Oral Answers to Questions

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Wednesday 20th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy not only to send Christmas wishes to the principal, staff and students at Fareham College, but to congratulate them on working hard to achieve such excellent results. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is about ensuring that young people have the skills, training and education they need for the jobs of the future. It is about building a Britain fit for the future.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Q8. For many terminally ill people on universal credit, this will be their last Christmas. Does the Prime Minister agree that it can never be appropriate for terminally ill people to be forced to meet work coaches or to fit into an arbitrary six-month prognosis to claim support? Will she listen—finally—to the experts at the Motor Neurone Disease Association and Macmillan CAB and remove these conditions to allow these people some dignity as they, with their families, face the end of their lives?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is right that we have to deal with cases where somebody has a terminal illness with the utmost sensitivity. These issues have been raised before. The conditions and principles applied to terminally ill people claiming universal credit are in fact the same as those for people claiming employment and support allowance, and have remained the same for successive Governments. A number of approaches can be taken, and there are several options for how people progress through the system, but he is right that we should deal with terminally ill people with sensitivity. That is what the system intends to do.