Concentrix

Debate between Sammy Wilson and Mhairi Black

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mhairi Black]

I agree entirely. That is something I will touch on later.

[Sammy Wilson]

Does the hon. Lady also accept that, although 1.5 million cases were referred to Concentrix, it whittled them down to less than a fifth of the cases sent by HMRC? Therefore, had it been in HMRC’s control, a lot more people might have been affected than were actually affected.

[Mhairi Black]

Another interesting point is that, when the Work and Pensions Committee looked into the matter, we discovered that Concentrix had subcontractors —three, I believe—but it was not allowed to go into any detail about who they were or what their methods were. I hope that, at some point, the Government will answer those questions.

Like the constituents of many other Members here, all the constituents I dealt with did not discover that their tax credits had been stopped until they went to collect them from the bank and discovered that there was nothing. When I started to look into the matter, I realised that this is truly the most ridiculous level of incompetence that I have ever heard of. People were accused of being in relationships with dead tenants 70 years their senior. They were accused of being in relationships with some of their own children. In my constituency, Scottish flat numbers seemed to be a major issue for Concentrix because it could not get its head around the fact that flat 1/1 and 1/2 were across the landing from each other and were not the same house.

The best one, though, has to be the case of RS McColl. To provide a bit of perspective, RS McColl is a corner shop that is as common in Scotland as WH Smith is in England, yet people were being accused of living with this mysterious Mr McColl because their flat was above an RS McColl shop. At no point did anyone in Concentrix or HMRC think, “Wait a minute. This Casanova is getting about a bit.” This would be funny—until we remember that we are talking about people’s livelihoods and their survival.

As a member of the Work and Pensions Committee, I took part in the evidence session where we heard from claimants who had had their tax credits stopped. This is where we have to remember the human costs. We first heard from a woman called Marie, a mother of two who went six weeks with no support. She did not discover that her benefits had been stopped until she went to the bank. She said that she genuinely could not fill her cupboards with any food and she spoke of the shame of having to take her kids to a food bank and having to rely on the charity of others to be able to eat.

A woman called Sarah had no hand and suffered chronic pain every day of her life. She had two young kids, who were both under the age of five. She spent a combined total of 19 hours on the phone waiting for someone from Concentrix to answer. When she finally did get through to someone, the person at the other end of the phone just kept saying, “I don’t know; sorry about that. You need to phone back and try to get someone else.” She was asked to write a letter. She explained she could not write due to her disability, only to be told, “Well, sorry, you’ll just need to find someone else to write it”. At that point, that woman broke down in tears in front of the Committee. She was overwhelmed with emotion when she spoke about the fact that she had to look at her kids knowing that she did not know where the next meal was coming from.