Entitlement to winter fuel payment - House of Commons - 22 July 2002

Speech delivered on Mon 22nd Jul 2002

12.10 am

Mr. David Rendel (Newbury): I hope to make a speech that is rather different from those made by most Members tonight. Most of them have raised—as is their right—difficulties or worries relating to their constituencies. My purpose is different: I want to give the House some good news, which I hope all Members will use on behalf of male constituents in their early or middle sixties.

My constituent, Mr. Gordon Ashby, aged 63, falls into the group now entitled to the winter fuel payment following the ruling of the European Court on non-discrimination between the genders. On hearing that he might have a chance to claim the payment retrospectively, Mr. Ashby obtained the forms needed to enable him to make his application late in the spring of 2000. Unfortunately for him—and, obviously, for his wife—his wife became ill that year and had to go into hospital on several occasions.

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Needless to say, Mr. Ashby's energies were mostly focused on looking after his wife. The forms that he had obtained in the spring were put aside until he had a better chance to fill them in and send them off. He did not send them off until July 2001, at which point the Benefits Agency turned down his claim on the ground that it was too late: it should have been returned by the statutory claim date of 31 March.

The form did not state that there was a cut-off date for the application. A letter accompanying the form sent to Mr. Ashby, dated 5 May 2000, merely said: "It would be helpful if you could return your completed claim form, along with any supporting documents, within 4 weeks."

Mr. Ashby allowed the four weeks to expire by a good many months, whereas the letter had merely said that it would be "helpful" for him to return the form.

When Mr. Ashby finally got round to claiming his payments in July 2001, he was amazed to find that he received his payments for the two previous years—because there was no cut-off date for those—but was denied a payment for 2000-01. It seemed logical to him that, after an initial payment had been made for earlier years, subsequent payments would be automatic, given that he had clearly reached the qualifying age. After all, sadly, none of us gets any younger as the years go by.

Mr. Ashby appealed against the decision. He went through the appeals system, right up to a tribunal. The tribunal, however—like all the earlier appeal bodies—upheld the original decision. Interestingly, in the decision made on 21 November 2001, the tribunal admitted that the explanatory note did not specify a deadline for returning the claim form. In dismissing the appeal, it nevertheless stated: "This might be an instance when an ex gratia payment is appropriate."

Sadly, despite that, no ex-gratia payment was made by the Benefits Agency.

In response to a letter from Mr. Ashby, who got in touch with me in January this year, I wrote to the Benefits Agency again on 5 February to raise his case. I received a reply from the Department for Work and Pensions on 14 March, but that simply reiterated the position as upheld on appeal—that Mr. Ashby's claim was disallowed because it was made after the statutory closing date.

Mr. Ashby was asked to send in the form within four weeks because it would be helpful. It was absurd that some months after that he should be told that there was a cut-off date. The next step was to take the matter to the parliamentary ombudsman, which we did on 8 April this year. By that stage, we had sent a number of letters, between us, to both the Benefits Agency and the Department; it was some eight months after the initial decision.

The ombudsman, as he always does, made some initial investigations and started talking to the Department. He has now sent me his final conclusions. I am delighted to say that he tells me that the Department for Work and Pensions has capitulated. Faced with the likelihood that the ombudsman would find this a clear case of maladministration, the Department has paid Mr. Ashby not only his £100 winter fuel payment, despite his late claim, but an extra, well-deserved £50 to compensate him for all the hassle that he has had to go through. A clear injustice has been rectified, although only after a year of trying.

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Now we come to the real reason why I wanted to raise the issue. Potentially, there are implications for a very large number of other men of a similar age, who may have been misled by the Department's failure to make it clear that there was a closing deadline for claims—a cut-off point for sending applications. I hope that we can have an assurance from the Minister tonight that he will get the relevant Department to write to all the other men whose claims have been turned down because they were late, telling them that they can have their payments after all.

The Government are always keen to claim that they will ensure that everyone who should get benefit payments of any sort does so when they are due. They must know by now who all the claimants are who have been refused winter fuel payments because they made a late application for the years concerned. I urge the Government to put their money where their mouth is and to send the overdue payments to all those who so far have been wrongly denied.

12.18 am