Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill

Hywel Williams Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Coffey]

Yes, that is the case. I was planning to cover that later. For the record, I will still make that point.

Our household support fund administered through local authorities in England and the money given to devolved Administrations are further avenues for people to seek help with the cost of essentials. From October, the Government are adding an additional £500 million to the fund, extending support through the winter. That equates to an additional £421 million in England and £79 million for the devolved Administrations, and that will take total funding for this UK-wide household support to £1.5 billion.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

One group of people who receive universal credit and are in some difficulty are those who lose some of their universal credit because they received a universal credit advance for the first five weeks. Some 92,000 households in that situation in Wales are getting about £60 a month less, and that comes to a total of about £5 million being denied to them. I hope that the Secretary of State is prepared to reconsider her position on that. Obviously, that is not in the Bill, so she has taken a decision in the short term, but I press her to reconsider.

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Gentleman is incorrect in saying that money is denied to people. The whole point of receiving an advance is that there is phasing and, instead of receiving 12 payments in a typical calendar year, 13 payments are made. We extended that recently so that people can choose whether to have 25 payments over 24 months. It is not a case of people being denied.

The Social Security (Additional Payments) Bill before the House is a short Bill of 11 clauses that gives us the powers necessary to administer payments to families on means-tested and disability benefits. As one-off new benefit payments, they will be delivered by the UK Government to eligible households right across the United Kingdom in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The timing of such payments will vary, starting with the first payment of £326 for DWP means-tested benefit claimants from 14 July. The second payment will arrive in the autumn for those eligible. Those on tax credits who do not receive DWP means-tested benefits will get each instalment later to avoid duplicate payments.

People not eligible in time for the first £326 payment because they were not getting a qualifying benefit in the month before the announcement may get the second £324 payment if they have a qualifying entitlement to a benefit in the month before the next eligibility date. We have deliberately not included the next eligibility date in the Bill to try not to change claimant behaviour. Instead, there is the power to set a date through regulations.

Those on qualifying disability benefits will get their £150 as a single payment from September. Where eligibility for any of these cost of living payments is found retrospectively—for example, someone who had applied for personal independence payment but not yet been awarded it—people will still receive that disability cost of living payment; it will just be at a later date.