Universal Credit Roll-out

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) for securing the debate and congratulate the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid) on his maiden speech. I note that the comparative beauties of our constituencies are yet another thing to disagree on across the Chamber.

Universal credit was piloted in Inverness way back in 2013. I am always astounded by the lengths to which Members who have not experienced it will go to defend the system, given that they have not seen what is happening. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen), who is no longer in the Chamber, has said elsewhere that jobcentre staff had told her that universal credit was only 60% built. We have had it since 2013, so we have been feeling its impact daily since its inception. Make no mistake: universal credit, as it rolls out to full service in its current form, without being halted and fixed, is a disaster, and it is only going to get worse as it goes to more people and the resources to support it are stretched even further.

I see Government Members shaking their heads at that. When they accused me previously of scaremongering, I invited all Conservative Members, including the Minister and the Prime Minister, to come to a summit in Inverness to hear from the agencies and people involved about the problems being imposed on them, but none took up the offer. Had they done, they would have heard harrowing stories, as I tried to relate yesterday in my question to the Prime Minister, from the agencies and people there, but none of them came. Instead, when I raised my question, there was laughter—[Hon. Members: “No.”] It was recorded, and people can listen to it. What was funny—the fact that it is harrowing, the fact that I was talking about cancer patients dying before their universal credit claims came through, or the fact that I was talking about terminally ill people who have to self-declare that they are terminally ill, even if they have told their doctors they do not want to know their fate? How cruel is that? And yet there was laughter.

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

There was no laughter.

[Drew Hendry]

If Conservative Members listen to the recording, they will hear the laughter loudly.

If it was not any of those things, was it the fact that we are having problems in Inverness? The manager of the local citizens advice bureau tweeted yesterday:

“Sad when the misery and suffering that is caused by UC could be found amusing by anyone—suggest they try it for a few months.”

Some adjustment is available from the Scottish Government, but universal credit is a reserved matter, so the UK Government’s constant attempts to pass the buck and abdicate responsibility for what is their responsibility is not good enough.

I have very little time, but I want to read out an email I got from somebody inside the ESA benefit inquiry line:

“the chaos that UC is causing me and my colleagues is quite simply unacceptable. People on UC realise it’s not fit for purpose so ring ESA and BEG to be let back on to the benefit but that is not possible. How long do you think it will be before one threatens suicide”?

There are so many problems with universal credit and not enough time to deal with them today. The Government need to halt it and fix it.