House of Commons - Welfare Reform Bill (Consideration of Lords Amendments)

3.48.44pm UTC (GMT +0000) Tue 8th May 2007

Vince Cable, Shadow Chancellor

Cable welcomes the Lords amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill but warns of difficulties in assessing the capability to work of people with mental conditions.

Dr Cable said, "There were several specific areas of controversy that concerned my colleagues, each of which has now reached a reasonable end point. The first is Lords amendment No. 1, which relates to the evaluation of the new personal capability assessments. As we all know from our constituency work, the process of assessment is stressful and difficult. We all have numerous cases of constituents often with complex and variable conditions who, on the basis of a perfunctory interview with medical staff from the Department for Work and Pensions, have lost their benefits and begun a long and difficult process of appeal. It is a stressful business."

"Under the new system there will be two basic changes, one of which is the shift from incapability to capability, which is in one sense progressive, but in many respects is more difficult to test. Also, as we know from the statistics, the number of people involved in invalidity benefits of one kind or another is increasingly people suffering from mental conditions, rather than physical disabilities. Those, as we know, are often very difficult to capture, vary from time to time and are complex and difficult to measure. The processes that will have to evolve will therefore have to be more sophisticated and more robust than has been the case in the past."

"As the Minister said, the DWP is constantly trying to improve the assessments. The missing element was a genuinely independent and regular evaluation. My colleagues tabled amendments about that, and I am delighted to see that the Government have accepted the principle and we have achieved a good result."

"The second issue was less fundamental, but my colleague Lord Oakeshott was among those who tried to achieve a more precise definition of "medical practitioner". Again, the Government have produced their own amendment, which largely meets the case."

"The third area of concern related to clause 15 and the potential that appeared to exist initially, because of ambiguity, for private contractors to make judgments on benefits and sanctions. We see no problem in principle with the private sector playing a role in the work of the Department, but it must clearly be circumscribed. This was not an appropriate area. We are glad that the role has been much more clearly defined. Again, that is a satisfactory outcome."

"Finally, Lords amendment No. 9 to clause 30 relates to the linkage between housing benefit and antisocial behaviour. This is clearly a controversial subject on which people have very different views. It is right that that is proceeding through pilot studies. Our view from the outset was that the pilots should be time-limited and that a sunset clause was needed. Again, there seems to have a sensible compromise on the duration of the sunset clause. Overall, we are content with the way in which the other place has developed the Bill. I express my appreciation to all those concerned with that process."

The Lords amendments were agreed to