Universal Credit

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

No, I have made that point and want now to move on to the design of the system.

For me, the biggest advantage of the universal credit system is that it gets rid of the hours caps on what people can earn and the reduction in the withdrawal of benefit. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray), who speaks for the Scottish National party, talked about taper rates and the reduction of benefit as people earn money. He is right about that, but what he forgets to say is that under the legacy benefit system that withdrawal of benefit could be up to 90%. It meant that it was not worth people—[Interruption.]

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Harper]

We do not have very much time to speak. I am afraid the SNP Front Bencher took up a huge amount of time, so I am not going to take any more interventions from the SNP. He spoke for longer than the official Opposition.

We have reduced the effective tax rate for people on benefits from up to 90% to 63%. It was 65% to start off with and we were able to reduce that.

The second important point is that for many people on benefits who had hours caps, jobs had to be designed not around the needs of businesses or individuals, but around the needs of the benefit system. My experience when I was a Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions was of meeting businesses that designed jobs around the needs of their business. However, when they took on a fantastic employee who did a great job and then wanted to increase their hours and offer that person increased opportunities to earn a living, that person had to say, “I’m terribly sorry. I can’t take that promotion or those hours because it will put at risk my benefits and I will not be able to guarantee a roof over our head for my children.” That has changed and that is a radical improvement.