Universal Credit and Welfare Reform

Debate between Liam Byrne and Anne Main

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

My right hon. Friend is precisely right. That is why we are here to help the Secretary of State this afternoon by setting out some of the questions on which, if he was only a little clearer with the House, we would be happy to engage and help. One of the issues in which we share an interest is the way we support the enterprise spirit in this country. The CBI and the Chartered Institute of Taxation have flagged up their worry that universal credit will be a car crash for Britain’s entrepreneurs. The number of self-employed people in this country increased by 280,000 over the past couple of years and many people must now look to their own resources for work, but what is being prepared for self-employed people is frankly chaotic.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Byrne]

I will in a moment.

We have heard from the Chartered Institute of Taxation that the system proposed for entrepreneurs will require self-employed claimants to report their transactions each month and that they will have only seven days after the end of the month to file them. They will have to put all that information into a great big IT system and calculate their earnings using a system that is different from the one they use to calculate their tax bill. How on earth does the Secretary of State think Britain’s entrepreneurs, who are busy doing other things day to day, will deal with the new system? I thought that the Government were committed to cutting red tape, not swaddling entrepreneurs with it if they want any chance of help with tax credits. Perhaps the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) can explain a way through it.

[Mrs Main]

The right hon. Gentleman should take a little while to consider that not everybody who is self-employed is the entrepreneur he is talking about. The reason that degree of scrutiny is needed is that people who sell The Big Issue for a certain period of time can suddenly declare themselves to be self-employed, so the scrutiny is not something he should want to remove; it is a question of whether it is reasonable. If he wishes to help my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, he might like to propose a constructive way forward for how we can stop people abusing the system by declaring themselves to be self-employed when all they are doing is a minimal amount.

[Mr Byrne]

Members on both sides of the House want this to work, but if the hon. Lady looks at the evidence submitted by the CBI and the Chartered Institute for Taxation to the Work and Pensions Committee on Friday, she will see that there is now a real worry that this is going to be a catastrophe for the many entrepreneurs who rely on tax credits for help to balance the books at the end of the month. What I want from the Secretary of State is clarity about how this is going to work in practice.

This is the start of a whole series of risks that have been brought to the attention of hon. Members here and in the Select Committee. Flagged up in the evidence submitted on Friday was the decision to deny people a choice about who receives the money. I hope that the Secretary of State will reform this before implementation of universal credit, because many people who run women’s refuges say that the system is so badly thought through that refuges for women fleeing from domestic violence will have to close. In fact, Refuge tells us—[Interruption.] This is not scaremongering by me; it is evidence submitted to the Select Committee by Refuge, which says that the idea is so badly thought through that unless changes are made, 297 refuges will have to close. This is not scaremongering; it is bringing to the House’s attention information and arguments provided by one of the most important charities in the country.

Unemployment

Debate between Liam Byrne and Anne Main

Wednesday 14th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he has been a long-standing champion of the need to get young people into work and, crucially, equip them with the skills to succeed in the workplace, but I am afraid that we have a deficit of that from the Government. It is an embarrassment for the Minister that he is unable to tell the House how many people his schemes are getting into work. The Secretary of State appears to have so much confidence in the schemes that he cannot be bothered to turn up this afternoon. However, I want to make a more substantive point about the Minister’s flagship scheme.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Byrne]

I will in a moment, but first I want to make one point about the Work programme.

The Work programme is a new scheme that builds on the flexible new deal. We have said that if it works and delivers value for money we will keep it in place, but the Minister must accept that worries about the programme are growing. [Interruption.] I am delighted that the Secretary of State has been able to join us to hear this important point. The Minister for unemployment has repeatedly told the House that he cannot produce statistics on how well the Work programme is doing, and I completely understand his caution. I think that he is the only Minister who has been formally warned by the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, who last year said that the Minister’s use of figures was

“likely to damage public trust in official statistics”.

No doubt he has repented for that sin and is seeking redemption, and I understand that he apologised and is certain not to repeat the offence. If the Work programme was working, surely the Department’s statistics would show that more and more people were flowing off benefits and into work. That is a simple test we can apply, but the problem is that the figures do not show that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Byrne]

Let me repeat that when Labour was elected in 1997, youth unemployment was about 14%. It came down to about 12% before the recession and then, yes, of course it went up during the recession, as all unemployment did. But rather than sit there doing nothing, as this Government have over the past year and a half, we chose to act. That is why youth unemployment was coming down before the election and why, since this Government were elected, it has gone up to record highs and has done so again this morning. That is surely not a record of which the hon. Gentleman can be proud.

[Mrs Main]

If the right hon. Gentleman wishes young people to be near the labour market, does he regret presiding over the lowest number of social housing units ever developed under a prosperous Government? That means that young people cannot have social housing at an affordable level and are therefore unable to access jobs in areas where there are high house values.

[Mr Byrne]

We do wish that more houses had been built over the past year, and that is precisely why we have said that a sensible tax on bankers’ bonuses could create the funds to build 20,000 new homes. Why does the hon. Lady oppose that policy?