Employment and Support Allowance Underpayments Debate
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Philip Davies
Main Page: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)Department Debates - View all Philip Davies's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
Employment and Support Allowance Underpayments
Philip Davies Excerpts(6 years, 1 month ago)
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Sarah Newton
I clearly do not think that that case is acceptable at all. Clearly, there was a mistake there. I am pleased that the hon. Lady has been able to intervene and that the gentleman is now getting the benefit to which he is entitled. We are always working to improve our processes and our systems.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
May I commend the Minister, who is a decent person? She is an excellent Minister, and she is doing a great job of dealing with an issue that predates her period as a Minister by an awful long time. She should be commended for the work she is doing in trying to put this matter right. That is in stark contrast, I might say, to the Labour party.
My hon. Friend the Minister will recall the scandal of tax credits, when half the people were paid incorrectly—some underpaid, some overpaid and millions paid the wrong amount—and those people are still, in many cases, owed those debts today. May I commend her for the work she is doing? She should not allow herself to be sidetracked by Labour Members, who sound all indignant when it suits them, but when they were in office and tax credits were introduced—I believe the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) was in government at the time—they made a complete Horlicks of it and never fully cleared up the mess they created.
Sarah Newton
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. It is an honour and a privilege to have this job, and I am absolutely determined that we will do everything we can to make sure that people get the back payments they rightly deserve. He makes a very good point about the absolute devastation that tax credits caused to so many people’s lives, and he is quite right to remind us of that. I want to point out that when people were transferred from IB to ESA, nobody had a loss of income. What we are talking about is money to which they might have been eligible at the time but did not get at the time, but everybody transferred across on the benefit they had.