Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits

Debate between Jonathan Reynolds and Desmond Swayne

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Reynolds]

I agree with the hon. Member. Opposition to the cut is truly universal, for those reasons. It includes MPs, charities, unions and six former Conservative Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions. If we are being honest, I think several serving Conservative Ministers also share that view. In this debate, I want to knock down the fiction that there is somehow a choice to be made between cancelling the cut and getting people back into work. I want to talk about what the cut will mean for the families affected and the impact that it will have on all our local economies and the national resilience necessary to meet future challenges. I also want to talk about how the Government could easily fund universal credit at its current rate without making this counterproductive and harsh cut.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

I am inundated every week by employers who simply cannot get workers. Should we not be seeking to raise the sights of many working people to get another, better-paid job? They are out there.

[Jonathan Reynolds]

In the right hon. Member’s constituency, 4,000 households are in receipt of universal credit. I want to ensure that, at the beginning of the debate, we knock down the argument, which we have also heard from the Prime Minister, that a focus on jobs will somehow mean that we do not need to keep universal credit at its current level. Of course we should get people back into jobs, but it is simply false to say that the choice is between keeping the uplift and doing that.

Let me remind the House again that universal credit is an in-work benefit. Almost half of the incomes that Government Members wish to cut are of people in work. Either the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and several Conservative MPs do not know how universal credit works or they are being wilfully misleading. I do not know which is worse. Let us have a real debate rather than this ignorant rhetoric about work or welfare, because—this is the crucial point—if as a country we could get the people affected into better-paying jobs, the cost of keeping universal credit at its current level would go down automatically. That is exactly how the system is designed to work. Anyone saying that the cut needs to happen to get people back into work, or to get them working more hours, does not know what they are talking about.