Universal Credit

Baroness Sherlock Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

The working allowances in universal credit are much greater than under the legacy system, so there is a freeze that will have a small effect. Nevertheless, the poverty impacts are to take 300,000 children out of poverty.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to return to the question of arrears raised by my noble friend Lady Hollis. Not only are people paid universal credit once a month in arrears but that is compounded by the debts they are getting into by having to pay back some of their council tax and crucially by the bedroom tax. Has the Minister read the report of the fact that Iain Duncan Smith went to court to defend his department’s right to levy the bedroom tax on a council home whose spare room was in fact a panic room which a charity had paid to secure to protect a woman who had suffered rape, assault, stalking and death threats from her violent ex-partner? As the newspapers reported clearly, she could lose £11.65 a week or move to a home with no secure space. How can the Minister justify this?

[Lord Freud]

We have a system with the spare room subsidy where there is support at a local level through discretionary housing payment, and this is exactly the kind of case where you would expect to see that payment made.