Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab) (Urgent Question): To ask the
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to make a statement on the
process and timetable for the personal independence payment back
payments. The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Sarah
Newton) As a result of our decision not to appeal the recent PIP
judicial review judgment, we...Request free trial
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Work and
Pensions to make a statement on the process and timetable for
the personal independence payment back payments.
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As a result of our decision not to appeal the recent PIP
judicial review judgment, we informed the House via a
written statement and in a response to a parliamentary
question that we will be carrying out an administrative
exercise to identify claimants who may now be eligible
for more support from PIP. The Secretary of State took
the decision less than three weeks ago. As previously
said, we will be working with Mind—experts in the
field—and doing things as sympathetically and effectively
as possible. While efficiency is important, I cannot
stress enough that I want the appropriate scrutiny and
complete accuracy to be applied to this exercise, so it
will not be rushed.
This exercise will include screening the existing PIP
caseload of some 1.6 million people to identify the group
who may benefit, but the vast majority of claimants will
not be affected. As the Secretary of State said last
week, we currently estimate that up to 220,000 people
will be affected by the judgment. For the group of people
who may be affected, we will undertake a detailed review
of their applications and awards. We will write to the
individuals affected, and all payments will be back-dated
to the effective date in each individual claim. There
will be no—I repeat, no—face-to-face reassessments of
awards. DWP case managers will be conducting a review of
the existing information we hold, with a view to
establishing whether claimants are entitled to more. If
case managers need more information to make a decision,
they will contact the claimant and/or their doctor.
I am sure you will understand, Madam Deputy Speaker, that
this is a complex exercise, and we need to undertake
testing to ensure that we implement it safely. We
therefore do not yet have an estimate of how long it will
take. Obviously, we will keep the House updated on our
progress in this exercise. Based on preliminary
calculations, we estimate that the overall costs of
implementing the judgment could be up to £3.7 billion by
2022-23. However, this number is highly likely to change
as we work through all the impacted cases.
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I thank Mr Speaker for granting this urgent
question.
Following the written statement of 19 January and last
week’s urgent question, yesterday we discovered in an
answer to a written question that the Government will be
reconsidering approximately 1.6 million PIP
claims—effectively, everyone currently in receipt of PIP.
However, no timetable was issued or detail provided for
this process. We know that 55% of people with mental
health conditions transferring from disability living
allowance to PIP receive a lower award or no award at
all. As the High Court found, the Government’s
regulations are highly discriminatory.
I am pleased that the Secretary of State and the
Minister’s Department have finally seen sense. However,
there are a number of questions that the Minister must
answer. By what date will the Department have changed the
PIP assessment guide, so that she can implement the
judgment? How quickly thereafter will the Department be
able to identify affected claimants? Is her Department
prioritising the PIP claims it is re-examining? If so,
will she publish the prioritisation criteria? By what
date will all 1.6 million PIP claims have been reviewed?
Will it be weeks; will it be months; or will it be years?
Do the 1.6 million claims to be reviewed include those
that scored zero points and were not awarded PIP? Will
there be an appeals process for the PIP claimants not
contacted by the Department who believe that they should
receive back payments? Will the Department compensate
claimants who have fallen into debt and accrued interest
charges? After the equality assessment was published in
February 2017, the estimated number to receive the higher
rate of PIP went up to 164,000, and it is now 220,000.
Will the Minister publish an updated assessment? What
assessment has she made of the administrative costs to
her Department of undertaking this complex exercise of a
considerable scale?
This mess is one of the Government’s own making. It is a
clear example to this Government of the dangers of
seeking to undermine both the independent judiciary and
the House of Commons.
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It is absolutely not true to say that we are trying to
undermine the independent judiciary, because we have
accepted the findings of the appeal and are now going to
painstakingly, carefully and safely implement the
findings. It is incredibly important for our democracy
that we have an independent judiciary, and we stand by
that.
The hon. Lady asked a number of questions. First, for
clarification, the information that was provided in
response to the written parliamentary question was
absolutely the same as that given at this Dispatch Box by
the Secretary of State last week and that contained in
the written statement.
Moving on to some of the hon. Lady’s more detailed
questions, she mentioned the updating of the PIP
assessment guide. She is absolutely right: that is the
starting point to making sure that we properly and
thoroughly implement the recommendations of the appeal. I
am delighted to say that Paul Farmer of Mind has agreed
to work very closely with us to get that right. I have
spoken to Paul Gray, who has undertaken the independent
reviews of PIP, and he has also offered his help. I
recently met a broad range of our PIP stakeholders and
invited them to share their expertise.
As I said in my previous response, it is incredibly
important to me that we get this right. The exercise will
be complex and, to carry it out accurately and safely, we
want to ensure that stakeholders and experts are
involved. As a result, I cannot set out a timetable at
this stage, but I can reassure all hon. Members that we
are approaching this with a great deal of vigour and will
ensure we do it as soon as possible. We have already
started to recruit more people at DWP to help with the
PIP review.
We want to discuss the prioritisation of the review of
PIP claimants very carefully with our stakeholders to
ensure that the process is fair, transparent and open. We
will be reviewing people who had zero points in their
original claim. We are currently considering the best way
to handle an appeals process.
Of course, I will update the House regularly. The
Secretary of State said that she would do that from this
very Dispatch Box last week. We have oral questions every
six weeks, so there are plenty of opportunities for
Members to ask us about the progress we are making in
this very important work.
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What impact, if any, will this effort have on the
processing of new claims?
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I thank my right hon. Friend for that important question.
I want to reassure him that it is very important to me
that the progress we have seen in making timely and good
decisions on PIP continues. Our customers—our
claimants—are very important to us in the DWP, and we
want them to have a really good experience. I am
determined to ensure that the progress we have made
continues and that there are no delays for people
applying for PIP.
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I find it shameful and depressing that it took a court
case to drag this Government back to the edge of decency,
and I find the money wasted on legal proceedings
abhorrent. However, since they are now at the edge of
decency, may I urge the Government to take a few more
steps? Will the Secretary of State apologise to the
victims of the Government’s actions? I appreciate that
she is new in her post, but this is important. Will she
also apologise to the families of those who have taken
their own lives as a result of the Government’s benefits
policy? Will she confirm that she is now undertaking to
restore some semblance of dignity to this policy area by
reviewing all PIP cases where benefits have been stopped
or reduced, rather than just those involving mental
health? Will she undertake to come back to the Chamber in
the very near future with a plan to start repairing some
of the damage that has been done? One month should be
sufficient time to get that rolling.
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It is with deep regret that I hear the hon. Lady making
such appalling and unsubstantiated claims about people
committing suicide as a result of this. All of us in this
House have a duty to be very mindful of the language and
evidence we use to make such assertions. We are talking
about some of the most vulnerable people in society, and
it is shameful when Members deliberately misuse data.
I am pleased to have this opportunity—[Interruption.]
Listen, the data to which the hon. Lady is referring is
often misquoted, and it comes from the adult psychiatric
morbidity survey. The deputy chief medical officer,
Professor Gina Radford, has said that the adult
psychiatric morbidity survey does not show any causal
link between being on benefits and suicidal thoughts or
behaviour. The survey findings indicate certain
associations, but they do not indicate causality. The
hon. Lady might not want to take my word for it, but is
she seriously doubting the word of the deputy chief
medical officer?
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I am very pleased that the Secretary of State has decided
to accept this ruling from the Court and that the
Minister has today confirmed that there will be no
face-to-face reassessments—that is absolutely right. I am
also greatly encouraged that the Minister will be working
with Mind, Paul Gray and other knowledgeable people to
rectify the situation. Might she continue to work with
them on an ongoing basis to see what other improvements
can be made to PIP? The Work and Pensions Committee, of
which I am a member, is about to publish its
recommendations. I believe that a fundamental overhaul of
the PIP process is required, but a number of very small
things could be done, such as introducing videoed
assessments, that would make a huge difference to how
claimants feel about the process.
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I thank my hon. Friend for her question and for the
invaluable work that she and other members of the Work
and Pensions Committee do. I look forward to receiving
the Committee’s recommendations and will give them
careful consideration.
I want to reassure my hon. Friend and other hon. Members
that I believe in continuous improvement. I am very
grateful for the constructive working relationship that I
have with many disability rights organisations and
charities that support disabled people, and for the time
they give to my PIP stakeholder group. We are about to
set up panels of claimants of both employment and support
allowance and PIP so that we further engage with
claimants themselves. Of course, we undertake proper
independent customer satisfaction surveys to ensure that
we take every opportunity to improve the claimant
experience.
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The Minister has told the House that all 1.6 million
existing claimants will have their cases reviewed. I am
grateful to her for adding that those who had zero
points, and therefore did not get PIP, will also be
included in the review. Will she confirm that the 180,000
people who used to be on disability living allowance and
are no longer receiving benefit will be included? In
total, on top of the 1.6 million, how many cases does she
expect to review?
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As all Members will know, people have been going through
a managed process of transferring from disability living
allowance to PIP. We will be looking at people who have
gone through the PIP assessment process. Just over half
of people on disability living allowance have gone
through the managed process to PIP. There are still
people on DLA who are yet to go through the process, but
we are taking on board all the findings of the appeal and
improving the process to ensure that we make the right
decision the first time. That is really important to us
and to claimants.
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This is a significant and important announcement. Will
the Minister give a clear commitment on continuing to
work with stakeholders and charities not only to learn
the lessons, but to help them to communicate with all
their members so that they can be kept up to date with
that work?
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When my hon. Friend held my position, he did a really
good job of engaging with stakeholders, and I am building
on that legacy. It is very important that we take on
board their concerns and communicate with them frequently
so that they can provide reassurance and information to
their beneficiaries.
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The system is in fundamental need of review. My
constituent Martin Wright suffered a terrible
life-changing accident at work several years ago. Despite
that, he has been reassessed three times in three years
and has now had his payments reduced. We will take
Martin’s case to appeal, and I have to tell the Minister
that every single case from my constituency office that
we have taken to appeal in the past year has been
overturned. Does that not show that this system is
broken, inhumane at times, and in urgent need of
fundamental change?
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Of course I do not like to hear of individual cases when
things have not worked out as we would like them to. If
the right hon. Gentleman would like to meet me to discuss
his constituent’s case, I would be very happy to do so. I
hold meetings twice a month so that Members or their
caseworkers can come along and meet my officials to
review such cases.
It is worth setting all we are doing in context. We have
made 2.9 million—I repeat, 2.9 million—PIP assessments,
and 8% of those go to appeal, of which 4% are upheld, so
the vast majority of people are getting the benefits to
which they are richly entitled. If we look at the
claimant work we do—the customer satisfaction surveys—we
find that most people are satisfied with the process. Of
course, until we have no appeals and 100% satisfaction
rates, we will constantly be seeking to improve the
situation, but the facts do speak for themselves.
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May I congratulate my hon. Friend on her response to the
urgent question and ask her whether she will be kind
enough to check my understanding of the figures? I think
she said that there are 1.6 million PIP claimants and
that she expected just over 200,000 to have their
assessments changed—improved. It therefore seems to me
that the 1.4 million people who will not see a change in
their benefit will have had their expectations raised by
this announcement. How will the Minister manage those
expectations?
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The Secretary of State has made it clear at the Dispatch
Box that the figure is about 220,000 people. Some of the
things that some Members of this place have said in the
media are very disappointing, having both scared people
and raised false hope.
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May I make one suggestion to the Minister about how she
could do the decent and humane thing? She should passport
all those affected by the contaminated blood
scandal—having contracted HIV and hepatitis C—who were
previously in receipt of DLA through to PIP at the higher
rate. It should be a blanket passport.
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I thank the hon. Lady for her question. It is really
important that we remember what PIP is. It is a very
modern, dynamic benefit, and it treats with parity of
esteem physical and mental health and disabilities. No
two people are the same and no two people’s needs are the
same, so it is a person-centred benefit. It is really
important that we remember that.
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I welcome the Government’s decision to accept the Court’s
judgment and the Minister’s careful work to improve PIP
assessments, including by looking at the recording of
assessments, which she and I have talked about.
Irrespective of whether someone’s health condition is
mental or physical, does my hon. Friend agree that what
matters is that they get the help that they need to meet
the extra costs of living and to live the fullest
possible lives?
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I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution. She is
absolutely right to focus on parity of esteem—the
Government have legislated for that—between people with
mental and physical health conditions. That is really
important.
Let us just look at the facts about how many people with
mental health conditions are being positively supported
by PIP. The latest figures from 27 October show that 66%
of PIP recipients with mental health conditions get the
enhanced daily living component compared with only 22%
who receive DLA, the predecessor benefit. Some 31% of PIP
recipients with mental health conditions get the enhanced
mobility rate compared with just 10% of DLA recipients.
It is absolutely the case that hundreds of thousands more
people are being helped with PIP than with DLA. It is of
course important, however, to do all we can continually
to improve the process.
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The mental health charity Mind found in its survey last
year that 22% of the people it surveyed did not actually
appeal against a PIP refusal because of their
condition—they did not feel able to do so. I assume from
what the Minister is saying that those people will be
part of the reassessment, but what advice should Members
of Parliament give those individuals now, because some
will want to put in new applications? What support will
they be given, because some of them have been left in a
very difficult position, through no fault of their own,
due to their mental illness?
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We will be working with Mind—I agree that it is an
excellent charity—and other organisations, and they will
help us to shape this process so that it is conducted in
a sympathetic and appropriate way to make sure that we
reach all people who are entitled to PIP.
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I thank the Minister for her statement and for the way in
which the Department is going about this reassessment.
Will she assure the House that, as the Department
undertakes this major operation, it will still be able to
deliver assessments for people moving on to PIP for the
first time and that this will not affect their claims in
any way?
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My hon. Friend asks a really good question because, as I
have demonstrated with the numbers I have shared with the
House, more people are benefiting from PIP than from DLA,
its predecessor benefit. I do not want people to miss out
on the opportunity that PIP affords them. We are
absolutely determined to make sure that there will be no
reduction in the quality of service that we provide for
new applicants or, indeed, people transferring from DLA
to PIP.
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Given that the Court’s ruling has taken effect, what
interim guidance has the Department provided to assessors
pending revisions to the assessment guide?
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We are working through every aspect of undertaking this
complex and challenging task. At the heart of everything
we will be doing is working very closely with Mind and
our other key stakeholders to get this right. The process
must be done accurately and it must be done safely.
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May I congratulate the Minister on the tone in which she
has conducted these proceedings? It has been absolutely
spot-on, and it really does refute some of the more
accusatory comments from Opposition Members. Will she set
out by how much spending on the main disability benefits
has risen since 2010?
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I very much appreciate my hon. Friend’s question. We have
a proud track record as Conservatives. In every year
since 2010, the amount that we provide to people with
health conditions and disabilities has risen, and it will
continue to do so in every year of this Parliament. The
figure is well in excess of £50 billion each year.
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I receive many emails every week, as I am sure we all do,
from constituents who are distraught about their PIP
application being rejected. The whole process has been
cruel beyond belief, and we now know it has all been for
naught. Will the Minister reassure my constituents who
have faced shocking suffering that they will be
considered as part of this review, and what advice should
I give them to ensure that that happens?
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I simply rebut what the hon. Lady says about anybody in
the DWP treating people cruelly. I assure her that we
want to make sure that people claiming our benefits are
treated with respect and dignity, and that the process is
fair. Independent evaluations show that the majority of
claimants rate their experience as good.
To answer the hon. Lady’s question about the advice that
she could give her constituents, they will be contacted
by DWP if we feel that they are entitled to more money.
Nobody is going to be called in for a face-to-face
assessment, and nobody is going to have money taken away
from them.
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We have all met constituents in our surgeries who have
concerns about PIP, so I really welcome today’s
announcement, which will help people in my constituency.
Will the Minister confirm what more her Department will
continue to do, in the light of this announcement, to
move forward the transformative benefits of getting
disabled people back into work, which is one of the
greatest levers for improving mental health for disabled
people?
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I thank my hon. Friend for her insight, because she is
absolutely right that good work is good for people. A
core part of our Work and Health programme is that we do
everything we can to test and learn so that we enable
more people to play their full part in society, including
at work.
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Portglenone medical centre in my constituency is one of
the largest rural practices in Northern Ireland. It deals
not only with vulnerable people, but with some of the
most marginalised in the country, because of their
rurality. The practice has written to me to say not only
that the system is deeply flawed, but that it is already
seeing multiple patients having to appeal inappropriate
decisions. I know that the Minister will not want to hear
those words, which distress us all. Given that there is
no Executive in Northern Ireland, will the Minister meet
me and all party colleagues represented in the House to
discuss how Northern Ireland can benefit from the
decisions that she takes as a result of today’s
announcement?
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Of course I would delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman
and his colleagues. I hold regular sessions in
Parliament—teach-ins on PIP and ESA, which any Member of
Parliament and their caseworkers may attend, bringing
their casework along, so that we can have a really good
dialogue. However, if the hon. Gentleman would like to
have a specific meeting about the situation in Northern
Ireland and what we can do to support him in doing his
very important job of representing his constituents, I
would be delighted to do so.
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Would it be helpful to create a specific phone number
that affected claimants or their advisers could contact
to suggest that they think they ought to have a change of
decision, rather than requiring them to wait while the
Department searches through 1.6 million records to try
and find them?
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I thank my hon. Friend for his question but, no, I think
that by far the best thing is to say that we will contact
the people affected. I am concerned that if people
started doing such a thing, it would be a distraction and
could use up the resources that I want to put into
ensuring that we get this sorted as soon as possible.
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When the Government announced the changes to the
regulations in 2017, their own assessment was that
approximately 164,000 claimants would be directly
affected. Will the Minister commit to recommending that
priority is given to those people who were directly
affected and lost money, and to addressing the problems
with some urgency?
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I am having a conversation about prioritisation with Mind
and stakeholders. It is really important that we work
with experts and stakeholders to help us to decide the
prioritisation. I can absolutely assure the hon. Lady and
everyone in the House that this is of the utmost
importance and that we are acting at pace to get it
sorted as soon as possible.
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Supporting the vulnerable and people with disabilities
and health conditions should always be the Government’s
top priority. Will the Minister confirm that personal
independence payments are not subject to the benefits cap
or means-testing, and that payments will continue to rise
with inflation and to be untaxed?
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My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Keeping
people safe and taking care of the most vulnerable people
in society are the top priorities for this Government,
and I know that my hon. Friend does a huge amount of work
in her constituency to support the most vulnerable
members of her community. I can absolutely provide that
assurance—PIP is a non means-tested benefit that is not
subject to the benefits cap. It plays a vital role in
enabling disabled people to play as full a part in
society as they can, which is something I know that my
hon. Friend and I both want.
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It is nothing short of a national disgrace that Ministers
persisted with this utterly flawed and unfair system of
PIP assessments despite all the warnings. It was only
when the High Court ruled that Ministers’ changes to PIP
were “blatantly discriminatory” against people with
mental health conditions and were a breach of their human
rights—the opposite of parity of esteem in action—that
the Government announced that they would review the 1.6
million cases. Can the Minister assure the House that PIP
assessments will take into account the full range of
symptoms and factors affecting mental health, especially
those symptoms that we cannot see that present
differently on different days, including due to bipolar
disorder, depression and phobias?
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I can absolutely assure the hon. Lady that we are utterly
committed to making sure that mental health and how it
affects people are properly and fairly treated throughout
the PIP assessment process, but I do think we should look
at the number of people who are now receiving help, and
the number of people with mental health problems who are
now receiving financial support through PIP who were not
under DLA. Some 200,000 people now receive the highest
level of support, and more than 100,000 people receive
the highest level of mobility support. Clearly PIP is not
broken, because it is supporting many more people than
DLA did.
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My hon. Friend set out the potential costs of the review.
Will she put that in the context of her Department’s
overall spending to support people with disabilities and
health conditions? Will she reaffirm that spending in
this area increased in the last Parliament and will
continue to go up during this Parliament?
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Every single year, the funding that we put into
supporting people with health conditions and disability
has grown, and that sum will continue to grow. At the
moment the budget is about £51 billion, and we
estimate—it will only be an estimate until we have
undertaken careful review, and it is probably a
worst-case scenario—that this process will cost £3.7
billion. My hon. Friend is probably much better at
calculating percentages than I am.
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