Tuesday 20th June 2023

(10 months, 3 weeks ago)

Commons Chamber
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Tom Pursglove Portrait Tom Pursglove
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On that specific point, I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the points I made earlier about some of the ongoing work, but I will also ask my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies) to provide him with a response to that question, because I know she is engaging with colleagues elsewhere in the Government around those challenges.

Drew Hendry Portrait Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
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The Minister has already acknowledged the additional costs of nearly £1,000 a month that disabled households have over able-bodied households, but those costs are disproportionately higher in rural areas such as the highlands, which I represent with my constituency. People there have extra costs for transport, energy and so on. Is it not time that the Government did more to compensate people with those extreme costs? Would a start not be to make up for what they lost with the universal credit mismatch during the pandemic and, indeed, to restore the £20 a week on universal credit immediately?