Rebecca Long Bailey

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison. It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), who—as I know from working with him on other campaigns—is quite the social justice warrior, contrary to popular belief. I fully align myself with the comments he has made. I also welcome the new Minister to his position. We have high hopes for him in this place. When the ombudsman finally confirmed last year that the Department for Work and Pensions was guilty of maladministration, that these woman had suffered injustice and that they were entitled to compensation, we thought that was it—case closed; the next step would be what a redress mechanism would look like. Of course, many felt that the ombudsman’s report had not gone far enough, but we had the firm expectancy that the previous Government, and later this one, would at the very least act on the ombudsman’s recommendations, as would be the usual course of action. So when the Government finally issued their response, it was met with shock—shock that despite the clear findings of state-level injustice, these women were to be denied justice; shock that the ombudsman’s findings that too many people did not understand their own situations was ignored by the Government; and shock that while, on the one hand, maladministration was accepted, the recommendations of the ombudsman were rejected in full, without alternative proposals being set out or there being an opportunity to vote or debate the matter in Parliament, as the ombudsman intimated. There were also fears, as colleagues have stated, that a precedent might now be set on observing an ombudsman’s proposals. Usually, when a state-level injustice is found, a Government of the time will act on an ombudsman’s proposals or outline their own alternative ones.