Minister’s Commons apology after dispute with watchdog
ESTHER MCVEY has been forced to issue an embarrassing apology to MPs after a public row with Whitehall’s spending watchdog.
The Work and Pensions Secretary said she had “inadvertently misled” the Commons by claiming that the National Audit Office (NAO) had called for the roll-out of the Universal Credit benefit to be accelerated.
But she defended her claim that a highly critical NAO report had failed to take into account recent changes made to the flagship benefit.
In a highly unusual step, the head of the NAO publicly rebuked the Cabinet Minister over her response to its report.
In an open letter to Ms McVey, Auditor General Sir Amyas Morse said elements of her statement to Parliament on the report were incorrect and unproven.
He said it was “odd” that she had told MPs that the NAO report did not take into account the impact of recent changes to the administration of the welfare benefit, when it had in fact been “fully agreed” by senior officials at the Department for Work and Pensions only days earlier.
A Downing Street source said Prime Minister Theresa May continues to have full confidence in Ms McVey as Work and Pensions Secretary.
In its report on June 15, the NAO highlighted the hardship caused to claimants by delays in receiving payments under UC.
It concluded that the new system – being gradually introduced to replace a number of benefits – was “not value for money now, and that its future value for money is unproven”.
Quizzed about the report’s findings in the Commons on July 2, Ms McVey told MPs it was “unfortunate that the NAO was unable to take into account the significant changes recently implemented in Universal Credit” which addressed “many of the concerns” raised in its report.
Returning to the Commons yesterday, Ms McVey said: “I mistakenly said that the NAO had asked for the roll-out of Universal Credit to continue at a faster rate and to be speeded up.
“In fact, the NAO did not say that.”
She stood by her claim that the NAO had not been able to examine the impact of recent changes.