Universal Credit

Debate between Nigel Mills and Kate Green

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills]

Yes, that is recommended in the report and I think the Government promised that by 2014 there will be a separate app for universal credit. Currently, 92% of jobs advertised require some level of IT skills, so encouraging people to become more confident and use computers to claim their benefits is a move in the right direction. I agree that we must give the right support to those who cannot do that or have not done it previously, and I hope the Minister will explain to the House how that will be done.

The Government’s response to the report mentions computer terminals in jobcentres. I am not sure whether I have yet seen that on the ground and how we will get enough computers in jobcentres for people who need to claim, or how people will deal with the regular monitoring of their benefits. Universal credit is not a once-only application in which a person can sit with someone who does the form for them and that is it. The entire system relies on updating that will require regular IT access, not just a one-off.

[Kate Green]

The hon. Gentleman may not know the answer, but does he have any idea how long it will take to make a claim on average, particularly with regard to the point made by the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) about filling in the form on the phone? If it will take more than half a minute or so, it is unlikely that people will be able to cope with that on the phone, and they may struggle to do it online at all.

[Nigel Mills]

It would be very optimistic to assume that the application form will take half a minute. I have not seen the form, but I have not seen any Government form that takes half a minute for a long time—[Interruption.] Does the Minister wish to answer the question?

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Nigel Mills and Kate Green

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Mills]

I certainly did say to my constituents that we would be a fair Government. I support fair tax measures. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) quoted the IFS saying the granny tax was a

“a relatively modest tax increase on a group hitherto well sheltered from tax and benefit changes.”

While Opposition Members may not wish to believe the Government’s pronouncements, or even those of the Office for Budget Responsibility or the Office of Tax Simplification, perhaps they will believe those of the IFS.

We are not in a happy situation. I do not think any of us are happy about the types of Budget we are going to need to have throughout this Parliament and even perhaps most of the next one. There will have to be a series of measures on both taxation and spending that are going to hurt large parts of the population, while we try to tackle the deficit, which still amounted to £126 billion last year.

[Kate Green]

Something interesting and important was said a few moments ago: it is important that we design a system that encourages people to save and to look after themselves to a degree in retirement, and which rewards them for doing so. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the problems with the granny tax is that people who have been able to make modest savings into small pension pots for their retirement, and who therefore perhaps now have an income of £12,000 or £13,000 a year, are seeing the effort they made to save completely wiped away? Is that not an injustice that is of particular concern if the Government want to incentivise saving for retirement?

[Nigel Mills]

I accept that that is an issue in respect of the granny tax proposal, but I suspect that the £5 billion tax raid which has been referred to and a whole series of other measures that have discouraged saving will have far more serious impacts. I am sure the hon. Lady would join me in welcoming the Government’s proposal to introduce the flat-rate individual state pension of, I think, £140 per individual, as that will help address the problem she mentioned.