Universal Credit and Welfare Reform

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Tuesday 11th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Absolutely—nothing makes me happier than getting out of London to visit the devolved Administrations, whether in Cardiff or Edinburgh. I shall spend a day in Edinburgh next week speaking to that Administration about this very subject, as I have done on a number of occasions. I am engaging in the same way in Wales, as are my colleagues. I can absolutely give the hon. Lady that guarantee.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I said I would give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend was an excellent Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee—he is highly respected among Members on both sides of the House—and I absolutely agree with him. That is how I see my role. One thing I have done is brought into the system a red team, whose job is to go through and doubt everything I am told, and to ask questions. Being a sceptic and not believing are part of the process of delivering. I absolutely understand that. We are involving others in the process—that is our purpose.

[Mark Durkan]

rose—

[Charlie Elphicke]

rose—

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[Mr Duncan Smith]

If the right hon. Lady will forgive me, I am not going to give her specific details now, although I am happy to talk to her at greater length later on. The point I would simply make is that universal credit is designed to get more people who are below work, as it were, to cross the line into work. When people ask, “What is universal credit really about?”, they always talk about the taper. That is really important: simplifying the taper allows people to move up the hours. In truth, however, universal credit’s key component is the disregards—the bit we call the participation tax rate. In other words, right now, unless someone goes straight to 16 hours as a lone parent, for example, the participation tax rate—the moment when they join work—is so high that there are households that need two earners in work just to have enough money to survive. The idea of universal credit is to break that down and improve their lot. I cannot give the right hon. Lady the detail, but I believe that more people will move up the hours, with more people moving into higher hours and longer-term work.

[Mark Durkan]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. He has said that he is taking a hands-on approach to the developing IT system. Will he assure us that the IT system, which will also cover Northern Ireland, will be formatted to allow both the continued weekly or fortnightly payment of benefits, if that is the policy of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the direct payment of housing benefit to social landlords, which is the policy of the Assembly? Will the IT system also be able to cope with the problems of cross-border workers?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I was going to deal with a lot of that in my speech, so the hon. Gentleman is helping me to speed up. Let me deal with monthly payments. I genuinely believe that we need to get people on to monthly payments, for a very good reason. Right now, about 75% of the work force are on monthly payments. We looked at this issue—as I am sure others have—when I was at the Centre for Social Justice. One of the biggest stumbling blocks we found is that when people are out of work, everything is paid directly to them every fortnight, but when they go back to work they really struggle—particularly those who have been out of work for a little time—to cope with the first few months in work. We are looking to get as many people as we possibly can on to a monthly payment, so that when they go into work they have already completed that process and it is not a big break for them.

Of course we will want to identify—working with councils and local groups, and so on—those in real difficulty. Now, here’s the thing. Until now, nobody has really bothered much about them, unless someone—maybe an MP—makes a specific effort to try to get something resolved for them. What we are doing will make us look at why those people cannot cope and then start to surround them with support. It might be about their ability to budget; it might be that the family has serious drug problems, in which case we will need to get to that. So, we start looking at the reason, then we can resolve that and move them into the process. We will allow for the ability to settle at two weeks where we think it vitally necessary, but the mainstream will go to monthly payments. However, I am happy to talk to the hon. Gentleman further about that and help him out.

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[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I am very sympathetic to what my hon. Friend says. This is something of a puzzle to me, because the Labour Front-Bench spokesmen on this subject are among the most civilised members of the Opposition, and it seems uncharacteristic of them to table such a motion—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I felt sure that they would be delighted to be flattered by me, of all people. What I have said about them is true, however; it is recognised by those on my own Front Bench.

However, the motion before us is extremely overstated. It uses the language of chaos and disaster, as did the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), and calls on the Government “urgently to set out” plans. In contrast, the Secretary of State answered every question that was put to him. He was willing to listen, and he is doing something that, in principle, those on both sides of the House agree with.

[Mark Durkan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way during his praise of the Secretary of State. Last week, the Secretary of State refused to accept a reasonable job offer and incurred no sanction. If that is okay for him, why is it not okay for others?

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

That was a most brilliantly phrased intervention. In turning down the opportunity to be Lord High Chancellor—one of the most ancient posts in the land, and one that most people would be honoured to hold—the Secretary of State showed his commitment to ensuring that the reforms will work. In turning down a promotion, he showed his nobility. Having listened to his speech in the debate today, I wonder whether there ought to be an amendment to “Erskine May”, so that when an argument has been comprehensively won by a Minister at the Dispatch Box, the debate could simply end, to a round of applause and cheering, with no further need for discussion.