Danny
Alexander: I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for her
clarification. She has offered me the reassurance that I was looking
for, not least in the suggestion that a further month would be allowed
for extreme cases, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment, by leave,
withdrawn.
Mr.
Ruffley: I beg to move amendment No. 49, in
clause 10, page 9, line 4, at
end insert— ‘(d) for pilot
schemes to vary the time during a claimfor an employment and
support allowance at which the work-focused health-related assessment
is
conducted.’. This
is an important amendment. It is analogous in a way to the debate that
we had about melding together the tests in clauses 8 and 9, and the
Minister gave a very satisfactory reply to our amendment to the effect
that there were legal reasons why there had to be discrete silos of
assessments in clauses 8, 9 and 10. However, I need to return to the
question of timing and lumping together the three conceptually
different tests all at the same time and in the same room.
Amendment No. 49 would allow
the piloting of the timing of the work-focused health-related
assessment that follows the PCA. The sequence would be the clause 8
test to decide whether someone got the allowance, the clause 9 test to
decide whether they came under the support component or the
work-related activity component, and, if they came under the latter,
they would move on to the work-focused health-related assessment. That
is where a potential problem arises. Undertaking the work-focused
health-related assessment immediately after the work-related activity
assessment could be confusing. For a start, the health-related
assessment will take place when the outcome of the PCA might not
necessarily be known to the claimant—in fact, it probably will
not be. The PCA
assessment and the work-focused health-related assessment perform two
separate functions, to establish first whether someone gets an
allowance and secondly what support and adaptations someone who is
capable of work might need to get them moving towards work. To ask the
individual to respond sequentially—a matter of minutes might
elapse between the two tests—could be confusing for the
claimant. Those concerns—someone will be trying to show that
they are ill enough to get the allowance and also having to show some
residual functional capability—might be pushing in separate
directions. If I were in that room, I would want to show that I was
deserving of an allowance and needed support but at the same time I
would be told, “What can you do? You’re not that badly
off, because we’re trying to show what capability you can
display to us in this health-related assessment”.
That tension is acknowledged
in the review of the personal capability assessment that was published
with the draft regulations. On page 19, it
states: “The
timing of the work-focused health-related assessment (whether it should
immediately follow the benefit entitlement assessment, or whether it
should be carried out at a subsequent appointment) has been the subject
of some concern and difference of opinion.”
So the Government acknowledged that
difference of opinion in a document published just before these
Committee proceedings. It
continues: “There
are advantages to carrying
it”— the
health-related
assessment— “out
at the same appointment: not least the convenience for the claimant of
only having to attend one appointment instead of
two.” That is the
Government’s logic. It
continues: “Any
perceived conflict of
interest”— as I
have
described— “could
be managed by appropriate explanation of the different nature and
purpose of the two
assessments.” 6.15
pm There is logic
in the Government’s position: they are saying that things will
be more convenient. There will not be the travel time and transport
costs associated with having a work-focused health-related assessment
at a different time of day, or even on a different day, and we can
understand why that may be in claimants’ interests. However, I
am still struggling, as are some outside groups, to resolve the tension
between the two matters that are being demonstrated: capability on the
one hand and eligibility for allowance on the other. Someone trying to
show capability might see that as compromising the results that they
had achieved on the personal capability assessment. They will be doing
it within a matter of minutes after a conceptually very different test.
I assume that the same person will conduct both tests and that that the
claimant will be in the same room with that person, but showing
radically different
things. The Royal
National Institute of the Blind refers to the two interviews being
focused on very different subjects,
thereby “potentially
confusing the claimant and leading to anxiety that information
disclosed in the WFHRA could be used against them in relation to the
PCA decision.” The
words— “could be
used against them” are
quite powerful. That might rightly or wrongly be the perception of a
claimant in a situation in which they have to undertake two tests one
after the other in the same
room. The amendment
seeks not to strike down such arrangements but merely to introduce
pilot schemes to vary the time at which a health-related assessment
might be undertaken. The pilots could experiment with doing it the day
after, or the week after, or at some other time. That would sit happily
with the ethos of experimentation, testing, stress testing and the
other propositions in the Bill to which Ministers have already
subscribed by way of the dummy runs that will occur for parts of the
regime to which we shall come in the next few clauses. Ministers have
had open minds, and they have said that they will take best practice,
and adapt and modify it between now and the time when the allowance is
up and running in 2008. In that spirit of consensual piloting, I hope
that Ministers will give some consideration to the
amendment.
Danny
Alexander: I wanted to add a brief point of clarification
to the case for the amendment that has just been made by the hon.
Member for Bury St. Edmunds. It relates to a point that we debated
earlier: the question of when decisions about benefit entitlement
should be made, and of whether sanctions apply to a work-focused
health-related assessment. In the earlier debate, the Under-Secretary
made it clear, I think, that if the first assessment occurred
immediately following the assessment under clause 8 or clause 9,
because the decision would not have been made by the decision maker,
the sanction would not apply. If so, because sanctions can apply in
more general terms to work-focused health-related assessments, a degree
of confusion could attach to whether sanctions applied in the case of
certain timings. The piloting for which the amendment provides would
allow experimentation to take
place.
Mr.
Ruffley: Does the hon. Gentleman foresee, as I do, a
theoretical situation hoving into view, in which an individual has done
the clause 9 test and is convincedin his or her mind that he
or she has qualified forthe support component? They do not
receive a determination on it straight away, because the decision is
not made that minute. They are then asked by one of the assessors to do
a work-focused health-related assessment, and the individual is quite
convinced that it will not apply to them because they are in the
support component. Why should they have to start demonstrating
capability for the work-related activity component, for which they
think they will not be eligible? We can see a situation in which
someone says in good faith, “This work-focused health-related
assessment does not apply to me. I’m not doing it.” Is a
sanction applicable in those circumstances? It would be very
unreasonable if it
were.
Danny
Alexander: That is exactly the sort of circumstance that
we need a wee bit more clarity about. From my understanding of what
Ministers have said in this Committee, at the end of the assessment
under clauses 8 and 9, the Atos Origin employee will make it clear to
the claimant whether the result of their assessment will recommend to
the decision maker that they be part of the support group. However, I
understand that the actual decision about entitlement is taken by the
decision maker and not by the Atos Origin doctor. If that is the case
and someone who says in good faith, “I think I am entitled to be
a member of the support group,” and who is told that they are
not, may wish to appeal. If he then turns down the opportunity to take
part in the work-focused health-related assessment at that time, it
seems only fair that the sanction should not apply in that
circumstance.
Mrs.
McGuire: I thought that this was a straightforward
amendment, but I see that it is slightly more complicated than I
thought. I do not know whether it has been made complicated, but it is
slightly more complicated than was initially
obvious. I advise the
Committee that we should not assume that there are not occasions when
health professionals assess people for both capability and incapacity.
It is one of the skills in occupational health that a professional can
look at two aspects of a person’s
incapability at one time. In some respects, we are in danger of assuming
that neither the health professional nor the individual can make the
transition from one set of circumstances to another. I mention that as
a caveat at the
beginning. I reassure
the Committee that all the processes that we are discussing will occur
during the 13-week assessment period. During that period, there will be
no sanctions. We are setting ourselves a firm deadline for that initial
assessment. I hope that that gives the hon. Gentlemen some comfort
about where and when the decision making and the sanctions will occur,
and I hope that we will not develop the argument totally around the
issue of sanctions. As we heard earlier, sanctions form a tiny
proportion of the activity in pathways to work. We intend that to
happen through the new system.
Mr.
Ruffley: I do not mean to disrupt the
Under-Secretary’s flow, but I thought that I heard her say that
sanctions will not apply during the 13-week assessment phase. However,
my understanding of the clause is that regulations may make provision
for reducing the amount of ESA payable when a claimant fails without
good cause to take part in a health-related assessment. Is that
right?
Mrs.
McGuire: I hope that I can clarify the position. The
direct question is, “When will the WFHRA be
sanctionable?” It will be sanctionable only after the assessment
phase period, when the full benefit is in payment and the customer
refuses to attend. There could be, for example, a second work-related
health assessment. That is what clause 10 alludes to. I hope that that
clarifies the matter for the hon.
Gentleman.
Mr.
Ruffley: This is extremely important and I am grateful to
the Under-Secretary. Will she say, in answer to the questions posed by
the Liberal Democrat spokesman and me, that if a claimant rejects a
health-related assessment under clause 10 that takes place within the
first 13 weeks, that cannot, under any
circumstances, result in a sanction being placed on them—provided
that it is refused within the first13
weeks?
Mrs.
McGuire: If the person continues to refuse after the
13-week assessment, of course, we have the option to decide what action
to take. I hope that that clarifies the position for hon.
Members. I shall deal
quickly with another matter, because I appreciate that I may be under
time pressure because of a vote downstairs. Our preference is that the
work-focused, health-related assessment should take place at the same
time as the other assessment, but we are prepared to test the issue to
see whether that would be appropriate. I use the word
“test”, not “pilot”. I say to the hon.
Member for Bury St. Edmunds that clause 18 will allow us to do that.
Therefore, we already have the power to undertake some of the testing
that he and the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and
Strathspey mentioned. In that light, I ask that the amendment be
withdrawn.
Mr.
Ruffley: I am most grateful to the Minister, because she
has clarified areas that seemed a bit murky in relation to sanctions
and in relation to the proposition that there might be testing. If she
does not want to use the word “pilot”—well, she
says “potato” and I say
“po-tah-toe”,—I shall not fuss about its use. If
she is giving an undertaking to the effect that there will be some
testing of the proposition that the health-related assessment should
take place immediately after the clause 9 assessment, and if that is
being considered, that will give heart to many people reading the
Hansard report of these proceedings; it certainly gives me
heart. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn. Further
consideration adjourned—[Mr.
Heppell.] Adjourned
accordingly at twenty-seven minutes past Six o’clock until
Thursday 26 October at ten minutes past Nine
o’clock.
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