Louise Upston refuses to apologise after benefits wrongly suspended in second MSD error

Social Development Minister Louise Upston is refusing to apologise after some people's benefits were wrongly suspended.Upston says she's awaiting the outcome of a review into the matter, and she's already said sorry for another problem caused by the same law change.The benefit payments were incorrectly stopped following a law change that was rushed through Parliament last year.The new law requires some beneficiaries to re-confirm their circumstances at least once every 52 weeks, to check whether they are still eligible.The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) said processing delays caused by a high volume of people confirming their circumstances meant some of their paperwork was not checked in time, so their benefit payments stopped.It could not say how many people had been affected, but confirmed they had all been paid back.Prime Minister Christopher Luxon apologised on Friday, a week after he and Upston said sorry for another related but separate problem which saw thousands of pensioners miss out on their Winter Energy Payment.Upston on Tuesday was asked whether she would also apologise for the wrongly suspended benefit payments."I've already done that," she said.It was put to Upston that she had apologised for the first problem, but not the second."As I said, I've got a report that I'm expecting on the 10th of September [from MSD]."When I have all the detail, I promise you, I will come back to you with exactly the extent of who was affected, how and why, and what the actions are."Upston said she was frustrated by the problems."Clearly, with the Winter Energy Payment and others, there were people who didn't receive payments that should of, and that is challenging for those individuals."Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Social Development Minister Louise Upston apologised on Friday for another related but separate problem.Kim Baker Wilson / RNZQuestions remain over comments in the HouseMSD said it informed Upston of both problems on 13 August.On 18 August, Upston was asked in Parliament whether beneficiaries had missed payments due to processing delays.She said "no", but after multiple further questions, said "possibly".RNZ asked Upston to clarify her comments.She said she was informed of the Winter Energy Payment problem on Thursday [13 August] and it was resolved by Saturday morning."There are other challenges related to delays in processing, and so by the 10th of September, I will have a report that goes into any issue that has been identified that relates to the [Confirm] Your Circumstances, and that's what I'm waiting on information for."Upston was also asked whether she had misled Parliament, but she did not respond.Labour urges Upston to take responsibilityLabour's social development spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime said Upston should correct the record in the House, given her first answer said the problem had not occurred.Prime said Upston was throwing officials under the bus when the problem was caused by "rushed lawmaking".It did not wash that MSD and the Minister could not say how many beneficiaries were affected by the second problem, but could say how many missed out on the Winter Energy Payment, said Prime."If they have been able to confirm that they have repaid all of that money to those people who have missed out on their payments due to their errors, then they know how many people there are," she said.MSD said it could not say how many people were affected because that information was held in individual client files.