old job. I am also very pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire) is in the Chamber because she and I have had a close interest in this issue for a long time.

The previous Government introduced the work capability assessment and employment and support allowance to provide support for people who are out of work for health reasons, but who are able to plan for a return to work. The current Government chose to take a drastic short cut by curtailing the bedding down period for the new benefit and rolling out the assessment without any improvement, even though by that stage improvements had been identified and proposed. The predictable result of that has been severe problems. Ministers are failing in their task of managing the contract with Atos, of ensuring that people who claim employment and support allowance are treated as they should be, and of reviewing and reforming the test so that it works as it should. The test needs major improvement. Two of Professor Malcolm Harrington’s reviews have reported so far—the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) was right—and while the Government say that they have accepted most of the recommendations, they simply have not implemented them, and that is the heart of the problem.

One simple example that shows the muddle that the Minister has got into has been raised several times in the debate. The year 1 Harrington review recommended that Atos should pilot the audio recording of work capability assessments, and a pilot of 500 claimants followed. Atos said that it was a good idea, but we have heard what has happened in practice from my hon. Friends the Members for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) and for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash).

In a previous debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, the Minister made a commitment that

“we will offer everyone who wants it the opportunity to have their session recorded”.—[Official Report, 1 February 2012; Vol. 539, c. 291WH.]

He has not delivered on that pledge, and it turns out that the problem is a shortage of tape recorders. I was contacted by someone who struggled for weeks to get her assessment recorded. Eventually, Atos wrote to tell her that she could not have a recording or a rescheduled appointment. I wrote to the Minister about that and reminded him of the commitment that he had made. He said that he thought it would be unreasonable to delay the assessment indefinitely for such a reason, but that was not the commitment he gave to the House in February. I am afraid that this mess and shambles shows all we need to know about the Minister’s management of this process. The Government need to get a grip on Atos. I wish the Minister great success in his new job, but I wish he had put a bit more effort into this aspect of his old one.

We have also had a series of mishaps. For example, the Minister made rather farcical efforts to suppress a YouTube video giving advice to people who were claiming against their work capability assessment. It turned out that the subversives who were responsible for this pernicious video were his colleagues at the Ministry of Justice.

Perhaps the most harmful thing to the credibility of the work capability assessment has been the delay in making the changes needed so that the test can work. Professor Harrington’s first review in 2010 asked Mind, Mencap and the National Autistic Society to propose better descriptors for people with mental health conditions. They produced recommendations in November 2010, and Professor Harrington commended them to the Department in April 2011. Further recommendations went to the Department in November 2011 about changes to the descriptors for fluctuating conditions.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Several announcements that have been made, including about having mental health champions, have not been rolled out to assessment centres. Atos is still being inconsistent about allowing support workers or friends to assist those with mental health illnesses who are going to assessments.

[Stephen Timms]

I agree that commitments have not been delivered, and my hon. Friend cites a good example.

The work capability assessment must not be a snapshot of someone’s condition on the day they attend the medical assessment. By definition, that is likely to be a good day, because otherwise they would not be able to show up. The assessment needs to take account of the frequency with which they can do work-related tasks and that with which they suffer the ill effects of their condition. The alternative descriptors proposed do just that. They are now in the public domain thanks to the Grass Roots disability blog, without which we would not have known what they were, and they look like a real step in the right direction.

The Department has had the recommendations on mental health descriptors for 17 months and those on fluctuating conditions descriptors for nine months, but hardly any progress has been made in that time. On 25 June, in a written answer, the Minister said that

“we have been carefully considering how to build an appropriate evidence base around the proposed new descriptors…Terms of reference have been agreed and we aim to publish a report of the Evidence Based Review in the spring of 2013.”—[Official Report, 25 June 2012; Vol. 19, c. 54W.]

The Minister’s successor will need to get a grip on this. If that ambiguous deadline is even met—and that would be a first—it will be two years after expert guidance was received on how to improve the assessment for people with mental health conditions, and a year following the other recommendations.

Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

I do not know the circumstances of that case, but in my time as a councillor we had a number of properties that were very difficult to let because people did not want to live in them. That was particularly true of the maisonettes. In Old Goole in my constituency, a two-bedroom maisonette has recently been let to an individual after about 20 years. He will be under-occupying because of the spare bedroom, but we are grateful that he has taken the property off our hands.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Given my time in local government in my constituency, I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman on that. Does he recognise that for many years, the Housing Corporation, which funds a lot of social housing, has not given grant to the building of one-bedroom properties?

[Andrew Percy]

Indeed. The standard for many housing associations is to provide two bedrooms—there is a programme in my constituency to renew such properties at the moment. In a few years’ time, we could end up with a lot of people who, through no fault of their own, are under-occupying homes because the standard has changed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is important that we try to match individuals with the vacancies that are best suited to them. Under the Work programme, providers will not be paid if they do not give people the right opportunities and they do not get the jobs, because there is a payment by results system. That system is the best route to ensure that those who are on benefits for the longer term get the best possible support and access to vacancies.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

T2. There has been a move from up-front, face-to-face contact at the jobcentre to more telephone systems. What plans do the Government have to reintroduce more face-to-face contact in jobcentres throughout the UK?

[Chris Grayling]

We welcome the hon. Gentleman back to the House after a breathless new year. We intend to find the right mix between the different channels of access to Jobcentre Plus. Many younger claimants prefer to access services online, many claimants prefer to deal with such matters face to face, and others are happy to apply for benefits and deal with such matters over the phone. The trick is to get the right mix, and that is what we will seek to do.

Welfare Reform

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Thursday 11th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As my hon. Friend knows, there is a slightly complex group of benefits and supplements with respect to disability. DLA is non-work related, but there are disability supplements for jobseeker’s allowance. Many of the disability organisations that we consulted said that the one thing they hoped for from the reforms is that the Government value disabled people, which we believe we do, and give them a chance to go back to work. Apart from the fact that we are creating work choice, the key thing is that the taper rate comes with a disregard. If we give disabled people on the universal credit a larger disregard on their income, we give them more money, which allows them a beneficial position as they go back to work.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State knows that work is good for people’s mental health, but he will also recognise that many people who have severe, long-term mental health problems find it difficult to keep permanent employment. What reassurance can he give that such people will not be discriminated against by the benefits system or by employers?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I completely agree that such discrimination is unforgivable, and we have to change such attitudes if they exist. The real beauty of our proposals is that we will be able to adjust rates according to people’s incapacities. So individuals with particular problems or disabilities will be much more valuable in the workplace than they are now. That is the one thing that the organisations said to us—that those people want to be in the mainstream and in work like everyone else. Our proposals will help that more than anything we are doing at the moment.

Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

I wish to approve the headline description of the emergency Budget and what it is intended to achieve, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) has said during the Budget debate, is that the richest pay the most and the vulnerable are protected. We must test that claim as we proceed. The coalition Government face many challenges in achieving that, in circumstances in which the public finances are in a very serious state, which I do not need to describe again this evening.

I wish to give the Budget a fair wind at this stage, and of course as a Liberal Democrat I gather a degree of satisfaction from a number of measures that I and my colleagues have campaigned for, namely the increase in the tax allowance with a target of an allowance of up to £10,000, taking many thousands of people on low income out of tax altogether; the restoration of a meaningful annual increase in the basic state pension, for which pensioners have been crying out for decades; increases in the child care element of the child tax credit for the poorest; the closing of the gaping tax avoidance loophole created by the previous Government through changes to capital gains tax; the introduction of a banking levy; and the protection of lower-paid public servants. There are a number of measures that I applaud and welcome very much.

This is a coalition Government and a new arrangement altogether, with two distinct parties. Seeking consensus between those parties inevitably creates significant debate.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is showing by his demeanour that he is not very enthusiastic for his coalition. He says that he has campaigned for many things in the Budget. Can he tell the House when he and the Liberal Democrats campaigned for an increase in VAT?

[Andrew George]

As far as I recall, none of the three main parties ruled out the prospect of VAT increasing. It is only when one is in government that one can see the nature and state of the finances, and therefore fully understand the impact that it is likely to have.

Having said that, as all Members will know, there is an amendment about VAT on the Order Paper in my name and those of some of my hon. Friends. It asks, I think reasonably, that an impact assessment be undertaken, taking into account a number of factors including the impact that the VAT increase would have on businesses, charities and families and households across the income range and age groups. It is vital that, in order to advance a number of the challenging measures in the Budget, the Government should reasonably be expected to bring forward more information than they are able to at this emergency stage of the Budget, so that we can debate the impact of those changes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Beamish Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Many elderly people rely on services from local councils. Can the hon. Gentleman tell the House how the cuts imposed on Durham county council last week will affect, and reduce poverty for, pensioners in the county of Durham?

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right to point out that when public finances are tight, all sectors of society risk having services threatened in the way that he describes. One of the incoming Government’s concerns was the huge hole in the public finances, which a Labour Government would also have had to fill. It would be interesting to know which cuts he thinks should be made, because there has been a silence from the Labour party on that very subject.