HC Deb 15 November 1989 vol 160 cc451-6

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Sackville.]

10 pm

Mr. Richard Holt (Langbaurgh)

In some ways it is apposite that I should have the last Adjournment debate in the current Session, although the case of the late Mrs. Moore goes back much further than that.

Mr. Leslie Moore and his son came to see me in my surgery four years ago, in January 1986. His wife had been assessed by the medical appeals tribunal as being 35 per cent. disabled. Her claims for allowances were thus disallowed, except on that basis. Mrs. Moore appealed against that assessment. Her appeal was lodged on 24 September 1986. She was not examined until 8 July 1986 and she died on 6 December 1986. Mrs. Moore died before her appeal against the tribunal's decision could be heard. Perhaps everybody thought that the case would die with Mrs. Moore, but they reckoned without Mr. Moore who was not prepared to allow that to happen. He felt, in honour of his wife and son, that an injustice had been done and he wanted the case to be pursued. He came to see me to ensure that it was pursued.

We appealed in January 1987. Somehow, that appeal was mislaid in the works. In April 1987 Mr. Moore attended a hearing in Newcastle. After he had attended that hearing, lo and behold, his wife's medical condition was determined to be 80 per cent. disabled, but not all the way back to July when she was examined—only from 1 September.

My right hon. Friend the Minister of State will recall that at that time I wrote and asked who picked on 1 September—why not 2 September or 30 August? How could they know, on a hypothetical date after someone had died, that the disability had changed from 35 per cent. to 80 per cent.? That was the wisdom of the medical practitioners who conducted the hearing and reached these decisions.

Mr. Moore was still not satisfied. Nor was I. Therefore we pursued the matter still further. We have now reached the stage where Mr. Moore has been granted 80 per cent. for the period when Mrs. Moore was alive, but only after 1 September 1986.

I reckoned that the tribunal's decision was complacent and arrogant. I wrote accordingly to my right hon. Friend. He replied saying that we could appeal further. He said that it was not a DSS matter but a matter for the medical appeal tribunal. Imagine how Mr. Moore felt as a recently widowed gentleman with a young son in a depressed area in the north-east of England. He could not understand why he was being shoved from pillar to post, and as the person who was supposed to be helping and guiding him, I must confess that I was just as dizzy.But we were told that the MAT was administered by the office of the president of the social security and medical appeals tribunal. So I wrote to my right hon. Friend on 1 June 1987, asking him to look into the case on our behalf.

One year later on 8 June 1988, I again wrote to my right hon. Friend reminding him that 12 months earlier he had written to Mr. Justice Byrt QC, the president of the tribunal, placing the case before him. But the Minister's reply on 30 June said that there was no trace of Mr. Moore's claim for attendance allowances. He promised to follow up the president's office to determine what investigations had been made.

On 18 July we sent to the Department details of Mrs. Moore's claim for the attendance allowance which had come to the surface. On 5 September 1988, all that long time later, Mr. Justice Byrt replied that on the balance of probabilities Mrs. Moore might have been severely disabled, and on the evidence that was available she would have a right of appeal to a social security commissioner.

We thought that we were getting somewhere. But there was only one small snag. The social security commissioner, in his infinite wisdom, decided not to grant my constituent right of appeal.

In September 1988, having received that decision, we had to ask to have it set aside. In January 1989 we received a letter from the secretary of the office of the president. The papers had been sent to his office on 28 September 1988 but extensive inquiries in Leeds and Newcastle revealed no trace of Mr. Moore's set-aside application, the implication being that it had been lost in the post. It was bad enough to lose the appeal without the information being lost in the post, but we resurrected it, got it back to the surface and pursued it further. We sent photocopies of all the information to those who had lost it.

In February 1989, I received a letter from Mr. Moore saying that he still had not heard, so on 2 March I wrote again to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State asking him to bring pressure to bear on that bureaucratic quango which appears to be responsible to nobody and able to do or not to do whatever it wishes. My right hon. Friend replied immediately saying that tribunals were independent and it would he wrong for him as a Minister to seek to bring pressure to bear on them because he could be criticised for so doing.

On 29 March 1989 we knew that we had been refused and the only course of action was to apply to the social security commissioner for leave to appeal, and that had to be done within 42 days. We checked it at our office at the House of Commons because we were no longer satisfied with the competence of the people who were charged with that responsibility. We were told that it had been dealt with expeditiously. That was on 12 April.

On 16 August Mr. Moore again telephoned me to say that he had heard nothing and I again contacted my right hon. Friend's office to ask whether anything could be done to bring some compensation, or at least some consolation to my constituent in respect of his late wife who had been dead for some considerable time, yet as far as he was concerned, the case was still alive.

On 8 August, Mr. Moore was told that the case would be heard in four weeks and that Judge Bromley would decide it, but on 6 November—a little more than four weeks later—Mr. Moore again rang my office to say that nothing had been heard.

At that stage, I took advantage of an hon. Member's right to initiate an Adjournment debate on the subject. Lo and behold, the day after your Office, Mr. Speaker, informed me that I had succeeded in obtaining an Adjournment debate, my constituent received a reply saying that he had been given leave to appeal. Was that not miraculous? We still have not an affirmative judgment in our favour, although the amount of money involved is very small. However, it involves a big point of principle.

I am raising this matter tonight because my constituent cannot be the only person who has been treated in this abominable way by those charged with the responsibility of ensuring that tribunals and justice are dealt with expeditiously and that no one is kept hanging around.

I received a further letter today, which I shall read so that it is on the record. It comes from a high source. It says: I write to apologise to you directly"— the letter is to my constituent, but this is my copy— for the very regrettable delay at the Office of the Social Security Commissioners in dealing with your application for leave to appeal to a Social Security Commissioner. Let me explain how the delay came about. OSSC received your application for leave initially in February 1989, but I understand they were obliged to ask you for a copy of the decision of the lower tribunal"— That is the letter that was lost by somebody else after which they returned the application for leave to lower tribunal on 15 March 1989 because it could be dealt with by the lower tribunal's Chairman within the 3-month time limit allowed for applications for leave to appeal. The Chairman of the lower tribunal refused your application for leave on 21 March, after which the papers returned to OSSC. In April, OSSC requested all the necessary background papers from DSS and the local tribunal's office in Redcar. All the papers were received at OSSC on 10 May, but at this point things went wrong". This is on 10 May 1989, but I have been pursuing the matter since 1986. What should have happened is that OSSC staff should have made up a complete file and put it, with your application, to a Commissioner for a decision. Unfortunately, instead OSSC clerical staff misfiled the papers, putting them away in a registry where files are held pending the receipt of further papers which are expected from the DSS or the lower tribunal. The error was only discovered on 10 November, when my Department and OSSC first became aware of your case as a result of the intervention of your Member of Parliament, Mr. Holt, who will raise the matter at an Adjournment Debate on 15 November. As soon as OSSC realised their error, they constructed a case file and put it before a Commissioner, who considered your application for leave to appeal and granted it. I am advised that notification of that decision was sent to you on 10 November by first class post. Thus, the way is now open to you to proceed with the appeal in the usual way. I very much regret the anxiety and distress that this long and unnecessary delay must have caused you—all the more so, because it concerns an appeal on behalf of your late wife. Unfortunately, mistakes of this sort do sometimes occur and I know that the staff at OSSC are very sorry for what went wrong. The work very hard and appreciate the importance of their work to appellants and their families. On their behalf, I apologise to you again most sincerely and I trust the appeal will now proceed smoothly. I should add that I am most grateful to your Member of Parliament for bringing the matter to our attention so that it could be sorted out quickly. Therefore, I am sending him a copy of this letter. That was signed by Lord Mackay of Clashfern.

We cannot have a more fulsome apology from a more senior person in Government. Is it not disgraceful that I have had to raise this matter on the Adjournment after all this time and that the medical evidence which is the subject of this appeal to some extent cannot be verified in any way? Doctors have to say whether another doctor has made a mistake. Doctors do not do that—doctors never make mistakes. The report of 8 August 1986 stated that the chest condition would deteriorate at some future date. The doctor was right. Six or seven weeks later, after the fourth course of chemotherapy, my constituent—who was still assessed as only 35 per cent. disabled—died.

I hope that there will be three happy postscripts to this saga. I shall be able to remove this file from my live files. Mr. Moore will be given that small sum of money covering that period during his wife's severe illness, and he will be able to put his file away. With your leave, Mr. Speaker, we will wish Mr. Moore well, because he remarried last weekend. We want to put this matter behind us and wish him well for the future. I realise that my right hon. Friend the Minister cannot answer all my points because the matter is sub judice. This use of bureaucracy to befuddle people must not happen again. Most people would have dropped the case by now. Mr. Moore deserves justice. I hope that he will receive it.

10.16 pm
The Minister for Social Security (Mr. Nicholas Scott)

My hon. the Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt) has recounted what all those listening will recognise as a sad and, in many ways, very unsatisfactory story. That it started four years ago and is still unresolved is distressing for Mr. Moore, who is the person most directly concerned.

Looking at the matter from my point of view, independent of the social security commissioners' office, I like to think that, although this may not be the only case that has gone so badly wrong, it would be exceptional for any case to go quite as wrong at this one has. I hope that my hon. Friend will recognise that the letter that he has received from the Lord Chancellor will be regarded, in the administration of these matters, as something that Lord Chancellors rarely have to produce even for such distinguished Back Benchers as my hon. Friend. Lessons will be learned throughout the organisation about the importance of delivering a more effective service than was delivered in this case.

I reiterate the gratitude that the Lord Chancellor expressed in his letter, when he said that he was grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing the matter to his attention so that it could be sorted out quickly. It is in my interests and the Government's interests that those who are entitled to benefits get them and that if matters are to be settled independently of Ministers—as they must be when medical conditions are involved—they are at least managed expeditiously. I acknowledge that in this case that has not happened.

My hon. Friend acknowledged in his closing remarks that tribunals have to manage these matters. One cannot establish essentially medical criteria to entitle someone to receive a benefit—whether mobility allowance, attendance allowance or, as in this case, severe disability allowance —and establish a medical body to make the decision and then have Ministers who are not qualified trample all over it. It would be nonsense to do that, as I know that my hon. Friend recognises.

My hon. Friend has recounted much of the story, but perhaps I may tell it from the point of view of those on this side of the fence although, as I have said, it does not bring much credit to the workings of the system. The benefit that Mrs. Moore was claiming was severe disablement allowance and there are various criteria that have to be satisfied if a person is to be successful in such a claim.

A person must have been incapable of work for a continuous period of 28 weeks. Additionally, a person who claims after reaching the age of 20 needs to be assessed as being at least 80 per cent. disabled for the whole of this qualifying period. I gather from the records that the late Mrs. Moore last worked on 31 October 1985 and claimed severe disablement allowance on 4 April 1986, which is when my hon. Friend began his story. Her local social security office, which deals with claims for the allowance, properly arranged for the claim to be referred to an independent adjudicating medical practitioner to assess her degree of disablement.

Arrangements were made for her to be medically examined for this purpose on 16 June but, unfortunately, she was unable to attend. New arrangements had to be made and the examination took place on 8 July. The adjudicating medical practitioner assessed her degree of disablement at 35 per cent. and a notification that her claim had been disallowed was issued on 22 July. That may not have been a satisfactory outcome, but at least at that point everything was proceeding with some promptness.

We recognise that these decisions cannot be simply referred to Ministers and the way in which decisions can be challenged is through the independent appeal system. Mrs. Moore's appeal to a medical appeal tribunal was received on 1 September and the relevant papers, with the Department's observations on them, were sent to the tribunal on 24 September. It was thought that the tribunal might need additional medical information to help it with is assessment. Case notes were then requested from hospitals where Mrs. Moore had been treated. Extracts from those notes were made by a medical officer on 16 October and these were approved by the tribunal on 5 November. That was still reasonable progress.

The tribunal was held on 14 April 1987 and it decided to assess Mrs. Moore as being 80 per cent. disabled from 1 September 1986. Unfortunately, no benefit was payable as a result of that decision due to the fact that the assessment had not run for the continuous 28-week qualifying period by the time of Mrs. Moore's sad death on 6 December 1986. I can well appreciate that Mr. Moore found this decision very disappointing. I should put it higher than that and say that he found it extremely distressing.

In June 1988 my hon. Friend raised the matter with the then Under-Secretary of State and, following inquiries within his organisation, judge Byrt, the president of the social security appeal tribunals and medical appeal tribunals, wrote on 5 September 1988 to explain that Mr. Moore had been advised of his right either to apply to have the tribunal decision set aside or to appeal to the social security commissioner, but that no such application had been received. Mr. Moore applied to have the decision set aside on 28 September 1988 and, on that same day, his application was forwarded to the regional chairman's office in Leeds. As my hon. Friend will know, it was not until he again made representations that it was realised that the application had been lost between London and Leeds. The president's office wrote to my hon. Friend on 13 January apologising for the delay and arranged for a tribunal to consider the application on 20 February 1989. In the event, the tribunal refused the application. Mr. Moore was notified of that and was advised of his right to seek leave to appeal to the commissioner.

I turn now to the involvement of the office of the social security commissioners in this case. The commissioners are the responsibility of the Lord Chancellor, as my hon. Friend made clear he realised when he read out the letter from my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor.

Mr. Moore applied on 24 February 1989 for leave to appeal to the commissioner against the medical appeal tribunal decision, but he omitted to send a copy of the tribunal decision. He was asked to produce it and, it was realised that the decision was within the three-month time limit enabling leave to be granted by the tribunal chairman. The tribunal chairman refused leave on 21 March 1989, after which the papers were returned to the commissioner's office. Efforts were then made to retrieve them. Some of them had been destroyed by the tribunal office and eventually our Department of Social Security office in Redcar produced a complete set of the original papers, which were received at the commissioner's office on 10 May 1989.

At this point, something went very seriously wrong. A file should have been made up and put before a commissioner promptly for him to make a decision. Unfortunately, the clerk misfiled the case papers into a holding registry where case files sit pending receipt of further papers. This error was not discovered until 10 November 1989—a date of special significance to my hon. Friend—when the Lord Chancellor's Department was first made aware of this evening's debate.

My hon. Friend may take some comfort from the fact that the case was put before a commissioner on the afternoon of 10 November and that leave has been granted. In an attempt to speed things along, observations have been requested within 21 days instead of 30 days as is normal. I am advised that notification of this decision was sent to Mr. Moore on that day, and the way is now open for the appeal to be considered by the commissioner in the normal way.

The Lord Chancellor, on behalf of the office of the social security commissioner, has asked me publicly to reiterate the apology that was conveyed to my hon. Friend in writing for this most unfortunate delay in dealing with Mr. Moore's application for leave. Although there have been some delays at the commissioner's office in dealing with such matters—caused by the significant increase in the work load and the number of appeals over the past 18 months—the delay in this case was caused by a clerical error which, when discovered, was dealt with with great promptness.

The Lord Chancellor has also asked me to thank my hon. Friend for raising the matter and to say that he has written personally to Mr. Moore to apologise. It was generous of my hon. Friend to acknowledge the heartfelt and generous nature of the apology that he received from my noble Friend. I can but add my apologies to those of my noble Friend for the problems that Mr. Moore has experienced in this distressing case. I cannot, of course, predict the outcome of an appeal—my hon. Friend would not expect me to do so—but our apologies are heartfelt.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven minutes past Ten o'clock.