Personal Independence Payments

Peter Grant Excerpts
Monday 4th June 2018

(6 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Esther McVey Portrait Ms McVey
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It was in my first couple of days in this job as Secretary of State that I sought not to appeal the court case. There was no staring down a barrel and no waiting for me; I did it within a couple of days. Why? Because I think we have to live up to what PIP was meant to be and to the people it was meant to support.

When these two court cases were brought to my attention, which was only a couple of weeks ago, I did exactly the same thing. I will look at the cases when they are brought to me, and I will make sure that this Government do the right thing to support the right people the vast majority of the time.

Peter Grant Portrait Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
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Following on from those assertions, is the Secretary of State actually telling Parliament that her decision in these cases was not influenced in any way by any legal advice she may have had on the likelihood of losing had the cases gone the full course?

Esther McVey Portrait Ms McVey
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What I have said is that I saw it on day one, pretty much, of coming into this job. I looked at what I deemed was the correct thing to do, knowing how PIP was brought about, and I made what I felt was the right decision.