Oral Answers to Questions

John Healey Excerpts

Monday 8th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

Youth unemployment is falling right across the country. There might well be a tiny difference in a single constituency, but from 2010 it has come down across every region and area. What we are doing is right. We are giving the right support to the right people, because we have had the biggest fall in youth unemployment since records began.

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

9. What legal costs his Department has incurred in legal proceedings involving disabled people relating to the under-occupancy penalty and the closure of the independent living fund.

[The Minister for Disabled People (Mr Mark Harper)]

The Government have robustly defended their policies in relation to the closure of the independent living fund and the removal of the spare room subsidy. The total known legal costs to date, in respect of both policies where disability formed part of the grounds of the claim, are £415,000: £236,000 for the ILF and £178,000 for the removal of the spare room subsidy.

[John Healey]

That is a part answer to a very direct question about the cost to the taxpayers of Government lawyers defending the indefensible—axing the ILF and introducing the hated bedroom tax. Will the Minister not recognise that many severely disabled people flourish with the fund but are now frightened of losing their independence when he shuts it down next year? He might have won the legal case this year, but he has lost the moral and policy arguments, so even at this eleventh hour will he rethink the protection available to ILF users?