IB to ESA migration: our response

15 April 2011

Action for M.E., has responded to the Work and Pensions Select Committee Inquiry into the Migration from Incapacity Benefit (IB) to Employment Support Allowance (also known as Employment and Support Allowance or ESA).

In particular our response drew attention to existing evidence from people with M.E. which we submitted in response to Professor Malcolm Harrington’s independent review of the Work Capability Assessment.

We also pressed to Government to:

• expedite its work to develop a more accurate and appropriate assessment process for people with M.E. and similar neurological conditions
• justify why it has gone ahead with transition from Incapacity Benefit to Employment and Support Allowance using an assessment process that it knows to be flawed for people with fluctuating chronic conditions
• give an undertaking that genuinely disabled people such as those with M.E. will in future be assessed properly and treated fairly by a system which will provide them with the financial support to which they are entitled and which they desperately need.