Universal Credit

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for obtaining this very important debate. I recognise that the aim of universal credit was indeed to improve incentives to work and, along with others, I strongly support that objective—if only the policy would deliver it as originally planned. The only tool now left to the Government to drive people into work is the cruel application of sanctions to these incredibly vulnerable people. The huge problem for claimants is that the new system, good though it originally was, is being rolled out in the context of an extraordinary level of cuts to welfare benefits. The net effect of these cuts for disabled people, carers and single parents—the most vulnerable citizens in this country—is quite simply devastating. They face inevitable soaring debts completely outside their control, the risk of homelessness, acute anxiety and distress. These benefit cuts include, as most noble Lords here know, the benefit cap, the bedroom tax, the cut to council tax benefit, the failure to meet the whole of a claimant’s rent, the working-age benefits freeze and cuts to work allowances—to name just a few.

Let us focus for a minute on disabled people, who are affected by all the above cuts and more. The Government rightly announced their intention to halve the employment gap between able-bodied and disabled people. Well, sadly, universal credit is destroying this ambition—not the intention of the original designers, no doubt. There will in fact be reduced support for working people with disabilities, particularly for those with children. Many are being shifted from the higher employment support allowance to the lower-level benefit of jobseeker’s allowance. Working tax credit includes a disability element worth £54 a week, which is a lot of money for somebody on a very low income. Universal credit reduces that substantially for some of those people and eliminates it altogether for others.

Another devastating cut for disabled people is the severe disability premium, which has been an additional sum added to the employment support allowance for a subset of severely disabled people. This benefit is being scrapped under universal credit—a loss to these severely disabled people of £62 per week or £3,200 per year. It is almost difficult to believe these sums. The whole point of these disability additions was to cover the extra costs of working for very severely or severely disabled people, thus enabling them to get to work.

If the Minister would be interested to see the full impact for claimants of the rollout of universal credit, she may be interested in a recently published book by Sam Royston, Broken Benefits: What’s Gone Wrong with Welfare Reform. It is in the context of these swingeing cuts that the minimum wait of six weeks is utterly devastating for people, and we know from the DWP’s own data that 20% of people wait longer than six weeks for their first payment. Some wait for up to 10 weeks. Does the Minister accept that there is an urgent need to expand universal support to help people reduce the waiting period? I would be grateful for an assurance from the Minister on this point.

Another issue which I implore the Minister to look into and rectify—this is absolutely appalling for some people—is that claimants whose most recent employer just happens to make a final payment, maybe of statutory sick pay, a day or so after the claimant’s assessment period begins will receive precisely zero in their first so-called “universal credit payment”. They will get nothing at the end of six or even 10 weeks. It is a very specific problem for certain people whose employer just happens to do something that is just devastating for them.

The Government point to advance payments as a solution for claimants, but these payments cover only two weeks’ costs and are just another debt which is later deducted from benefit. Claimants are then left with almost nothing to live on week after week and month after month as their rent arrears, council tax, other debts and advance payments are being repaid.

Another problem is that universal credit is paid monthly, as other noble Lords have mentioned, when 58% of these claimants are just not used to that. They have never lived like that. They were paid fortnightly or weekly. Will the Minister please look into the possibility of reversing that system?

Finally, will the Minister think again about the Government’s resistance to paying rent direct to landlords? Again, other noble Lords have mentioned this point. It sounds simple, but if you have, for example, learning difficulties, it is incredibly difficult to manage a chunk of money that has got to last for a month and to find your rent at the end of the day.

Before ending, I want to pay tribute to the CAB, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and others for their helpful briefings. In reality, rising debt, huge levels of stress and parents choosing not to eat in order to try to pay their bills are the result of this government policy. Universal credit and its accompanying cuts are generating a humanitarian crisis that ill befits this very rich country. Along with colleagues on all sides of the House, I hope that the Minister will give an assurance that the universal credit rollout will be halted while some of the worst features are rectified. If not, will the Minister explain how this policy tallies with his commitment to help those who are only just managing?