Universal Credit

Mark Hoban Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I must say that I think that the hon. Lady thought that up about a week ago, before she even got near what I have just said in the statement, but never mind—she likes to rehash the old ones, and we will deal with them. She made the point at the end of her statement that somehow the Work programme is not working. The Work programme is outperforming all of the figures that it was meant to. It is also outperforming what we were left by the previous Labour Government: record unemployment and more people who had lost work as a result of their crashed economy. We have more people in work than ever before and more young people now returning to work. Those are the standing plans.

Let me deal with some of the other issues the hon. Lady raised. She talked about what we are doing on universal services. We have already undertaken a huge amount of consultative processes with local authorities and all other partners in the areas. We have a programme called universal services, to be delivered locally, and we are working closely with the Local Government Association in trialling all sorts of elements of that, including the exchange of information on housing, which is an area that previously was not working. The LGA is represented on the programme of governance, the partnership forum and the universal credit transition working group. As universal credit is expanded nationally, delivery partnership agreements will be established locally so that local authorities, jobcentres, landlords and employers can adjust their requirements to prepare for the UC roll-out. That is taking place at the moment and it is helping to inform hugely the process of helping to improve the nature of the roll-out.

As I said in my statement—I repeat this because the hon. Lady seemed not to have picked it up—40,000 people had claimed, over 20,000 had completed the claim process, and 17,500 were currently on universal credit. [Interruption.] No, that is exactly what they have done. Forty thousand had claimed, 20,000 had made the claim and received—[Interruption.] I do not want to go through this nonsense with her. Let me remind her that many of those who started a claim went to work and therefore never completed the process. In case she thinks it is not worth people claiming the benefit because they are not staying on it, our position is that the purpose is to get them off the benefit and into work.

I will be happy to give the hon. Lady a list of the one in three jobcentres that will be covered by the spring. As I said, by the end of this year one in eight jobcentres will be covered. Families will be included. Depending on the type of claimants and their particular issues, they will be dealt with in jobcentres as the benefit is rolled out to them. The timing and delivery remain exactly as they were.

As we have announced today, we will also be rolling out the first part of the digital trial process, and that will inform us hugely on how we will be able to roll out and expand the system. The hon. Lady said that I had only just announced the timing of the roll-out, but in fact I had said it previously. She might want to ask the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), who is sitting next to her, about that. All the dates were in the answer to a parliamentary question from him about a week and a half ago; I cannot remember the exact date. Nothing has been hidden at all—we have been very clear about it.

The long-term strategic outline business case covers the lifetime of the programme from 2023 to 2024 and provides even more granular detail on costs and benefits and delivery planning until, it is expected, 2025. The MPA has approved our roll-out plans and given them a very strong sign-off.

The hon. Lady asked about the information that will be shared automatically. Claimants are asked to give consent to our universal credit teams sharing information about their claims with local authorities to help to highlight extra support that may be needed.

The hon. Lady says that she is in favour of universal credit in principle, but she has voted against it and attacked every single thing to do with it, just as Labour Members say they are in favour of welfare reform in principle but attack and vote against every single part of what we are doing. I have to say that the way she is going, she will get a lot of practice at being in opposition.

[Mr Mark Hoban (Fareham) (Con)]

I commend my right hon. Friend for the methodical way in which he is going about the implementation of universal credit. My constituents suffered from over-payments, under-payments and mis-payments under tax credits because Labour in government botched the implementation of the system by doing it as one big bang. We cannot afford the same thing to happen in this case. That is why he is absolutely right to introduce in the way that he is to make sure that it works before it is rolled out further. We should be commending him for that and for not repeating Labour’s mistakes.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I thank my hon. Friend; he is exactly right. We have worked on this together. As he knows very well, taking the early decisions to ensure that the programme rolls out safely and securely is far more important than, as the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) seems to suggest, rattling ahead regardless of the consequences. That is exactly what happened with tax credits, where, on day one, 400,000-plus people did not receive any benefits. The disaster of tax credits has stayed with us ever since.