Personal Independence Payment

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

I thank my right hon. Friend. He spent many years working on social issues and cases, and established the Centre for Social Justice. The change that he brought about was not just about changing the benefits, but about reaching out to people who are sometimes left alone. Some of those people did want to be helped to get back into work. They did want to talk about their hopes and aspirations. There are now over 600,000 more disabled people in work, because they chose that path towards self-determination and the fulfilment of their ambitions and hopes.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Thank you for granting the urgent question, Mr Speaker, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant).

Any disabled person who listened to what was said by the Secretary of State will have been gobsmacked by the suggestion that there is a commitment to disabled people. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has described the Government’s action as a “human catastrophe”. The cuts that they have wrought on disabled people are an absolute disgrace.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) said when she raised a point of order yesterday, the Government sneaked out a written statement late on Friday, announcing that they would not appeal against the High Court judgment of 21 December, in effect reversing the emergency PIP regulations that they had introduced in February last year. Those regulations were introduced without a vote or a debate, despite two urgent questions and an emergency debate, and despite widespread concern about their impact. The Government’s own Social Security Advisory Committee was not consulted. I warned at the time:

“The move to undermine and subvert independent tribunal judgments is unprecedented, and ... marks very troubling behaviour by the Government on cases they lose that could weaken such social security tribunal judgments’ reach, influence and effectiveness in making independent decisions.”—[Official Report, 28 March 2017; Vol. 624, c. 145.]

I am pleased that the Secretary of State and her Department have finally seen sense, but there are a number of questions that the Secretary of State must answer—questions that have already been put by my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea. How many people does her Department estimate have been affected? How quickly will her Department be able to identify affected claimants, and by what process? Given the issues relating to letters from that Department, it is a little worrying if that is the only means.

How soon after identification will the Department make back payments? Will there be an appeal process for PIP claimants who are not contacted by the Department and who believe they should receive such payments? Will the Department compensate claimants who have fallen into debt and accrued interest charges? Will applicants be entitled to a reassessment if they were given the standard rate of the PIP mobility component after the February 2017 changes to PIP regulations, when the cause of the claim was “psychological distress”?

Finally, just how much public money has been spent by the Department on lawyers and legal advice seeking to defend the indefensible in the initial tribunal and the more recent court case?

This sorry debacle should serve as a warning to the Government of the dangers of seeking to undermine and subvert the decisions of our independent judiciary and the House of Commons.