Chamber and committees

Do you want to come in and reflect on that, Claire? That would be welcome.

That is all very helpful. We move to our next line of questioning, and I bring in Katy Clark.

Does anybody else want to come in on that?

Thank you. That is all very clear. I apologise for demoting one of our witnesses and misnaming the organisation of another witness. We are off to a champion start. Your answers to questions have been far superior to my introductions. I will move on with my questioning.

We have heard concerns about clients feeling a bit pressured into withdrawing a request for redetermination or appeal. Does the policy memorandum offer sufficient reassurance on that point? Again, I default to looking first for an answer from the people who are in the room.

Your ask about a cooling-off period is very clear. Irrespective of whether such behaviour is on the part of the DWP or any other organisation, that seems highly inappropriate and unprofessional. Are those reports anecdotal, or is such practice widespread? It is wrong either way.

I thank all four of our witnesses for a very informative and helpful evidence session. Next week, we will continue to take evidence on the bill, with a panel focusing on the concerns of carers of potentially vulnerable clients and the concerns of clients who have a carer.

That concludes our public business, and we now move into private session.

This might be an appropriate point to say something that I normally say at the end of the meeting. If there is other evidence that you want to draw to our attention, please do so. The process is on-going, so this is not your one opportunity to put on the record what you believe is important. I thank Kirstie Henderson and Craig Smith for that offer. To all the witnesses, I say that this is an iterative process and that, if you want to draw any other information to our attention, please do that.

That is very brief for you, Mr Mason, on audit purposes, but there we are. We will move on.

I was wrong, Marie: not everyone had something to say in response to your question.

The committee has no further questions, but I invite the members of the panel to put on record anything that the lines of questioning have not touched on, or to make a final comment. I will start with the witnesses joining us online. Allan Faulds, is there anything that you want to add before we close this evidence session?

That may be a theme. Claire Andrews?