Universal Credit

Martin Whitfield Excerpts
Tuesday 16th October 2018

(5 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Lord Sharma Portrait Alok Sharma
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We have reconfigured the jobcentre estate, as the hon. Gentleman knows. He will also know that part of the reason was that we were paying for 20% of space that we were not using. We now have a jobcentre estate that is fit for the 21st century.

Martin Whitfield Portrait Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)
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The Minister has answered a number of questions about double payments in a four-week period. Christmas is coming, and the majority of part-time workers who claim universal credit will be double-paid, so their universal credit will then be affected in the next payment period. These are not individual cases, although they are individual people. This is a system fault and it should be put right for this Christmas.

Lord Sharma Portrait Alok Sharma
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As I have said, universal credit adjusts depending on the amount of money that people are earning. In periods when they are not earning a salary, obviously their universal credit payment would go up.