My Lords, the purpose of these amendments is to ensure that the reconsiderations and appeals arising from decisions relating to sanctions that are dealt with by the Bill are considered in a timely and efficient manner, and that appeals take into consideration the delay between the failure to participate and the issuing of the sanction.
I am happy to give a commitment to the House that DWP will process the stockpiled cases, and any reconsiderations and appeals that follow, in a timely manner. It is not in the department’s interest to procrastinate on these cases any longer than necessary. I also note that the department is already required by Article 6 of the ECHR to deal with social security disputes in a reasonable time, while the First-tier and Upper Tribunals are also bound to deal with appeals in a fair and efficient manner. When the Bill receives Royal Assent, I assure noble Lords that processing the stockpiled cases, including any appeals and reconsiderations, will be given a high priority. Purely from a business perspective, DWP will want to unwind these cases and any follow-up activity as quickly as possible so that it can utilise its resource in dealing with more current claims.
The associated amendment seeks to ensure that when the First-tier Tribunals and the Upper Tribunals are determining an appeal against a sanction decision issued in reliance on the provisions in the Bill, they have regard to the circumstances around the Reilly/Wilson case, particularly any delay resulting from the case. I understand, given the noble Lord’s statement at Second Reading, that he is concerned that, because there may have been longer than usual between the failure to participate and the issuing of a sanction, the claimant will be unable either to remember or to provide evidence of any good cause they had for the failure.
I will spend a moment describing the process that happens between a claimant failing to participate and the issuing of a sanction. When a claimant gets referred to a DWP decision-maker for a sanction decision, a letter is sent asking them to provide evidence of good cause. The letter says:
“Will you please contact me before”—
and then a date is inserted—
“to explain why you did not undertake this activity. You should note that unless you provide a good reason for not undertaking this activity, your benefit may be affected”.
So the stockpiled cases would, at the time of the failure, already have been asked once to provide good cause. The fact that we did not deal with these cases immediately will not have prevented these claimants from providing evidence of good cause at the time of the failure. The decision-makers will have all this evidence on the stockpiled cases already, so the risk that they have been unfairly treated is significantly minimised.
I know that not all claimants will have provided their evidence of good cause the first time they were asked for it, although this is of course entirely their fault. However, I reassure noble Lords that in these cases, where a claimant is attempting to argue that they had a good reason for a failure that occurred many months ago, decision-makers and First-tier Tribunals will make an objective decision based on the evidence before them. They would of course take into consideration any claimant’s argument that they had good cause, but that they cannot provide evidence because of the length of time since the failure. It would be up to those hearing the appeals to judge on a case-by-case basis whether they thought this argument was strong enough.
I also note that this amendment only seeks to ensure that the appeal, and neither the decision to issue the sanction nor the reconsideration, takes into account any time delay caused by the Reilly/Wilson case. I assume that this was not the intention of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. There is this oversight, and claimants in the stockpile would at the time have been asked for evidence of good cause. The tribunal is also already bound to have regard to all relevant matters.
Picking up the issues raised by the noble Lord and the noble Baroness on national insurance credits, prior to the changes to the jobseeker’s allowance sanctions regime from 22 October last year, national insurance credits were paid during the period of the sanction. National insurance credits are not paid when the benefit is sanctioned on or after 22 October. The Bill does not change these arrangements. The payment or not of national insurance credits with respect to stockpiled sanction decisions will therefore depend—
11.15 pm