Universal Credit (Transitional Provisions) (Claimants previously entitled to a severe disability premium) Amendment Regulations 2021

Baroness Altmann Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. This is a most difficult issue and I have every sympathy with my noble friend the Minister and the Government in their efforts to support those who have been affected by the pandemic and urgently need help with living.

I recognise that there are calls for the £20 uplift to be extended to all legacy benefits. However, my suggestion to the Government is that, unless there is the appetite and the funding to extend the £20 to everybody, it seems unwise to commit to a further 12 months of the uplift, as has been called for, given that we are hopeful—I certainly am—that the impact of the pandemic will be behind us to a large degree in 12 months, and we will be into a recovery within the next few months. I would certainly not support any calls for a major one-off lump sum payment to offset the loss of the £20 uplift. I support the Government’s move to add £20 to the existing benefit as a temporary measure in light of the pandemic and its dreadful impacts.

However, I also believe that, in the context of this particular discussion on the severe disability premium and the loss of the EDP as well, it would be worth the Government considering whether a self-care element might be added, as recommended by the Economic Affairs Committee. Also, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, suggested, can my noble friend the Minister update the House on what is happening with managed migration? To what extent are we seeing success in the Government’s moves to help people back into work and ensure retraining —after all, this is the fundamental rationale for universal credit and the reorganisation of the benefits system? Those who are able to work and are helping people to get back into work are the ones we are trying most to assist in our social security system.

To what extent are we moving away from the extraordinarily complicated layers? Indeed, today’s debate and all the issues we are discussing highlight the extraordinary complexity of the regime, with a bit of benefit for this and a bit of benefit for that and one level of disability and another level of disability. The claimants themselves need financial advice to figure out what benefit they are better off on and what benefit they should be claiming. The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, is correct to identify this as a problem, but I hope that we can proceed with the aim of simplifying the benefits system through moving to one payment, with perhaps one or two additions, rather than one or two hundred additions, which can be the case over the entire benefits system.

I am unable to support the regret Motion moved by the noble Baroness. As I have said, I welcome the Government’s efforts—and, I know, those of my noble friend the Minister and the department—to really assist those who are struggling through the pandemic.