Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC) [V]]

We in Plaid Cymru have called consistently for the addition to universal credit to be made permanent and for it to be extended to legacy benefits. That is the bare minimum social security response required, with so many people experiencing such hardship. Millions of people in Wales and across the UK are facing many more months of want, with no guarantee that the pandemic will be over by March when this artificial deadline is to be imposed.

The Minister said he cannot predict the circumstances in April. Neither can I. That is exactly why the certainty of the uplift should be continued. It is no surprise that the Government want to dodge yet another U-turn, having been forced to extend free school meals after the swindle of food hampers for hungry kids and all the rest of it. But for the Government to cut the vital support that universal credit provides just to save face would be morally reprehensible. The Secretary of State should have the courage to say, “The facts have changed, I have changed my mind.”

If this cut goes through, over a third of Welsh households will be more than £1,000 a year worse off. This month the figure for universal credit in Arfon is up again at just shy of about 5,000; so less money for children in Arfon, and less for the basics of food, heating and clothing, piling further deprivation on to children already disadvantaged, possibly for life, by the disruption to their education. In Wales, even before covid-19, nearly a quarter of all people living in the country were in poverty, rising shamefully to three in 10 children.

The Government intend social security spending in Wales to be cut by around £250 million; less for Welsh parents to spend, but also £250 million taken out of the Welsh economy, so less for local businesses already reeling from covid.

It would be indefensible for a Westminster Government to harm the children of Wales in this way at the best of times. Doing so during the worst pandemic in memory, and after a decade of vicious austerity, is unforgivable. To lift Wales out of poverty, we urgently need the power to repair the deep cracks in our welfare system caused by years of both blue and red austerity. This deliberate cut and all the other welfare failures over decades are further proof that Westminster is not up to the job. We in Wales urgently need full powers over welfare to be devolved to our Senedd.