Universal Credit: Rent Arrears

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

I absolutely accept that we need to get it right. I am spending quite a lot of time with the ALMOs. I have had a couple of meetings with Eamon McGoldrick and John Bibby to discuss their findings. It is complicated. The essential fact is that landlords like their money paid in advance and all benefits systems pay in arrears, so we do not know how much of this is what the ALMOs call book arrears and how much is real arrears. We need to get to the bottom of that and we need to get to the bottom of what are the processing and payment systems issues. We need to understand what the existing arrears are. They are much higher than we expected—50%—and that is a frightening fact. We may be looking at a group going into UC which is unusual because it is moving up and down, and we need to understand and quantify those factors.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for commissioning some work on the level of debt, but in view of the impact of rent arrears and other debts on mental and physical health, will the Minister commission a review of the cumulative impact of the benefit cuts since 2010 on the mental and physical health of claimants? If the Minister is moving on to other pastures, perhaps he could leave a note for his successor to commission such a review.

[Lord Freud]

I congratulate the noble Baroness on her timing with that question. I will not answer it. I am not in a position, however, to commission major research on mental health today.