The Secretary of State’s Handling of Universal Credit

Lord Hanson of Flint Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Greenwood]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his remarks. He will be aware, and I will cover this further on in my speech, that she apologised for one of the three aspects for which an apology was necessary.

[David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)]

Last week, on 5 July, following my question at Work and Pensions questions on Monday, the Secretary of State said that she had made an error and wanted to report it to the House—as reported in column 500 of Hansard. Why does my hon. Friend think that it took 48 hours for her to come to the House when a written apology, or an apology on the Monday or Tuesday, could have done the job? Was it because the National Audit Office published its report at 11 o’clock on Wednesday?

[Margaret Greenwood]

My right hon. Friend raises such an important point. I was as shocked as he was to hear the Secretary of State say that it was when she had left the Chamber that she realised her mistake. She should have replied that afternoon. He is quite right on that point.

The Secretary of State adopted the same approach at Work and Pensions questions, as has been noted, leading the head of the National Audit Office, Sir Amyas Morse, to take the extraordinary step of writing an open letter to her, taking issue with a number of claims that she had made in response to the report. The three key claims that he took issue with were, first, that the NAO report said that the roll-out of universal credit should be speeded up; secondly, that the report

“didn’t take account of changes made by the government in the Budget”;

and, thirdly, that universal credit is working.

Let us just think about the significance of this. The National Audit Office is an independent body that scrutinises public spending before Parliament. It is responsible for auditing central Government Departments. Its reports matter. I shall take each claim in turn.

On 21 June, the Secretary of State stated on several occasions that the report had said that the Government should speed up the roll-out of universal credit. She repeated that claim at Work and Pensions oral questions on 2 July, when questioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (David Hanson) and me. Of course, the NAO report does not say anywhere that the roll-out should be speeded up. In fact, it says very clearly that the Government should

“ensure the programme does not expand before business-as-usual operations can cope with higher claimant volumes.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

I will take that on board, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank you for your comments in this debate.

I should begin by welcoming the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) back to the DWP. Even though it contributed to his return to Government, there surely can be no one gladder of the Chequers version of “Deal or No Deal” than the Work and Pensions Secretary. For a few days, the pressure to fall on her sword was off her, as her extreme Brexiteer chums climbed the altar of vanity to fall on theirs.

But now we must return from the Brexit bubble theatrics to the real world, where we have this week another set of reports following hot on the heels of the National Audit Office report, all condemning the current incarnation of universal credit. The Secretary of State’s position has been called into question, not just because of the failings of universal credit, but also because of her tin-eared response to the externally and expertly provided facts and criticism. I listened carefully to her speech just now, and it appears that there is still little contrition.

We come to the Secretary of State’s response to the National Audit Office report, which is the subject of the motion before us. We know that the NAO report blew a hole as wide as the Clyde in the Government’s defence of universal credit. The Government say that universal credit is about getting people into work quicker and will lead to 200,000 more people in work. The NAO says:

“The Department will never be able to measure whether Universal Credit actually leads to 200,000 more people in work, because it cannot isolate the effect of Universal Credit from other economic factors in increasing employment.”

The Government say that universal credit will be cheaper to administer and reduce fraud. The NAO says that the DWP

“does not know whether Universal Credit is reducing fraud”

and:

“It is not clear that Universal Credit will cost less to administer than the existing benefits system.”

The Government say they will save £8 billion from universal credit, but the NAO says that figure

“depends on some unproven assumptions”,

and that such benefits “remain theoretical”.

The NAO has directly contradicted the Government on the core aims of, and the central defences offered by the Government on, universal credit. It is therefore no wonder that the Secretary of State was so desperate to discredit the NAO on the Monday before last. For instance, in response to the question from the right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson) about the NAO recommending a pause in the roll-out, the Secretary of State said:

“The NAO made clear quite the opposite: it said that we need to continue with universal credit. It was also concerned that it was rolling out too slowly and said that actually we should increase what we are doing. So what the right hon. Gentleman says is absolutely not what the NAO said.”—[Official Report, 2 July 2018; Vol. 644, c. 8.]

Actually, the NAO report said that the DWP should:

“Ensure that operational performance and costs improve sustainably before increasing caseloads through managed migration. It should formally assess the readiness of automation and digital systems to support increased caseloads before migration begins, and ensure the programme does not expand before business-as-usual operations can cope with higher claimant volumes.”

These are not debating points; these are facts and quotes in black and white. We have a Work and Pensions Secretary who is either unable to grasp the facts or unwilling to accept them.

[David Hanson]

When the Secretary of State said that to me in the House, some of my constituents were watching the proceedings, and they believed that I was factually incorrect in my comments. The Secretary of State had an opportunity to apologise to me, but she has yet to do so in writing, and this was all before the NAO issued its report. The question for me, which I raised in my intervention earlier, is: why did the Secretary of State wait 48 hours to put the record straight?

[Neil Gray]

I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point. The honourable thing for the Secretary of State to do would have been to apologise directly to him for what might have been a slur on his character and reputation.

This is important, because we are talking about the central—the flagship—social security policy of this Government, which has been criticised in report after report for failing those it should be helping. We are talking about people who are living in poverty as a result. Getting the facts wrong—not just failing on a debating point, but misquoting what is there in black and white—is very serious whichever way we cut it. The House should remember that the last Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), recently resigned for something very similar.