Welfare Reform Bill

The hon. Gentleman has helped with our deliberations on the Bill at all stages and he has offered another reasonable suggestion. Subject to the caveat that there are no issues of commercial confidentiality—I cannot see how it would apply in this matter—we would be able to provide that information to the House and the relevant Select Committees. I hope that that also reassures the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) about micro-assessment and the ongoing day-to-day basis of how the revised PCA operates over the first two years. It is important that we learn about the changing outcomes of the appeal processes and assess whether we have got that right in the first two years. That provides an additional external check on how we manage the operation and effectiveness of the new PCA. After that time, we will still be subject to the usual channels of parliamentary scrutiny through Select Committees, the Public Accounts Committee and parliamentary questions. For all those reasons, we do not accept new clause 3 as we do not believe that it is a desirable way of auditing the application of the PCA. In addition to those protections and the independent and crucial parliamentary challenge that I have mentioned, the Government would reflect further at the end of the three-year period. Having gathered all the evidence and having learned from consultative groups and the observation of Select Committees about the nature of the appeal mechanisms, we would then consider the most effective way of continuing to keep on top of the issues with an active review and independent assessment of the continuing role of the PCA beyond 2010. I hope that that reassures the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey enough to tempt him to withdraw the motion, but I am not sure that it will. I should like to move on to deal with issues raised by my hon. Friends, particularly on amendment No. 71. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood has provided the Government with another opportunity to put our intentions on the record. We intend that the powers in clause 17 will be used only if a customer purposely and without good cause is found to have a limited capability for work, resulting from their own misconduct, failure to follow medical advice or failure to observe prescribed rules of behaviour. That includes misconduct leading to injury or a refusal to follow standard medical advice recommended by a doctor or hospital that could improve their condition and allow them to return to work. As stated in Committee, the purpose of clause 17 is to safeguard the benefit system against abuse where a customer deliberately decides not to follow standard medical advice in order to continue to receive benefit inappropriately. The clause is not an attempt in any sense to force people into accepting medical treatment or medication that they do not wish to take for genuine reasons—for example, on account of unacceptable side effects of drugs or fear of surgery. I hope that that reassures my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood on the issues that he raised. Amendments Nos. 98 and 99 were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West who illuminated the Committee with observations on his experience in Glasgow. A league table of incapacity benefit has been published, so we know that the city of Glasgow has the constituencies with the highest level and the second highest level of incapacity benefit customers in the whole of the UK. Without wishing to enter the whole debate between my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), the changing nature of incapacity benefit is evident in that more women are now claiming it. But it is still the case that if one were to publish a list of the 100 parliamentary constituencies with the highest levels of incapacity benefit, 94 or 95, perhaps even 96, of them would be represented by Labour Members. I make no wider point than that, except to say that it is a result of the historical footprint of deindustrialisation and the fact that so many people were abandoned for a period when they lost their jobs and were out of the labour market for a prolonged time. As my hon. Friends have pointed out, if someone is on incapacity benefit for one year, they will on average be on it for nine years. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West asked about the Atos Origin operation. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, who has responsibility for disability issues, regularly answers parliamentary questions about the operational nature of Atos Origin and its procedures and practices. With a customer’s permission, the IB medical report may be made available to Members of Parliament and that is the right level of confidentiality. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West also asked about terminal illness. He had a novel way of avoiding your wrath, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by admitting that he was widening the terms of the debate and hoping to sneak the issue past you. I hope to sneak a response past you in the same way, although it is of course open to you to call me to order. I hope that I may offer some comfort to my hon. Friend and also to my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr. Brown) who doggedly pursued the issue in Committee. I have given a commitment to talk to my hon. Friends in greater detail about this and it is our intention to fast track those with a terminal prognosis through the system so that they do not have to wait the 13-week assessment period. We also wish to find ways to pay the benefit much more quickly. We process claims for DLA in about a week and there is no reason why we cannot seek to achieve a similar turnaround for those with terminal illness in respect of ESA. At present a person who is claiming IB or IS on the grounds of incapacity for work and who does not meet the PCA threshold has the option of either claiming IS at a reduced rate, set at 80 per cent. of the usual personal allowance, or of claiming jobseeker’s allowance while they are appealing against the PCA decision. That is because many customers believe that they will prejudice the appeal if they are seen to be claiming JSA, which has rather more onerous conditionality requirements than IB. For ESA, we have decided to simplify the system. Where a customer does not satisfy the PCA, but continues to provide medical advice that they should refrain from work, entitlement to ESA at the assessment phase rate will continue pending the outcome of the appeal. That is a unique feature of the decision making process for social security, as normally when a person is not entitled to benefit it ceases and would be reinstated only when an appeal tribunal rules in the customer’s favour. Customers will be subject to ESA conditionality, not JSA conditionality, pending the outcome of the appeal. I hope that that reassures my hon. Friend on his important amendment. Amendment No. 98 is therefore unnecessary and I hope that my hon. Friend will not seek to press it. Amendment No. 99, as has been suggested, goes much further than amendment No. 98 in that it seeks to treat people who have shown that they do not meet the criteria for limited capability for work-related activity as if they do so, solely because they are appealing against a decision that they do not. The effect would be to enable people in that position to receive a higher level of benefit and also not be subject to the normal conditionality regime simply because they have entered the appeals mechanism. I suspect that that is not the purpose behind the amendment and I again invite my hon. Friend not to press it. In conclusion, I have outlined the reasoning behind the technicalities of the Government amendments, and sought to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood about our intentions in respect of medical treatment. In addition, I hope that I have reassured my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West about his specific and important concerns, and that the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey accepts that there will be parliamentary scrutiny in the important period between 2008 and 2010. At the end of that period, the Government will table proposals to ensure that the right of independent and parliamentary scrutiny is further enshrined so that the effectiveness of the revised PCA, which is central to the introduction of the employment and support allowance, can continue to be assessed.