Concentrix: Tax Credit Claimants

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Indeed. Not only that, but the Government ought to ensure that it does not happen again. There is a risk that it could, not just in the Treasury but in other Departments. The reason why I persisted with this debate after the Treasury abandoned the contract is that I believe that this is an opportunity to learn lessons that should be spread throughout Government.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is right to point out that this is not just a failure of practice by Concentrix but a policy failure by Government. The deliberate intention of the contract was clearly to target single parents, on the basis of assumptions that they were living with a partner and not reporting it. That is an acute, intimate and sensitive issue, and it is important in such cases that practice is handled with great care. There is absolutely no evidence of such care. This is returning to the attitude that single women bringing up children must not be respectable and need to be investigated. Surely that is something that the Government need to rethink and re-learn.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It was a gendered contract, and the Government did not stop to think—or maybe they did think about it, and thought that women in such circumstances should be blamed. All Members here will know that their constituents feel harassed, scared and pinned up as targets as a result of how things have been done. It is not acceptable in a civilised society to treat mothers in that manner, and it is mothers who have been treated badly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The problem is that the Minister and his civil servants cannot imagine what it is like for someone to have to choose between feeding their son or daughter and posting an important letter that will get next month’s money in. They cannot imagine a parent having so little money that that is the choice they face. When people’s tax credits were stopped, they were eventually restored. Although they can get additional bank charges and so on paid back—I have managed that on behalf of constituents—they often cannot redeem their credit history, which makes the rest of their life more expensive, so there are serious long-term consequences.

[Kate Green]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government should reconsider the situation wherein, in the face of error by Concentrix, my constituents were asked to apply for a mandatory reconsideration of the decision? That is disgraceful. The fault was not theirs.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Indeed, and if we look at the figures for mandatory reconsideration we can see that it is overwhelmingly decided that our constituents were in the right and the decision makers in the wrong.

It is striking that the process was also expensive for those who complied. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Paula Sherriff) pointed out, sending precious documents by registered post costs money, as do printing inks. People also have to pay fees to have documents reissued. Yet in every case HMRC had initially decided that the application was justified. We are not talking about initial applications for tax credits; we are speaking on behalf of people who are trying to continue to receive them. The burden of proof has to be on HMRC.