Pensions Dashboard

Joan Ryan Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dr Offord]

I must have left my speech on the photocopier, because once again, I have been anticipated. My hon. Friend is absolutely right; among those aged 22 to 29, participation has increased from 35% to 79% over the same period. That is certainly something we can all be pleased about. Automatic enrolment, which was also launched in 2012, has driven that increase and created millions of new savers, with nearly 10 million eligible employees having been automatically enrolled. Since April 2018, those savers are contributing at least 5% of their eligible income into their private pension pot, inclusive of employer contribution, and next year that will rise to 8%, including employer contributions.

In addition to those young people, it is worth mentioning the number of females who are now enrolled in pension schemes. Compared with the figure for 2012, an additional 3 million women now have a workplace pension thanks to auto-enrolment. As I said before, in the 22 to 29 age group, participation in the private sector has risen from 35% in 2012 to 79% in just five years. In total, the number of people who possess a workplace pension reached a record high of 41.1 million in 2017, up nearly 50% since 2012.

I ask the Minister to tell me in his summing-up speech whether he will provide not only me, but perhaps the House of Commons Library, with the auto-enrolment figures for all constituencies across the United Kingdom. I am particularly keen to see those figures for my Hendon constituents.

In conclusion, I believe pension freedoms have given people greater choice about when and how they use their pension savings. That is truly a transformation of our savings culture. The initiative displays true Conservative values of creating opportunity, nurturing aspiration and assisting people to take responsibility for their own futures. I hope the pensions dashboard is considered by other Ministers and inspires them to take similar actions in their own Departments.

[Joan Ryan (in the Chair)]

I will just say to the Back-Bench speakers that if they take about four or possibly five minutes and manage themselves, the Opposition Front-Bench speakers will have five minutes each and the Minister will have 10, and everybody should be able to get in.

Mental Health: Assessment

Joan Ryan Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Joan Ryan (in the Chair)]

We have two more Back-Bench speeches. I intend to move to the Front Bench at 3.30pm, so I suggest the two Members wishing to speak help each other and take about seven minutes each.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Joan Ryan (in the Chair)]

Order. If Front-Bench speakers could limit themselves to nine minutes, that will allow the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) to wind-up the debate.

State Pension: Women born in the 1950s

Joan Ryan Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Joan Ryan (in the Chair)]

Can I give the hon. Member some advice?

[Mhairi Black]

Yes.

[Joan Ryan (in the Chair)]

You could say that an hon. Member or a Minister is incorrect but you cannot say that it is an untruth. I hope that is helpful.

[Mhairi Black]

Even if it is untrue?

[Joan Ryan (in the Chair)]

I have given you my advice.

[Mhairi Black]

Okay. Of course, out of respect for this place that is absolutely fine.

[Joan Ryan (in the Chair)]

I think you know the rules about implying that an hon. Member has told a lie.

[Mhairi Black]

Forgive me. I am just explaining things as they are in front of me. Of course, I will take that back now.

[Joan Ryan (in the Chair)]

Thank you.

[Mhairi Black]

I will happily accept that the Ministers and several Conservatives might just be very confused and they may have got their facts wrong, which in itself is quite worrying. I would suggest that they do not make statements making demands of other Governments until they have read the Act themselves.

My last point is that this is all about equality—that is the one thing that pretty much everyone in the Chamber can agree on, and we will no doubt hear the Minister say that this is all about equality. Yesterday I took part in a panel at the Fawcett Society. As hon. Members will be aware, we have had 100 years of women in Parliament—we have had many events. Last night, we had a big photograph on the Terrace with all the male and female MPs and it was all great, with everyone celebrating how far we have come, but these things mean something only if the Government’s actions back them up.

Equality is defined as

“the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities.”

We have to accept that this generation of women have not had equality throughout their lives. They have suffered so much. To be honest, we are still only at the tip of the iceberg in understanding just the effect on them. I am not talking just about the money in their purses; I am talking about anxiety, depression and other different things, the repercussions of which we are still trying to work out fully. Yet here we are battling the Government again at the last hurdle. It cannot be justified in any sense.

The events in Parliament should be solidifying and celebrating how far women have come, to prove how much we have learned from feminism, to show a true understanding of the double burden that has been placed on women for generation after generation, and to show a true understanding of why the female experience of life has been so different. But here we are. These women are still being patronised, misled and ignored. They are constantly treated as less and by repeating something for long enough the Minister is hoping it will just become true. That is not the case.

Let me be clear: equality is not about treating everyone exactly the same. It is about treating everyone fairly. It is acknowledging who they are, what they have been through, what their experience of life has been, what their experience of Government and policy structures have been and what it has done to affect them. The job of Government now is to make sure that our policies help to mould a society that satisfies and respects all its citizens and their needs—

“the state of being equal especially in status, rights and opportunities.”

If the Minister truly believes that the Government has delivered on that then I am afraid he has not listened. If he, like me, cannot argue that the Government is furthering these women’s rights or opportunities, that should be his starting point. I can only hope that his conscience takes him there.

Child Poverty: London

Joan Ryan Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I have a slightly different and perhaps more controversial view of redevelopments. I congratulate councils that try to deal with problems in difficult circumstances and come up with solutions that would not always be their first choice. In life, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, the way to make friends is to do nothing. Sometimes doing something makes you more enemies. I congratulate all the councils of whatever persuasion that are trying to do their best in really difficult circumstances.

A mechanism should be introduced so that any public sector site up for disposal has to be considered for the construction of social or mixed housing, including a substantial proportion that is social. Currently, public bodies tend to sell sites to raise money, not to provide homes. They often hide behind the requirement to obtain best value. For me and many Members here today, best value is the provision of homes for homeless or overcrowded families. How about building on the 19,334 hectares of unbuilt greenbelt land within a 10-minute walk of a London train station? It is not traditional greenbelt land. At no environmental cost, it is enough space for almost 1 million new homes in our capital.

It is not only extortionate housing costs that London faces, but living costs higher than anywhere else in England. In fact, nearly 40% of Londoners have an income below the amount needed to achieve a basic decent standard of living, with children the most likely to live below minimum income standards.

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and on all the work that she has done on poverty and housing in London and nationally. Does she agree that the distinction between social and affordable housing is crucial to addressing the problem of housing for those living in poverty? In the previous Budget there was no mention whatever of social housing. Affordable housing in London is very often not affordable. If the Government are to do anything about these issues, they need to grasp this distinction, which they either do not understand or deliberately do not want to address.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I am sure that as politicians we often live by our word, and I am extremely offended by the way we now use the word “affordable”. In housing terms, “affordable” means 80% of market rent. I suspect many of us here today could not manage to pay an affordable rent, let alone somebody on a low or median income in the capital. I would be grateful to find a way to ban the word “affordable” in this context.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I wish to say this tactfully because I like the right hon. Gentleman a great deal. The problem and the definition of affordability at 80% market value goes back to the 2010 coalition Government. I do not wish to be mean; I simply wish to put that on the record.

[Joan Ryan]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again. I do not think it is a question of being mean. It is a question of holding to account, and there simply is not enough holding to account of either the previous coalition Government and their Cabinet members or the current Government. If there was more holding to account, we would not be facing the dire circumstances in which many thousands of children are paying the price for those two Governments not being accountable and not addressing the issues that matter.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her intervention.

Across the capital, wages have not kept up with the cost of living and in most parts of London a full-time minimum wage job barely covers the rent. While the cost of living continues to soar, state support for low-income families continues to fall in real terms. The extraordinary cost of living has left one in 10 London families—I could barely believe that figure—to rely on a food bank, with three-day emergency food supplies provided to 169,896 people in London since April 2016.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on securing this import debate and on her powerful analysis of the situation. Eight years ago, David Cameron said the Conservatives would be

“the most family-friendly Government you’ve ever seen in this country”.

Less than two years ago, the current Prime Minister stood on the steps of Downing Street and proclaimed that she would fight against “burning social injustices” and

“make Britain a country that works not for a privileged few, but for every one of us.”

What we have heard so far today throws some stark reality on that. This debate is another reminder of how reality fails to match the Government’s rhetoric.

My borough of Enfield, where I have lived for the past 20 years, and where my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) has lived all his life, is generally thought of as a leafy borough with a very solid foundation for employment, manufacturing, the service sector and logistics. It has always been said, and I have said many times, that it is a great place to live and bring up a family. However, Enfield is in the midst of a worsening child poverty crisis. Four in 10 of Enfield’s children—almost 34,000—live below the poverty line. The borough is the 11th most impoverished area for children in the UK.

My constituency and neighbouring Edmonton are also two of the top 20 constituencies in the country with the fastest growing levels of child poverty, and Edmonton is in the top 10, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden mentioned. As the End Child Poverty coalition has said, low-income families are struggling to put

“food on the table, heat their homes and clothe their children.”

We should feel anger and shame that that is the situation. Last year, Enfield had the fourth highest rate of food bank usage in London. Is it any wonder that this is happening when wages are flatlining, with one in three jobs in Enfield being paid less than the living wage? I ask hon. Members to look at yesterday’s edition of the Enfield Independent, our local paper, which says that eviction rates are the highest in the capital. Levels of homelessness acceptances in Enfield have risen more than 80% in the past two years.

My hon. Friend referred to my constituency surgery, which I do every Friday afternoon from 3 o’clock. Anyone who turns up will be seen, even if they have not made an appointment, because people are desperate. A huge percentage of the problems relate to housing. Many hard-pressed local families are trying—and often failing—to cope with soaring rents and a lack of affordable and social housing. But under this Government, house building has fallen to its lowest peacetime rate since the 1920s. The number of affordable homes in Enfield increased by just over 300 in the three years to 2016. For most families, what is called affordable is not affordable, as we have already discussed. On top of all of this, most benefits for working families have been frozen, which has cut families’ real incomes. There is a serious shortage of genuinely affordable childcare.

I am proud that the last Labour Government introduced Sure Start, the transformative early years programme giving young children the best start in life. When Labour left office in May 2010, there were 24 Sure Start centres in Enfield. Now there are just five. Government cuts to these vital education services are a scandal and our most disadvantaged children are paying the price. As Save the Children has said, the consequences of a lack of quality early years education for children living in poverty are lifelong and

“it harms not only their quality of life, but their ability to learn and develop at a crucial stage in their lives.”

The lack of Government action to address these issues is in stark contrast to the leadership shown by Sadiq Khan, the Labour Mayor of London, who is championing the London living wage to support low income families.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Kit Malthouse)]

We all did.

[Joan Ryan]

The Minister may make an intervention if he wishes.

The Mayor is investing £15 million to buy homes for homeless Londoners and recently he launched the capital’s largest living rent scheme, to offer more Londoners a genuinely affordable home. He is supporting early years hubs, delivering on his promise to improve access to high-quality, affordable early years education for the most disadvantaged families in the capital. However, the child poverty crisis is a national issue that demands a co-ordinated, national response from the Government.

I urge Ministers to restore targets to end child poverty. The Government must support local authorities as they attempt to address the worst effects of child poverty in their areas, instead of gutting their budgets. Enfield Council alone has had its central Government funding slashed by £161 million since 2010, with another £35 million in cuts due by next year. The Government need to fix their broken housing policy and help to make sure that all families in Enfield, particularly those on low incomes, have the chance to live in a safe, secure and genuinely affordable home. Universal credit still needs to be fixed to ensure that it does not drive even more families into debt, arrears and eviction, and the Government need to take steps immediately to provide more good-quality childcare and early years education.

Child Poverty Action Group rightly says that poverty

“damages childhoods; it damages life chances; and it damages us all in society.”

I am proud that the last Labour Government lifted 1 million children out of poverty. They addressed this issue and, to a large extent, they succeeded. It is time that, rather than making the situation worse, this Government got their act together for these children or moved over and let someone else do it.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Henry. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on introducing the debate so powerfully.

There is more than enough challenge to go around without us having to worry too much about the pressures between inner London and the suburbs, which we have already heard enough about. There are real and growing challenges in suburban London, but child poverty remains acute in inner London, and it is worsening. If London has something of a reputational challenge as a wealthy city, I assure hon. Members that the City of Westminster has an acute reputational challenge. The borough, which contains Mayfair and Knightsbridge, is one of the poorest in the country. It has the sixth highest level of child poverty in the country after housing costs are taken into account, and my constituency has the 15th highest; well over half the children in wards such as Church Street live in poverty.

As Londoners, we must rise to that challenge and recognise that people in other parts of the country struggle to understand that a city with such extraordinary wealth—a city that contains the City of London and the iconic tourist attractions that are so familiar to everyone—is also the region with the highest poverty. It has more children in poverty than Scotland and Wales combined. As Members of Parliament, we have to try to explain that and help people understand it. We must ensure that the specific drivers of poverty in London are understood, and that we get our fair share of resources.

Let me add to the comments by my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan). Poverty is not an act of God, but is brought about by a failure by the Government and by market forces to ensure that incomes are sufficiently high to lift children out of poverty, that housing is available at a reasonable cost, and that there are adequate services to support intervention for low-income families and children. I, too, am extremely proud that a Labour Government, although they were not perfect—no Government are—were able, though a mixture of the tax credit system, benefit changes and service delivery, to lift 1 million children out of poverty. That has gone into reverse: according to households below average income statistics, an extra 400,000 children have fallen into poverty since 2010. That was an absolutely foreseeable and deliberate consequence of Government policies, including the freezing and cutting of benefits, the two-child policy, benefit caps and the rents policy, which I shall come on to.

I am also proud of the children’s centres—500 have closed as a result of Government cuts to early intervention and local government funding—and national childcare strategy that a Labour Government set up. Under the previous Labour Mayor, Ken Livingstone, there was a London childcare affordability programme, which did so much to make childcare accessible to lower-income working families. So many of those measures have gone into reverse in the past few years.

As all Opposition Members have generally stressed, housing costs lie at the heart of poverty in the capital. It is housing costs that eat so much of people’s income, and it is housing costs that are driving a crisis of homelessness and housing insecurity. The interface between low-paid work, particularly when that work is insecure, the freeze and in some cases cuts in social security—particularly housing support—and high housing costs is a particular stress point.

Two important reports were published today, including another very important one by Citizens Advice, which found that one in 10 adults in this country has an income that varies from month to month. Someone who lives on a variable income, particularly when that income is low, but has high fixed costs—particularly high housing costs—is likely to find themselves in difficulty. That in turn feeds the epidemic of evictions, which we have heard are happening particularly in outer London, and high debt. That feeds the crisis of mental ill health—anxiety and depression—which is a real challenge for families who are struggling to get by on low incomes and in so many cases see their homes at risk. The pressures of housing and poverty are literally making people sick in their tens, if not hundreds, of thousands. That often drives people to seek advice and help, which are less available than they have been for a great many years.

It has already been said that the most vulnerable and most acutely disadvantaged families in the capital are those who are either in the homelessness system or at risk of homelessness. After many years of decline, the number of families in homelessness accommodation has risen significantly. Some 45,000 children in the capital now live in temporary accommodation, up from 28,000 when the Conservatives came into government in 2010. Those families often live in deeply substandard accommodation—unfortunately, temporary accommodation offers some of the worst conditions any of us have seen—yet they pay excessive rents. As a deliberate consequence of Government policy, those families also find themselves subject to rent restrictions and a benefits cap, even though no family that is accepted as homeless has any say whatsoever in the accommodation they receive, or the price they pay for it.

[Joan Ryan]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend has the same experience in her surgeries as I have in mine. Constituents come to see me who pay extortionate rents in the private sector for disgraceful property that is below habitable standards—it is damp, perhaps does not have hot water or heating, or has an out-of-date boiler—yet when I complain and try to get enforcement, they get what is called a revenge eviction and find themselves out on the streets. They have to go into temporary accommodation, they might be moved out of London, and their children might have to change schools. They continually suffer massive disruption to their lives.

[Ms Buck]

I totally agree. The Government will have to rise to the challenge of revenge evictions. That is well overdue. As was said, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden, that challenge is in part down to the fact that the face of poverty in London is increasingly in the private rented sector. We have seen a shift of low-income households from social rented accommodation into private rented accommodation, where rents are higher, insecurity is a constant problem and, because people on low incomes have so little choice in accommodation, people find themselves in the worst conditions.

Pension Equality for Women

Joan Ryan Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Grahame Morris]

I am grateful for that intervention. I shall come to some of the proposals that have been made and how the injustice might be addressed.

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree that it is shocking and unacceptable that the WASPI campaigners have had to work so tirelessly to get absolutely no response from the Government?

[Grahame Morris]

I completely agree. We have debated this issue many times—perhaps 29 or 30—in the Chamber and Westminster Hall, and we have been incredibly active over the past few months. Early-day motion 63 has 195 signatures, while an e-petition that was laid before Parliament attracted 109,000 signatures, and that number continues to grow. A Westminster Hall debate was so oversubscribed that some Members were sitting on the window ledges.

Disability Employment Gap

Joan Ryan Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

I have repeatedly said that the last Labour Government were performing better in terms of the disabled person’s employment gap than this current Government, and I shall say so again in a few moments.

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend as concerned as me about the effect of the Government’s welfare changes on access to the Motability car scheme? Is he concerned about how many people have had their applications for the higher rate of the mobility component of PIP turned down only to find after many months and the loss of their car that the decision has been reversed because of problems with the assessment procedure in the first place? This affects people’s ability to get to work and to hold down and keep their jobs.

[Owen Smith]

Of course it does, and I am going to say something about that straight away, because the first of the cuts that I want to discuss—cuts that are making it enormously more difficult for disabled people to get into and stay in work—is the PIP cut. As we know, PIP is a system of support that helps disabled people to deal with the extra costs of being disabled and to play a full part in life, which includes going to work. Eventually, when they have all been shifted across from Labour’s disability living allowance, 3.5 million people will be on PIP.

As I said earlier, the previous Secretary of State baulked at taking £1.2 billion out of PIP by changing the eligibility criteria in respect of washing and dressing, but he knew that he had already saved £2 billion by tightening the criteria relating to the move from DLA to PIP. One of the ways in which he tightened those criteria involved the mobility component of PIP, versus DLA. Crucially, he changed the measurement of people’s mobility—how far they were able to walk—from 50 metres to 20 metres, the net effect of which was, quite simply, that fewer people were eligible for the mobility component. As a result, 17,000 specially adapted Motability cars have been removed from people. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State says that I have got my stats wrong. He can tell us what he thinks the stats are shortly, but first I am going to tell him what Muscular Dystrophy UK has said, because it has an interest in the matter. It has said that it is deeply concerned about the fact that between 400 and 500 specially adapted cars a week are being taken away from disabled people, which is an extraordinary statement. Does the Secretary of State think that is right? Does he think for a second that it is even cost-effective? More important, what does he think about the impact on real people?

Only this morning, Muscular Dystrophy UK highlighted the case of a woman called Sarah, aged 29, from Norfolk. She has myotonic dystrophy, which means that her muscles are progressively wasting. None the less, she works as a nurse in a local hospital, although she needs a specially adapted car to get to work. We could all celebrate that, could we not, were it not for the fact that the Department for Work and Pensions has taken her car away.

Sarah says:

“The ‘20-metre rule’ does not assess how someone’s mobility is affected by their condition. Occasionally I may be able to walk 20 metres, but on other days…I could fall…decreasing my mobility further…I could…choose not to work, but…As a nurse, I make a difference in my role, but it seems like the DWP is trying to prevent me from doing so.”

That is the human effect of the changes that the Secretary of State is overseeing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Joan Ryan Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Employment (Priti Patel)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind invitation. I would be happy to look into it and try to come to his constituency. It is National Apprenticeship Week as well. He is right of course that employers, such as the outstanding ones he referred to, continue to do their utmost to support young people. I myself will be visiting many employers in Essex this week just to make that point to them.

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

T4. Last month, the Minister said that the idea that there was a 20-metre rule for assessing eligibility for enhanced mobility allowance was an “urban myth”, but in the case of my constituent Cathy Walsh—I must acknowledge that the Minister listened to my case—it was only when her consultant provided evidence that she could walk no more than 20 metres that her eligibility was reviewed and her benefit reinstated. What steps will the Government take to clarify this issue with assessors and to ensure that other disabled people do not have to suffer as my constituent has?

[Justin Tomlinson]

To be absolutely clear, the assessment is whether an individual can safely, repeatedly, to an acceptable standard and in a reasonable time period walk a certain distance. It is not a case of saying that if someone gets to 19.9 metres, they qualify for the money, but if they get to 20.1 metres, they do not. It is assessed according to the criteria I have set out, and we will continue to make sure that assessors are aware of that.

Motability Car Scheme

Joan Ryan Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) on securing the debate. I am here today to raise the issue of my constituent Cathy Walsh, though her case is representative of many others. She suffers from severe generalised dystonia, a condition that results in uncontrolled spasms, affecting her limbs and speech. She has been disabled since birth and has tremendous difficulty moving unaided. With a seriously disabling disability, she has been on disability living allowance for 23 years. On Friday 18 December, Ms Walsh was notified that her application for the advanced-rate mobility component of PIP had been turned down, and she was distraught—her car, which had been invaluable in allowing her to lead an independent life, would be taken from her. That life-changing decision was based on one assessment conducted over an hour. It took the Atos consultant longer to write the report than it took to undertake the assessment. Ms Walsh’s neurological consultant has

“strong reservations about the value of this assessment.”

I agree. Atos said that Ms Walsh was able to walk between 50 and 200 metres, but her consultant has

“no idea how ATOS’ assessment could have been made, it is clearly incorrect… At best she can walk up to 20 metres and on a bad day significantly less.”

On those terms, it is obvious that Ms Walsh has a very strong case to qualify for the higher-rate mobility allowance. Instead, she has had to go down the extremely stressful route of a mandatory reconsideration and an appeal to a tribunal, which is making her condition worse. Her independence has been severely curtailed, at least until the tribunal decision is known, which could be months away.

Ms Walsh will have to rely on others even to help her cash the £2,000 transitional support cheque from Motability, as she cannot get to the bank on her own. That raises another issue: why cannot this money be transferred directly into her account? Even when the £2,000 has been deposited, Ms Walsh will be in a state of financial limbo. If she wins her appeal but decides to keep the money, she would not be able to return to the Motability scheme for six months.

Let us assume that Ms Walsh wins her case and wants to return to the scheme as quickly as possible, which she is keen to do. She would then have to return most of the £2,000. I do not disagree with that in principle. However, if the tribunal drags on for several months, Ms Walsh will inevitably need to use some, if not all, of the transitional payment to pay for other forms of assistance and transport. She would then be in debt while having to go through the process of reapplying for the scheme when her car should never have been taken from her in the first place. The Government say that what we have now is a “fairer assessment process.” Well, it does not feel fair to Ms Walsh. She is deeply distressed. I do not think it is fair; her friends do not think it is fair; and, more to the point, her consultant, who understands her condition as well as anyone, thinks it is very unfair. If her treatment is typical of the way in which thousands of other cases have been dealt with, the process has not been fair to them, either. The Government must be willing to conduct a thorough review of the process, which is not fit for purpose in its current state. I look forward to hearing how the Minister intends to resolve these issues.