Universal Credit Roll-out

Debate between Yasmin Qureshi and Sammy Wilson

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

I am surprised by the intensity of the controversy that has crept into this debate. The Labour party and the Scottish nationalists say they support the principles behind universal credit—that will have implications for how it operates—and the Liberal Democrats actually helped to introduce it, yet we have this degree of controversy. Of course, we have heard hard stories today, but let us be clear: the existing system produces hard stories. In my constituency, every time there is a “take up of benefit” campaign, we find that people are losing out on millions of pounds of benefits because the system is so complicated. A new system that helps to reduce that complexity is bound to help people in hardship.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I have been a constituency MP for the last seven years, and since the roll-out of universal credit, I have seen more people come to my advice surgeries with problems about getting their universal credit, and that includes people who are working.

[Sammy Wilson]

If we added up the number of people who come with tax credit and benefit problems and so on, I guarantee we would find the same level of dissatisfaction with the existing system.

I accept that there are problems with the new system, but we have to give some credit to the Government for listening. We have raised several issues in our discussions. There were the online difficulties, and we now have free telephone calls. There were difficulties with people not having money, and we now have greater access to early payments. There were difficulties with the learning processes, and the Secretary of State said twice today that he did not intend to rush the system so that he could test, learn and rectify.