Universal Credit Roll-out

Mark Harper Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker. It is always good to have that discipline behind one.

Let me start with a point about process. I listened carefully to what the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), said. In the House, she resisted temptation and accurately quoted what the House had decided last week, but I am afraid that outside the House the Labour party is misleading people. It is saying that Parliament voted to pause and fix universal credit, but the motion last week did no such thing. I mention that because it is important to the substance of today’s debate about the Government’s response.

As the hon. Lady said, the House did ask the Government to pause, but what the House did not do was provide a single reason in that motion why the Government should pause. [Interruption.] I was at the debate last week, and I spoke in it. The hon. Lady set out some reasons in her speech, but the motion, which is what the Government have been asked to respond to, contained not a single reason why the Government should pause.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

It may well be that if Her Majesty's Opposition had added just a couple of words to their motion so that it read, “That this House calls on the Government to pause the roll-out of universal credit full service in January 2018, as announced in the written statement by the Government in November 2016”, we could all have agreed.

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention.

Let me run through, very briefly, one or two of the points made by the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth. She is fond of saying that she completely supports the principle of universal credit and wants it to be implemented, but she then goes on to list innumerable reasons for her fundamental disagreement with all the key strands of the benefit. She cannot have it both ways. If she does not want universal credit to be implemented, let her just stand up and say so. She should not pretend that she agrees with the fundamental principles, and then say that she disagrees with almost every important aspect of it.

I listened to and read very carefully what the hon. Lady said during last week’s debate. I shall pick just a couple of reasons for the fact that I could not support that motion. The hon. Lady referred specifically to housing. The Minister set out the position very clearly today, as the Secretary of State did last week. If there are universal credit recipients who have issues with managing their rent, they can arrange for their landlords to be paid directly, but I do not think we should patronisingly assume that every single person receiving universal credit is incapable of managing the rent. Most of them are perfectly capable of managing their finances, and we should treat them accordingly.

[Ms Buck]

Can the right hon. Gentleman explain, then, why two thirds of private landlords are now expressing a reluctance to accept universal credit claimants as tenants in the first place?

[Mr Harper]

What I was going to come to was why I do not think it is right to pause the roll-out. One of the important aspects of the roll-out is the housing portal which will enable social housing landlords in the first instance to communicate with the Department to deal with tenants when there are rent issues. If we were to pause the roll-out, the Department would not have an opportunity to deal with the real issues that are raised, and to fix them.

[Stephen Lloyd]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Harper]

I am going to make some progress. I have only a couple of minutes left.

The Minister has been very clear today, and, like the Secretary of State last week, he has listened carefully to the issues that have been raised and, I think, has dealt with them. If we just paused, we would not have the opportunity to deal with any of those issues.

[Hannah Bardell]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Harper]

I have only a couple of minutes left.

The shadow Secretary of State had a number of asks, although I noticed that between last week and this week the list had become considerably longer. That is what happens when the asks are not included in the motion. In her speech last week, the hon. Lady specifically asked for waiting days to be removed completely. Waiting days have always been a factor in the welfare system. [Interruption.] I read the hon. Lady’s speech very carefully, and she said at the beginning that she wanted to get rid of the waiting period.

The reason for the waiting period is very simple. If someone falls out of work for a few days, for example, we do not want that person to submit a universal credit claim. There has always been a waiting period in the benefits system, and I think that that is sensible. The Minister has already dealt with the cases in which people need to be paid more frequently, and has accepted, as the Secretary of State did last week—

[Hannah Bardell]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Harper]

I am not going to give way. I have only a minute left.

The Minister has accepted, as the Secretary of State did last week, that the system was not paying people fast enough initially, but also pointed out that the more recent figures showed that the Department had speeded up the payments, and that it has refreshed the guidance to ensure that people can receive advance payments, which I think is very sensible. [Hon. Members: “Loans.”] They are not loans; they are advance payments. Anyone who earns a salary is familiar with the concept of an advance.

I have looked at all the issues that the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth raised last week. The Secretary of State dealt with each and every one of those issues thoroughly during the debate, but the motion, which called for a pause, did not give a single reason why the Government should pause roll-out. The Secretary of State, the Minister and the Leader of the House have made it clear that as we develop changes in the policy, they will be reported to the House. That is why I do not find it surprising that after only three sitting days—as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare)—Ministers had not come to the House.

I think that the Minister set out the position very clearly today and that the House has debated it very clearly, and I therefore think that people should have confidence in a policy that will get more people into work.