Universal Credit

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is exactly the point. On the first part of my hon. Friend’s question, the Opposition are in a kind of amnesia: they seem to forget that they crashed the economy in the biggest disaster it has ever had, with a fall of some 7% in GDP, and that many people lost their jobs. We have managed to get more people back to work and now have more people in work than ever before, with unemployment falling dramatically, youth unemployment falling and even more people with disabilities now going back to work. As it is rolled out, universal credit will deliver even more to those people—a better income, better support and a much simpler process that they can understand, rather than the chaotic system of tax credits that we have at the moment.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Universal credit is a life-changing and positive policy. May I urge my right hon. Friend to take his time and make sure that we get this right? The impact of getting it wrong, as with tax credits, would be a complete disaster for many of the families whom I represent, and I hope he will not want to go down the path trodden by the Labour party.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is right. I set out to change the roll-out plan because I felt that we would just replicate all the problems of previous roll-outs, in which people tried to rush against an artificial deadline and ended up with a big crisis because they had not thought things through properly. The process of testing, learning and implementing is the way that I believe future programmes should be rolled out. It may not be delivered in the fastest way, which is what people want, but it is about securing people’s lives and, to my mind, that is more important than meeting artificial deadlines.