Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Madeleine Moon

Monday 13th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am not sure from that whether the right hon. Gentleman supports the change or not. [Interruption.] He supports it—yet again a lone figure on his side, on which I congratulate him. We have carried out a whole load of revisions and changes, making sure that we watch implementation carefully. We carry out research constantly when it comes to the effects of all of our benefit changes. This one is an overall positive rather than a negative.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

5. What recent assessment he has made of Capita’s timescales for processing medical assessments for personal independence payments and providing them to his Department.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Madeleine Moon

Monday 23rd January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. She has raised an issue that has been raised by a number of people. The reason why we want to try to pay universal credit monthly is simply that when unemployed people go back to work, they sometimes have to adjust to their wages being paid monthly rather than bi-weekly, which often causes them problems. One of the reasons why they often fall out of work is that they cannot settle on that. We want to try and pay the universal credit monthly, so that it assists them. We will give every bit of assistance we can to all those who have difficulty to help them manage their budgets, which will include a new test on the way we pay housing benefit and the way it will be allocated through their bank accounts. I also give my hon. Friend this undertaking: we will have set-back proposals to make it absolutely certain that we can assist those who genuinely cannot do so to pay their relevant bills.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Before Christmas it was announced that, at least initially, local authorities would have no role in the universal credit assessment. Will the Secretary of State tell me what impact that will have on those working in housing benefit departments in local authorities? Will his Department be helping with redundancy costs if large numbers of people working in housing benefit departments lose their jobs?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The reason is that we will be talking full time, all the time, to local authorities. We receive a huge amount of information from them, so we are not talking about stand-alone assessments being made; rather, the functioning of universal credit requires that, at its best, it should be done in one location. However, we will be in constant contact with local authorities about the needs in their areas, and we will be with them all the way through in the way this is applied.