Universal Credit Work Allowance

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Owen Smith]

I have a great deal of respect for the way in which the hon. Lady stood up for her constituents and spoke out against her party and Government Front Benchers on the tax credits changes because many thousands of people would be affected in her constituency. I point her to the document commissioned and chaired by the Secretary of State when he first conceived of universal credit: in his introduction, he demolished the argument she has just made. He effectively said that we could not expect people to work harder simply out of responsibility and moral obligation, and that we needed to introduce incentives. That was the underpinning rationale of universal credit. Unfortunately, these changes—the cuts to the taper rate, the cuts to the work allowance and the cuts to the childcare provision—are fundamentally undermining the initial premise. They are destroying universal credit. In 2020, 5,000 of the hon. Lady’s constituents will suffer lower incomes as a result of the changes to universal credit.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

I lived on in-work benefits. The delightful feeling of being lifted out of welfare benefits never fed my children. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Owen Smith]

I completely agree, and my hon. Friend’s personal experience ought to be listened to by the Secretary of State and Members on both sides of the House. She will know that 17,000 of her constituents will be hit by the changes in 2020—an extraordinary number of families will have lower incomes as a result of the changes.

The truth is that the changes cannot increase work incentives and will not increase outcomes. They cannot. That is why successive independent experts have come out and told the Government to think again, as they did on tax credits. The Social Security Advisory Committee—the Government’s own advisory committee—tells them to reverse their plans. The Resolution Foundation, chaired by a former Tory Minister, tells them the same. Most recently, and most importantly of all, on 17 December the Government’s social mobility commission, deputy-chaired by a Tory peer, Baroness Shephard, said with great clarity to the Secretary of State in its “State of the Nation 2015: Social Mobility and Child Poverty” report:

“The immediate priority must be taking action to ensure that the introduction of Universal Credit does not make families with children who ‘do the right thing’ (in terms of working as much as society expects them to) worse off than they would be under the current system. That means reversing the cuts to Universal Credit work allowances enacted through the Universal Credit (Work Allowance) Amendment Regulations”.

The commission is right and the Opposition agree, just as we agreed when the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen) and her colleagues urged the Government to go into reverse last time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

The Opposition motion is a very simple one. Once again, the Opposition are asking us to duck a difficult decision. I would like to speak very briefly—I hopeful we will make up some time—about why such an approach is simply unsustainable.

As a nation, we have two very major problems. First, we continue to live beyond our means. When the Conservatives first came into government in 2010, we were spending £4 for every £3 we were earning. That meant we had the biggest budget deficit in our peacetime history. We have made progress. The Government have more than halved the budget deficit, but there is still a tremendous distance to go. Secondly, as a nation we have the persistent problem of a high tax, low wage and high welfare economy. At the root of this lies the situation we inherited in 2010, whereby people on the minimum wage were working very hard and still having to pay tax and then having their wages subsidised through the welfare system. As a result, nine out of 10 working families were receiving some sort of benefit payment. Despite all the additional spending, it was not working. As we have heard repeatedly, in-work poverty rose by 20%.

The level of borrowing and welfare spending was simply unsustainable. Under the previous Government, an extra £3,000 was spent for every single household in the country. That is burdening our children and our grandchildren with additional borrowing simply to pay for current welfare spending. This is happening at a time when countries around the world are taking difficult decisions and we are facing rising competition from countries such as South Korea and China. Living with the burden of welfare spending paid for by our children and grandchildren is simply not sustainable.

When we came to power, we produced a plan to deal with the problem. First, we said that part of the reduction in the deficit had to be funded by £12 billion of welfare savings. Labour Members can say we should not achieve those savings, but I have yet to hear a single alternative suggestion.

[Jess Phillips]

indicated dissent.

[Oliver Dowden]

Would the hon. Lady like to make an intervention?

[Jess Phillips]

As admirable as the hon. Gentleman’s party might feel his efforts are in stating that we have to cut welfare, the problem is that under this Government, welfare spending has persistently gone up. One would suggest, therefore, that your tactics do not work in the real world.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. I think the hon. Lady meant the hon. Gentleman’s tactics, not mine.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

Obviously I echo the sentiments of all my hon. Friends about how these changes will affect working families throughout the country. I am especially concerned about the effects on single parents. The changes to universal credit are complex and difficult to decipher for people who are not yet receiving the benefit, so there is understandably much less buzz than there was for the tax credit changes, but make no mistake, the same uproar will come.

In the debate on tax credits, I spoke of the 24,000 children in Birmingham, Yardley who would be worse off because of those changes. By contrast, on the same date I could find only four properties in my constituency that would benefit from the inheritance tax changes. Thanks to the fact that universal credit has been record-breakingly slow, by April 2016 the changes will potentially affect only 760 households in my constituency. That is still 756 more families hit hard than the number that will benefit from the inheritance tax changes. I think it safe to say that, perhaps other than for those four families—and let us not forget that they have to be dead first—the residents in my constituency can see the same old Tory Government protecting and rewarding the richest.

In honour of the Tories keeping to their type, I shall do the same and raise issues of domestic and sexual violence victims. I wish to pick up two problems with the whole universal credit experiment. The first is that it all gets paid to one person in a household. I have met countless women who have kept small bits of money, saved up and used the funds to help set them and their children free. I have met too many women for whom financial control was the worst and most limiting part of their abuse. Walking away from violence and threat is never easy. It is nearly impossible if you have nothing.

I recognise that the DWP has bowed to pressure and accepted that split payments are available in cases of domestic violence when they are reported to the benefits adviser or the work person we have been talking about today—but there is a real problem with that scheme. It is the same problem I have with the two-child policy coming down the line for the very same families when considering children born of rape.

The Government expect women who are terrified, who have been told every day that they are nothing and no one, to rock up at the local jobcentre and tell the staff that they have been raped or that their husband beats and controls them—“Please, sir, can we have split payments?” What do we think their violent partners are going to do when they find half of their funds gone? I could be wrong and I am willing to be proven so. I have tabled some parliamentary questions about how many people have asked for split payments in the pilot areas. Perhaps all my years of experience are wrong and people in domestic violence relationships are skipping into neighbourhood offices, happy to disclose their worst fears.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I understand the power of the important points that the hon. Lady is raising, but one subtle change is that for the first time such women will have a named contact, who will get to know and understand them, and if they can spot signs that have been highlighted, they will be able to signpost support. That might encourage people for the first time to have that conversation. I know it is difficult, but this provides another opportunity for people to get the support that they absolutely need.

[Jess Phillips]

I shall respond to the Minister’s point by saying what I was about to say anyway. I hope that these issues will be considered as the roll-out continues, as he has said that they will. When domestic violence victims had to prove to legal aid services in cases of family law that they were victims, they initially had to provide proof from either the police or a doctor, and some were charged for the pleasure of producing a letter proving that they were indeed victims. Demanding that victims of domestic violence skip around telling anyone who will listen that they are victims before the Government will recognise them as such is inhumane.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising this issue again, because it is extremely important. Does she share my concern about the fact that no details have been given of how the system will work, what the burden of proof will be, and how women are expected to go about this?

[Jess Phillips]

I absolutely share the hon. Lady’s concern, and I commend her for all the work that she is trying to do in this regard. As we have seen in the past, at a time of limited services and limited legal aid provision for victims of domestic and sexual violence, just a woman’s word should be enough. It has always been enough for me, I never made people prove that they were victims when they came to me and said that they wanted to come into a refuge. What burden of proof will the Government require? I leave that thought with the Minister.

I understand that the Government have a drive to bring down welfare spending, although, as I think I have already said, they have repeatedly failed in that this task. There is a desire—and I wish that we could draw a line today, and stop this—to pitch people who take against people who give. The truth that the Government fail to realise, again and again, is that we are all taxpayers. There is no distinct group of people who pay nothing. Moreover, I will wager that everyone in the Chamber has been, or will be, on some sort of state benefit. I bet that all our mums and dads had their family allowance, as we called it when I was a kid. Even the Chancellor himself, a man who I believe has a bob or two, admitted that he claimed child benefit for his own children. What a scrounger!

Everyone contributes, and everyone takes. The single parents on low wages who will be hit by these changes are no better or worse than any of us here, and in my opinion they deserve to be treated better than a dead person with a posh house.