Underpayment of Benefits: Compensation Debate

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Department: Department for Work and Pensions

Underpayment of Benefits: Compensation

Marco Longhi Excerpts
Thursday 13th January 2022

(2 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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David Rutley Portrait David Rutley
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I understand the hon. Lady’s point. I genuinely do not know how many were in the Vauxhall constituency, as we do not have that level of data. As I set out, there are mechanisms that her constituents who might have concerns can follow up. We will formally respond to the report, as I set out.

Marco Longhi Portrait Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
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Such incidents are obviously very regrettable, so having robust IT systems and finding ways to design out the human element that might have caused these mistakes is clearly very important. Can the Minister assure me that every possible effort will be made to ensure such incidents do not happen again?

David Rutley Portrait David Rutley
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We all make mistakes, and this was clearly a big one. All I can say is that we will learn the lessons. We made an active response when we found out the scale of the problem. We did the review, and then we put 1,200 staff into this exercise to rectify the situation. We did not take it lightly. We responded actively to the situation once we found the error.