Universal Credit Roll-out

Ben Bradley Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

In 2010, the coalition Government inherited a broken welfare system that was over-complicated and encouraged a lifestyle of benefit dependency, with more and more families on benefits for successive generations, particularly in constituencies such as mine, where people have felt abandoned for decades. Many families who wanted to work and do the right thing were worse off and discouraged from taking on more hours. Since 2010, unemployment in Mansfield has fallen by half, and more people are able to live independently. The principles behind universal credit are absolutely right and make sense of the legacy of over-complicated benefits. Even Opposition Members largely agree with those principles.

The system is obviously not perfect. That is why the roll-out has been slow and measured. At every opportunity, the Government have looked at the system again and made improvements. They have introduced advance payments, alternative and direct payments and are making the helpline free, among other measures.

We know that the system is still not perfect, and I have taken concerns to Ministers, including about the security of private sector rentals, which the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) mentioned. However, the difference between Government and Opposition Members is that we are committed to improving, adapting and fixing the problems as we go because universal credit has already helped people into work, and the new, reduced taper rate that rewards those who work more hours will put £700 million back into the pockets of hard-working families on low incomes by 2021. Opposition Members would abandon that support and settle for a chaotic system that prevents people from improving their circumstances through work.

I ask the Minister to continue to listen and learn from every stage of the roll-out. I hope that the Government will look closely at Crisis’s brilliant Help to Rent scheme, to support more people into secure tenancies and to reassure landlords, and consider including that in the Budget.

We have to move forward with universal credit. It is a huge project and the practicalities of rolling it out are far from easy. That is why, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart) said, pauses are already built into the system to allow us to learn and change. We cannot go back to Labour’s disastrous system, which held people down: we should take the opportunity to offer people more support.