Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, this is an interesting and challenging amendment and the debate has been deeply concerning. We have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, that people are terrified and scared about facilities not being available; we have heard from my noble friend Lady Wilkins about the mistrust of the WCA and the profound mistrust of Atos and some challenging questions about how they are regulated; and we have heard from my noble friend Lord McAvoy and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, about fluctuating conditions. I understand that the system works at present by seeking to establish if someone has limited capability for work, and that this is determined by a range of descriptors which seek to establish how someone’s physical and mental health affects their functioning. Someone not reaching a sufficient points total would not be classified as having limited capability for work and would therefore—in essence by default—be deemed fit for work. The point was pressed that the assessment does not look at whether someone having not been deemed to have limited capability for work is therefore fit for work in any practical or coherent way. Actually, that gives food for thought. Somebody who has been deemed fit for work would seem to claim JSA and be subject to relevant conditionality and in the world of universal credit be subject to all work-related requirements. There have been ongoing debates about how appropriate the descriptors are and, perhaps more fundamentally, how they are applied in practice. We have certainly heard some of that today. This is of particular interest to us, because we were in government when the system was introduced; I remember all the policy staff and all the work that was done to introduce the ESA and the WCA. Given the fact that it is not working as it should, maybe the judgment was that it is not capable of working in any event, and that is of some concern. The Harrington review has published its first considerations and the recommendations have been accepted. It is understood that the second review was completed in July and is still under consideration. Perhaps the Minister can give us an update. A key question that the amendment poses is whether the WCA, properly applied, would mean that the outcome sought by Amendment 55C would inevitably follow, assuming that it was the outcome that was wanted. I think probably not. On making a judgment about somebody having limited capability for work, there is a prognosis also about how long they would remain so assessed—that is to say, a determination about when they would be fit for work. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, again made this point. When making that determination, to what extent would those judgments reflect the criteria that this amendment seeks to set out? Again, I suspect not—but perhaps the Minister can help us by telling us the criteria applied when someone is making a judgment after a while whether somebody is fit to go back to work and fit for the JSA regime or the full work conditionality. Is it just the absence of failure of work-related activities requirements, or is it something more positive in trying to see what they are actually capable of and what the definition is of work? I am not being very clear on this issue, but my concern when I think about it—and I had not thought about it in this way before—is that the WCA assessment puts somebody in a category. If they fail, although fail is perhaps not the right term, they go by default into a category that assumes they are fit for work. Should that judgment inevitably follow from that process? There is a sense of cliff edge about the system. On one side of it, there are full conditionalities and harsher sanctions, and the full work-related requirements; on the other side, there is lesser conditionality and requirements only in respect of work-related activity, no prospect of higher level sanctions and higher benefit levels. Of course, all of this rests on the judgment under the WCA, subject to reconsideration and appeals and so on. So much hinges not only on the descriptors and how they are set out and whether they are appropriate but on how they are applied. Universal credit does not particularly smooth that particular cliff edge, although it deals with other cliff edges about going in and out of work. But with regard to the analysis and judgment of where people sit in the categories, it does not particularly help. A lot of this is to do with the support that people should have.