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Mr. Mark Oaten (Winchester): I attended the Select Committee meeting at which evidence on the introduction of the benefit integrity project was heard and, as it unfolded, I could hardly believe what I was hearing. The clear message was that none of the misery that has been caused by the project was necessary in the first place. Disabled people should never have been subjected to it. It is utterly frustrating for those of us who have constantly argued against the system to discover from the Select Committee report that BIP was an illegitimate creation with no political warrant.
In introducing the Select Committee report, the hon. Member for Croydon, North (Mr. Wicks) said that no consultation took place with disability groups about BIP. However, worse was to follow. It is bad enough not to consult such groups, but, from the evidence, it transpired that incoming Ministers did not get a look-in either. It is
outrageous that a controversial scheme that has had an impact on so many of our constituents should have been launched in that way in the middle of a general election campaign and without the incoming Government's approval. The Select Committee report rightly sets out recommendations to ensure that that scenario never occurs again.
Four questions need to be answered. First, I have always assumed that, in advance of a general election, shadow Ministers had some sort of contact with civil servants to discuss plans and the timing of legislation that remained on the books. The evidence to the Select Committee makes it quite clear that, immediately after the election, no new Government figures were informed on such matters. Perhaps the Minister will confirm in his winding-up speech that there had been no discussion on the timing and details of BIP with the shadow Cabinet before the election.
Secondly, when a Labour Minister finally became aware of BIP during the now infamous telephone call to Preston railway station, why did the Government not act? Why did they not halt the project immediately they became aware of its timing and undertake an investigation into the reasons for BIP and, in particular, carry out a detailed examination of the way in which it would be executed? That would have enabled them to make a clear judgment on whether it was a project that they were prepared to inherit and for which they would take responsibility.
Thirdly, did the Secretary of State for Social Security consider cancelling the project when the matter was ultimately drawn to her attention? As the project has not been cancelled, the fourth question is: why did the Government decide to proceed with BIP? I hope that the Minister will answer those questions. It is clear that the Department's civil servants made a serious error in introducing the project when they did. Is it not also true that the Government were at fault for failing to call off the project at the earliest available opportunity? Since the crucial period for that opportunity, towards the end of May, there have been many opportunities to abandon BIP.
The Government have had plenty of evidence to suggest that BIP is not working. We have heard stories of poorly trained staff carrying out bad assessments and of incorrect targeting leading to groups of people who should have been excluded from the project being placed under BIP. There has been a threat about Motability vehicles to those who chose to appeal against decisions and, of course, the long and arduous appeals process is full of inconsistencies. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the project should have been abandoned.
The Select Committee report is excellent, but the catalogue of incompetence in the process is likely to bring despair to disabled people. However, the positive recommendations in the report at least provide a constructive way forward on DLA. The acid test is whether the Government will now choose to follow up the recommendations of the report quickly. I hope that the Minister will tell the House that the Government endorse many of the Select Committee's ideas, but they need to go further than that. Having had a chance to read the report, I believe that disabled people deserve an apology from the Government for the fact that the whole mess was allowed to happen in the first place. Again, I hope that the Minister will make that clear today.
There is one key area in which I disagree with the Select Committee's recommendations. The hon. Member for Croydon, North said that the Committee was prepared to place BIP on probation for six months, but surely we have had enough black-and-white evidence by now. We have talked about probation periods and reviews, but none of that will work. The project should be scrapped and we should move on to a different system for reviewing DLA. How can we resurrect a system that was implemented without proper political scrutiny? How can something as discredited as BIP begin to regain the confidence of those being assessed? How can something that failed to tackle the problems in the first place be worth propping up for a further six months?
We should look to the future and not start from the perspective that benefit is paid to too many people, as both the previous Conservative Government and the Labour Government appear to believe. The critical question should be framed in terms of how those who are not claiming DLA to which they may be entitled can be brought into the system. All the evidence suggests that take-up is low among those who are in most severe need of the benefit. We can put in place parallel measures to help people to move away from benefits wherever possible, but the fact that a large number of disabled people need DLA should not be disputed.
We should introduce a new system of reviewing benefits and set up a disability home visit programme. That should be established with the aim of carrying out a proper assessment of people's needs, rather than of reducing Government benefit spending. Such a programme should be targeted at those who are not currently claiming and those who should be claiming at the higher level of the severity scale. It should involve careful and well-thought-out visits from staff who have been properly trained to assess uptake of benefits, to identify where equipment could help, to talk through disability rights issues and to help individuals with a whole package of appropriate benefits.
Disabled people want that sort of exciting development, which exemplifies the standards that we expect to govern the new Government's policy and to be upheld in thecivil service. The Conservatives cannot afford to be sanctimonious--after all, BIP was their idea--but, equally, the Labour Government can take no comfort. What started out as a lack of information and an error by civil servants has now become a lack of constructive Government action to remedy or to replace the project. Today provides the Government with another opportunity to take decisive action and I hope that the Minister will not disappoint when he winds up the debate.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst):
Order. To enable everyone who is desirous of catching my eye to do so, short speeches would be helpful.
Mrs. Joan Humble (Blackpool, North and Fleetwood):
I am not a member of the Select Committee on Social Security, so I read the report with great interest. It is an excellent and detailed report, which reflects many of my constituents' concerns. As other hon. Members have said, we all get complaints from people who have been made
I was pleased by the measures taken by the Government earlier this year to address some of the worst aspects of the benefit integrity project, but, as the report makes clear, there are still aspects that cause serious concern. Underpinning the whole report is a lack of understanding of why DLA is paid: many of those who come to my surgeries see DLA not as a benefit to help meet their care needs, but as compensation for their disability. They do not understand that, although their disability or illness has not changed, their care needs might have changed and the benefit might need to be reviewed. We need to clear up that basic confusion.
Part of the confusion surrounds the lack of medical evidence used when assessing DLA, which is currently based on self-assessment. The report, rightly, asks whether DLA should be based entirely on self-assessment, or on a medical model, or on a mixture of both. My constituents' main complaint is that, as adjudication officers are not medically trained and do not understand the nature of my constituents' disabilities, how dare they say that my constituents no longer need the higher-rate component or the middle-rate component?
The DLA headquarters are located in my constituency, so I thought that I had better go along and talk to the staff who administer the system, instead of continuing to send them letters as I have done since being elected. I have visited Warbreck house three times; my third visit was fascinating, because I discussed in detail with adjudication officers how and why they arrived at their decisions. I assure hon. Members that adjudication officers are not monsters, but people who operate the system that we set up. We have a responsibility to them to make sure that the system is one that they can efficiently and effectively administer, which is what they want to be able to do. Those who work in delivering DLA care about the people to whom they speak on the phone and about whom they read; they get to know those individuals and want to support and help them. Our responsibility is to look carefully at the report, to ensure that the Government pay attention to the serious failings it identifies and to translate that into a more efficient management system for benefits for people with disabilities.
The issue of self-assessment and the role of medical evidence are important, because those hard-working adjudication officers who are my constituents have to make extremely difficult decisions. On the one hand, they read an individual's own description of his or her condition, but, on the other, that description might not illustrate the level of care needed to support the individual's life style. Adjudication officers base
decisions on the paper evidence before them, but that evidence is not always sufficient. Therefore, I welcome the report's recommendation that there needs to be
The report also recommends that we should set up a
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"A better balance between corroborative evidence, objective functional criteria and the claimant's self-perception".
Like many disability organisations, I would not be entirely happy with a change to a fully medical model, but we need to redress the balance.
"cross-departmental working group . . . to examine . . . assessments and service provision for disabled people across health, community care, Independent Living Fund and local authority direct payments".
Many people with disability are bewildered by the wide array of Departments and services and by the number of doors on which they have to knock to get the support that they need to be active members of our community. Some local authorities that have introduced charging policies for social services take into account the whole of DLA; some take into account only part of DLA; some do not take it into account at all; and some local authorities do not charge for social services. Some local authorities have introduced direct payment systems and others have not. Disabled people are expected to make their way through this minefield, of which DLA is just one part. One of the important issues highlighted by the report is that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, West (Ms Hewitt) said, disabled people need a simple system that they understand, and a system that can be properly administered.
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