Employment and Support Allowance: Underpayments

Neil Coyle Excerpts

Monday 25th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I reassure the hon. Lady that we are spending record levels of money to support people with disabilities and health conditions. I am absolutely determined to make sure that we are constantly reforming the system to ensure that everybody gets the support to which they are entitled.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

On Friday, an email from In Case You Missed It News included an item about my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), revealing that the Department’s presenting officers have not attended 80% of the tribunals that it forces disabled people to undergo to access their ESA and other entitlements. Have those officers been reassigned to address this backlog—one cock-up leading to another cock-up— and does this not reveal that the Department would be better off not wasting millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on avoidable assessments, mandatory reconsiderations, presenting officers and avoidable, unnecessary tribunals, and that it should overhaul the whole process?

[Sarah Newton]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are absolutely focused on making the right decision the first time, but we do not force anyone to an appeal. It is up to them whether they would like a mandatory reconsideration or whether they would like to go to appeal.

On the presenting officers, we never, ever intended to send a presenting officer to every tribunal. We send them to a sample so that we can learn—[Interruption.] I am very happy to answer questions, but I would appreciate it if people did not chunter from a sedentary position, because it makes it very difficult for me to listen and respond to them in the way I am sure the hon. Gentleman would like. Those presenting officers are there to make sure that we are learning from where things go wrong so that we can get them right.