Clause 8
Welfare Reform Bill
11:45 am

Jim Murphy (Minister of State (Work), Department for Work and Pensions; East Renfrewshire, Labour)

In seeking three specific points of clarification, the hon. Gentleman tempts us to reopen our entire debate. I will try to respond to those three specific areas. The first area was when and how the decision is formally taken and the relationship between that and the Atos Origin assessment. As we discussed in a previous debate, if someone attains the 15 points and is therefore entitled to ESA—we can have another competition as to whether that amounts to success or failure and that comes down to perceptions—and in the same interview someone meets one of the 46 descriptors that we have listed on page 18 of the draft regulations, then of course they would be in the support group. There would be no conditionality and there would be no requirement to undertake the work-focused health assessment.

If someone at that point says, “I do not want to be written off. I know that I have 15 points and I know that I meet one or two of the 46 descriptors but I still want to be in this system,” they would get the support group level of benefit, so they would have the higher rate of benefit. If they still wished to undertake the work-focused health assessment at that point they could do so. Regardless of what happens to them in that work-focused health assessment, if they do get closer to the labour market, based on the assessment that was undertaken by Atos Origin that they did have 15 points and did meet one of the descriptors, they would continue to receive that higher rate of benefit, as being part of the support group.

Where Atos Origin says that a person has 15 points and meets one or more of the 46 descriptors, the Atos Origin medical expert could then defer the work-focused health assessment. The decision maker would then examine all the paperwork. He is not there to second-guess the medical assessment of the medical expert from Atos Origin but simply to ensure that all of the procedures have been followed and that everything has been done within the laws that we agree on and the regulations that will be decided at a later point.

If the customer is told that they have the 15 points and are entitled to ESA but they do not meet any of the 46 descriptors and therefore they are not in a support group, they would be asked to undertakethe second interview for the work-focused health assessment. If the customer decided not to attend that interview there would be no sanction at that point. Any sanction, if appropriate, would be enacted at the point where a decision maker received the paperwork and the assessment took place. The customer would, of course, have the right of appeal as they have throughout this process on any decision that impacts on their level of benefits. I hope that reassures the hon. Gentleman.

Atos Origin does an important and technically difficult piece of work for us all and all of our  constituents. They know as well as we do that in the past there have been problems with their systems and they have sought to resolve those. The figure for the number of complaints about Atos Origin is down to 0.3 per cent. We can continue to find ways to reduce that 0.3 per cent even further.

With regard to disability organisations getting access to LiMA, they are happy to share that methodology and information with the disability organisations and, if they wish, will be happy to organise demonstrations of how the system works and dry run some cases to ensure that there is greater understanding of the system.

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