Universal Credit Sanctions

Debate between Hannah Bardell and Jim McMahon

Monday 4th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

That is important, because concerns have been raised about when people are underemployed and do not have enough hours for a full-time week and the Government require them to actively pursue work to make up the additional hours. They may be only one or two hours under the threshold, but they are still required to attend an interview. If they work for an employer that has no flexibility and would be happy for them to walk out the door, because there is a queue of 10 people who are willing to take the 35-hour-a-week job, perhaps they cannot get to the appointment or perhaps the employer will not give them the additional hours required to satisfy the jobcentre. That is a real example of what people are going through today.

In a recent survey, Citizens Advice found that 39% of people had waited for more than six weeks and 11% had waited for more than 10 weeks. We have a heard a lot about the need for welfare to mirror work. It ought to provide a smooth transition between employment, changing contract terms and earnings, and significant changes in circumstances, but at its heart it is part of the welfare state. It is a safety net to catch people when they fall on difficult times that helps them to keep their head above water. It is meant to help people, not treat them as undeserving or with suspicion and resentment. For a safety net to work, it must be there when people fall. It should not let people hit the ground hard and then make them wait six or 10 weeks before help arrives. That is not the spirt of a welfare state that people pay into through national insurance. It is an insurance policy, but it fails to be there when people need it. That is fundamental.

There is a contract in place between citizens and the state. If we collectively, through our common endeavour, pay national insurance contributions, that fund ought to be there when we need it. The Government have failed to honour that contract, as far as I can see, and people who pay into that pot have the right to be disgruntled and to question whether it is really there. I would like to believe that that is not what the Government want, but some of the benefits debates in the media are corrosive. We hear the language that gets used by the Government. We are now in a position where the Government would be happy for public support for the welfare state to fall away completely to give them a reason to take the axe even further.

When the banking crisis really hit, people in Oldham did not blame the bankers or the Government; they blamed their neighbours. They looked at the neighbour who had a slightly nicer car than them and wondered why they could not have a nicer car. They saw the people with their suitcases full who were getting into a taxi to go on holiday and asked why they could not go holiday. That is the cruelty. People on low incomes were set against other people on low incomes, and the Government got away with it. When bankers have not been taken to task and corporation tax cuts have been handed out, the axe has been taken to the welfare state that was supposed to support people.

Thirty per cent. of people have reported making more than 10 calls to the universal credit helpline before their application was processed, with many waiting more than 30 minutes. Up until very recently, they were also charged a high premium. Some 57% had to borrow money while waiting for their first payment. So far, 101 job centres covering 14% of all job centres in Great Britain operate universal credit full service, and we fear for what the roll-out really means. But this is more fundamental than all the facts and figures. I talked about how we collectively pay into the pot that should be there to support people, and I could go into a lot of detail about the sanctioning regime and just how unfair and inflexible it is and how it does not take people’s lives into account.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the passion and conviction with which he is speaking on this hugely important issue at such an early hour. Does he share my concern at the report released this morning by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation highlighting that pensioners, children and many families are, as a result of benefits sanctions, falling further into poverty despite much progress having been made? Does he also agree that, as Brexit starts to bite and as these sanctions come into place, we are approaching a catastrophe for those on low incomes?

[Jim McMahon]

That is absolutely the experience of people who have been affected, including people who are far away from the job market. The treatment of people who are in work on low wages and in insecure employment is wrong, but we should have a welfare state that supports people into employment, and it just does not do that in the way we want. Universal credit might force people into a job regardless of what the job is and regardless of its suitability, and it does not take into account people’s real desire to make an active contribution and to feel that their life is going somewhere. That is the real cruelty of the current system.

According to the DWP’s own data, Greater Manchester saw a staggering 34,000 sanctions in the 12 months to June 2017, with 3,420 of those sanctions in Oldham alone. Unsurprisingly, December 2016 saw sanction rates hit their peak at 4,200, which is hardly surprising given that the Christmas period knocks appointments out of sync, meaning that people might not be able to attend.

My plea, and it has been made a number of times, is that if we believe in the foundations of a fair society, we have to have rights and obligations, but we also have to have a state that recognises it has a role to play. The foundations cannot be taken for granted. When they were brought in, they were brought in because the country was in a state and we recognised that something dramatic had to happen to build the type of Britain we want. The idea that those brave decisions can be undone by a Government who seem completely indifferent to human suffering is worrying.

More than that, the challenge our country faces as we embark on leaving the European Union is one of the biggest in generations. It could cause economic shock and social shock, and we do not quite know yet what the consequences will be. A person might think that the Government would take this opportunity to re-establish their vision for the type of Britain that will exist after Brexit. Core to that has to be decent public services, a social security system that is there when people need it and an employment system in which we invest in industry and make sure that the next generation has the chance, which has unfortunately been taken away from too many, to do better, get on in life and have a decent life living in this country.

The Government need to step up. Time is ticking. Generations are passing by. I do not want the current system for my children, and nobody in this House should want it for their children or for their constituents, either.