Court ruling ‘gives green light to bedroom tax discrimination’

Campaigners are coming to terms with an “illogical” and “inconsistent” high court ruling, which appears to have given the government a green light to discriminate against disabled people who need extra bedrooms because of their impairments.

Although the court suggested that the government’s “bedroom tax” policy did discriminate against disabled people, the two judges also decided that that discrimination was justified under the Human Rights Act and was therefore lawful.

Lord Justice Laws said in the judgment that the government’s decision to provide some extra funding for discretionary housing payments (DHPs) – which help some people with some of the shortfall in their rent – and advice and guidance “cannot be said to be a disproportionate approach” to disabled people “who would or might face real difficulties” because of the new rules.

The court also ruled that Conservative work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith had fulfilled his public sector equality duty under the Equality Act because he had “properly considered” the effects of the housing benefit cap on disabled people.

This week’s judgment followed a three-day hearing in May into 10 claims brought by disabled people and their families against the housing benefit regulations, which came into force on 1 April and see tenants in social housing punished financially if they are assessed as “under-occupying” their homes.

But the judges’ ruling means the courts have now said that the regulations should not apply to disabled children who need their own bedrooms for impairment-related reasons, but should apply to disabled adults in similar situations.

All of the claimants are now set to contest this week’s judgment, but any appeal – assuming permission is granted – is unlikely to be heard before October at the earliest.

The judges ruled that it was impossible to identify the “precise” group of disabled people who need extra bedroom space because of their impairment.

But Anne McMurdie, of Public Law Solicitors, who are representing three of the claimants, said: “We disagree. We think it is very clear. We say there is a very specific class of people who need larger accommodation because of their disability, and that is really straightforward.”

And she said it was “very difficult to understand” how the judges could draw a distinction between disabled children who need extra space and disabled adults who need extra space.

She said: “It is definitely inconsistent and difficult to understand the logic as to why you would exempt one class and not the other.”

Although the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) announced an extra £35 million – mostly for DHPs – for councils to help “vulnerable tenants” affected by the new rules, it was unable to say whether this money would be repeated in future years.

A DWP spokeswoman said the amount of funding given to councils for DHPs every year was “decided annually”, and added: “The amount we will pay for next year has not been decided.”

The Equality and Human Rights Commission, which “intervened” in the case, said it was “very disappointed” with the court’s decision.

A commission spokesman said: “A significant number of disabled people are affected by the proposed changes to housing benefit regulations and a higher proportion of these tenants are likely to be affected by the size criteria than non-disabled tenants.”

McMurdie said that all of the claimants were “in a dreadful situation” and “at risk of falling into debt”, with the extra money given to councils for DHPs “nowhere near enough” for all of the disabled people who need it.

She said: “People are not going to be able to make up that difference on an indefinite basis.”

There was some good news for disabled campaigners from this week’s judgment.

The judges also ruled that the government must publish regulations describing how councils should allocate housing benefit to disabled children who need extra space.

And they were critical of the Conservative work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, as the court had asked him to produce these regulations 14 months ago.

Lord Justice Laws said that Duncan Smith “has no business considering whether to introduce regulations” because he was “obliged to do so”.

A DWP spokeswoman said the delay had been because Duncan Smith had wanted to await the outcome of this week’s case.

She said: “We are pleased to learn that the court has found in our favour and agreed that we have fulfilled our equality duties to disabled people.

“Reform of housing benefit in the social sector is essential, so the taxpayer does not pay for people’s extra bedrooms.

“But we have ensured extra discretionary housing support is in place to help those who need it and today we have announced a further £35m of funding to councils to aid residents.”

News provided by John Pring at http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Atos PIP contract is ‘area of interest’ for spending watchdog

The public spending watchdog has had “discussions” with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over concerns about a £184 million disability assessment contract awarded to Atos Healthcare.

The much-criticised company won the contract last year to carry out assessments for the new personal independence payment (PIP) – the replacement for disability living allowance – across London and the south of England.

But Disability News Service (DNS), and the crossbench peer Lord [David] Alton, have raised serious concerns about the award of the contract.

Now the National Audit Office (NAO) has confirmed that it is investigating these concerns.

In a letter to the peer, Max Tse, NAO’s value for money director, told Lord Alton that his concern about DWP’s PIP contract with Atos Healthcare was “an area of interest to the NAO”.

He said NAO had had “a number of discussions with the department on its contractual arrangements for the PIP”.

Tse added: “These are ongoing but I hope to be able to respond to you shortly on the issues you have raised.”

Atos won the contract by boasting of its “extensive” network of 16 NHS trusts, two private hospital chains, and four physiotherapy providers, all of which it said would provide sites where the tests would take place.

But in the months after the contract was awarded, all but four of the NHS trusts and both of the private hospital chains dropped out.

Following a Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) request from DNS, DWP admitted that Atos had far fewer sites in its supply chain than it originally stated.

When it submitted a tender for the contract, Atos stated that it had a network of 740 assessment sites across London and the south of England. But DWP has now admitted that Atos only has “up to” 108 centres available that meet its requirements.

Because there are so many fewer centres, thousands of disabled people will face longer journeys to reach their assessments.

Lord Alton said: “When millions of pounds of the public’s money is being diverted to a private company it is crucial that there is accountability, transparency, and public confidence.

“I welcome the NAO’s decision to scrutinise the Atos contract and to assess whether performance matches promise.”

Atos has insisted that no pledges made to DWP were broken and that it was “absolutely usual for there to be changes between point of tender and delivery”, while DWP was “fully aware” that contracts had not been signed with the 22 organisations at the point the tender was submitted.

An NAO spokeswoman said: “At the moment we cannot really say anything more about what is in the letter as no decision has been made.”

News provided by John Pring at http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Court claim after ‘fitness for work harassment’ during blood transfusion

A disabled woman who claims she lost the use of her last kidney because of harassment from her local jobcentre during an emergency blood transfusion is taking legal action against the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Lawyers for Annemarie Campbell will this week issue a claim for damages against DWP under the Equality Act, claiming discrimination, and possibly also harassment and a failure to make reasonable adjustments.

Campbell was receiving the blood transfusion in February when her jobcentre called her on her mobile phone to ask when she would be well enough to attend a back-to-work interview.

She had told the jobcentre in central London only the previous day that she would be in hospital for an emergency transfusion, and that she was seriously ill and awaiting a second kidney transplant.

But she says the jobcentre still hounded her while she lay hooked up to life-saving medical equipment in an emergency renal ward of Hammersmith Hospital.

A member of the jobcentre’s staff phoned her and asked when she could attend her work-focussed interview. When Campbell told her she was in the middle of a blood transfusion, the adviser asked her if she could fetch her consultant.

Campbell said: “When I was getting the blood transfusion it was trying to prolong my kidney and make me live a bit longer.

“I was on the phone being upset all the time, constantly trying to explain myself. They were pushing me to go back to work, constantly phoning me and writing to me.”

Five days after the transfusion, she told her consultant that she was going back to work, as a result of the DWP harassment.

But he told her she could not possibly consider working because her life was “on a knife edge”, and he wrote to the jobcentre to explain the seriousness of her medical condition.

She has now lost the use of her last working kidney, which she received in a transplant in 1995, and is convinced that the stress of the jobcentre harassment speeded up that process.

Campbell said: “In the end, because of the harassment and the stress they put me under, I lost my kidney. I was harassed and harassed and harassed and now they have broken me.”

She had been forced to reapply for employment and support allowance (ESA) last autumn after her health deteriorated.

Atos Healthcare – the company that assesses “fitness for work” – told her she would not need a face-to-face assessment and would be placed straight into the support group, for those who do not need to take steps to return to work.

But DWP’s own decision-makers placed her instead in the work-related activity group (WRAG), which meant she would need to attend work-focused interviews, even though she made it clear that she had a job to go back to – she does legal agency work – when she was well enough.

Campbell is currently receiving dialysis for 12 hours a week and is back in the support group, but is now facing yet another reassessment of her fitness for work in September.

She said: “I am taking legal action for my dignity and self-respect and right to treatment, but also for other people who are more vulnerable than I am.

“I want people to see what this jobcentre is doing and how we are being treated and what’s happening to us. I want to see changes to the way people are treated by the DWP.”

Frances Lipman, a public lawyer with Deighton Pierce Glynn Solicitors, who is representing Campbell, said her client had been treated with “absolutely no regard to her personal circumstances”.

“She was telephoned while undergoing a medical procedure. She had warned the DWP just the day before that she was going into hospital and had received an assurance that no-one would contact her.

“All that seems to matter to the DWP is that their employment and support allowance claimants do this work-focused interview, regardless of their personal circumstances.

“It is an affront to Annemarie’s dignity as a human being that they did not try to make an adjustment to interview her at an alternative time.”

Lipman added: “We don’t know yet whether this is institutionalised practice within the DWP or whether it was just a particular member of staff.

“I know Annemarie would very much like an apology from them. That is more important to her than the damages. She wants her voice to be heard and for them to acknowledge what has happened to her.”

DWP has denied any harassment, and says the phone call “was pre-arranged as it would be for anyone in the WRAG who informs us they can’t make an appointment in person”.

It claims Campbell arranged for the jobcentre to call her about the work-focused interview on the day she was in hospital, but that she had warned that she might not be available because of the treatment.

Campbell says this is “absolute rubbish”, and that she simply told them she was “really unwell” and that they could call her consultant the next day if they did not believe her.

News provided by John Pring at http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Mystery over ‘fitness for work’ recording equipment

Disabled people are being prevented from having their “fitness for work” assessments recorded because staff working for the coalition’s private sector contractor claim all of the 11 recording devices bought by the government are “broken”.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) bought 11 dual CD interview recorders, one for each region of the country, so claimants of employment and support allowance (ESA) – the replacement for incapacity benefit – could have their work capability assessments (WCAs) recorded.

They bought the machines because many disabled claimants were complaining that “healthcare professionals” working for Atos Healthcare, the company that carries out the tests for the government, failed to record the evidence they were given accurately.

Following a recommendation by Professor Malcom Harrington, who has been reviewing the WCA for the government, the Conservative employment minister Chris Grayling promised MPs in February that Atos would “offer everyone who wants it the opportunity to have their session recorded”.

Jayne Linney, from Leicester, has tried seven times to have her assessment recorded but each time her WCA has had to be postponed because recording equipment was not available.

She has now been told twice by Atos staff that all 11 of the interview recorders are broken and that Atos had decided it would no longer offer a recording option.

Linney, who worked in community development for 30 years before she was forced to retire, has health conditions that cause extreme fatigue and chronic pain, and says the continuing battle with Atos to have her WCA recorded was causing her “a whole load of grief”.

She has twice had assessments carried out by Atos – although for disability living allowance rather than ESA – and on both occasions the “healthcare professional” made serious mistakes.

She said she wanted to be sure she had a recording of her WCA in case her claim was refused and she needed to appeal.

Linney said: “Any evidence that you can get on your side [is useful]. You must have some evidence that you did go to your assessment and told them what you needed to say but that it was disregarded.”

She added: “My experience has shown me that they do not get it right. Whether it’s their listening skills or their computer I am not entirely sure.

“I have been called by different names, had my birth date changed, I have absolutely no trust in them whatsoever.”

The Labour and Co-operative MP Tom Greatrex, who has led moves in the Commons to probe Atos’s performance through scores of written questions to ministers, said: “In February, Chris Grayling promised me in the House of Commons that anybody who wants their WCA to be assessed would be able to. Yet anecdotal evidence now suggests that isn’t the case in practice.

“The government must be clear with people. Either claimants can have their assessment recorded or they can’t – which is it?

“If it is the case that a multi-billion pound company aren’t able to provide this service because of a few broken machines then it would be laughable were it not so serious.

“Time and again we hear stories of Atos not being able to provide the level of service people deserve. It may be that the government must consider whether Atos are the best organisation to carry out the assessment.”

An Atos spokeswoman said DWP was responsible for supplying the recording equipment.

She said Atos made “every effort” to ensure that recording equipment was available when requested in advance of an assessment, but she added: “We are working with DWP to make that system better.”

When asked if all 11 machines were broken, she said: “We have not heard anything along those lines. We have recording equipment available. It is being used.

“When people request [that their assessment is recorded] we do our very best to accommodate that and we are working with DWP to increase that availability of audio recording.

“A lot of people are getting their assessments audio-recorded at the moment.”

The company that produces the recording devices declined to comment because it said it had signed a “non-disclosure agreement” with another company that had sourced the machines for DWP.

DWP has so far refused to comment.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Minister bans charities from PIP meetings

A coalition minister ordered civil servants to prevent two disability charities from attending meetings on how to improve personal independence payment (PIP), the government’s new disability benefit.

Officials ensured that representatives from the National Autistic Society (NAS) and Mind did not attend at least one meeting of the PIP implementation development group, before the minister backed down and allowed them to rejoin the committee.

Disability News Service (DNS) understands that the NAS representative was not informed about the ban until arriving for the meeting at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) offices in Whitehall, and had to be turned away at the door by a civil servant.

The Mind representative was deliberately not invited to the same meeting.

The group was set up to offer independent advice on the design of PIP, which will begin to replace working-age disability living allowance from next year.

A DWP spokesman said: “It was a communication mix-up.”

When DNS questioned this response, based on information from several sources, he added: “I have given you our response. I have got nothing else to add to it.”

Mind declined to discuss the details of the incident, but Sophie Corlett, the charity’s director of external relations, said: “We haven’t had any official communication from the DWP to suggest that we were recently excluded or not invited to a meeting about personal independence payments.”

NAS declined to comment.

The minister’s decision is understood to be linked to government concerns about legal action – apparently backed by the two charities – that is being taken over the impact of the work capability assessment (WCA), the controversial “fitness for work” test.

Mind’s chief executive, Paul Farmer, resigned in April from the government’s WCA review panel because he said the DWP was failing to make vital changes to the test.

Conservative employment minister Chris Grayling subsequently suggested that Farmer had been asked to leave because of Mind’s backing for the legal action.

Now government frustration over the court case has spread to its development of PIP.

The attempt to punish Mind and NAS for supporting legal action has again raised questions over the decision by disability charities – including some disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) – to continue to work with the government while opposing many of its reforms.

Earlier this year, leading figures in the disability movement said they had been discussing a potential boycott of any further consultations, because they believed ministers were ignoring their views on welfare reform.

DPOs have become increasingly angry at the government’s failure to listen to their concerns, despite frequent references by ministers to how they are “co-producing” their reforms with disabled people.

Minister caught using accessible toilet after TV lecture on ‘right and wrong’

Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith has been caught using an accessible toilet, just minutes after telling a live television audience that parents must teach their children “right from wrong”.

Duncan Smith – responsible for a series of sweeping welfare reforms that will see savage cuts to spending on disability benefits – had been one of the guests in a live debate on the riots that had swept across England.

At the end of Saturday’s debate, hosted by Channel 4, the Conservative cabinet minister told the audience that the one thing the riots had shown him was the need for “communities where people take responsibility for their actions for bringing up their children, for teaching them right from wrong”.

Minutes later, the work and pensions secretary – who is not disabled – was caught coming out of an accessible toilet on the ground floor of the building.

Sean McGovern, a wheelchair-user and chair of Lambeth Pan-Disability Forum, who had been in the front row of the audience and spoke during the debate, had been waiting in some discomfort to use the accessible toilet, and challenged Duncan Smith.

When McGovern reminded him of the words he had used in the debate, Duncan Smith replied that “someone told me I could use it”.

McGovern told Disability News Service: “He had been sitting there pontificating, telling us what we should be doing as a society, only then to walk away and flout the ‘rules and regulations’ because he can, because he is who he is.”

A Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) spokeswoman said: “He wouldn’t have been jumping the queue. He would have been using facilities he was directed to use by the event’s organisers.”

But she refused to say whether this response had come from Duncan Smith, or even whether she had contacted him to pass on the request for a comment.

Disabled activist Kaliya Franklin, co-founder of The Broken of Britain, who published McGovern’s account of the incident on her blog, said: “Recognising when the needs of others take priority over our own is a fundamental part of knowing right from wrong and taking responsibility for our own actions.

“As minister for DWP, IDS is expected to have a greater understanding and sensitivity to the needs of disabled people, especially as the many ‘reforms’ to disability benefits and services are predicated on a claim that accessible facilities are now readily available wherever needed.

“Given the minister’s commendable desire for everyone to be held responsible for their personal behaviour through community service, sick and disabled people will expect the punishment to fit ‘the crime’.

“Apologising and committing to inspecting the standard of accessible facilities, cleaning them himself where needed, would show strong leadership and set an example to the rest of the country that ministers are not exempt from the standards they themselves set for others and demonstrate that we really are ‘all in it together’.”

Channel 4 has so far failed to comment.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Government response to Sayce review: New concerns over Access to Work funding

A half-hearted response to its own review of employment support has raised concerns that the government is set to reject proposals to boost a vital programme that supports disabled people in the workplace.

When Liz Sayce, chief executive of RADAR, published her review for the government last month, she focused strongly on the need to expand and improve the Access to Work (ATW) scheme.

But when the government published its response to her review this week, it failed to state whether it accepted the ATW recommendations.

Instead, the government response makes several references to concerns that Sayce’s ATW recommendations could put “additional pressure on funding at a time when resources are limited”.

Sayce’s report recommends that the number of disabled people receiving ATW should double, so that the scheme changes from being the “government’s best-kept secret” into a “well-recognised passport to successful employment”.

A Department for Work and Pensions spokeswoman told Disability News Service: “Sayce recommends that if we spend the money differently we can support an extra 35,000 disabled people into work.

“However, no decisions have been made. [Maria Miller, minister for disabled people] rightly points out that if implemented in full, the Sayce recommendations would have a significant impact on how support is delivered.

“That is why before taking decisions in these areas, we are seeking views through a public consultation.”

Marije Davidson, RADAR’s public affairs manager, said Sayce had made “a strong case” in her report that investing in ATW made “economic sense”, and had suggested how it “can be used better so that less money is wasted in the system and more goes directly to support for disabled people”.

She said: “We would be extremely concerned if the government ignored the evidence that Access to Work is a highly cost-effective way of supporting disabled people in work.”

There have been increasing concerns in recent months over reports of disabled people facing tighter eligibility criteria when trying to claim ATW, along with union fears that the scheme is under serious threat due to government spending cuts.

Government statistics show that the number of “new customers” granted ATW funding fell sharply in the first three quarters of 2010-11.

The closing date for the consultation is 17 October.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Government refuses to name ‘independent’ advisers on new benefits test

The government has refused to name the “independent specialists” advising it on the new assessment that will test eligibility for the benefit set to replace disability living allowance (DLA).

In its response to the consultation on its DLA reforms, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) says it is developing the assessment for the new personal independence payment (PIP) “in collaboration with a group of independent specialists”, including disabled people.

The DWP told Disability News Service that the “specialists” include representatives from RADAR and Equality 2025 – the government’s advice body of disabled people – and individuals from occupational therapy, psychiatry, physiotherapy, social work, general practice and community psychiatric nursing.

But a DWP spokeswoman said the government was “unable” to provide the names of the members.

When asked why, she suggested the information could be protected under data protection laws, but declined to comment further. 

Sue Bott, director of the National Centre for Independent Living, said this refusal was “ridiculous”.

She said: “These people potentially have a big influence on our lives and we are not allowed to know who they are.

“The assessment process, the eligibility and the method of the assessment will be critical in the roll-out of PIP, and I don’t think it is too much to ask that we know who the members of the expert panel are.

“People are really worried about who is going to be eligible in the first place but they are also worried about the methodology that is going to be employed in assessing people and what are they going to be assessed for.

“All this is going to do is add to the suspicion that there already is that the resulting assessment is going to exclude most disabled people from eligibility for the new benefit.”

Theresa Rowe, a disabled activist and welfare rights specialist, said this “aura of secrecy” was “unacceptable”, because the group needed to be “accountable” to disabled people.

She said: “If we have no knowledge of how they recruited this group, how can people feel confident? We need to know who the people are who are helping DWP.”

She said members of the group may be cautioning the government not to repeat the mistakes made with the unpopular work capability assessment, the new test for out-of-work disability benefits. But she said the group was still there to help the government deliver its planned 20 per cent reduction in spending on working-age DLA.

Rowe, who is involved with the disabled people’s organisation Richmond AID, added: “I am just wondering what the government have got to hide.”

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Government spending cut raises threat of repossessions

Tens of thousands of disabled people will be at risk of having their homes repossessed because the government is cutting spending on a mortgage interest support scheme, according to a national housing body.

The chancellor, George Osborne, announced in his emergency budget in June that the government would cut funding available through the Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) scheme, which helps many homeowners on income-related benefits.

From October, the rate paid will be cut from 6.08 per cent to the Bank of England average mortgage rate, which is currently about 3.67 per cent.

But the National Housing Federation (NHF), which represents housing associations in England, said this would mean many of the 64,000 disabled people who receive support through the scheme would be at risk of “plunging into arrears”.

About 5,000 of these disabled people – many of whom have high support needs – have used the scheme to obtain niche mortgages to pay for shared ownership homes provided by housing associations.

The federation also fears that many of the building societies that offer these niche mortgages will withdraw the products from the market because the new rates will no longer meet their costs.

David Orr, the federation’s chief executive, said it was “a particularly harsh way” to cut public spending because it would hit thousands of disabled people who would not be able to own a home outright or purchase one through shared ownership in any other way.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said it was changing the rate because more than 90 per cent of people were currently receiving more than they paid out in mortgage interest every month, which was “unfair to the taxpayer and not a good use of public funds”.

A DWP spokeswoman added: “Using the Bank of England rate will ensure that people still get the help they need with their mortgage interest payments.”

But NHF insisted that many of the disabled people currently receiving support through the scheme pay more than 3.67 per cent on their mortgages and so could be at risk of losing their homes.

Gavin Smart, NHF’s director of research, said the federation was concerned that the DWP did not appear to have carried out a comprehensive assessment of the impact of the spending cut on disabled people.

He said: “We are very concerned that when the rate drops to 3.67 per cent, a significant number of disabled people who use SMI as a way of accessing a secure and sustainable home of their own will be at risk of not being able to meet their repayments and at risk of losing their home.”

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Government to use credit firms in latest benefit fraud crackdown

The government is set to use private companies to trawl through disabled people’s credit histories as part of its latest campaign to cut benefit fraud.

The prime minister, David Cameron, announced this week on a visit to Manchester that the government would unveil an “uncompromising” crackdown on benefit fraud this autumn, which could include tougher penalties and more prosecutions for fraud.

He said the government wanted to use credit ratings agencies to “go after those who are claiming illegally”.

The government wants to pay these companies according to how many fraudulent claims they detect. It was widely reported in the mainstream media that government sources had described these fees as “bounty payments”.

Experian, one of the companies that already works on fraud detection with the government, claims it could use “simple data matching techniques to identify lifestyles incompatible with people genuinely incapable of work” and save £300 million in incapacity benefit (IB) fraud and error.

This is a far higher sum than the government’s latest estimates of £210 million lost every year to IB fraud and error, of which just £30 million is fraud.

Experian would use techniques such as checking that information given to the DWP in a benefit claim matches information given by the claimant to other organisations, and analysing whether their income levels suggest they have a job.

But disabled activist Adam Lotun, director of Workplace Disability Adjustments, said he was very concerned about “consultants coming in who…do not understand the needs and requirements of disabled people”.

He said: “I am worried that a lot of [innocent disabled] people are going to get caught up and accused of fraud.”

The Scottish Campaign on Welfare Reform (SCoWR) said the DWP’s figures showed total benefit fraud was less than one per cent of all claims, with errors caused by underpayments, overpayments, poor administration and bureaucracy far more of a problem.

Maggie Kelly, of the Scottish Poverty Alliance, said it was “about time that David Cameron started to focus on the huge amount of money lost through DWP mistakes and the £40bn a year lost in high level tax avoidance and evasion. The amount lost through benefit fraud is tiny in comparison.”

It also emerged that the government is considering forcing claimants of the new employment and support allowance (ESA) to take their work assessment test earlier than the current 14 weeks.

Chris Grayling, the employment minister, suggested that many of the people who abandon their ESA claims before taking the test have been claiming the benefit fraudulently.

He said: “You can wait 13 weeks on ESA before you have a medical check – 30 or 40 per cent of claims stop before that 13 weeks is up. That is something we should give some thought to.”

A DWP spokeswoman said they were “looking at options” for having the work capability assessment take place earlier in the assessment process for ESA, although no decisions had yet been made.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com