The personal independence payment (PIP) regulations which the high court has quashed, thus allowing claimants with overwhelming psychological distress to potentially receive enhanced mobility payments (Report, 30 January), could have been stopped at a much earlier point in the House of Lords. The government lost an upper tribunal case, which it decided to appeal. But it didn’t wait for the appeal, instead deciding to change the law, immediately with a new regulation barring those with a severe mental health condition from entitlement to enhanced rate mobility.
In exceptional circumstances the Lords should not flinch from voting against regulations. This was surely such a case, where physical and mental health conditions were being treated very differently. Voting against regulations very occasionally is something the joint commission on the conventions of parliament, chaired by Lord Cunningham of Felling 12 years ago, endorsed, saying: “It is not incompatible with a revising chamber to reject a statutory instrument.” Labour peers abstained when Liberal Democrats tried to vote down the regulations, preferring to vote for their own toothless regret motion.
Wouldn’t a huge amount of misery – and money – have been saved if the Lords had simply not approved the regulations last March?
Celia Thomas
Liberal Democrat, House of Lords
• As a former judge, who for decades heard appeals from DWP decisions, it comes as absolutely no surprise to me that PIP decisions are to be reviewed at a cost of billions. Every time successive governments, especially this one, sought to change and simplify the law, they in fact made it more complex and difficult to apply. This was largely because of flawed ideology and kneejerk reactions by politicians, resulting in ill-conceived, badly drafted and hastily enacted secondary legislation, which escaped full parliamentary scrutiny. This was particularly unfortunate since the relevant legislation applied to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in society. This government should take full responsibility for the cost of the review.
Dr Stephen Pacey
North Muskham, Nottinghamshire
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