Tory ministers have been accused of “holding 10,000 disabled people to ransom” by failing to pay out over a Universal Credit blunder.
MPs warned severely disabled claimants are still in the lurch, months after they were forced onto the new benefit.
In January, the government stopped people on Severe Disability Premiums from joining UC - amid fears many were being left £200 a month worse off.
Yet the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has still not coughed up back pay for more than 10,000 SDP claimants who'd already moved over.
Instead, the back pay is wrapped up in a wider law that still hasn't been passed because MPs are worried about it.
Today DWP minister Alok Sharma warned MPs that if they don’t back that wider law, “these people will not get the support we all believe is right ”.
Severely disabled people moved to Universal Credit 6 months after pledge to stop
But Labour MP Ruth George told him: “You’re basically holding 10,000 disabled people to ransom to try and force the house to agree to your regulations overall.”
She added: “It sounds very much like you’re trying to blackmail members of this House.”
Mr Sharma replied: "That is certainly not my intention, that is not the Secretary of State’s intention, that is not the department’s intention.
"I’m very sorry that you feel that is something we’re trying to do. That is not."
And he insisted: “This is not about trying to railroad something through.”
The row surrounds people who had received a benefit called Severe Disability Premium, but were forced onto UC when their personal circumstances changed.
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In June 2018, the High Court ruled the DWP unlawfully discriminated against two of these people who saw their payments cut.
Days before the judgement, the DWP agreed to stop future SDP claimants moving to Universal Credit.
Ministers also said they would give back payments to the 4,000 SDP claimants who had already moved.
But the block on SDP claimants moving to UC Severely disabled people moved to Universal Credit 6 months after pledge to stop
That means thousands of extra SDP claimants were moved to Universal Credit before the cut-off date.
Today, Employment Minister Alok Sharma said the number of former SDP claimants on UC is now "just over 10,000" - suggesting a rise of 6,000 in six months.
Those people will get both a lump sum to cover the cash they've missed out on, and ongoing monthly payments.
Mr Sharma told the Commons Work and Pensions Committee: "We recognise we had to do something."
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Yet the back payments are part of a much wider law that is being used to enact the next phase of Universal Credit.
And that law has been pushed back after the new phase - the "managed migration" of 3million existing benefit claimants - was pushed back to summer 2020.
Labour MP Ruth George warned some the 10,000 disabled people in the lurch had lost out by £200 a month - and said they "need some sort of financial protection."
She told Mr Sharma people were being forced to food banks, saying: “They have absolutely no end in sight as to when that protection might come through.
“It’s a really serious situation for those people.”
She added: "At the moment we’ve got landlords trying to cover their rent for them. They’re in imminent danger of eviction.
"This is because the Department made a mistake in the first place, reducing their SDP, and now they’re the ones suffering for it."
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She pleaded for a separate law that could compensate former SDP claimants in the meantime.
Yet Mr Sharma told MPs the way to solve the problem was to pass the overall law.
He said: “We are talking about people who are your constituents.
"You have very eloquently set out the case that you would like to see them get compensation as soon as possible.
"The only way they will get that is if we collectively in the House support the regulations."
He added: “If individually we don’t support these regulations in the House, these people will not get the support we all believe is right that they should be getting."
