Reform of the Mobility Allowance

In recent weeks, a number of constituents have contacted me, deeply worried about the Government's plans for reform of the mobility allowance  - for those recipients in Care Homes.  In the House of Commons debate this week,  I was able to bring this to the attention of Maria Miller (Minister for the disabled):

My speech is below:

"I congratulate the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) on his thoughtful speech and on securing the debate. Although we might not agree on everything, I understand his intentions.

I want to start by acknowledging the need for welfare reform, which is one of the single most important things that the Government are doing. I know that many Opposition Members, such as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), have wanted to reform welfare during the past 13 years. Like me, they will welcome the fact that the Government are committed to a universal credit.

Many of my constituents will welcome this chance to escape the poverty trap. However, on the specific issue of the mobility element of disability allowance, many constituents have contacted me with genuine family concerns. Only a small number are affected but, as has been noted, they are deeply anxious, and they do not have a political axe to grind. I have already spoken to the Minister about this and written to her about specific cases in my constituency. Ms Jacqueline Hobbs is concerned about the low residual income that will be left for people in care homes. Mr Kevin McGrath is worried that the cut will apply also to younger adults, who prize their independence and need mobility services to have a decent quality of life. Ms Jean Plumridge is anxious that disabled people must not become prisoners in their own homes, but must retain access to the outside world.

It is important to be clear about what the new Government are proposing. They inherited the largest deficit in our peacetime history, and we now spend £120 million a day on debt interest alone. In June, as part of the emergency Budget, the Government announced that they would save £11 billion a year from welfare spending by 2014-15.

Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab): As the hon. Gentleman is so concerned about debt, will he tell us how people in residential homes who have taken out
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loans to buy electric wheelchairs to use outside will repay that debt? What do the Government have to say to them?

Robert Halfon: If the hon. Lady is patient, she will hear the answer later in my remarks.

To preserve spending on other front-line services, the Government then announced that they would have to go even further in tackling the extremely large welfare bill. One way in which they are doing that is by ending the mobility component of DLA from 2012-13 to claimants who have been in a residential care home for more than 28 days, which will affect about 58,000 claimants. The Treasury says that that will save £60 million in 2012 and that the figure will rise to £135 million by the end of the Parliament. I appreciate, however, that the Government have confirmed that affected residents will retain an underlying entitlement to the benefit, and that payments will start again if they leave the care home. I also understand that the measure will not be introduced until October 2012. Local authorities will have a legal obligation to provide mobility services for residents from their social care funding.

Dr Whiteford: I come back to the point that I made to the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke): local authorities face the same squeeze in their budgets as everybody else. I know from my constituency that there are some great voluntary services supporting wheelchair users and people with severe mobility problems who live in care homes or in their own homes, but who do not have access to transport. However, those charities are terribly strapped financially because of a lack of giving and the problems with trust funds. There is nothing to pick up the slack. Why should disabled people be on the front line? Why should they be punished for financial mistakes that were not of their making?

Robert Halfon: I thank the hon. Lady, but I do not agree that all care homes would be unable to afford to provide mobility equipment if there was a statutory requirement. I have a further response to what she says, but I will come to it later.

Ian Paisley: Does the hon. Gentleman not realise the extent of the problem? There are 42 care homes in my constituency. As the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) indicated, this issue affects a massive population of elderly and young people. In my case, we are talking about hundreds of people. Every one of those care homes without exception has written to me about this issue-this is massive.

Robert Halfon: I am here today because I accept that this is a serious problem. Opposition Members do not have a monopoly on compassion; I care just as much about disabled people as they do.

Let me explain what I want to happen and what I believe should happen. Local authorities will have a legal obligation to provide mobility services for residents from their social funding. That funding will increasingly be distributed in the form of personal budgets, giving disabled people more choice and control over their services, including access to mobility equipment, taxis or scooters, if that suits them. That will end the anomaly
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whereby two state-funded residents with similar needs who are placed in the same care home can be treated differently according to whether they are funded through the NHS or the local authority.

I welcome the fact that the Government are waiting until 2012 to introduce this change, because it is important to give local authorities enough time. They will need safely to translate people on to personal budgets and to get those budgets up and running on a mass scale. Despite the welcome introduction of personal budgets in 2007, progress in rolling them out was simply too slow.

Kate Green: One difficulty that many of my constituents face is that they are in residential care outside the borough because there are insufficient places in the borough, which means that their transport costs are higher. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern about stretching personal budgets far enough to meet those costs?

Robert Halfon: In some ways, I agree with the hon. Lady. The whole point of my argument is that we need to extend the personal budgets.

As was mentioned, the Audit Commission recently highlighted the fact that although some local authorities were on course to offer 30% of eligible people a personal budget by April 2011, most were not, and only six out of 152 councils are currently on track. What is more, a 2010 survey showed that only 6% of total spending on adult social care was allocated to personal budgets. That is a disappointing record, given the huge potential of personal budgets to give disabled people more independence.

My central concern is that we must help the 58,000 claimants I mentioned to access personal budgets before the mobility element of DLA is withdrawn. 

On that basis, I have a few questions for the Minister. Will she reassure hon. Members that the Government will seek to migrate those 58,000 claimants to personal budgets before 2012? Will she set out how the statutory requirement for local authorities to provide mobility services will work in practice? Finally, will she reassure my constituents that disabled people will continue to be supported so that they can keep their independence and mobility?

In conclusion, many people in Harlow are concerned for their families. They do not have a political axe to grind, but they are genuinely anxious about the future. As someone with a disability, I know that any change, or any threat of change, can cause immense anxiety, even if the outcome is not as drastic as expected. The problem with the changes that have been proposed is that decent people are worried. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure hon. Members and my constituents that disabled people and their families will not suffer as a result of these reforms."

In response, the Minister stated:

"My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) made an important contribution to the debate and asked a number of specific questions. He, too, has had to leave, to attend a Select Committee meeting. I can clarify that the measure was designed to remove overlaps in the payment of mobility support, as I have outlined. It is not intended to lead to a loss of independence and we remain committed to promoting greater personalisation for disabled people. I reiterate that milestones have been agreed with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, including the growth in personal budgets, and that we are absolutely committed to the implementation of personalisation across the board."

The full debate can be found HERE.

by Robert Halfon - www.roberthalfon.blogspot.com

ATOS or T*SA

Over the past few weeks, a significant number of constituents have complained to me about their treatment by the company ATOS.  As my previous blog stated, it is ATOS that was charged by the last Labour Government to test Work Capability Assessments (WCAs).

The problem is they seem to have been doing this in a way which has been somewhat unsatisfactory. Local residents have told me of inadequate medical checks, maladministration and treatment that is neither dignified nor competent.

I have no problem with welfare reform carried out by the Government, and welcome efforts to help people on incapacity benefit back into work.   But that does not mean people should be subject to the humility of undergoing WCAs from a company like ATOS.

This is why, last week, I asked the Government the following:

"Has my right hon. Friend seen my early-day motion 1090?

[That this House notes the Harrington Report, and its criticisms of the French multinational company ATOS, who have a £54 million contract to assess benefit claimants through medical checks; welcomes the Government's agreement with the Harrington Report and its promise to implement the Harrington proposals in full; concludes that ATOS has damaged the public perception of medical assessments, and has also created a serious risk of maladministration of incapacity benefit checks, following the shocking reports on their systems in the national media; further notes frequent complaints in this regard from Harlow constituents and others; and therefore calls on the Government to act swiftly so that medical assessments are more localised, humane and sympathetic.]

Will my right hon. Friend find time for an early debate on the Harrington report and the maladministration of incapacity benefit checks, following the shocking report into the private company ATOS? A number of my Harlow constituents have been maltreated by this company. Does he agree that urgent action is needed?"

To the Government's credit, a report was commissioned into the workings of ATOS, headed by Professor Harrington.  The conclusions were damning.


As The Guardian newspaper stated on 23 November:

"Harrington found that the assessments, run by a French multinational, Atos Origin, which received £54m from the coalition government for the contract, failed people with mental illnesses and long-term disabilities. One form which claimants needed to complete ran to 28 pages and almost half "found the questionnaire difficult or impossible to complete". Another problem was that people were characterised by "descriptors" within a computer system that relied on questions apparently unrelated to work. In one instance people were asked whether they had "loaded a dishwasher or washing machine" that day.  It does not bother to ask whether the claimant has a dishwasher or washing machine. That is the danger with computer systems and drop-down menus," said Harrington. "We want to rely much more on healthcare professionals and assessments." He pointed out that 40% of those found fit for work by the system appealed and won – and added that 40% of people who went in front of a judge did so with "additional medical information". Harrington called for a radical overhaul, with jobcentre staff having to take into account health records, the Atos assessments and an individual's own testimony before making a decision about whether someone on sickness benefits should be forced back into work. At present staff rarely dissented from Atos's verdict, he said, and "a lack of procedural justice can lead people to feel embittered and for some this can lead to psychological distress with affects on physical and mental health".

The Harrington report, makes a number of recommendations, including having 'lay champions', to mentor those undergoing WCAs.


The Government has said that it will accept the Harrington recommendations in full.  This was reflected in the reply of the Sir George Young, Leader of the House of Commons:

"We are grateful to Professor Harrington for publishing his report on the work capacity assessment and we accept all his recommendations. He did indeed find that improvements should be made. He has now started the next stage of the next review. We will improve the medical assessment conducted by ATOS by putting in place champions with additional expertise in mental, cognitive and intellectual conditions".

You can read the full report, and Government response HERE. (The Guardian have a further article about ATOS on THIS weblink).

P.S.  My Commons Motion on ATOS, has been signed by MPs from all-parties).  You can see who HERE.

To each according to his need

As you will know from my Facebook and Twitter updates, I am currently at the Conservative Conference in Birmingham.

It is quite an unusual conference, somewhat sombre, apprehensive even. Yet there is still an optimistic feel - of what might be - if the economy is sorted.

The main theme of the conference so far has been sorting out the economy and welfare reform: Chancellor George Osborne has announced that Child Benefit will be stopped for those on highest incomes. He has also stated that no workless family - unless they are disabled or sick - will ever get more benefits than a working family gets in average wages.

Welfare Secretary Iain Duncan Smith is to set out plans which will see the benefit system simplified into one universal benefit. The reforms will allow people to retain some of their benefits as they gain work. This will incentivise the jobless as they look for unemployment and lift them out of the poverty trap, as they will not lose out financially by having all their benefits removed.

It seems to me that this is very much a welfare policy based on "each according to his need". Benefits should go to those who need them most. They should also act as a spring-board - a ladder of opportunity for those seeking work.

Interview on BBC Radio 4 : Benefits Reform

Yesterday, I spoke to The World At One about why benefits reform is so urgent in Britain today. You can listen to the recording above.

As I said on the programme, people want to work, and to climb the ladder of opportunity. But the Government has to make sure that work pays. That's why reform is so important.

by Robert Halfon - www.roberthalfon.blogspot.com