Universal Credit
Debate between Baroness Eaton and Lord Freud(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Freud
Well, my Lords, I will talk about universal credit and what it aims to do for the people who need support from the state system. It directs our funding far more efficiently to people who need that support. It produces economic benefits of £7 billion every year and it does so at an investment cost of £1.8 billion. That investment cost is down from the £2.4 billion that we originally envisaged.
Baroness Eaton (Con)
What is my noble friend doing to ensure that the most vulnerable are supported through universal credit?
Lord Freud
One of the things that we need to do with universal credit is to make sure that everyone can take part in it. We are creating a system to do that through universal support, where we go into partnership with local authorities to help people, concentrating particularly on financial and digital inclusion. We then pull in all the other third sector companies, such as landlords, Citizens Advice and credit unions, to make sure that support is holistic.
Personal Independence Payment
Debate between Baroness Eaton and Lord Freud(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Freud
The build-up of PIP was done in a controlled and phased way, and that was acknowledged by the NAO. ATOS won that contract in fair, open competition and we have no plans to reopen that process.
Baroness Eaton (Con)
My Lords, can the Minister tell us what assessment he has made of the level of support by Her Majesty’s Government to disabled people?
Lord Freud
My Lords, the Government remain committed to maintaining support for disabled people. We spend roughly £50 billion a year, every year, and that is held in real terms. That is a fifth higher than the EU average. The overall spend on incapacity benefits has remained roughly flat in real terms over the life of this Government, and indeed the benefits about which we are talking—PIP, DLA—have actually been going up in real terms over the past four years.