Chuka Umunna
Main Page: Chuka Umunna (Liberal Democrat - Streatham)Department Debates - View all Chuka Umunna's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(13 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Duncan Smith
I am always happy to seek to inform people so that higher authorities may be informed in their turn.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
I have not had a chance to read the White Paper this morning, but my understanding is that the universal credit will be introduced from October 2013. The Secretary of State mentioned IT issues, and HMRC’s business plan says that the update of the PAYE system, which will be integral to the transition to the universal credit, will not be complete until April 2014. How will the Department reconcile the date for the introduction of the universal credit with the delayed completion of the update of the PAYE system the year after?
Mr Duncan Smith
I am grateful for that question because it allows me to get rid of a slight misunderstanding. HMRC’s programme is about upgrading the whole of the PAYE system. What we are dealing with comes before that and we do not need all that. We need two important things. As employers collect and collate the information about circumstances anyway, they will download it to the Department each month, instead of waiting until the end of the year. We need two data streams, one sending data through, the other sending data across. That needs a software programme, but it is well below what is being done to PAYE. We will be able to do that on a real-time basis and it will happen before the PAYE changes.