§ 13. Mr. Simon HughesWhat is the average delay between applications for benefits and payment of benefits by agencies accountable to her Department. [34054]
§ Mr. FieldThis Department deals with over 20 benefits. There are 48 targets measuring performance on the clearance of new applications. We are currently achieving 90 per cent. of those targets.
§ Mr. HughesThat was a pretty obscure answer, but no doubt it can be pursued. Does the Minister accept that, whatever the general position may be, in some places there are huge delays between the application for, and the payment of, benefits? That can mean the loss of entitlement. I understand that the causes of delay are often overstretched staff, people off sick, posts unfilled and a 25 per cent. cut in finance. Does the Minister accept that one thing he could do would be to reinstate district office factors, so that terribly over-pressed offices, such as mine in south London, which have to deal with many asylum seekers, mentally ill people and other difficult cases, have the funding to deal with their heavy and difficult case load? That would allow such applicants to get their benefits as soon as anyone else.
§ Mr. BurnsWould the right hon. Gentleman care to comment on the delays in the payment of winter fuel benefits to non-income support pensioners, who are having to wait up to nine weeks for what is becoming a summer supplement, not a winter fuel benefit? Would he also care to comment on the 9,000 pensioners on income support and living in residential homes who have erroneously received cheques—some of which have been cashed while others have not? Will the Government seek to claw back that money?
Finally, on the question that the Secretary of State failed to answer last Thursday, is the Minister aware of the developing problem among some non-income support pensioners which has meant that, instead of couples receiving two cheques for £10 each, some are receiving two cheques for £20 in winter fuel benefits? What will the Government do to rectify that cock-up?
§ Mr. FieldIn answer to that eight-minute question, I should like to remind the hon. Gentleman that, probably 15 by the end of this week, all 10 million or so pensioners will have received their payments. Only 15,000 are still waiting to receive them. The benefit had to be introduced from scratch because the Opposition, when in government, did not think it important to deliver extra help in that way.
When the hon. Gentleman was in government and the Government of the day used to come to the House waving pieces of paper, not a day went by when he did not get up and tell the House about how important those pieces of paper were—the most important, in fact, since the previous day. His approach to Government initiatives could not have been more constructive. Since going into opposition the hon. Gentleman has fallen among bad friends. I believe that his constituents would prefer the constructive Member whom they had representing them in the days when the hon. Gentleman sat on Government Benches to the person who has clearly become a whinger in opposition.