I am backing the excellent Citizen’s Advice Bureau (CAB) Fit for Work Campaign because the individual and collective experiences of sick and disabled people who are trying to get help via Employment and Support Allowance represent an on-going scandal.

My constituents repeatedly come to my surgeries with shocking stories about Work Capability Assessments and Fit for Work decisions.

Ministers like to say that a million people have been found fit for work in an attempt to justify their harsh policy – but that statistic does not take account of the outcome of the hundreds of thousands of appeals against Fit for Work decisions. Nationally, 37% of appeals are successful and in Brighton and Hove the figure is 54%. In other words, more than half of the people who appeal after being told they are fit for work are in fact the opposite.

CAB’s campaign is pushing the Government to take serious action to put an end to a policy that is causing people in need great distress and hardship.

At the end of last month, ATOS – who are responsible for all the incorrect fit for work rulings – announced they were quitting their contract early. However, the Minister’s belated statement in response offers no assurances that things might now improve.

As CAB and all other serious commentators on this issue agree, Work Capability Assessments must be scrapped and replaced by a system that makes greater use of evidence from the health and social care professionals - those who have the bestknowledge and understanding of who can be helped into work and who needs other kinds of help.

The bottom line is that the Work Capability Assessment is not fit for purpose. Outsourcing the assessments to a private company must end. It has been a spectacular failure at the expense of the vulnerable and we must demand better.