Children and Young People with Cancer

Bobby Dean Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Clive Jones]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If a child can try to have a normal life, which includes still going to school, seeing their friends and being educated, that will help them and their family to cope with their treatment. Schools and local authorities should work hard to ensure a normal life for that child very quickly.

One family supported by Young Lives vs Cancer received their first DLA payment only in January, after their child was diagnosed in July. In another case, a delay of four months from the start of a DLA application meant that a young cancer patient’s mother was left with no financial support, because her statutory sick pay ended before the DLA started. How the Government expect people to manage with those extra costs is beyond me.

This is the very worst form of bureaucratic inflexibility, and it leads to some people not applying for benefits because they see a system stacked against them, quite apart from the burden of applying during the most disruptive time of their lives. People are not going to prioritise form filling when they or their child needs radiotherapy. The process takes so long that sometimes children and young people have either finished their treatment or, most concerningly, passed away before the benefits have been awarded. A child being treated in Leicester sadly died before a DLA decision was made, leaving their family to go through the challenging conversation of wanting the claim form still to be reviewed because the family were owed a back payment. That is unacceptable.

The Minister responded to a parliamentary question by arguing that those nearing the end of life can apply for special rules. However, this simply does not work very well, because situations can change quickly and some who are not terminally ill can rapidly deteriorate. Some may still receive potentially curative treatment even if the risk of death is high, or some may wish not to know their prognosis. The Minister needs to urgently assess the benefits of changing to a medical evidence-based eligibility for these patients.

There is a precedent for medical evidence being used to expedite access to benefits. The existing special rules process for those with terminal illness definitions means that they do not need to meet the three-month qualifying period with medical evidence. That principle should be applied to all children and young people with cancer, to facilitate immediate access to benefits.

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

The Royal Marsden, which is a world-class facility for treating cancer patients, is in my borough of Sutton. One of the things that struck me when I went there was how much energy goes into trying to make the whole experience for the family and the child going through cancer as comfortable as possible. It was not just about the clinical treatment that that child received, but about having play spaces and comfort areas, and doing everything possible to make that really tough experience a manageable one. Does my hon. Friend agree that the state should seek to do the same, by reducing bureaucratic hurdles, such as those he described, to ensure that that terrible time for the family goes as comfortably as possible?

[Clive Jones]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We should be doing everything, especially in the first few weeks, days and months of a diagnosis, to make it as comfortable for a child as possible. Adults who get cancer have a circle of friends around them and can cope with it. I have no idea what it is like for a child, but I can imagine that it is very difficult, so having a play area and things they are familiar with using must make that experience much easier.

I want to ask the Minister if, as per the principles of the existing special rules process, he will consider using medical diagnosis to allow children and young people with cancer to apply for benefits as soon as their diagnosis is confirmed. Does he also recognise that the special rules process in its current form is flawed? One young person treated in London was awarded DLA only a few weeks before they sadly died, despite using the special rules process, which should have expedited their benefits. The stress placed on their family was significant.

I pay tribute to the campaign of Ceri and Frances Menai-Davis to establish Hugh’s law, in the name of their six-year-old son, who tragically died from a rare form of cancer. Their story is heartbreaking, but is unfortunately a common reality for parents who are forced into darkness. At one of the lowest moments in their life, with the Government looking away from them, support is a struggle to access, rather than a guarantee. I personally endorse the objectives of Hugh’s law: for financial aid to be granted to the parents of chronically sick children from day one and for the removal of the three-month qualifying period, which Young Lives vs Cancer has also called for. Its research is right that, for a very small cost, the Government could transform the lives of thousands by delivering parents a limited-time, non-means-tested benefit to cope as their lives completely change.

I met Ceri on Monday to discuss her campaign, and I attended the Hugh’s law event today on the Terrace pavilion. Hearing directly about people’s lived experience and from experts at that event reinforced why we urgently need change. Does the Minister support Ceri and Frances’s campaign for Hugh’s law? If not, will he explain why?

PIP and DLA are not the only benefits to be severely delayed by a system that does not work. Carers can apply for carers’ allowance and other associated carer support only once PIP and DLA have been approved for the young cancer patient they are caring for. That means that carers may be caring for many months before they can apply for carers’ benefits and get what they are entitled to.

I could continue. There exists a loophole in universal credit whereby young people who are at university when they are diagnosed with cancer and then defer their course, with the aim of restarting it when they finish treatment, are not entitled to student finance because they are not actively attending university. However, they not entitled to universal credit either because they are still classed as “in education”. Students should not be forced to totally drop out and start university from the beginning. To state the obvious, a cancer diagnosis is not their fault, and forcing them to disrupt their lives even further is completely pointless. Will the Minister look at the broader welfare support system in relation to children and young people with cancer, in co-operation with expert charities, to close other loopholes and ensure that the full package of support meets their needs?

There are too many points to raise in just one debate, but I would like to conclude on a slightly more optimistic note, following the confirmation from the Department of Health and Social Care that the children and young people cancer taskforce will be launched this year, and that it will seek to identify ways to improve the experience and outcomes for children and young people with cancer. Although I await the specifics of the relaunch of the taskforce, the principles are of good intention. I know that the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) has been an incredible champion of this project. Will the Minister work with the Department of Health and Social Care to ensure that the children and young people cancer taskforce looks at psychosocial support, which is something I could not address in my speech, along with welfare. Will he also make representations to the Health Minister to ensure that this new body links appropriately with the long-term cancer strategy for England?

Oral Answers to Questions

Bobby Dean Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Western]

My hon. Friend is correct to highlight not just the importance and benefits of shared parental leave, but the disparity between those who make use of it. I will, of course, maintain dialogue with the Department for Business and Trade as we go through that review, but I would also welcome a discussion with my hon. Friend about his ambitions and ideas for how we could take that forward.

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

11. What assessment she has made of the adequacy of the rates of universal credit.

[The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)]

No assessment along the lines that the hon. Gentleman asks about has been made. Benefit rates are reviewed each year, increasing by 6.7% last April and by 1.7% from next April, in line with inflation.

[Bobby Dean]

I thank the Minister for his answer, but I would like to focus on the age differential in the rates. He will be aware that people under 25 receive a different rate of universal credit. The Government announced that they will try to abolish the age differential for the national living wage. If it could also be abolished for universal credit, that would be really good for young care leavers. Will the Minister look at potentially phasing out the age differential in universal credit?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting suggestion. That is not something I am considering at the moment, but as he will have heard me say earlier, we will be reviewing universal credit over the course of the next year or so. We certainly want to support young care leavers—he will know of the recent announcement that we made about changes to carer’s allowance—and we are keeping all those matters under review.

“Get Britain Working” White Paper

Bobby Dean Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

Sanctioning people because they use the NHS to make themselves as fit and healthy as possible is completely the wrong approach. I understand why disabled people are worried when they hear talk about helping people into work or reforms of sickness and disability benefits—they are worried because of what has happened over the past 14 years—but we are determined to break down those barriers to work. I think that many disabled people, given the right help and support and the right flexibility to work, could work and would want to work. That is what we are focusing on, and that is what we are determined to deliver.

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

A fantastic local social enterprise in my constituency has been helping adults with disabilities back into work. It recently set up a café that is run entirely by adults with learning disabilities. How does the Department plan to take evidence from innovative organisations of that kind, and will the Secretary of State meet members of this organisation to find out about the work it has been doing?

[Liz Kendall]

The reason I am so passionate about devolving responsibility and accountability to local areas is that it is intended to engage precisely the kind of organisation that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned. For instance, I know the various organisations in Leicester but I do not know those in his constituency, so I believe that we need a much more localised system. If he will write to me with the details, I shall be very keen to look at them.

Carer’s Allowance

Bobby Dean Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Colleagues have outlined the scale of the crisis, so I shall focus on a story of one of my constituents in Carshalton and Wallington. She was told that she had to repay more than £2,300 in carer’s allowance over- payments. This constituent already makes huge sacrifices to keep her family afloat, while caring for her disabled son. She gave up her full-time job to take on caring responsibilities and has limited her part-time hours to ensure that she remains qualified for carer’s allowance. It made me so angry to hear how meticulously she tried to manage her pay cheques each month, only to have it thrown in her face. She turned down pay rises, turned down overtime and turned down Christmas bonuses to ensure that she stayed under the limit. Her employers agreed to keep her on an advance rota to help her plan her earnings. Despite her diligence, she received no notice, no warnings and no forgiveness when one day the payments stopped and the bill came in for over two grand.

Here is the bit that really gets me. The repayment demand that she received is for the entire entitlement for each occasion when she earned too much. That means that the smallest indiscretions come with the heaviest of consequences. In one month, it was because she earned £28 too much. In another, it was £20. It gets worse: one November, she was £8 over the limit—not even an hour’s work in London. Finally, and most depressingly, she once dared to earn £2 too much. She owes the whole of the allowance back for each of those periods, and then a £50 fine to boot from the Department for Work and Pensions. This is nothing short of a national scandal, and the DWP should be ashamed of itself.

Today, the Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to right this wrong, to stop pursuing hard-working carers for these innocent overpayments, and then to fix the system that let this scandal emerge in the first place. We need to taper the allowance, raise the earning limits and treat carers with the compassion they deserve.

I am conscious of time, so finally, I welcome and am encouraged by the Minister’s comments about the review. However, for it to be successful, carers need to play a big part and have full input. We also need to make sure that carers now in debt distress get some immediate reassurances and support and do not have to wait until the end of the review.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Dan Aldridge to make his maiden speech.