Dear Claire,
I know, I know, you’re still waiting for something about Iain Duncan Smith. I give you my word that we will get on to that very unlovely part of the Coalition very soon.
I would, however, just like to return to Mark Hogan, minister for employment, just for one more letter. Mark will be part of Iain’s department, so in a way I am talking about Iain really!
There are a number of people working with Iain who seem to use Iain’s approach of lying, being evasive, refusing to acknowledge their incompetence, or shouting loudly to make a point which they know isn’t valid. Mark is one of them, Iain’s loyal Pit-Bull Terrier, the very lovely Esther McVie, being another.
Yesterday, we talked about Mark’s battle with the truth. Today, I think it’s appropriate to see him in full action in a debate. Let’s see how this mighty bastion of all that is noble and honourable performs, when immersed in the cut and thrust of parliamentary debate!
Once again, I’d like to acknowledge the work of Thomas G Clark of the "Another Angry Voice" blog and Mike Sivier of the "Vox Political" blog, both of whom have provided a lot of material for this letter. Mike Sivier, in particular, must have sweated blood to work his way through the Hansard report for the parliamentary debate in question, in order to sort the wheat from the chaff. As will soon become apparent, there was perhaps rather more chaff than there should have been.
Hardworking families (© D Cameron Toe-curlingly awful catchphrases) that pay their taxes (obviously excluding the big-business/banking/offshore funded/non-domiciled supporters of your party) have a right to expect intelligent debate in The Commons, rather than an excess of weasel words, downright lies and slippery evasive answers, or in Mark’s case, repeatedly refusing to provide any answer whatsoever!
Are ministers of the Tory party so adept at their jobs that they are not accountable to anyone? Are they permitted to treat the rest of the House with contempt, repeatedly refusing to engage in debate when the rightful answer may be uncomfortable to give?
On with it – without further ado, let’s see how Mark performed! The debate in question was about Atos’ handling of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) for Employment and Support Allowance, on Thursday 17th January, 2013.
Mark only gave direct answers to 10 of the many questions put to him. He added a handful of ‘answers’ that were not related to specific questions, and left a great deal of very important issues hanging.
As an aside, the lovely Esther’s area of responsibility was/is as the minister dedicated to the needs of disabled people, yet for some inexplicable reason, she chose not to attend a debate which directly concerns her. I’m sure she was very ill, or had some matter of life or death to attend to. I just know she’d have got there if she possibly could have.
The first point came from Labour MP Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) who said “We are, in effect, trying to put a sticking plaster on a gaping wound. Atos and the WCA are not fit for purpose. Does the hon. Gentleman (Mark) agree that we should bin them both, and start again with the idea of looking after disabled people, rather than the opposite?”
Mark didn’t. He responded: “Much has been said about employment and support allowance not working—that is untrue. What we are seeing is people coming off ESA and getting into work. The number of working-age people on ESA and incapacity benefit in February 2012 was 2.56 million—the lowest level since the introduction of IB in 1995. Early estimates to September 2012 suggest that overall numbers for this benefit are falling and will for the first time be below 2.5 million.”
His colleague, Charles Walker (Con, Broxbourne), did not seem to share Mark’s glowing opinion of these improvements to the system. He asked: “Does my hon. Friend share my fear that the reputation of Atos may be so damaged that it can never really be effective? Perhaps the time has been reached when we need to park Atos and move on in a different direction.”
In response, the minister said: “Let me deal with the issue of Atos’s capability. Atos deals with 100,000 cases every month and it consistency meets the quality thresholds. Only 3.6 per cent of assessments are below standard compared with a threshold of five per cent. It receives complaints about only 0.6 per cent of assessments. DWP decision makers return to Atos assessments that are inadequate for reaching a decision in only 0.2 per cent of cases.”
As we established in yesterday’s letter, these figures are a mile away from the facts. Note that we are not told what these quality thresholds may be, so let’s turn to the question from Natascha Engel (Lab, North East Derbyshire), who said: “The proportion of original Atos decisions that are overturned is shocking—it is about 30 per cent or 40 per cent. I would be grateful if the Minister replied to that point. Precisely how many people deemed fit for work by Atos have their decisions overturned on appeal and are signed off work?”
Get ready for a shock because this is where Mark departed from the script with which we’re all familiar: “Let me be clear about the rate of successful appeals. Of all the fit-for-work decisions taken by the Department, only 15 per cent are overturned on appeal. Only 15 per cent of all the decisions we take, then, are overturned on appeal, which I think demonstrates that while we need to ensure that there is a proper appeals process, we should not be bandying around figures that misrepresent the level of successful appeals.”
Only 15 per cent? Where did he get that figure? Other MPs quoted the 40 per cent figure in the debate, including some who had received it as a reliable figure in committee. Perhaps Channel 4’s FactCheckers should get onto this one!
Look, here’s Austin Mitchell (Lab, Great Grimsby) making that exact point: “As our Committee was told, 38 per cent of the cases that go to appeal—I advise all my cases to go to appeal—are successful in reversing the verdict. That demonstrates its inadequacy and the enormous cost in the reassessment process at appeal, a cost that is not taken into account in the Government’s estimates of the savings produced by the system. Those reassessments are usually done with the help of the patient’s own doctor, so I do not see why their doctor’s view cannot be invoked and used at an earlier stage in the process. After all, the Government are giving more power to the doctors and claiming that they represent the patients. The doctors know the long-term conditions—they are treating the patient—so why are their views not taken into account by Atos at the start?”
So we can conclude that Atos had specific targets to meet in certifying people as being fit for work. How can you put a target on the number of people that must be certified as such? That’s like saying we need to assess 30 people to see which of them has 5 or more GCSEs, but that you must find at least 20 of them. What if there aren’t 20?
We may also conclude that Atos did not take into account the professional opinions of the doctors, when assessing their patients. Atos are not medical experts. What qualifies them to take these decisions?
As we established yesterday, Mark’s ongoing battle with the truth was in full swing during this debate. Incredibly, there were 36 questions put to Mark during this debate which he gave no response to. Out of 46 questions, he responded to 10. All the questions were asked, Mark chose not to respond.
Where’s the democracy here? Tory ministers are seemingly beyond reproach! They seem to be accountable to no one. We elected them, we pay their salaries, the interest on their mortgages, their outrageous expense claims, their staffing costs, yet we’re presented with a pack of lies when they do answer any questions, or we’re met with no response.
The overriding conclusion here has to be that this is a government that is perfectly happy with a system that is throwing thousands of sick and disabled people to the wolves. It has made – or is making (Mark wasn’t all that clear) – cosmetic changes in the hope of diverting our attention. As long as the claimant figures are coming down, they will be happy.
What’s going on here Claire? I would be interested to hear your views! The Facebook group I set up 'Dear Claire Perry' has a potential audience of about 8,000 due to the pages I share this latter on. You might like to send a reply in at some stage.
Kind regards
Polly
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