Universal Credit Split Payments

Debate between Jess Phillips and Justin Tomlinson

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Justin Tomlinson]

If my hon. Friend had been a little more patient and had not intervened, my very next point would have covered that.

It is important that when we design policy, we do not presume that everything is utopian. I have made a commitment today to Women’s Aid and Refuge—I stress that our meetings were in the diary before today’s debate was arranged—that over the next couple of weeks they will work with me and our operational frontline teams to check the typical experience. My hon. Friend makes a valid point about those with mental health issues; not everybody immediately says, “I am a victim or potential victim of domestic abuse,” so it is about identifying the signs and looking at what additional support can be given for those who, whether because of mental health or as a consequence of the abuse that they face, do not have the confidence to navigate the incredibly difficult and challenging journey to break free. We will therefore do a deep dive to look at what the typical journey is like for people, and at what more we can do through training and through providing local partnerships. Every single district will have a highly trained named team programme manager solely responsible for making those partnership arrangements locally and nationally.

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

Will the Minister give way?

[Justin Tomlinson]

This will have to be the last intervention, because I have a lot to say and not long to say it, and I do not want to be criticised for missing things.

[Jess Phillips]

I just wonder what the jobcentre will do when it discovers, as we have all done, that those local partnerships lead to a dead end because the services are no longer there.

[Justin Tomlinson]

We will be looking at that. I understand the hon. Lady’s point. I want to engage with the experts—the ManKind Initiative, Women’s Aid and Refuge—to look at it and identify the problems. I am not in charge of UC; I am in charge of trying to make it better for those with complex needs, including victims of domestic abuse. That is a real priority for me.

I welcome the work of the Work and Pensions Committee and the fact that its report states:

“Since 2010, the Government has begun to make great strides in tackling domestic abuse… It has also demonstrated a clear commitment to being more supportive of survivors of domestic abuse.”

Although we are not everything, we play an important role, and I take that seriously.

I am conscious of time, so let me address the specific point about split payments. I welcome the fact that Scotland wishes to try them. As it stands, anybody who is a victim of domestic abuse can be given a split payment. I accept the point that there are then challenges—not unreasonably, the hon. Member for Midlothian said that the current recipient would notice that it was potentially half of the income. We need to look at Scotland because we have to learn from the test and look at the unintended consequences.

Those groups that campaigned for a split payment do not agree on how to split it. It is not the case that everybody would simply do it 50:50. If the state arbitrarily says that somebody should have 70% and somebody else should have 30%, that could have unintended consequences. That may not mean that it is not the right way to do it, but it is why we have committed to give support to the Scottish Parliament to do its pilot. The pilot will cover a sufficiently large area for us to draw good information from it and decide whether split payments are the way to go or whether—because of unintended consequences, and despite the good intentions—they are not.

The answer to the specific question of whether the Scottish Government have introduced suggestions on how to do split payments or a plan for legislation is, “Absolutely not.” I suspect, in their defence, that that is because the issue of how the payments are split is so complex. However, they will get our full support to make whatever they do work. Just to be clear, the principle of having household income is not new to UC; it has been the case for legacy benefits since the dawn of time. That does not mean that it is right, but we will look closely at the Scottish Government.

Universal Credit Work Allowance

Debate between Jess Phillips and Justin Tomlinson

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[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.