Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

It is because universal credit needs to be funded properly that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has, since 2016, put another £10 billion into different areas of it, to ensure that it does what it sets out to do, which is support the most vulnerable and help others into work.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

The UK Government have removed the higher rates in universal credit for lone parents under 25. In answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray), the Minister for Employment had the audacity to claim that under-25s have lower living costs, and that

“this reflects the lower wages that younger workers typically receive”

as a result of state-sanctioned age discrimination, including through this Government. Will the Secretary of State tell me in what way it costs a 24-year-old less to be a single parent than it costs a 26-year-old?

[Amber Rudd]

I point out to the hon. Lady that we have made available more childcare that is both better and lower-cost. A person can now have 85% of their childcare costs paid under universal credit. We have also made sure, as I said in a recent announcement, that work coaches have the wherewithal, through the flexible support grant, to give that money to people who need it early on in the process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amber Rudd]

Of course. My hon. Friend is right. I will take a careful look at that issue to ensure that is the case. We care enormously about making sure there is correct access for disabled people. If I may say so, nobody cared more than my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), who did such great work for everybody with disabilities and who will be sorely missed in the Department.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

My SNP colleagues and I have been seeing a growing number of constituents who are EU and European economic area nationals and who were previously entitled to social security payments but who are now seeing their universal credit claims rejected because they have failed the habitual residence test. Can the Minister tell me categorically whether DWP guidance has been issued or changed on this matter, and whether this is just an extension of the hostile environment?

[The Minister for Employment (Alok Sharma)]

The hon. Lady may have written to me about this previously, but let me just make it clear that the right of EEA nationals under freedom of movement is not an unqualified one. EEA nationals who stay in the UK beyond the initial three months must be exercising treaty rights, and this means they must be working, studying, self-employed or self-sufficient.