Universal Credit Roll-out

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

My constituent Martyn Dewar, the disability students officer at Heriot-Watt University, has pointed out to me that although under employment and support allowance a disabled person can become a student and continue to claim, the same will not happen under universal credit? Does my hon. Friend agree that this is another loophole the Government should close in the interests of disabled students, if they obey the instruction of the House last week to pause the roll-out of universal credit?

[Neil Gray]

I absolutely agree with my hon. and learned Friend, who raises a very pertinent point that I hope the Government have heard.

We all agree that employment is a route out of poverty, but what hope do we give those who are employed and living in poverty? What hope can the Government give them, given that they are currently participating in the only route out of poverty the Tories know and yet still live below the line? The cuts to universal credit are making people worse off. In East Lothian, more than half of the local citizens advice bureaux clients on universal credit are worse off by on average £45 per week. A third of their clients are better off but by just 34p per week. We know from the Resolution Foundation that the decade from 2010 is to be the worst for wage growth in 210 years. Not since the Napoleonic Wars have we had it so bad.