Universal Credit

Anne Marie Morris Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

We are having an interesting debate. I should like to pay tribute to the Chair of the Select Committee, on which I serve—the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) does a fantastic job, and she painted a good picture in her opening remarks, in which she set out all the facts. We must recognise, however, that this is a complex area. Governments and Oppositions of all political flavours have, over decades, contributed to the challenge. Many have been well-meaning and tried to resolve all the problems. Simplicity is a great objective, but it is probably one of the hardest things to deliver.

Listening to the debate so far, I have heard those who see the glass half full and those who see the glass half empty. A couple of the contributions from the Opposition have seen it has half empty, but let me remind the House of what we have in common. Both parties have said that universal credit is the right way to go.

We also need to be mindful of the fact that the purpose of a Select Committee is not, frustratingly, to look at what is right and what is working. We never look at that. Rightly, we look at the areas that are not working and need improvement. It is absolutely right, as the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) said, that we should ensure that those who are vulnerable get the help they need. Like her, I get constituents coming into my surgery who have not had fair treatment at the hands of the Department for Work and Pensions, but that problem has been growing for years and years. It is to the credit of this Government that they have tried, for the first time in 60 years, to consolidate the system and to simplify it and pull it together so that it works better in the future.

[Glenda Jackson]

The flaw in the hon. Lady’s argument is that the Select Committee has been consistent—there has been complete cross-party unity on this—in presenting to the Department for Work and Pensions the areas where we believe improvements could be made and, in many instances, putting forward ideas about what kind of help is needed. There has also been a consistent response from the Department—namely, total rejection.

[Anne Marie Morris]

The hon. Lady is right to say that the Select Committee has put forward a number of arguments, but that is what we are there to do. We are not there to tell the Department about the things it is doing well—more’s the pity, as that would give our work some balance—so she is right in that respect. I think that she is describing issues of obfuscation and not getting the facts, but my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) was instructive in that regard when, earlier in the debate, he said that communication was the key. The devil is in the detail, and it is very difficult—when talking about, say, technology —to communicate with people and tell them exactly what is being done. I would love to say that technology was simple, but it is not.

Let us remind ourselves of the objectives of the change, to which both sides of the House agreed. The objectives were simplification, reducing costs and smoothing the transition from benefit to work. The Chair of the Select Committee talked about dealing with the wretched precipices that make people’s lives so difficult. The Committee has worked to hold the Government to account, and we should be trying to get a better result rather than just point scoring for the sake of it. The Chairman has done a good job of trying to get that balance right.

Let us look at where we are going. When we get this sorted out, 3 million households will be better off by £177 a month. We will have a system that provides better child care support, with an extra £200 million for child care helping 100,000 extra families working fewer than 16 hours a week. We will also have an extra £400 million to increase child care support to 85% of all working families. Let us look to the longer-term future: in 10 years’ time, UK plc will benefit by £35 billion. That will be a worthwhile and significant achievement. The path must continue to be trodden and the Committee must continue to fight the fight to keep the Department for Work and Pensions honest in all that it says, and to strive to get the best possible results. This must be a partnership, however.

Progress to date has included the launching of pathfinders, and we also have additional schemes such as the long-term schemes in our jobcentres. After the initial launch in the north-west, we now have universal credit rolling out in 14 jobcentres. By the end of this year, it will be in place in 90 of them. That will mean that universal credit will have been rolled out to one in eight jobcentres. That is not an insignificant achievement in that period of time, given the complexity involved. We already have 6,500 people on universal credit. I appreciate the Chairman’s view that that is a small number, but it is a start and a move in the right direction.

A point that has not been raised is that this is not just about nuts and bolts, IT systems and budgets. It is about a fundamental culture change, and as we know, changing a culture is one of the most difficult things to do in any organisation, never mind in the country as a whole.

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

My hon. Friend may recall that during my short time on the Select Committee, we visited the pathfinder in Oldham and Bolton. I was struck by the enthusiasm of the user groups and the staff for the new culture of helping people into work, and by the fact that people in those user groups were able to work for longer hours without falling off the precipice. Given the good news on working and benefits, should the Government not continue to press forward with universal credit?

--- Later in debate ---

[Anne Marie Morris]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point and he is absolutely right: that was indeed what we heard. It points to the suggestion that the Government’s movement is beginning to deliver results.

The claimant commitment has now been rolled out in every job centre. It is quite a challenge, because we are saying to those who claim that benefits should absolutely be there for anybody who needs them—there are some basic things that we all believe to be the absolute right of any individual, because they are about respect for the individual—but that the taxpayer must also feel that his or her interests have been properly represented. The claimant commitment is a move in the right direction, ensuring that there is no longer any opportunity for an individual to believe that a life on benefits is a lifestyle choice. No taxpayer would believe that that is right, and I do not believe that any Opposition Member believes it is—they would say that this is about helping those who really need it: the vulnerable, the disabled and those in really difficult positions. I think we should all agree that this is an important step forward, and 600,000 claimant commitments have been signed.

By 2016-17, the vast majority will have moved to universal credit. Although that is perhaps not what we would ideally have wanted, it seems to me that it is not bad progress. However, I and my fellow members of the Select Committee have obviously been privy to a number of the issues that have already been alluded to as a big challenge, and one of them is undoubtedly the IT systems. I share the concerns, frustration and lack of understanding about how the pilot worked, about what the end-state solution will be, and about the fact that £40 million has effectively been wiped off and £91 million amortised.

I think the real issue is that as a Committee we needed context. Having worked in the private sector, I know that when very large IT systems are introduced, there will always be a write-off. When we sit in the public sector looking at a new IT system without the context of what it takes to roll out such systems and what the normal practice is for write-offs, we find it hard to judge. It would have been fair to want and to effect more explanation from the DWP. Indeed, would it not have been wonderful to have more input from my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South who, I think, might have been able to give us the necessary language and understanding? He has explained why the two systems have to carry on in parallel whereas we, perhaps because we do not know very much about IT, naively thought that that was a waste of money and that we could just move straight to end state. I hope that the Minister will give us a little more clarity on that.

The Chair of the Committee also mentioned one of the challenges with housing benefit. Although universal credit has been rolled out and although it is right to have done that in slow steps, checking them as we went, it still does not include housing benefit, ESA or tax credits. I share the general concern about how exactly the Department will incorporate some of those more difficult pieces into the system. At the moment, as the Chair of the Committee said, the cases we have been considering have been the easy ones, but we have now moved on from single people to couples. It is a matter of communication and understanding how things will be done effectively. With housing benefit in particular, it is important that advice and guidance are produced for local authorities and that the local support services framework is produced in its final form earlier rather than later. Financial information, early information and the final LSSF are undoubtedly needed sooner rather than later, and I share the concerns about the current timeline.

Although some are frustrated with the slow development of the system, it seems to me that going slow and steady to ensure that we treat vulnerable people with the care they need must be right. We must get this right for the vulnerable and nothing would be worse than rolling the scheme out early and getting it wrong. That would be a serious mistake.

Despite some of the challenges, there has been a significant achievement. When we get this done—and I hope that there will be cross-party support for it—it will be the biggest transformation in the system for 60 years. It will also make it clear that there is a proper balance between society and the taxpayer and those who need proper support to enable them to participate fully in working life. The fact that the claimant commitment has been so successful in beginning to change that mindset must be a good thing.

I would question the fact that although the Opposition support universal credit as a concept, they are now suggesting that if they were in government after the next election they would freeze it, but not the pilot, I understand. It seems to me that we do more damage if we start stopping and starting programmes. If the Opposition support universal credit, as I believe they do, they should support what is being done. Of course we should hold the Department to account, but let us also consider sensible steps forward. I cannot see that freezing something is a sensible step, because all it does is stop the progress that we all agree would be a good thing in the longer term.

One can strive for the perfect, but one can never achieve the perfect. We have made good steps as a Government but there is more that can be done. Most important, the lesson I would like the Department to take away is about better and timely communication, particularly on complex issues such as IT, a subject on which I do not claim to be an expert and on which I suspect that not many members of the Select Committee would claim to be experts either.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Although I have huge regard for the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), I must disagree with some parts of her speech, most notably because there has been a swathe of errors not just in universal credit but, as we debated last week, in the other programmes for welfare reform. My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) remarked on the unfortunate way in which the welfare reforms have been framed and debated in the media, including irresponsible press releases that perpetuate the vilification of people on benefits and paint them as the new undeserving poor. I have found that deeply offensive and such an approach has been used in Ministers’ speeches. Many people have found that offensive.

[Anne Marie Morris]

The hon. Lady is a fine contributor to our Select Committee and adds a lot of intellectual rigour and brings a lot from her previous background. My challenge is: would it not be lovely if we could control the media? She is absolutely right, I am sure, that some inappropriate things have been said by the wrong people, but when it comes to who said what and whether what is reported in the press is true, I find it a very hard leap of faith to make to accept her other point. I do not believe that any member of the Government would wantonly wish to put out any message in the way that she describes—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Lady has already had 14 minutes. Let somebody else in—we need short interventions.