Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I invite anybody in the House to visit areas where universal credit is rolling out—across the north-west, and even here in London—not to talk to the likes of me but to the staff who operate the jobcentres, who will say that it has allowed them to get people started into work far quicker, so that they are taking work earlier and staying in work longer. It means that businesses on the high street can afford to take people on, to begin with for lower hours than they might otherwise have been able to do—in other words, not creating a job—and then expand it into a much fuller-time job, so improving the economy and improving lives.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

20. The Secretary of State has merely repeated what his Employment Minister has already said—that the strategic outline business case is approved until the end of the Parliament—but of course, in parting, the previous head of the civil service said that“we should not beat around the bush. It has not been signed off”,and the National Audit Office has slammed universal credit for “weak management, ineffective control and poor governance.”When are the Government going to get a grip of this chaotic shambles?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

It is always nice to live in the past, but the reality is that if the hon. Gentleman waits he will see that this programme is running well and will be delivering, that this programme of universal credit will benefit everybody who needs the support they most need, and that all the nonsense he is talking about will all go away.