Pay compo for benefit blunder
Labour demand over botched £1bn disability payments
THE Government should be forced to pay compensation to 180,000 victims of a disability benefits scandal, Labour MPs will demand today.
The party has called on Tory welfare chief Esther McVey to pay thousands who were underpaid Employment and Support Allowance.
The Work and Pensions Secretary is already handing over £970million in back payments, dating to 2011, as 400 staff work to fix the blunder. But in a letter to Ms McVey, seen by the Mirror, Labour now argues the Government’s own guidance shows she should add compensation.
Issued by the Treasury, it says public bodies that “have caused injustice or hardship” through “service failure” should consider “remedies”.
Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Margaret Greenwood and Shadow Disabilities Minister Marsha de Cordova warned the error could have caused “serious losses”.
In their joint letter, they said many people “may have been forced to live at below subsistence levels” with “severe restrictions on their lives”. The pair wrote: “Some ill and disabled people will be waiting almost a decade to be repaid their entitlement to social security.”
The DWP said: “We are committed to paying back all arrears...”