(5 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Different countries will have different welfare arrangements. It is important for us to have a welfare system that not only provides support but is sustainable and ultimately helps people into work. That the employment rate now is at a joint record high is testament to the work the Government have done, including on welfare reform.
The problem is that the individual cases keep coming and coming because of the Government’s failures on universal credit. A constituent contacted me because of an issue about early payment from her employer before Christmas. She was forced to go to a food bank—over Christmas! Surely, the Minister does not think that that situation is acceptable.
As I have said, we want to get this right for everyone, and where there are individual cases, of course we will take them up, but the hon. Gentleman seems to imply that, under the legacy benefits system, the world was entirely rosy. He and I know, as Members of Parliament, that the legacy benefits system is inferior to universal credit.