Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I could summarise my speech in about three sentences. I am in agreement with virtually everything said in the Chamber. I hope that after my three sentences I will be able to provide assurances. My only point of real disagreement is that I do not want it to be mandatory—in primary legislation. This is in regard to the point made by my noble friend Lord Kirkwood that it reduces flexibility and we are much better off setting it up in regulations and guides and in the contracts. That is our proposed approach but fundamentally we are absorbing all the valuable points made on this group. I will try now with some speed to go through those assurances. I ask noble Lords to stop me with the precise assurance they want if I am not making the assurance well enough. Amendment 50A was semi-withdrawn by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, but I will try to deal with it because it is a building block. People being assessed can bring in someone with them—a relation, a friend or a professional—to help them. That is really important in the group we spent a lot of time on this afternoon relating to autism and Asperger’s. When people are over-bright their relation can make the point about the reality and the over-anxiety of the person being assessed. That would be an active role in the process. I turn now to Amendment 50B. Clearly, we need to make sure that assessors have all the appropriate training to interpret the evidence that they are provided with. I have to make the point that it is not a medical assessment PIP. It does not ask the assessor to diagnose a condition or to recommend treatment options. It is different. It looks at how the conditions or impairments affect individuals’ everyday lives. That is a different skill set from that involved in treatment. There is not quite the same level of need for specialist skills but it is our intention that assessors will have a broad training in disability analysis as well as training in mental, intellectual and cognitive impairments. That level of training will be stipulated in our contracts with any providers and we will be responsible for signing off the training syllabuses. There will be occasions when assessors need more specialist support in the course of making these assessments. We will ensure that they have access to and support from individuals who have the in-depth knowledge that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, mentioned with regard to mental health conditions.