Benefits: Eligibility

Lord Londesborough Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cryer (Lab)]

I appreciate everything that the noble Baroness said. I was a Member of the other place when universal credit was introduced, which is some years ago now, and the process was very complicated. I am not making a party-political point—although I could—but the process was extremely complicated, every time a new cohort was moved on to UC. However, the particular issue she raised is about claimants on ESA only or ESA with housing benefit, who started receiving migration notices from September last year. This gave them a reasonable amount of notice that they would be moving to UC, the aim of which was to give individual assistance to those experiencing difficulties in the move to UC by the end of December 2025. The window is fairly wide; it gives a lot of opportunities to iron out any difficulties. In addition, the department provides what is now called the enhanced support journey—ESJ—for claimants moving to UC from ESA. That supports the more vulnerable claimants to make the transition to universal credit.

[Lord Londesborough (CB)]

My Lords, the Government’s White Paper, Get Britain Working, which I welcome, has the ambitious aim of moving almost 2 million people from benefits into employment. However, there are huge issues around the data regarding the 2.8 million people of working age currently on incapacity or disability benefits. Can the Minister confirm that, of the fit notes issued by doctors, 70% do not record an individual’s diagnosis, meaning that we do not know the primary health conditions for the vast majority of these claimants?

[Lord Cryer (Lab)]

I am grateful for the question, but I do not recognise the figure of 70%. The noble Viscount is accurate in saying that the ambition is to move 2 million people into work. The traditional view, which still holds credibility, is that being in work is not just the best way out of poverty but that people in work are generally much healthier than people who are not. The problem is that, under the previous Government, we saw a situation develop where roughly 60% of households in poverty have at least one person in work. That had never been the case before in British history. That itself provides all sorts of complexities and problems, which we are trying to deal with, partly through the White Paper, which he mentioned, but also through the Green Paper, which introduces the consultation in the spring.