Universal Credit: Court of Appeal Judgment Debate

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Department: Department for Work and Pensions

Universal Credit: Court of Appeal Judgment

Hywel Williams Excerpts
Thursday 25th June 2020

(3 years, 9 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Will Quince Portrait Will Quince
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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 Portrait Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC) [V]
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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 Portrait Will Quince
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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.