Universal Credit: Managed Migration

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his comments and for his time in discussing with me a constituency issue that contributed to my responding in an accelerated way to the plans I was already formulating for looking again at how we support people with terminal illness diagnosis. Yes, I will continue to proceed with that at pace, because I am very conscious that the people who have that sort of diagnosis need as much support as possible, as soon as possible.

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her statement, but may I please ask why it has taken over a year to get to this position, and only then with the help of a High Court action that her Department lost? How many other actions does she expect to have in this area of her administration, and will she now publish the criteria by which she will judge whether the pilot is a success, before the pilot is completed?

[Amber Rudd]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. I am aware that there is, quite rightly, a lot of interest in how we will assess the pilot, and I have been looking at that myself. Ultimately, the pilot will be a success if we get as many people as we expect across from the legacy benefits to universal credit as effectively and efficiently as possible. I want to ensure that we give them the right support, and that they have an effective transfer. The process we have at the moment will be based on “Who knows who?”—“Who knows me?” will be the theme—so we are engaging with organisations and individuals to ensure that they get the right support. I have already requested my Department to look at the suggestions that the right hon. Gentleman kindly made last week about finding out which organisation might support which individual and who those individuals receiving notice to move might trust and prefer to engage with. I will be taking that forward as well.