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LIAISON COMMITTEE
Ordered,
That Dr. Lewis Moonie be discharged from the Liaison Committee and Mr. Stuart Bell be added to the Committee.-- [Mr. Keith Bradley.]
Pathology Services (Devon)
7.13 pm
Mrs. Linda Gilroy (Plymouth, Sutton): I have the privilege to present a petition that has been signed by 313 people from my constituency and the surrounding area in Devon. It has been organised by members of the Manufacturing Science and Finance Union and the Institute of Biomedical Science. The petition raises awareness of recruitment and retention problems in the local national health service pathology services and calls for a pay review body to be set up.
The petition states:
The petition of the members of staff of pathology laboratories in Devon hospitals, members of MSF and IBMS declares that pathology services make a vital contribution to patient care.
To lie upon the Table.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Secretary of State for Health to recognise the current recruitment and retention problems for the service and the urgent need to establish a pay review body as an important part of addressing these problems.
And the petitioners remain etc.
Widows' Benefits
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.--[Mr. Robert Ainsworth.]
7.14 pm
Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet): I am grateful for this opportunity to place on record a matter that I regard as of concern and a national disgrace. There are no niceties or courtesies about this debate. It is born out of a sense of monumental injustice and some anger. Had Ministers been responsive prior to tonight, the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, the hon. Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle) would not now be sitting on the Front Bench seeking to justify the unjustifiable. The subject before the House is the failure of the Department of Social Security to ensure delivery of widows' payment to those to whom it is justly due.
On 2 June 1999, Alan Keith Smith of Margate was working with highly flammable chemicals that caught fire. At the age of 24, he suffered horrific burns. He was admitted to Margate hospital and transferred by helicopter to a burns unit at Chelmsford in Essex. In order to satisfy car tax authorities and others, his 19-year-old wife Corrina asked for, and was given, a letter, confirming in three lines that Alan Smith was in intensive care and would remain in hospital for the foreseeable future.
On 18 June, he died of the injuries sustained in the industrial accident. On the same day, Corrina was required to identify Alan Smith's body in the Broomfield hospital, Chelmsford. She was required to identify his body for a second time on 23 June after his remains had been transferred to the Buckland hospital, Dover, where a post mortem was carried out.
Alan Smith's corpse was released by the Dover coroner, and he was buried on 8 July. The funeral was arranged by Messrs. Twyman and Holmes of Ramsgate. The Dover coroner provided the burial order necessary for the interment to take place. Corrina Smith borrowed £2,500 to bury her husband and to meet the out-of-pocket expenses generated by that tragic series of events.
The inquest into the death of Alan Smith was held in east Kent on 12 October 1999. The registrar in Chelmsford received a certificate from the Dover coroner, Richard Sturt, indicating that Alan had died of multiple organ failure, septicaemia and burns. The coroner's verdict was accidental death.
Mrs. Elfes, the Chelmsford registrar, issued a death certificate on 14 October 1999; I have a copy before me. She posted it to Corrina Smith with a covering letter. The letter states: "I have today"--14 October 1999--
Corrina Smith attends Thanet college. As she is under 45, she does not qualify for a widow's pension, so she claimed a £1,000 widow's payment. That would have
been of some modest help to her. In a pro forma note issued by the Benefits Agency at Nutwood house in Canterbury on 4 November 1999, she was told that
Corrina Smith appealed against that decision and appeared before a tribunal. She was told again:
Corrina Smith came to see me, her Member of Parliament, at my constituency advice surgery in Birchington on Friday 26 November 1999. All the facts of the case were made known by me to the chief executive of the Appeals Service in a letter dated 29 November. In that letter, I said:
On 23 February, the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, the hon. Member for City of York (Mr. Bayley), responded to my letters to the Secretary of State, saying:
The Under-Secretary repeated the assertion:
Given that a death certificate and the accompanying letter of advice were not sent to Mrs. Smith until after the inquest, is this young widow supposed to have second sight? Her husband had died a horrific death under the most appalling circumstances and the man who signed that letter dares to say that
The Department of Social Security's "Decision Makers Guide"--which is not public reading--refers to a situation in which there has been a delay in the issue of a death certificate, but says only:
In his same letter, the Under-Secretary suggests:
On 29 February, I wrote to the Under-Secretary suggesting that he examined the rules and the legislation in the light of this case. That letter was passed to the Appeals Service. I next wrote personally to the Secretary of State, on 10 March this year. In that letter I said:
I did, however, eventually receive another letter dated 8 March, from another Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Wallasey, who also understands
The Minister pulled out of her red box more jargon about
The chief executive of the Appeals Service, Neil Ward, can only write on 20 March:
On 28 March, threatened with referral to the European Court of Human Rights and this Adjournment debate, the Under-Secretary finally replied to my letter to the Secretary of State. All she could offer was the observation:
registered the death of Alan Keith Smith. Please find enclosed Certificate of Registration of Death which should be completed on the reverse side and returned to the Department of Social Security, the leaflets enclosed may be of some assistance to you.
That was the first official document received by Corrina Smith since her husband's death.
because more than three months had elapsed since the death of her husband
she would receive no money.
Corrina Smith is not entitled to a Widow's Payment. This is because the claim was made on 26th October 1999 in respect of a death which occurred on 18th June 1999 and there is no entitlement to a widow's payment in respect of a death occurring more than 3 months before the date of the claim.
Let us be clear about the matter. Corrina Smith received from the Essex registrar a notification of death and a death certificate dated 14 October 1999. Notwithstanding the trauma of the coroner's inquest and the distress that she had suffered, her claim was lodged within a fortnight of the receipt of those documents.
The refusal of Widow's payment is, frankly, adding appalling insult to injury. I am quite astonished that under such circumstances the claim should have been rejected at all and would urge that this be processed as a matter of urgency. While writing I have to say that I find the form sent to her by the Department of Social Security about as insensitive as any Government Document that I have ever seen. Because of my strength of feeling on this subject I am copying this letter to the Secretary of State.
That copy was sent to the Secretary of State on the same day.
On 4th August 1997 Social Security Regulations were introduced that only allow backdating of claims to a maximum of 3 months.
I should here point out that those regulations were laid under the previous Administration, following consultation with the Social Security Advisory Committee and were, as the Under-Secretary acknowledged, designed to
reduce the complexity of the system.
It is abundantly clear that they have also had unintended consequences.
As the claim was made outside the three month limit a WP could not be paid.
He added that he
could appreciate that the time immediately after the death of a spouse will be traumatic and claiming may not be the main priority . . . However, the Benefits Agency does all that it can through its information providing services to ensure that people are aware of the benefits to which they are entitled.
This Minister was
sorry that you were unhappy with the standard notification of the decision advising that the Widows Payment is not payable.
Unhappy! That is one of the most callous, uncaring and thoughtless documents that it has been my misfortune to witness in 16 years in the House of Commons.
claiming benefit may not be a main priority.
Without the necessary documentation and information, it was not even possible for her to claim.
If there has been a delay in the issue of a statutory certificate, for example if inquest proceedings are adjourned, but there is clear evidence of death such as press notices, police statements etc., and no doubt as to identity, the Secretary of State may accept such evidence.
How is a member of the general public supposed to gain access, at a time of distress or trauma, to this arcane information?
Where a post mortem is required and there is a delay in post mortem procedures an individual can be given an interim death certificate immediately by the Coroner's Office. This would omit the cause of death but be sufficient for benefit purposes.
An individual can be given an interim death certificate, but there is no requirement to do so. Mrs. Smith assures me that she was handed no such document and I now understand that, in any event, where such a document is provided, no guidance note or letter of the kind offered by the registrar accompanies the document.
The mere fact that a Coroner's inquest is necessary would suggest that circumstances are less than normal. A Death Certificate or even a notification of death is not issued until a later date . . . If regulations are to be changed at all then they should, most surely, set the clock running from the point at which notification of death is issued, rather than the actual date of death, as it is only at this point that the bereaved is given the letter of instruction to complete the document and send it to the nearest Social Security Office . . .
That letter to the Secretary of State did not receive a response of any kind until this week.
I would urge you both to have this case specifically reconsidered and also to reconsider the manner in which the regulations apply so that others may not find themselves in a similar position . . .
that the time immediately after the death of a spouse will be traumatic and claiming benefit may not be a main priority . . .
which would seem to indicate only that both Ministers are worked by the same civil servants pulling the same strings and using the same word processors.
seeking to heighten people's awareness of rights . . .
I am told:
Steps have already been taken to encourage widows to make claims within the time limits . . .
and that the
Benefits Agency have recently amended the form which is issued on registration of death to make it clear that it must be sent to them quickly to avoid loss of benefit . . .
That takes us back to precisely where we started because Corrina Smith was not sent
the form which is issued on registration of death . . .
until the three-month limit imposed by the Government had expired.
The tribunal has no discretion in matters such as these and the Chairman has no alternative but to apply the law . . .
For the record, this is not law at all; it is regulation imposed by the Secretary of State.
An appellant who remains dissatisfied with the tribunal has the right to apply for leave to appeal to a Social Security Commissioner . . . but only on a point of law . . .
I am left with the inevitable conclusion that those charged with the political administration of the Department that is supposed most to provide for some of the most vulnerable people in this country simply do not care. From the Secretary of State to his junior Ministers, this case has received nothing but platitudes and bureaucratic self-justification.
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