Universal Credit (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Regulations 2022

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for bringing forward this regret Motion, which highlights important issues arising from the continued managed migration from legacy benefits to universal credit, and I pay tribute to her detailed knowledge in this area. As she said, the Government removed the need for the DWP to return to Parliament after 10,000 claimants had been migrated to universal credit from legacy benefits without a full evaluation of the programme so far.

In supporting her Motion, I will raise three important concerns: the lack of safeguards for vulnerable claimants, as we have heard; transitional protection, given the evidence of adverse impact of technical issues on claimants; and lack of scrutiny by Parliament, removing the opportunity for MPs and Peers to challenge and question the process so far or to introduce any legislative changes thought necessary.

First, the impact on vulnerable people can be severe. Fifty per cent of claimants of legacy benefits are on employment support allowance, which is a benefit for people who have an illness or disability that prevents them working. The process of claiming universal credit is difficult but for these people it presents a major challenge. The DWP plans to stop payment of legacy benefits to those who do not comply after three months; this is a significant sanction and could cause major distress, particularly to the most vulnerable claimants. The Government have removed the cap without publishing an evaluation. It seems essential that managed migration should be halted until an evaluation has been published.

Secondly, transitional protection is available only to those households that are migrated. There is evidence of the adverse impact of a number of technical issues on certain groups of claimants. For example, claimants will be better off if migrated after the annual uprating and worse off if migrated before. That is unfair and inequitable. People transferring from temporary to mainstream accommodation will have the housing cost element added to their universal credit. That will erode any transitional protection they may receive.

Carers, of all people, who give so much to our communities and who are entitled to the limited capability for work-related activity, will lose out on transitional protection, as the LCRWA full amount means that transitional protection is eroded by this element. Transitional protection comes to an end when joint claimants separate as a couple, even when a partner has died or left as the result of an abusive relationship. A full evaluation would enable these important issues to be reviewed and, where necessary, action to be taken to strengthen transitional protection. No claimant should be worse off at the point of transfer and vulnerable claimants need to be protected from the consequences of not coping with claims.

Thirdly, there is a lack of accountability to Parliament. As the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee points out, insufficient detail has been provided for there to be confidence in the DWP’s capacity to carry out the full migration without detriment to claimants. The managed migration to universal credit is an enormous project. The volume of claimants alone is a cause of concern, in that failure to deliver competently could cause widespread distress and hardship to those claimants.

Of the 2.6 million people still on legacy benefits, up to half are vulnerable long-term claimants such as the sick or disabled. The DWP needs to provide stronger evidence of its competence to communicate with the most vulnerable claimants and of its capacity to transfer their claims without disruption to those payments. Parliament should not be excluded from this major project, the impact of which on the poorest and most disadvantaged people may be very serious. It is essential for MPs and Peers to exercise full scrutiny and accountability and that they are kept in full touch as the project is rolled out. We support the Motion.

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister told the House on 17 October that, as of February 2022, 5.18 million working-age adults, or 12.7% of the GB working-age population, were receiving out-of-work benefits. She explained that the largest categories were universal credit “out-of-work” or those with “no work-related requirements”, but can she inform the House how many are claiming the legacy employment and support allowance? Presumably, they would all be migrated as part of “move to UC”.

She also said that the DWP is trying to reduce the flow into unemployment and inactivity through prevention and retention work by supporting disabled people and people with long-term health conditions. Will the migration of people currently claiming legacy employment and support allowance into universal credit mean these claimants receive more attention from work coaches, with the aim of their being better enabled to work? This is not about being punitive, but ensuring that no one is simply parked on benefits when their well-being and sense of purpose would be greatly boosted by working or increasing their hours. This is obviously even more important when there are so many vacancies.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for tabling this important regret Motion, which she introduced with her usual power and precision. All I can do is reinforce some of the points she and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, made emphasising how much this matters for both the well-being of claimants, particularly those in vulnerable circumstances, and transparency and accountability to Parliament.

I have yet to see a convincing justification for the removal of the stage gate, which was introduced to assuage concern raised in both Houses. Two reasons were given by the then Secretary of State in a letter to the chair of the Work and Pensions Committee in May: first, that early lessons and observations were captured during the truncated pilot in Harrogate. We have not been told what those lessons were and, curiously, in oral evidence to the committee in June, the next month, the same Secretary of State said:

“We learned a bit in Harrogate, but not a lot. The main thing we learned in Harrogate is not to do it the way it was done in Harrogate.”


That is all the more reason, one would have thought, for maintaining the piloting approach that Parliament was promised. But, no, apparently UC’s resilience during the pandemic means that a pilot is no longer needed. As my noble friend pointed out, that was a very different exercise involving a very different group of people, almost certainly far fewer in vulnerable circumstances. Instead of the pilot, as we have heard, we have what is called the discovery phase—which sounds so appealing, like a mystery cruise, but has actually reassured no one, particularly the SLSC and SSAC, never mind external stakeholders.

Although ultimately SSAC drew back from recommending that the stage gate be retained, it made clear its concerns at its abolition. Among the points it made was the need to monitor the impact of the declining ratio of staff to claimants during the discovery phase and to publish before the Summer Recess the criteria for scaling up and moving on to the next phase of implementation, yet, to my knowledge, they have still not been published. Why not? Will the Minister give an undertaking today to do so, and to ensure that the declining staff/claimant ratio is monitored?

These and other issues, as we have heard, stem from a concern about the risk to claimants of the whole exercise. When the original regulations were considered, the view was put strongly by SLSC and SSAC that the balance of risk lay too heavily on the claimant. This was why CPAG, of which I am honorary president—I am grateful for its full briefing—Z2K and disability organisations called for the automatic transfer of migrated claimants, rather than requiring them to make a new claim. I never saw a plausible reason for rejecting that idea, but clearly it will not happen. As my noble friend asked, could the department at least consider the suspension of an existing claim rather than its termination in cases where a new claim is not made in the required period—not least because of the implications for transitional protection?