Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

15. If he will make an assessment of the effect of the length of waiting time to receive universal credit on levels of food bank usage.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr David Gauke)]

There is no reason for people to go without support while they wait for their first UC payment. New benefit claimants starting on UC today will be able to access an advance. This is normally paid within five working days, but can be delivered in a day if needed. Changes announced in the Budget will allow claimants to receive larger advances and for advances to be recovered over a longer period.

[Mr Gauke]

I do not accept the hon. Lady’s categorisation at all. The complaint that has been made about universal credit is about the cash-flow point—that people have to wait a period of time before they get their first payment. To address the cash-flow point there is a system of advances in the universal credit system so that people have the flexibility to receive the money earlier. It is an advance, they get it paid earlier—they do not get it paid twice, I accept that, but they get it paid earlier—and it is a perfectly sensible way to address a cash-flow issue.

[Helen Hayes]

The Peabody Trust estimates that 60,000 households will have made a new universal credit claim in the six weeks before Christmas and will not receive their first payment before the holiday period. The need is already being felt in my constituency, where last week Norwood food bank provided food for an extraordinary 128 people in a single session. What is the Secretary of State’s advice to families who are trying to provide a happy Christmas for their children without the means to afford even basic necessities?

[Mr Gauke]

We should be clear: if people need cash before Christmas, they are able to get it under the universal credit system, which is designed so that they can do that. People trying to discourage claimants from taking an advance, which I am afraid is the tone that we hear too often from the Labour party, are causing unnecessary anxiety for claimants.