Universal Credit Roll-out

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Although it is obvious that the issues with universal credit could be addressed swiftly—for example, by reducing the waiting time for first payments; by providing emergency advances, but not as loans; and by equalising the in-work support disparity between the current system and universal credit—I fear that the problems with the policy run much deeper. In demanding that the Government address these select issues, we risk presenting them merely as bugs, but they are not bugs; they are built into the system.

Universal credit was designed to offer a distinctly Conservative solution to a distinctly Conservative analysis of Britain today. It will teach a claimant how to make the right spending decisions by forcing them into rent arrears. It will help someone to resolve the conflicts in their relationship by depositing the sum total of their benefits into their partner’s bank account. It will put a whole month’s rent, previously paid directly to the landlord, into the pocket of a parent who is struggling with debt and dependency.

When we hear from the frontline about the problems with universal credit—long payment delays, rent arrears, domestic abuse victims trapped, and the arbitrary sanction of payments—we must understand that they are no accident; they are about ideology. They are not bugs; they are features. That is why we need to pause and to fix the system of universal credit. We argue not with the principle of it, but with its entire implementation, which is broken