Underpayment of Benefits: Compensation

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister will know that the UK was found to be in breach of the human rights of people with disabilities by the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. He will know that some 7 million people live in food insecurity and food poverty in Britain. In Wales, we earn only 70% of the UK average, so thousands of vulnerable people in Swansea have been hit by this. Will he ensure not just that those people are paid, but that payments are made to charities for disabilities, and that we look again at universal credit uplift and perhaps a universal basic income so that the poorest do not continually fall through the net during the cost-of-living crisis?

[David Rutley]

I think I have highlighted what we are going to do in response to this particular situation. The hon. Gentleman makes some other points about what we are doing on food security and for those vulnerable people. As he knows, we have created an additional support fund—in England, it is called the household support fund—of £500 million across the UK. A chunk of that money—around £21 million, from memory; it is over £20 million anyway—has gone to Wales, and the Welsh Government are using it to help vulnerable people. We recognise that there are people who need further support.

On universal basic income, people who have tried that out—ask the Finnish Government—said that it is not the way forward; it is untargeted and does not provide a work incentive. I do not think it is the way forward. Of course, we can always improve our welfare approaches, but that is not the approach that would help.