Exportable Benefits

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind comments and his support: he, in common with a number of Members on both sides of the House, is seeking justice for that group of people. As I said in the summer Adjournment debate—I will put it on the record again because it is relevant—setting aside the matter of law, which we will come to in a moment, there is an impression abroad that the people we are talking about are rich, have gone to the sun, saying, "The hell with the United Kingdom", and live in splendid retirement with big yachts and lots of drink, and that they do not need any benefits. My hon. Friend has made the point that a huge number of those people have gone south for the benefit of their health, because they have respiratory or other conditions, and are eking out an existence. The other important point, to which I will return, is that they have been UK citizens and taxpayers, and many still are. The chap I mentioned a moment ago who wrote to Revenue and Customs lived—his family and all their friends still live—in the parliamentary constituency of Chatham and Aylesford. Some 50 Members of Parliament from all parties have a constituency interest in this subject, and I hope and believe that more of them will join us later this morning. Many of the claimants have appealed against the DWP ruling. That is why they have sought the support of their UK Members of Parliament. I believe that the appeal process has been deliberately spun out by the Department. On 3 December 2009, my constituent, John Hamilton, noted that the Directgov website had been revised to read:""The Department for Work and Pensions…has selected a small number of these appeals…(known as lead cases). These have been sent for tribunal hearings. The DWP has requested that similar cases are suspended until the tribunal has made a decision.""It is expected that the tribunal will not hear these cases until January 2010 at the earliest."" That is despite the fact that on 20 November 2009, tribunal Judge Jeremy Bennett ruled:""The Tribunal Service at Sutton shall establish the availability of the parties and their representatives before listing, subject to the proviso that the hearing must take place in January 2010 unless directed otherwise by a Judge hearing this case."" That was translated by Daniel Vickery, Social Security and Child Support Appeals tribunals team leader at Sutton into the following request:""Could you please provide me with your availability for January and February."" My constituent, John Hamilton, has now been told to look at dates at the beginning of March, so Judge Bennett's ruling is effectively being pushed into the long grass. In the meantime, what of the grounds for the Government's continued defiance of the ECJ ruling—the so-called past presence test, requiring a claimant to have lived in the United Kingdom for 26 of the previous 52 weeks to be eligible to claim? In response to one of my earlier parliamentary questions back in June, the Minister asserted:""The Department is already complying with the European Court of Justice ruling on the payment of exportable disability benefits."—[Official Report, 22 June 2009; Vol. 494, c. 680W.]" We now know that statement to have been ill-advised. The European Commission website states:""The European Commission has decided to take legal action against the United Kingdom for not paying certain benefits"—" exportable DLA, attendance allowance and carer's allowance—""to EU citizens residing abroad."" Abroad in this case means within the European Union or Switzerland. On 9 October, the Commission addressed a letter of formal notice to the UK authorities. The British Government had two months to respond. That is the first stage of what is called the infringement procedure. The British Government did reply within two months—just. However, in response to my question asking for sight of that response, the Minister for Pensions and the Ageing Society said:""Correspondence between the European Commission and the member states…on such cases is generally regarded…as confidential".—[Official Report, 8 December 2009; Vol. 502, c. 249W.]" I should like to know why. The infringement proceedings are in the public domain; why is the Government's response not in the public domain? The clue might be found in the tardy answer, sent on 17 December, from the Prime Minister in response to my oral question to him on 11 November. It took the man in No. 10 more than a month to be able to tell me:""We have carefully considered the application of the 26 out of 52 weeks 'past presence' requirement and believe it to be compatible with European Community law."" So I guess that is what we said in reply to the Commission. Perhaps it is a pity that instead of relying on his hapless junior Minister for advice, the Prime Minister did not read the Commission website for himself. It states:""British authorities require the claimant to have spent 26 of the previous 52 weeks in the UK...This requirement goes against the European rules coordinating social security benefits and justifies the Commission's decision to start an infringement procedure"." Nothing could be clearer. The Government of the United Kingdom are coldly and deliberately acting outside European law. That fact is confirmed by Jackie Morin, a member of the Commission's staff, in a letter to my constituent John Hamilton dated 3 December 2009. Quite simply, the Government are in breach of the law and they are disingenuously using weasel words and artifice to try to deny to sick, elderly UK citizens who have served this country—many of them in the armed forces—and who have paid their dues throughout their working lives the money owing to them. The situation gets worse. Overnight, I received an e-mail on the matter. Unfortunately, I have not been able to go back to the person who sent it to me to secure consent to name them, so I shall have to hand it to Hansard on the understanding that for the moment their anonymity is protected. The e-mail states:""In June last year (2009) I received a letter from the DWP Debt Collection for what they describe as an overpayment of £3,800 for Carers Allowance…I explained…that I had not left the UK permanently in August 2004"—" the date to which the attempted reclaim related—""had sold our property then, rented afterwards, and the pensions department were informed of change of address, and"" that I""had taken permanent residence in France at the beginning of March 2006. The lady I spoke to said she would call me back the following week, but did not…I received no phone call. I have received no correspondence until today."" That was 11 January. The e-mail continued:""My allowance was stopped at that time"—" March 2006—""and my husband, who is 72 years old and had suffered a massive heart attack (leaving his heart working at 70 per cent.), has diabetes, diverticular disease, asthma, arthritis and…mobility problems as a result…was awarded Attendance Allowance for life in 2003. I had to leave my full time job to become a £50 a week full time carer. Today I received a letter stating if I do not repay this amount"—" £3,800—""by the 19th of this month legal action will commence…we do not have any money, the house we live in belongs to our daughter"" and we""have no savings. We receive £160 per week which includes an allowance for me as a 'wife', and our daughter and son in law help us out financially. We do not even own a car. There is no way we can afford to repay…money, which I believe I do not owe anyway…as we are waiting for reinstatement of our benefits, which we have pursued since August 2006"."