Universal Credit

Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

As I said, I am looking at this area. It is not as simple as some of the figures might make you think. I, too, read the IFS research with great interest. Inequality among children has fallen very steeply since the mid-1990s, most of it post the recession. Whenever the IFS says anything nice, I really appreciate it. It said that the important reason was a remarkable fall in the share of children in workless households. Indeed, we have half a million fewer since 2010.

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope (LD)]

Will the Minister confirm that, if my history is right, he is the single surviving Minister since 2010 holding down the same office in government, promoting the interests of universal credit? Is this because the subject area is so complicated, or maybe because he is unpaid? Do any of the 11 pilots currently being mounted by the department address the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, which is important? Packages of support and advance payments are available, but this does not seem to be communicated to the people who need them most. I hope that the Minister will stay in his position for some time yet.

[Lord Freud]

I thank the noble Lord. His sums on this are right, although, along with him, I am not sure whether that is a compliment or the opposite. With the figures that we are looking at, we are disentangling legacy systems—which are pretty odd in themselves—from the new system. One fact about the very big ALMO figures is that ALMOs want rent a week in advance, so it is not surprising that a lot of people are in arrears when you compare them with housing associations, which take the rent four weeks in arrears. That is the kind of thing that I have to disentangle.