Employment and Support Allowance Underpayments

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I utterly reject the suggestion that we are destroying the lives of disabled people. We did not agree with the United Nations at the time, because we did not think that it had taken into consideration all the evidence that we had given to it. I published a full response to the UN, which I hope very much that the hon. Gentleman will read. It is in the Library, and it shows the huge amount of support that we are giving to disabled people.

Benefits for disabled people in our country have never been higher, but we are not at all complacent. We know that there is more to do. I want all disabled people in our country to be able to live their lives independently and play their full part in society, and we will continue to ensure that that is the case.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

A constituent who rang my office this morning was concerned that if they received the money that was underpaid, it might then be clawed back from other benefits. Will the Minister confirm that that will not happen?

[Sarah Newton]

That is a very good question, and I can assure the hon. Lady’s constituent that it will not happen. The full details are in the “frequently asked questions” section in the Library.

Universal Credit

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

On behalf of all the constituents who have contacted me about a range of difficulties to do with their experience of the universal credit system, I reiterate the calls in this debate to halt the roll-out, fix the problems identified so far, and fully fund this policy so that universal credit claimants do not bear the brunt of the Government’s cuts.

Following the Secretary of State’s alleged remarks to the Cabinet that some families will be £200 per month worse off, which is a significant loss, she is now talking about a slower managed migration that will start later next year, and claims to be listening and learning along the way. Well, I do not want my constituents, particularly those with disabilities and mental health problems being moved on to ESA, to have to go through hardship so that the Government can learn from them; I want the Government to learn the lessons now.

This is clearly not a system that is ready for full migration. New claimants and people with changes to their circumstances—the roll-out started with them—should be the easier cases, but we have already seen long delays in processing and payment, driving people to food banks, with social landlords and private landlords reporting not only a dramatic increase in people going into rent arrears but bigger arrears. I urge the Minister to look at the evidence on this from Community Housing Cymru, and specifically to look at the issue of the two-week run-on of housing benefit, which is not always working in my constituency cases.

As Mind has pointed out, there is huge anxiety out there among those who are going from ESA on to universal credit. Mind says that the Government safeguards for vulnerable people are not good enough. I say that on behalf of a constituent who is hugely worried about the process. Housebound, with no computer, they have to apply for universal credit and, without very close support, they are at risk of losing the benefit. No one should have their benefit stopped until their universal credit claim has been successfully submitted.

I ask the Minister to look at the specific issue of under 25-year-olds with children who are being paid at the under 25-year-olds’ rate, not at the normal rate as under tax credits. That will increase child poverty.

I want to raise the issue of a single mother in my constituency who loves her permanent, part-time job in a school. She is being trained up, with the potential shortly to go full-time, but she is being told that she has to give that up and take on full-time temporary retail work in the run-up to Christmas, with no guarantee of work afterwards. Why is this in anyone’s interest? Making someone in work worse off is not work progression.

I have huge respect for DWP staff out there having to deliver this. It is the policy that is flawed, and I know they are doing their best, despite the cuts, to help people. We should thank them. As a constituent said to me yesterday, there is nothing wrong with the idea of simplifying the benefits system, but instead it is being used as an exercise in saving money at a cost to those who can least afford it. It is time to halt it, fix it and put the funding in.

The Secretary of State’s Handling of Universal Credit

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

I too want universal credit to work, but yet again the Secretary of State has come to the House, in the face of evidence and feedback from the NAO, CABs, food banks, housing associations, local government and others, and just appears to want to ride it out and brazen it out. That is deeply worrying and disappointing for my constituency because Newport has only had about 10% roll-out so far, and those are the easy cases—new claimants, single people without children, families with no more than two children. Yes, some people will have managed to navigate universal credit, but, as the NAO report says, for a “substantial minority” that is not the case. We need to address the problem as a matter of urgency before the roll-out reaches the more complicated cases. involving moving people from legacy benefits and people with larger families.

During this limited roll-out, we have also seen the problems documented by the NAO report reflected locally, and alarm bells should be heard. There have been problems with the initial claims: for instance, one family were inadvertently moved to universal credit and had to be returned to legacy benefits. It took 99 days for the lost tax credits to be fully recovered. According to the report, one in five claimants do not receive their full payments on time, and on average those claimants have been paid four weeks late. That means that many people do not receive their full payments for eight or nine weeks—and they are often people with no savings on which to rely. Some of my constituents have to resort to using food banks. One local food bank reports giving out 300 extra parcels every month over and above the increase that it anticipated. Other constituents do not want the advance payments because they do not want to go into debt, and are borrowing from loan sharks or from family and friends instead.

I agree with all the points that have been made about the online system, but let me add one more. People who have no individual ID, such as a passport or driving licence, now face a longer wait for an appointment before they can get into the system into which the delay is built. Those are often the most vulnerable people, and that too needs to be addressed.

Advice services such as citizens advice bureaux are seeing more and more people, and Newport CAB tells me that most of the problems involve initial claims. Arrears and debt problems do not just go away, as is shown by the Government’s own full service survey. Housing associations and local authorities are picking up the extra costs. Rent arrears alone are costing housing associations in Wales more than £1 million.

Let me take this opportunity to thank the hard-working DWP staff out there. According to a survey conducted by the Public and Commercial Services Union, 80% felt that there were not enough staff to manage the workload. I know that they are doing their best with the resources that they currently have, and I thank them for what they are trying to do.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, while DWP staff are remarkably good at the job they do, they must have the tools they need to do that job, and many are frustrated that they do not have them?

[Jessica Morden]

I absolutely agree. I believe that they are doing the best they can with the tools that they have been given, but they need far more resources.

I hope that the Minister who winds up will adopt a more conciliatory tone. It is not enough to say that the delays can be solved by advance payments, or that it is too early to assess the impacts. The evidence is plain to see in our constituencies. The Government have been forced to change parts of this policy, and it is now time for them to pause and listen. If the roll-out speeds up and takes on the more complicated cases, we will, I fear, see only more debt and hardship among those who need the system to help them into work, or to support them if they cannot work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

It is always good to hear from the hon. Lady, but we have already heard from her.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Constituents who do not have a passport or driving licence, because they do not drive or have no need of one or cannot afford one, cannot use the online verification system and need to be seen in person at a job centre, but there are huge waits for appointments, including for those who urgently need advance payments. What is the Minister doing to tackle that?

[Alok Sharma]

The hon. Lady knows that advance payments are available if they are required on the day. As for verification, there is a set of criteria that can be applied so that we do not have to go through the verification system. If the hon. Lady has specific cases, she should please bring them to me as I would be happy to look into them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

Budgeting loans are indeed available, but under universal credit we also have budgeting advances. If my hon. Friend has any specific cases she wishes to raise, I would be happy to talk to her about them.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Constituents who cannot afford a driving licence or a passport cannot do an initial online verification of their universal credit claim, meaning that they have to wait up to two weeks in order to be seen for a personal appointment. That is driving people to see loan sharks in some cases, so will the Minister look at it?

[Alok Sharma]

I will look at it, but if the hon. Lady would come forward with specific cases, that would make it easier.

DWP Offices Closures: Merthyr Tydfil

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend talks about the valleys. Does he agree that Newport is also affected? We are very proud of the civil service jobs we have in Newport; there are hundreds at Sovereign House, the DWP office. Does my hon. Friend agree that in a drive to centralise, the Government are overlooking the importance of local jobs and local expertise from local people? That would be lost, given the travel difficulties that people are experiencing getting to Treforest.

[Gerald Jones]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. I see Newport as part of the south Wales economic area. Job losses in that community would have a similar effect there as they do in other areas across south Wales.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

Mortgage support is being offered at exactly the same rate as currently. The only difference is that it is now being deferred as a loan recoverable against any equity available in the house should it be sold in the future. Current participants in the scheme should see absolutely no difference unless and until they sell or transfer the house, at which point the taxpayer will recover the support offered.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

21. This change to support for mortgage interest will hit very hard thousands of low-income households, half of whom are pensioners. Does the Minister acknowledge that this change has not been well publicised and that, at the very least, the Government should pause and communicate what it will actually mean for people financially?

[Kit Malthouse]

We have to recognise that we are dealing with support for people who are accumulating what is often a very significant capital asset, and it seems only right that when equity becomes available the taxpayer is able to recover some or all of the support. There has been significant communication on the scheme with the people who are participating in it, and that is continuing. There will be between four and six written communications, and people will be invited to call a telephone number where they can obtain information from a third-party adviser before we get to April, when the scheme comes into play. I am confident that the people who are participating in the scheme at the moment will have enough information. Certainly, large numbers are making a decision either way at the moment.

Universal Credit: Private Rented Sector

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Tracy Brabin]

I totally support what the hon. Gentleman says: this is about not just families, but people with extra needs. Single parents in particular are most vulnerable to bullying landlords.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Gingerbread states that two thirds of single parents rent privately, and from my casework, I know that that group of people and the children that they support is particularly hard hit.

[Tracy Brabin]

Gingerbread is a fantastic charity. In my constituency, a young woman came to me who was being bullied by her landlord in all sorts of ways because of her inability to pay her rent. Single women living with children are incredibly vulnerable to that.

The ending of an assured shorthold tenancy agreement with a private landlord is now the primary reason for families presenting themselves as homeless to the local authority. The pressures on local authority housing could not be more severe. In Kirklees, for example, there are currently 9,700 applications for only 171 properties. It is a priority for all of us to support the private rental sector as universal credit is rolled out, if we want to lessen the burden on local councils. But this problem will not go away any time soon. The number of working households claiming housing benefit in the private sector has more than doubled since 2009, whereas the wages of some of the lowest paid in our society have stagnated. DWP figures confirm that only 7% of private renters are actually unemployed and seeking work. Sadly, although the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that the private rental sector has grown by a third over the past 12 months, the number of those being evicted has also grown, with 7,200 more private tenants losing their homes in 2015 than in 2003.

Independent Living Fund

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered changes to the Independent Living Fund.

It is a real pleasure to have you chair the debate this afternoon, Mrs Main, on the extremely important subject of the independent living fund. The subject is perhaps not discussed as much as it ought to be. It is a very complex area, relating to a fund where there have been profound changes in recent years, affecting some of the most vulnerable members of our community. Fundamental changes have occurred that we need to assess, as one of the things that this House does least well is to revisit changes that have taken place to see whether they are having a positive or negative impact on those affected.

I am grateful to the House of Commons Library for its excellent debate pack and for helping to clarify some of the complex issues in this policy area. At the outset, I would also like to say thank you to my constituent, Nathan Davies, an independent living fund recipient whose circumstances I will talk about during the context of the debate. I have great admiration for him. He is very concerned about the current state of the independent living fund in Wales and its future development.

It is important at the beginning to set the scene and to set out the background to the recent changes to the independent living fund. The fund was first set up in 1988 with the express and very worthy purpose of helping disabled people to continue to live out in the community and to contribute to society generally.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is quite right to talk about the importance of the independent living fund to his constituent. My constituent Richard, who is also a recipient, told me, “Words cannot really do justice to what the ILF means to me. It is like oxygen. It allows me to get out and about and not to be isolated—to live the best life I can.” Does my hon. Friend agree that gets to the crux—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. Interventions should be very brief, please; this is getting rather long.

[Jessica Morden]

Does my hon. Friend agree that that gets to the crux of just how important this debate is?

[Ian C. Lucas]

My hon. Friend and her constituent eloquently set out the importance of the fund. It gives freedom to individuals in receipt of funds to carry out what they want to do in their lives and to contribute broadly to their community.

The fund stayed open to new applicants until 2010 and was then closed. It operated across the UK until June 2015, when it was formally closed. Funding was devolved to English local councils and to the Scottish, Northern Ireland and Welsh Governments. The devolved Governments have pursued different policies on the fund. The Scottish Government set up Independent Living Fund Scotland, and my understanding is that the Northern Irish Government’s funds are also administered through that Scottish body.

Universal Credit Roll-out

Jessica Morden Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

I am keenly aware that the full service roll-out is due to start in the Newport part of my constituency on 15 November. As has been made clear by my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), and also by a host of organisations including Citizens Advice, Community Housing Cymru—which represents housing associations in Wales—the Trussell Trust, the Child Poverty Action Group, and the staff of those organisations on the front line, universal credit is not working for far too many people.

Although we support the principle of simplifying benefits, the evidence so far suggests that the design problems in the system, compounded by operational problems, delays and errors, mean that too many people are experiencing real financial hardship. In Newport—and in Caldicot, which will have full service in March—the DWP is dealing with only the simplest of claims from single people without children and without complex needs.

The ramped-up roll-out will widen to include more claims, as yet untested in the system locally. We have already seen cases of people waiting up to eight weeks for payments, not being able to meet financial commitments, borrowing and incurring interest charges, and struggling to catch up while remaining in debt. In my constituency, a family with three young children moved on to universal credit because of a new relationship, but then had to be moved back on to legacy benefits and tax credit because the system was not yet geared up for such cases. That family were left for eight weeks without a single payment, and had to rely on food banks for help.

The Government may decide to stick their head in the sand and ignore these valid criticisms, but let me explain what that might mean in my constituency. As I said earlier, the roll-out in Newport is due to start on 15 November. Given the six-week waiting period, my constituents will be lucky to receive their payment on the day after Boxing Day if it is on time, and not until the new year if it is not. No payments before Christmas will mean real hardship, and any payment received will be used to survive and to pay for food and heating, which by then—after six weeks with no income—will be a greater priority than paying rent. In neighbouring Torfaen, with the full service roll-out, 27% of Bron Afon tenants who moved on to universal credit in July had to wait an average of nine and half weeks for payment, which led to debt and borrowing from high-interest lenders.

I know that the Government will talk about advances, but they are not an adequate response. They cover only part of the universal credit claim, and must be repaid through deductions. The point is that people are being put into debt immediately. If half the number of new claimants have to rely on advance payments, the system is clearly wrong, and, as was pointed out earlier by the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray), that constitutes an admission that the system is failing.

[Kate Green]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the problem is compounded by the level of deductions of third-party debt that are allowed under universal credit—for example, council tax or utility bill debt? It is higher than the level allowed under legacy systems, which means that people are left with much less money.

[Jessica Morden]

I absolutely agree. The point is well made.

I know that housing associations are doing all they can to help tenants, and that there are heavy demands on their advice services, not least when they are helping those who cannot go online. However, as Gingerbread has pointed out, two thirds of single parents are renting privately. What is happening to those with private landlords? Are they able to negotiate longer repayment plans?

I, too support calls from organisations such as Community Housing Cymru which want a pause in the accelerated roll-out of the full service until the problems caused by delays have been addressed, improvements have been made in relation to, for instance, the six-week waiting period and the seven days without pay, and—this was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle)—the issue of landlord portals has been sorted out.

Let me finally say a word about our local DWP staff, who are dedicated and extremely hard-working, although I cannot say that I have spoken to many who feel enthused. They are on the front line of the delivery of the roll-out. Their numbers have been cut, and all kinds of changes are taking place in their service. They need to be properly resourced and supported, and the Government must make that a priority.

The movement on the call charges is welcome but overdue. We now need the Government to move further. We need them to understand the very real impact on people, not least in the run-up to Christmas. They must consider the practicalities, and pause the roll-out.