Business of the House

Martyn Day Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that all of the acquis communautaire was brought into UK law in the EU withdrawal Bill, in order to ensure that all the existing measures—provisions on the bathing quality of our waters, and measures to keep rivers clean, protect our environment and air quality, and so on—are brought into UK law. It is therefore not right to say that there will be no means at all to protect our environment. Very importantly, the UK has brought in new measures through the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. We have a 25-year environment plan for England that demonstrates our ambition to be the first generation to leave our environment in a better place than we found it. As the hon. Gentleman points out, the draft Bill is coming forward, and we will be introducing that Bill. It is our intention that the UK will have the highest environmental standards—among the best in the world—and we will continue to take steps to ensure that that becomes the case.

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)]

Just last week, Councillor David Balfour in Grangemouth passed me one of the most harrowing universal credit cases that I have seen so far. The case involved a couple with disabilities who had worked on zero-hours contracts for a period of only five weeks together, and then had their contract terminated, following which they had eight weeks without any income whatever; the husband attempted suicide during that period. This case is genuinely harrowing. I would like to see an urgent statement from Ministers as to how we can rectify intergovernmental Department communications. Despite the best efforts of the Department for Work and Pensions, the problem is that it cannot communicate directly with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and that has prolonged the agony and misery that was almost tragic in this situation.

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman is raising a very serious constituency case and he is right to do so in the Chamber. He will be aware that the Government have listened very carefully to views raised across the House and have changed the roll-out of universal credit so that anybody is able to get 100% of their first full month’s payment upfront on the day they apply for it, if they need to. We have a new contract with Citizens Advice so that it can help people to sign up for universal credit. There are new measures to scrap the seven-day waiting period and to increase the amount that someone can earn before their universal credit begins to be withdrawn. It is a good measure that is designed to help people into work, which is the best way of supporting people to have the security of an income for themselves and their families. With regards to the specific point the hon. Gentleman raises, we do have DWP questions on 7 January—the first day back—and I encourage him to raise the matter directly with Ministers.