Skip to main content

Proceeding contribution from Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru) in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 30 June 2010. It occurred during Queen's speech debate on Legislative Programme and Budget Statement (Wales).


Legislative Programme and Budget Statement (Wales)

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady and I may well take up that offer. One of our problems is with the forms, which are not user-friendly—people filling them in do not have the room to elaborate on their condition. It is a tick-box system, which is clearly inappropriate, and I am sorry to say that many of the medical examiners are compromised—they pick up the £135 as a little extra pin money for going through the process with people, and it is over in half an hour. I mentioned the issue on the Floor of the House, and I was waiting for a barrage of letters from GPs, but had only two phone calls, one from Swansea and one from my own constituency, saying, ““We agree with what you say, it is a flawed system.”” I am concerned because some whispers going around are that the medic will be the final arbiter. That can never be right. I hope that common sense prevails and that we adopt a different set of criteria to determine whether people are worthy of DLA. As I said earlier, I would not undertake any cases that I knew to be false, because that is a waste of everyone’s time and effort, but it remains one of the ironies of our society that we seem to spend more time on perceived benefits cheats than we do on cracking down on tax evasion and avoidance.


Secondary information

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
WGC c46 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons Grand Committees
Subjects
Legislation Economic policy Public expenditure Wales Budget June 2010
Link
View this Proceeding contribution on www.publications.parliament.uk