Universal Credit: Court of Appeal Judgment Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Work and Pensions
Hywel Williams
Main Page: Hywel Williams (Plaid Cymru - Arfon)Department Debates - View all Hywel Williams's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
Universal Credit: Court of Appeal Judgment
Hywel Williams Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Will Quince
I thank my hon. Friend. That is a helpful suggestion and certainly one that I will be exploring. He is right to extol the virtues of real-time earnings information. Among many other reasons, it is what makes universal credit much superior to the legacy benefits system, because we are able to ensure that as people’s income fluctuates their support can fluctuate too. His suggestion is a good one, and it is one that I will be looking at along with a suite of numerous other measures no doubt. I would be very happy to meet him to discuss it in further detail.
Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC) [V]
I am glad of the court’s sensible judgment and the Minister’s response, but this case highlights the flaws in UC, the need to adapt it to particular circumstances and the difficulties in doing so. With one third of Welsh households to receive UC by 2023, will he take this opportunity to respond to the Senedd’s Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee’s recommendations and look to devolve aspects of social security administration to Wales?
Will Quince
That is probably a letter that has gone to the Secretary of State, as opposed to me, and is well above my pay grade. I gently suggest to the hon. Gentleman that UC is good news for the whole UK, including, of course, Wales. I remind him that, once fully rolled out, it will be £2 billion more generous a year than the legacy benefits system it replaces. About 1 million disabled households will be £100 per calendar month better off, and claimants will have access to about £2.4 billion in benefits that previously went unclaimed under the confusing and clunky Labour legacy benefits system.