Universal Credit: Managed Migration

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

I have set out our timetable, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right that the legacy benefits system is incredibly complicated. I mentioned that we have £2.4 billion under-claimed under the legacy benefits system because it is so complicated. That of course is changing under universal credit.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Minister be up front with the House and admit that universal credit has been a disaster right from the beginning? It has been delayed, it has cost money and the Government are having to delay it further because they are worried about its effect. In Wallasey, there was a 39% increase in food bank usage after the roll-out of universal credit. It is causing real distress, and there are still £4.7 billion of benefit cuts to be administered between now and 2020. Will he admit that this is a rolling disaster area and commit to properly reviewing it and doing the right thing?

[Alok Sharma]

Perhaps the hon. Lady was not listening. I have already set out the extra funding we have brought forward. I wish she would support this. Of course, as we go through this process we learn and make changes as appropriate, but the reality is that we now have a much simpler system, under which people are able to get the one-to-one support they were not able to get before. She should welcome that.

Universal Credit

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Greenwood]

This is a really serious matter and the hon. Gentleman would do well to focus on the issue at hand.

If we translate the percentage of claims that are closed before they are completed to the nearly 3 million people the Government want to transfer across, we can see that nearly 1 million people are at risk of falling out of the social security system altogether.

Food banks are reporting that they are running out of food. In August, Department for Work and Pensions officials carried out a study to identify areas where DWP operational practices contributed to a rise in demand for food bank services. I think that any Member of the House will know the answer to that.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Margaret Greenwood]

I am going to make some progress.

When the National Audit Office raised the alarm with its damning report back in June, the Government misrepresented its findings and stubbornly claimed that it did not take account of changes that they had made, but they will not publish the figures that would enable the public and Parliament to hold them to account. This week in the Chamber, the Secretary of State met criticism of universal credit with accusations of scaremongering, so I will ask again: are Citizens Advice, the Child Poverty Action Group, the National Association of Welfare Rights Advisers, Mencap, Mind, Scope, Parkinson’s UK, the Residential Landlords Association, the National Housing Federation, the Resolution Foundation, the National Audit Office, the Archbishop of Canterbury and two former Prime Ministers scaremongering? The confusion of the last fortnight has caused families real concern about the transfer to universal credit and they deserve answers, so will the Government publish all reports and analysis that they have carried out into the effects of universal credit since the Secretary of State took office? People have a right to know.

The social security system should be there for any of us should we need it, yet the Government’s flagship programme has brought real hardship. How did it come to this—that people are facing hunger and destitution in the fifth largest economy in the world? It cannot be right. The Government must wake up and open their eyes to what is happening. That is why Labour Members are calling on the Government to stop the roll-out of universal credit.

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[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

Mr Speaker, I will of course endeavour quickly to get through what I have to say in the protected time I have been given.

I very much thank the Labour party for using some of its Opposition day time to bring the subject of universal credit back to the House. We will support the motion this afternoon. However, for maximum pressure to be exerted on the Chancellor ahead of the Budget, we are calling on Labour and Tory Back-Bench MPs to work with us to make the case for the investment in universal credit that is desperately needed to make it work. The papers called for in the motion are required to be published fully to inform the political and civic debate in the country ahead of the Budget. We know what the expert groups are telling us. I imagine they are telling UK Ministers, too, so to what extent are they being listened to?

In some ways, we have the wrong Minister sitting on the Treasury Bench this afternoon. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has suggested that she has already made the case to the Chancellor for further investment in universal credit. We do not know how much she has asked for and for what purpose she wants those cuts reversed, but that is now for the Chancellor. Universal credit is already causing misery to millions. The Chancellor should be here to hear that, not just the Secretary of State.

There has been much rumour over recent days about what the UK Government’s plan for universal credit is, with some reports suggesting a delay to the roll-out until 2023. The Minister for Employment said yesterday that he does not comment on rumour, but when I asked him to circumvent that rumour by detailing the plans in the House, he came back with the same “flat-earth rhetoric” that was described by the BBC’s Michael Buchanan as his experience of talking to UK Ministers about universal credit.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my puzzlement at the experience of those of us in our constituencies where we have had universal credit rolled out and we have seen increases in food bank usage—in my own area, of 34%, which is 30 tonnes of extra food—and does he share my worry that the Government do not seem to understand that this demonstrates there is a real problem with this benefit?

[Neil Gray]

I absolutely take what the hon. Lady has said, and I think she is absolutely right. At the weekend, the UK Health Secretary claimed that he had not received any correspondence on universal credit, only—three hours later—for the Mirror’s Dan Bloom to prove that was inaccurate as he had received an email from a constituent in West Suffolk just three days earlier. I will take with a lorry load of salt Conservative Members saying that they have had no problems with universal credit in their areas.

Let us be clear: even if the rumours are true, just delaying the roll-out will do nothing to sort out the problems people are facing with universal credit right now, such as in Airdrie and Shotts; it will only delay the inevitable for others. It will not solve the misery that is soon to be thrust on people in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow. The only way to sort out those problems is by accepting that a significant investment needs to be made in universal credit at the Budget so that radical change can follow.

The biggest problem with universal credit is that, for years, it has been an all-consuming cash cow for Treasury cuts to social security. George Osborne’s 2015 Budget and the subsequent Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 cut universal credit to ribbons. Everyone’s memory of the Budget in 2015 was George Osborne’s U-turn on tax credits, but as we and others warned then, that U-turn did not cover universal credit and the cuts were engrained but to be seen another day. For the many Tory MPs who thought George Osborne’s U-turn was enough, that day of reckoning is soon to arrive.

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[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Universal credit is causing undeniable and massive hardship in my constituency. I see it in my advice surgery, and we see it in the 34% increase in food bank usage in the Wirral since the full roll-out of universal credit. When we talked to the Trussell Trust, which provides the 15 food banks in the Wirral, it said that half of all the usage of food banks in the area is a direct result of the problems with universal credit.

The DWP is under huge pressure to deliver a huge change programme, which was badly designed to begin with and which the previous Chancellor took huge amounts of money out of—there were £4 billion of cuts. It is trying to deliver a change programme and save vast amounts of public money at the same time, while visiting the effects of this disaster on some of the poorest and most vulnerable members of our community.

It does not take long to realise that this benefit is in trouble when we see two former Prime Ministers, Gordon Brown and Sir John Major, both giving very stark warnings about it. Gordon Brown has predicted civil unrest if something is not done, because the benefit is too complex and causing huge suffering. As we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), people already under financial pressure are being expected to absorb the loss of £2,400 a year, or £200 each month. John Major, the ex-Conservative Prime Minister, has said that

“that degree of loss…is not something the majority of the British population would think of as fair, and if people think you have removed yourself from fairness then you are in deep political trouble.”

The Government are in deep political trouble with the roll-out of this benefit, and they know it. If they have nothing to hide, and if we are to believe the scarcely credible comments from Conservative Members, who seem to think that absolutely nothing is going wrong, they should vote to allow these papers, which the motion seeks to have published, into the public domain so that we can see the advice that they have been given, including the costs and benefits of the roll-out, and the analysis that seems to make the Conservative party so complacent.

[Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)]

The hon. Lady has said that many people on the Conservative Benches seem to think there is nothing wrong with universal credit. Could she indicate just one of them, for the benefit of the House?

[Ms Eagle]

I am tempted to say the Secretary of State, who has just left the Chamber and so is not listening to the rest of the debate. There is enormous complacency already evident in this debate on the Conservative Benches, perhaps because they do not have people in tears in their advice surgeries trying to get by with absolutely no money and no prospect of getting any.

The National Audit Office itself has said that more than half of those who apply for this benefit do not complete an application form on the first time of asking. That increases the delays. It is almost as if the benefit has been designed to put people off. In my constituency, I have recently had a case where somebody was advised in the jobcentre to migrate themselves voluntarily on to universal credit. They were told they would be eligible for £935 a month, but after the deductions, it was £513. By following the advice given to them by somebody in the jobcentre, they have made themselves much worse off. I could go through many such cases if there was time.

When people object to what is going on with universal credit, they have to go to a tribunal, but tribunal waiting times have increased massively. A recent written parliamentary answer told me that there was a 16-week waiting time in the north west, but a constituent has just received a letter saying there is a 33-week waiting time. Even if someone appeals against a dubious decision, they have to wait, with no money, for more than half a year. This is no way to treat the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society. As the previous Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has said, this is turning our social security safety net to dust, leaving people reliant on charity rather than the social security system. That is the baleful legacy of this Government.

[Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)]

I wrote a speech for today, but I am not going to stick to it. I must be honest: this place absolutely stinks today. This debate concerns some of our most vulnerable people. [Interruption.] I am sorry? If you want to make an intervention, make an intervention, do not just shout something angrily that I cannot hear. Some of the behaviour here has been appalling. I indicated to the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) that she made something up to score a political point, on a subject concerning some of the most vulnerable people in this country, and it absolutely stinks.

How are we going to reform a welfare sector that in cities such as mine sapped the ambition from a generation of young people who wanted to go out, build a family—[Interruption.] Would the hon. Lady like to make an intervention?

[Ms Angela Eagle]

I am more than happy to make an intervention, although I am rather sorry I gave way to the hon. Gentleman during my speech. What I see in my constituency is a benefits system—universal credit—in serious trouble and causing serious hardship, and listening to Conservative Members pretending that nothing is wrong is not a good use of time.

[Johnny Mercer]

With the greatest of respect, I have listened, and nobody has said that; nobody believes that universal credit is perfect. People in this House can keep repeating this stuff—to make themselves believe it; to get a clip for social media so they can say they have had a rant at the Tories—but it is poor politics and it has to change.

Universal Credit

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

When we actually do roll out universal credit—as I have said, it will be completed across all jobcentres by the end of the year—we absolutely ensure that full training is given to our work coaches. Of course, local Members of Parliament are invited in to have discussions with jobcentres. I have been with colleagues to several jobcentres where universal credit is about to be rolled out and they have been satisfied with the roll-out process. On managed migration, that will take place from 2019 to 2023 and we will make sure that we get our processes absolutely right.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Universal credit rolled out in Wirral at the beginning of the year, and in the first six months of this year there was a 34% increase in food bank use in the Wirral area. That is more than 30 tonnes of extra food needed, and the people who work in the food bank tell me that that is a direct result of the universal credit roll-out. If everything is so wonderful, why is this happening and why are a Conservative ex-Prime Minister and a Labour ex-Prime Minister warning the Government that they have to change this system?

[Alok Sharma]

If the hon. Lady was so keen to help her constituents, she would have voted for the extra £1.5 billion of support, but she did not. Labour Members cannot get away from that. Members cannot call for help for their constituents—for all our constituents—and then not deliver when it comes to the votes. As the hon. Lady knows, the all-party group on hunger published a detailed report on this issue and concluded that there are myriad complex reasons for the use of food banks. It cannot be attributed to a single reason.

The Secretary of State’s Handling of Universal Credit

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Neil Gray]

The hon. Gentleman makes some very fair points. We of course know from the recent statistics published by the DWP that 59% of claimants impacted by the two-child policy on tax credits and by universal credit are already in work. These are facts, and the Government should be considering them.

This is not of course the first time that this Government have tried to dismiss evidence placed before them showing the failures of universal credit. When the Trussell Trust said that food bank use was higher in areas where universal credit had been rolled out, UK Ministers described its evidence as “anecdotal”. In actual fact, the evidence came from 425 food banks across these isles, delivering 1.3 million three-day food parcels a year.

This week, the four housing association federations of these isles have called on the UK Government to fix the “fundamentally flawed” universal credit system. With colleagues, I met the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations this morning, and it revealed the scale and linkage of debt with universal credit. It is startling, and it is evidence-based. Ministers have replied that issues with debt were complicated and could not be linked to a single source, in spite of the evidence in front of them saying that nearly three quarters or 73% of tenants on universal credit are in debt, compared with less than a third or 29% of all other tenants.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Neil Gray]

I will give way one last time, because I am conscious that others want to speak.

[Ms Eagle]

Does the hon. Gentleman see, as I do, a pattern of reluctance on the part of this Government to collect evidence and information precisely so that they can deny the effects of universal credit, and somehow pretend that the evidence that is accumulating is anecdotal?

[Neil Gray]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. One of the central tenets of what the NAO called for in its report was that that type of evidence gathering needs to be done.

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[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

It is hard to overstate the rolling catastrophe that is universal credit and the abject misery and hardship that it represents not only to my constituents but to those of many other right hon. and hon. Members. As page 19 of the NAO report demonstrates, the system is so beleaguered that, while the original plan was for more than 7 million households to be on universal credit by now, the latest figures show that just 660,000 households were on it by the end of last year. The system is already six years late and there is no guarantee that it will ever arrive at the destination originally envisaged, yet the NAO estimates that the system has currently cost £2 billion to implement and is costing an astonishing £699 per claim.

The proper response to the huge problems with universal credit in the Department should be a commitment to improve and an acknowledgement of the undoubted weaknesses and design flaws that have been revealed. We have not had enough of that response. We have had ministerial denial and dissembling. Whatever dubious assertions the Minister may make about the merits of the system in response to today’s debate, the lived experience of my constituents in Wallasey contradicts them. It started to be rolled out in Wallasey in November 2017, and many of my constituents have been struggling ever since. As a result, many families have been placed under increasing pressure and hardship through no fault of their own.

Experience demonstrates that food bank usage increases by 30% in areas where there has been a full service roll-out. In Wirral, the increase was 35% in the first five months of 2018, as more and more families were forced to move on to universal credit. In the first five months of this year, 50,000 three-day emergency food packages were given out, nearly 15,000 going to children. In my constituency, the introduction of universal credit was 13% complete in December 2017, yet almost every day my constituency office receives new cases from people struggling with the system.

I have a constituent who suffers from a condition that leads to episodes of multiple seizures. She was attending a medical assessment as part of her claim when she suffered multiple seizures in front of the doctor. Not only was there a lack of understanding and sympathy about her condition; they refused to accept the medical evidence and what they were witnessing and shockingly told her that she had to come back the next day at 9 am to be re-examined. She has still not had her claim processed and is now frightened to leave the house for fear of being accused of being a benefits cheat.

Claimants are being given insufficient advice and guidance from their jobcentres, and local advocacy services have been decimated. I have constituents who have been sanctioned and have no other income. We know that this is not working. We have to make it work. It is not working at the moment.

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[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

I too want universal credit to work, but yet again the Secretary of State has come to the House, in the face of evidence and feedback from the NAO, CABs, food banks, housing associations, local government and others, and just appears to want to ride it out and brazen it out. That is deeply worrying and disappointing for my constituency because Newport has only had about 10% roll-out so far, and those are the easy cases—new claimants, single people without children, families with no more than two children. Yes, some people will have managed to navigate universal credit, but, as the NAO report says, for a “substantial minority” that is not the case. We need to address the problem as a matter of urgency before the roll-out reaches the more complicated cases. involving moving people from legacy benefits and people with larger families.

During this limited roll-out, we have also seen the problems documented by the NAO report reflected locally, and alarm bells should be heard. There have been problems with the initial claims: for instance, one family were inadvertently moved to universal credit and had to be returned to legacy benefits. It took 99 days for the lost tax credits to be fully recovered. According to the report, one in five claimants do not receive their full payments on time, and on average those claimants have been paid four weeks late. That means that many people do not receive their full payments for eight or nine weeks—and they are often people with no savings on which to rely. Some of my constituents have to resort to using food banks. One local food bank reports giving out 300 extra parcels every month over and above the increase that it anticipated. Other constituents do not want the advance payments because they do not want to go into debt, and are borrowing from loan sharks or from family and friends instead.

I agree with all the points that have been made about the online system, but let me add one more. People who have no individual ID, such as a passport or driving licence, now face a longer wait for an appointment before they can get into the system into which the delay is built. Those are often the most vulnerable people, and that too needs to be addressed.

Advice services such as citizens advice bureaux are seeing more and more people, and Newport CAB tells me that most of the problems involve initial claims. Arrears and debt problems do not just go away, as is shown by the Government’s own full service survey. Housing associations and local authorities are picking up the extra costs. Rent arrears alone are costing housing associations in Wales more than £1 million.

Let me take this opportunity to thank the hard-working DWP staff out there. According to a survey conducted by the Public and Commercial Services Union, 80% felt that there were not enough staff to manage the workload. I know that they are doing their best with the resources that they currently have, and I thank them for what they are trying to do.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, while DWP staff are remarkably good at the job they do, they must have the tools they need to do that job, and many are frustrated that they do not have them?

[Jessica Morden]

I absolutely agree. I believe that they are doing the best they can with the tools that they have been given, but they need far more resources.

I hope that the Minister who winds up will adopt a more conciliatory tone. It is not enough to say that the delays can be solved by advance payments, or that it is too early to assess the impacts. The evidence is plain to see in our constituencies. The Government have been forced to change parts of this policy, and it is now time for them to pause and listen. If the roll-out speeds up and takes on the more complicated cases, we will, I fear, see only more debt and hardship among those who need the system to help them into work, or to support them if they cannot work.

Universal Credit

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

Everybody wants to improve people’s lives. That is what we are all here to do, and that is what our work coaches do day in, day out. I hope that you will bear with me, Mr Speaker, if I refer to a letter I received. A lone parent wrote saying, “I was frightened to go into the jobcentre from what I had heard. Eight years ago, I was in the jobcentre, and the system did not work for me, so I was relieved and happy that I now have a job. Universal credit is working.” Since then, I have been collecting all those letters, because so many people—claimants and work coaches—are saying that this system is so much better than the one before.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I suspect that the Secretary of State decided that she had to come to the House to apologise when she received the unprecedented open letter from the Comptroller and Auditor General pointing out that she had used—let us say—not correct assertions on three occasions about a report that her own officials had agreed. Will she now finally admit that she has got things very wrong on this, actually accept the National Audit Office’s conclusions, and show some respect to the NAO?

[Ms McVey]

If I may correct the hon. Lady, it was not to do with the letter. She incorrectly says that I came after the letter, but I asked whether I had got anything wrong and I checked things out myself. Nobody asked me or told me to come to House; I came here of my own volition. What I do not agree with—we stand by this—are the conclusions of the report in its entirety.

Personal Independence Payments

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms McVey]

As ever, my hon. Friend is correct. We are spending more than £50 billion, and are proud to do so, to support disabled people who need it. This Conservative Government are supporting more people and giving them the higher rate they need, and we will continue to do that.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

But the Secretary of State has been dragged to the House by an urgent question to talk about her decision not to pursue the appeal in these cases concerning activity 3 of the daily living component. She has very coyly failed completely to answer the question of how many people her decision affects. We know that 165 million people receive the component—[Interruption.] I mean 1.65 million—it is still a lot. Will she now answer: how many people are affected directly by the decision she took in the recess to withdraw the appeal, when will these people get the right amount of money and when will they be assured that they have not been illegally underpaid?

[Ms McVey]

The urgent question was about two cases in particular. This is about those two cases: it is about two people who were affected, and who will receive their money immediately. We are assessing the position, but that is what the urgent question was about. If Members want to talk about matters outside the scope of the urgent question, that will be for a different occasion and a different day.

Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Finally, I call Ms Angela Eagle.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

My constituent of working age suffered two strokes and has now been diagnosed as suffering from vascular dementia. He has been found to be fit for work, even though he has major problems with his short-term memory. He will have to appeal the decision and faces a wait of up to 30 weeks before he gets any kind of hearing or has his benefit restored. How can this possibly be a system that is working or acceptable?

[Sarah Newton]

I would of course be more than happy to meet the hon. Lady to go through the specifics of that case.

Food Poverty: Merseyside

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Twigg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. My experience from my advice surgeries and the constituency caseworkers in my local office is exactly the same, as I am sure is that of colleagues. The survey evidence that I referred to demonstrates that in Liverpool, half of those who have to use food banks say that it is because of delays and changes with benefits.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this really important subject. In Wallasey we have a very similar result. Well over half the people who have to use the food bank—and it is large numbers now—report to the Trussell Trust that they are doing so because of either benefit sanctions or delays to their benefits. Does he agree that this is a Government-made problem?

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[Ms Angela Eagle]

Does my hon. Friend recognise that, even though the Government do not do any research, the Trussell Trust and those people who actually provide food and collect food for food banks do. Their research proves conclusively that benefit delays, changes to benefits and low pay are the main reasons why people resort to food banks. Will she acknowledge that, as universal credit comes to my constituency and is introduced into the Wirral, my local food bank has said it will have to collect an extra 15 tonnes of food to deal with the 30% increase in food bank use that its research suggests accompanies the introduction of full universal credit in any area?

[Maria Eagle]

I agree with my hon. Friend on the impact of the roll-out of universal credit. One reason why I say that this crisis, which is already worsening and has been over the past few years, is actually set to get even worse is that we have not yet had the full service roll-out of universal credit in Garston and Halewood and across much of Liverpool. It will be rolled out at some time during this year, although it has been delayed again.

The Trussell Trust says that it has noticed a 17% increase in food bank usage across all its food banks where universal credit is rolled out, against an average—where the roll-out is not a factor—of 6.5%. That is a significantly increased extra risk where we have universal credit roll-out, and that is about to happen in Liverpool and across Merseyside this year. We expect, as local Members of Parliament, a big increase in this kind of problem coming to us and our advice surgeries.

The Liverpool Echo’s Share Your Lunch campaign has, over the last 18 months, raised more than £73,000 and fed more than 36,000 people across the city region with fresh and nutritious meals. It has done a tremendous job within the very fine tradition of self-help that we have in Liverpool and on Merseyside. However, that initiative is now over. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby referenced Can Cook, which is also based in my constituency, although it works across the city region.

Although Can Cook is moving on to try to do more good work, the fact that, over the last year or so, its initiative has fed many local children who do not get their free school meals during Christmas and the school holidays shows definitively the importance of the initiative my hon. Friend referred to, of passporting free school meals and making free school meals available in school holidays. For many children in my constituency, it is the only good meal they are guaranteed in a day. During the summer vacation, many young people in adventure playgrounds, such as the Garston “venny” in my constituency, were kept fed with fresh and nutritious food from Can Cook and Share Your Lunch.

My hon. Friend also referred to Fans Supporting Foodbanks, an organic campaign that has grown up among football supporters, of which there are many in Liverpool. Home matches are used as an opportunity to collect food for food banks, such as the North Liverpool food bank, which is of course based around the two football grounds in Liverpool. Again, they are in the finest Liverpool tradition of self-help and of making a difference to the lives of neighbours. Unfortunately, it reminds me too much of what was happening in the early part of the 20th century in Liverpool—of the Clarion soup vans, of the initiatives organised by the early labour and socialist movement and of Bessie Braddock and her mother, Mary Bamber, who used to go around cooking food for unemployed people, who were in a desperate state at that time. We should not be going back to that.

The Minister has to make sure that his Government try to stop this happening and do not simply ignore the problem, refuse to collect statistics on it, blame the victims for what is going on and insinuate that because food is free, of course people go and access it. We have a large and growing crisis of food poverty in our city and in this country. It is my contention that the Government are doing nothing to tackle it. They will not collect statistics on why it is happening, and things are set to get worse this year, with the roll-out of universal credit.

It is not enough for our Prime Minister to stand on the steps of Downing Street and assert that she is going to do something for people who are struggling or just about managing, and then do absolutely nothing to help people who cannot feed themselves or their families, not through any fault of their own but because this Government have removed support for them via the local authority and the benefits system. The Government are not trying to make sure that work pays and that if one works for a living, there is enough in the wage packet to feed a family. That is where this Government are falling down. It is a disgrace, and I wait to hear from the Minister that he at least is going to do something to tackle it.

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[Alok Sharma]

Perhaps I may make a little progress—there will be plenty of time to intervene.

The introduction of the national living wage has given the UK’s lowest earners their fastest pay rise in 20 years. With the increase in personal allowances, the Government have cut income tax for more than 30 million people and taken 4 million low earners out of income tax altogether.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

The Minister speaks about the income tax threshold, but does he realise that most of the people we are talking about are on zero-hours contracts and really low pay, and they do not pay income tax? None of those tax giveaways have any effect on their weekly income.

[Alok Sharma]

Four million of the lowest earners have been taken out of income tax altogether, which I hope the hon. Lady will welcome. A typical basic rate taxpayer will now pay over £1,000 less in income tax than they would have done seven years ago.

Universal Credit Roll-out

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. We must have a responsive Government who listen to the will of the House and the people we represent. It is not good enough just to say that a motion is not binding—we need action.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is an urgent need for a pause? In Wallasey, the roll-out will begin halfway through November. Six weeks later, it will be Christmas. The Department for Work and Pensions will not be open on Christmas day, which means that many of my constituents will have to wait until the new year for assistance. That is why our local food bank is looking to collect 15 tonnes of extra food to deal with demand. Does she agree that it is time that the Government listened to Parliament and acted to alleviate such obviously avoidable hardship?

[Debbie Abrahams]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Food banks are running out of food as the scheme is being rolled out. What will happen to families who desperately need financial support?

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[Damian Hinds]

The right hon. Gentleman is of course right that he has raised that point a number of times. I think last time he raised it, he put it in the context specifically of Christmas. I am aware that organisations like food banks do have an increase in their activity at Christmas-time. I think we have to be careful in ascribing the reasons for the usage of food banks to individual or simple causes, and as I said to him—

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Will the Minister give way?

[Damian Hinds]

No. If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I am responding to the right hon. Gentleman.

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[Kate Green]

rose—

[Ms Angela Eagle]

rose—

[Damian Hinds]

I apologise to both hon. Ladies who have stood up, but I want to bring my remarks to a conclusion. I know that many Members, on both sides of the House, probably including them—

Universal Credit Roll-out

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams]

This is a real test for the Government; if there is a genuine desire to make life better for everybody across the country, UC is a key way in which we can respond. I am so sorry to hear about the issues in Newcastle as a consequence of the introduction of UC.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I can report to my hon. Friend that I have had exactly the same experience in my constituency, where people are being driven into destitution by the waits for UC. The local food bank, alongside the citizens advice bureau, has estimated that if this full roll-out goes ahead just six weeks before Christmas, leaving everybody destitute for Christmas day, it will have to collect 15 tonnes of extra food to deal with the demand that will be generated by these changes.

[Debbie Abrahams]

This is the reality that people are facing; this is happening in the areas my colleagues have mentioned, and our concern is that, as this is rolled out to 55 areas this month, the situation will get even worse.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gauke]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is yet a further example of the Opposition turning their back on reforms. I listened to the remarks of the shadow Secretary of State—

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Gauke]

I am just making a point about the speech we just heard from the shadow Secretary of State, who has set her face against any form of conditionality in the benefits system, as far as I can tell. She fails to appreciate that the best way of helping claimants is to get them into work. That sometimes requires a change of behaviour, and a degree of conditionality within the system is required to ensure that people change their behaviour so they can make progress.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gauke]

Let me turn to the important point of claimant commitment.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Gauke]

I will give way, but not for a moment.

Throughout this period, claimants have a flexible, clear and tailored claimant commitment so they fully understand their responsibilities. The commitment supports and encourages them to do everything they can to move into or towards work, or to improve their earnings. The only thing we ask is that claimants meet reasonable and agreed requirements that take into account their individual circumstances and capability, including mental health conditions, disability and caring responsibilities. I hope that this approach to benefit conditionality will have the support of both sides of the House, including the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle).

[Ms Angela Eagle]

The Secretary of State must surely realise that the way in which the system is being administered is leaving people penniless and possibly destitute. He must address that point. The Government are rolling all the six benefits into one; if that is then not available to people for six weeks, there are people who cannot afford to survive in that time. The loans, which have to be paid back, are not an adequate response. Will the Secretary of State admit the human suffering that is happening in all our constituencies and deal with that particular point?

[Mr Gauke]

Let us be clear: if people need support under this system, they do not have to wait for six weeks. [Hon. Members: “They do!”] They do not have to wait for cash in their pocket from the state because they can get an advance, which is normally paid within three days. If someone literally does not have a penny, they can get that money on the day. There is a responsibility on all of us as constituency MPs, when we meet our constituents who face difficulties of this sort, to inform them of the availability of advances, not to scare them with the belief that they have to wait six weeks when they do not.