Universal Credit

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I am sure that the hon. Lady does not believe that I am trying to mislead the House. Let me be absolutely clear: many people, including MPs, wrongly believe that all children in poverty already get free school meals. That is not currently the case. But under the transitional protections under universal credit, those 1 million children would be entitled to the benefit. Through the secondary legislation, the Government are pulling the rug from underneath those families.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this will make the working poor poorer and hit families deeply?

[Angela Rayner]

I am sure that my hon. Friend made an excellent point, but I am sorry to say that I did not quite catch it.

[Mr Cunningham]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this will make the working poor even poorer, in this day and age?

[Angela Rayner]

That is absolutely right—my hon. Friend did make a really important point. Those who currently get free school meals who were not part of universal credit were in households on out-of-work benefits. If these regulations were to go through, the people on whom they would have the most detrimental effect would be those in work.

The current system would help more than 1 million more children than the plans we are voting on today. The former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), once wrote that universal credit

“will ensure that work always pays and is seen to pay”,

yet under these plans, universal credit will mean that work does not pay for hundreds of thousands of families. Those just above the threshold would be better off earning less.