Universal Credit

Anna Turley Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

When the Prime Minister stood on the steps of Downing Street two years ago, she talked about fighting against the burning injustices of poverty. How hollow those words sound now to people who are “working around the clock”, doing their “best”, “struggling” through life—those were her words—and are on or will be transitioning to universal credit. Her words have turned to dust, with her promises sacrificed on the altar of austerity. Her Ministers sit here today clinging doggedly to a cruel and toxic policy that is pushing people into destitution, and which will be their legacy. Not content with devastating lives and communities through the bedroom tax, not content with a brutal sanctions regime that demoralises and degrades, not content with a work assessment regime that tells people with degenerative diseases they are fit to work and not content with a rise in child poverty, this Government are pushing on with a reform that has been proven—I stress, proven—to push people into debt and poverty since 2012. I know that Conservative Members have had enough of experts, but when they have the Trussell Trust, Citizens Advice, the National Audit Office, Mind, Shelter, local authorities, the Archbishop of Canterbury, more than 80 disability charities and their own former Prime Minister telling them that it is not working, surely they have to stop and think.

After universal credit goes live in Redcar and Cleveland on 28 November, families will receive their first lump-sum payment just a week before Christmas. That will pile pressure on to families who are trying to pay for their Christmas and all their household bills, too. According to figures from the House of Commons Library, full roll-out in my area, including legacy benefits, will bring nearly 11,000 households on to universal credit. Almost 6,000 of those households have children and an estimated 3,500 households include people with disabilities. Thousands of vulnerable people in my area are going to be moved on to a benefit that has been beset with payment delays and has seen food bank use skyrocket by more than 50% in areas of full roll-out. Yesterday, in response to my question, the Minister could not reassure me that my constituents would not be worse off. When even the Secretary of State herself admits that the reform will see families worse off by £200 a month, we know that universal credit is not fit for purpose and must be stopped.

We all know that this is about more than just simplifying the welfare system and making work pay. Those are aims that many Members from all parties would support, but the reality is that this reform is being used to bring in £3 billion of welfare cuts through the back door and, despite the protests from Government Members, it is affecting people who are already in work. Analysis from the Child Poverty Action Group shows that, far from making work pay, as many have tried to argue today, the cuts reduce the gains made from work. Parents who are already working full time on the increased minimum wage would have to work the equivalent of an extra month per year, and single parents two months, just to recoup the cost. Moreover, the transitional protection that is meant to ensure that families do not lose out will not actually be available to many of those who need it.

Universal credit is being used by the Conservative party to disguise massive cuts to welfare. Rather than making work pay, as Government Members claim they want, the new system will leave vulnerable people reliant on food banks and forced into personal debt.