Employment and Support Allowance: Underpayments

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:41 pm on 25 February 2019.

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Photo of Neil Coyle Neil Coyle Labour, Bermondsey and Old Southwark 3:41, 25 February 2019

On Friday, an email from In Case You Missed It News included an item about my hon. Friend 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?