Points of Order

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would very much welcome your advice. You will be aware of the considerable issues with the Department for Work and Pensions processing all manner of benefits, including universal credit and employment and support allowance, and the huge impact delays can have on people across the country who are left in extreme poverty as a result. Sadly, yet another of my constituents is affected by what I can only see as incompetence. I wrote to the DWP on 18 April asking when my constituent John Russell could expect an answer to a personal query about his employment and support allowance of several months before. Despite several contacts, he has not yet received a reply. My own intervention has been ignored by the Department for some 13 weeks, even though we have chased it up. Can you tell me how I might break through this barrier of ignorance and get my constituent the answers he needs?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for giving me notice of it. It is obviously very concerning that it appears that the Department for Work and Pensions has been unresponsive to the concerns he has quite properly raised on behalf of his constituent. He has raised those concerns and they are on the record. I very much hope that those on the Treasury Bench have heard those concerns and will report them back to the DWP as a matter of urgency.