B

Baroness Sherlock (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 8 June 2026

Debate

Health-related Benefits Assessments

Contribution

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising such an important point and for her work and expertise in this area. Our job is to make sure that we assess the right people at the right time. There is always a danger when debating this that we forget the significant number of people who are absolutely dependent on sickness and disability benefits; frankly, most of them would give anything to not be dependent on those benefits and to not have had the condition, injury or accident that transformed their lives for ever. Our job is to make sure that those who need our support get it. We have been looking at the way we review things, so that we are reviewing the right people to make sure they get the right level of award. If it gives the noble Baroness some reassurance, there will be cases where the health assessor can clearly make a judgment based on the medical evidence alone. In those cases, they will not necessarily need to see somebody face to face or call them to an assessment. Where there is any doubt, however, we need to make sure that people get the right support if they are entitled to it and give confidence to the public that we are doing those assessments in the right way.

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