DWP Policies and Low-income Households

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I feel as if we are going round in circles and not getting anywhere with this Government. We are not getting the answers that the people of Glasgow deserve when it comes to the jobcentre closures. My colleagues and I have asked for answers, tabling a whole range of parliamentary questions, but what we have found out is that this Government know nothing.

The Government cannot tell us how long the bus journey will take, because they have never done it. There is no record of any Government Minister ever having visited Bridgeton jobcentre. The Government do not know how many employment and support allowance claimants there are, and they do not know the number of income support claimants, because they cannot provide the data. They have said that there are 253 universal credit claimants, but that appears to be the depth of their knowledge on this issue.

The Government cannot tell us what the catchment area is for the jobcentres in Glasgow, which is a crucial point. It is not the distance between two jobcentres that counts; it is the distance between where somebody lives and how they actually get to Shettleston. Lots of people will find that incredibly difficult. If they are in Bridgeton, it means two buses, but if they are in other parts, the journey will be even further and the buses will be even more infrequent. This will impact on people’s ability to get to the jobcentre and it will impact on sanctions. Can the Minister tell me whether the time that people have to travel will be taken into account in the claimant commitment, or will it not count as time when they are seeking jobs?

I have campaigned on another issue since it was announced in the summer Budget of 2015. The Government do not know how the two-child policy, which will come into force for universal credit claimants in April, will work. They expect vulnerable women to confess to DWP employees that their third child has been the result of rape, but they do not know how it will work. The consultation on this matter closed on 27 November, but from the DWP there has been not a peep since. We do not know how it will work. Parliamentary questions that I have lodged indicate that they have not even spoken to the trade unions about this issue and how their members will be asked to implement a very sensitive, difficult, personal and traumatic policy that will impact on the dignity of women’s lives. The Government do not know how that will work.

The Government do not know the impact of their policies, because they refuse to admit the truth. They refuse to admit that benefit delays are causing people to go hungry, and causing people to go to food banks. On Friday, I visited the fuel bank at the Glasgow SE—South East—foodbank. People do not even have fuel. They do not have electricity in their houses, because they have no money as a result of those benefit delays, but the Government will not admit that that is the truth of the situation. They are also in denial if they think that the national living wage is for everyone: it is not for those aged under 25. Under-25s have the same outgoings as everyone else, but they are not entitled to the same wage. It is disgraceful.

This is not a Government who work for everyone, and they should listen to the people who are actually affected.