Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
Meeting date: Wednesday, February 2, 2022
Official Report 607KB pdf
Contents
New Petition
Adult Disability Payment (People Undergoing Cancer Treatment) (PE1913)
Under item 3, we have just one new petition to consider. As I say to any petitioner tuning in for the first time, in advance of our consideration of a new petition we send it to the Scottish Government to seek its views so that our discussion is just a little bit better informed before we launch into consideration of it.
PE1913 has been lodged by Wendy Swain and it calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to create a separate department in Social Security Scotland that will fast-track future adult disability payment applications for people with a cancer diagnosis while they are undergoing treatment.
I am delighted to welcome Martin Whitfield, who is joining the committee on his first visit to the public petitions process, I think. We will hear from him in a moment, but first I will provide some further background on the petition.
Adult disability payment will replace personal independence payment in 2022. The Scottish Government’s submission states that the definition of terminal illness will be changed under ADP to remove arbitrary time constraints and ensure that decisions are better informed by clinical judgment. Research into the impact of the new definition has revealed that the number of people with cancer accessing ADP using the fast-track process will more than double compared to Department for Work and Pensions fast tracking.
It is estimated that the number of terminally ill ADP recipients who have cancer will increase from 2,800 to approximately 8,200 under the new definition—a whopping increase—and it is projected that a majority of ADP recipients with cancer, 62 per cent, will be able to use fast-tracked processes, compared with less than a third who were able to do so under PIP. Further changes to the delivery of disability benefits through ADP are detailed in the clerk’s note. The Scottish Government has stated that it does not support an additional fast-track route specifically for people with cancer and that its approach will not prioritise any single condition over another.
The petitioner shares the experience of her family member who has incurable blood cancer and who has been told that his illness is not affecting his life enough for him to receive PIP.
Before the committee considers the petition, I welcome Martin Whitfield and invite him to speak in support of it.
11:30
Thank you very much, convener, and good morning to you and the committee. A very educational morning it has been too, listening to your debates.
I thank Wendy Swain for lodging the petition. She has shared family circumstances that are incredibly trying. This Friday is of course world cancer awareness day, so it is perhaps apt, if only coincidental, that this petition should come before your committee this week.
We are at the moment of transition from PIP, which ia Westminster-controlled benefit, to ADP here in Scotland, where one of the great promises of devolution is the ability to do things differently. I welcome the additional submissions that the petitioner has made, which very eloquently express the circumstances of her family. I thank the Scottish Parliament information centre and your clerks for the accompanying notes.
I understand why the substantive part of the Government’s response of 1 December relates to the changes for this benefit in respect of terminal illness, but not all cancers are terminal, thankfully. Nevertheless, cancers affect every individual and their family when they receive that diagnosis. The petitioner’s intention was to raise awareness of the circumstances where cancer is not identified as terminal early on in the diagnosis but the effects are still enormous and substantial. I can do no more than highlight the original background information that the petitioner gave, which was that she lodged the petition to
“ensure that the principles of being treated with dignity, fairness and respect are applied to people and that they are able to access ADP during their treatment when they most need support.”
That treatment needs to begin very swiftly and it is at that point that the financial impact of cancer hits families—and hits them very hard.
I know that the Government has said that it does not want to prioritise how it deals with applications by condition but merely wants to base it on the terminality of the condition. It has said—I think that we are all in agreement with this—that it hopes that the voyage of any claimant is far better under ADP than ever it was under PIP. That is both applauded and welcome.
However, the petition talks about the effect of a cancer diagnosis and how that was exacerbated by the experience that the petitioner had with a family member trying to obtain PIP and the stress and almost mental harassment that occurred because of events that were outwith the individual’s control. We need to have a fast-tracked system for people with cancer. It is certainly one of the few conditions where the mere name of it sends a shudder of fear through people who have not experienced it. People who receive a cancer diagnosis are often in difficult circumstances and to then have the financial barriers that loom so quickly afterwards is enormously challenging.
Because of the week that we are in but also because we are currently designing what this benefit will look like in Scotland, there is an opportunity to understand through the charity and third sector organisations that deal with cancer how widespread this problem is and why dealing with it quickly is of huge benefit to those who are going through the system. Thank you, convener.
Thank you for that contribution, Mr Whitfield, and particularly on behalf of the petitioner. Notwithstanding how this is subsequently resolved, when someone is told that their illness is not affecting their life enough, I wonder how that definition is arrived at and whether the person imparting that sage advice would feel much the same way if it was being imparted back to them in return. It seems to me remarkably unsympathetic.
Colleagues, are there any suggestions how we might proceed?
I would like to keep the petition open. We should write to the charities Macmillan Cancer Support and Cancer Research UK to seek their views on what the petitioner is calling for but also to seek their views on how improvements by the Scottish Government will affect payments for people.
As Mark Whitfield indicated in his presentation, we have an opportunity here to engage with the third sector. We talk about dignity, fairness and respect, and I think that it fits those criteria for us to at least investigate this matter for those individuals going through the horrific experience of being given such news and having to cope. The third sector organisations have a wealth of knowledge and experience of what takes place with individuals who are suffering, so it would be very beneficial to have their input as well as to find out from the Scottish Government how it wants to progress this. We should keep the petition going so that we can clarify that and take further information and evidence.
Are we content with those proposals? We will keep the petition open and we will write to the organisations as summarised. I thank Mr Whitfield for joining us this morning. We will hear and consider the petition further when we have received responses to those inquiries.
That concludes the open part of this morning’s meeting. I thank those people who have been following our proceedings and we will now move into private session.
11:37 Meeting continued in private until 12:00.Previous
Continued Petitions