Universal Credit: National Rollout

Lord McKenzie of Luton Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will publish an agreed plan for the national rollout of Universal Credit.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud) (Con)]

Our priority is to deliver universal credit safely and securely over a four-year period to 2017. We remain committed to that objective, these timescales and the budget. We have already announced plans to expand universal credit into additional jobcentres from today and to roll out the claimant commitment nationwide by next spring. We have also said that we will provide more details around our implementation plans later in the autumn.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. Any confidence that we may have had in the Government’s ability to deliver universal credit was dramatically shaken by the NAO report last month. It concluded that the DWP was not achieving value for money and that there was,

“weak programme management, over-optimistic timescales, and a lack of openness about progress”.

Alarmingly, it stated that the department does not know to what extent its new IT systems will support national rollout. When will those systems be fit for purpose to support national rollout as well as enable detection of fraudulent claims? I also note that the department has written off £34 million-worth of abortive IT expenditure. How much more will be written off as abortive before the Government get their act together?