Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Tomlinson and Rachel Maclean

Monday 26th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Countering Illegal Migration (Michael Tomlinson)]

As the right hon. Lady knows, Mr Neal’s appointment was terminated after he breached the terms of his appointment and lost the trust of the Home Secretary in relation to the reports that she mentions. As she would expect, reports and recommendations are always considered carefully by Ministers, and they will be published in due course.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

The slogan that was projected on to Big Ben last Wednesday was extreme and antisemitic. To many, it calls for the destruction of Israel and is seen as a genocidal statement. Decent people around the country—not just Jews—find that appalling. Does the Minister agree that there are criminal offences that could be used for prosecutions, and will he reiterate his calls for the police to prosecute those responsible?

Universal Credit Roll-out

Debate between Michael Tomlinson and Rachel Maclean

Thursday 16th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Michael Tomlinson]

Forgive me; I will speak up. If the hon. Gentleman stops talking, however, he might be able to hear a little more easily. He is more than welcome to come along to the meetings of the all-party group. We met yesterday, which was the date on which the latest Office for National Statistics employment figures came out. We track those figures each month. It was pleasing to see that there are still record numbers for youth employment and record lows of young people who are out of work. The youth unemployment rate of 11.9% is in touching distance of the lowest ever figure on comparable records, and it is almost half the youth unemployment rate of over 22% in 2011, which followed the disastrous Labour Government.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

Recent forecasts show that universal credit will create 400 jobs in every constituency across the country. Does my hon. Friend welcome that, as I do, given the great work that he is doing?

[Michael Tomlinson]

I warmly welcome it. I look forward to the time when we look back and say that universal credit has been a success. Now, do not get me wrong. We are not trying to pretend that all is rosy and that there are no errors—quite the opposite. Government Members, as much as Opposition Members—well, certainly Government Members—want to ensure that universal credit works. I encourage the Minister, who will listen as I am sure he always does, to ensure that he is testing and learning, and that we are constantly improving the system.

I support any principle that encourages more people into work. In response to the intervention made by the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), I threatened to speak about the Labour party’s record. The hon. Gentleman is just about to leave the Chamber, but it does not matter, as he can read this in Hansard tomorrow—[Interruption.] Ah, he has sat down. When the Labour party was in power, a member of my community told me that he had chosen not to take a job because it would not have been worth his while, due to the risk to his benefits and, therefore, to him. I do not blame him. He made a perfectly calculated, sensible and rational decision, but he chose not to take a job because of the Labour Government’s policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow many colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid).

[Michael Tomlinson]

My hon. Friend has said that it is a pleasure to follow so many speeches, but does she agree that the speech she is following got it completely wrong, in tone and manner? There are hon. Members on both sides who want to make this work.

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I know the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), and I can assure him that nobody on the Government Benches was laughing at his comment yesterday. Unfortunately, I could not take up his kind offer to go to Inverness—I am sure it is a wonderful place—because I was busy in Redditch doing exactly what he said: meeting the housing providers and agencies there to make sure that the roll-out was going well.

Universal credit is designed to be an agile system. I used to work in software development, so I understand what that means in terms of designing a very complicated system that deals with individuals and their unique and different circumstances. Opposition Members have called on the Government to pause the roll-out, but that would not fix the problems they have rightly identified. The Minister has recognised the problems in the system, and we all want to work together to fix them, but the nature of an agile system is that it changes all the time in response to people using it. That is how we learn and improve the system.

We have already seen evidence of that. The Prime Minister highlighted an example yesterday when she said that the number of people in arrears on universal credit had gone down significantly—by a third, I think—in the past four months. That is evidence that the system is improving as it is being rolled out. It is a very slow-roll-out—it is taking nine years altogether—but I think that, just as we recognise the seriousness of issues that have been rightly highlighted in the Chamber in, I hope, a serious fashion, we should also recognise the real work that the Government have already done and the real progress that they have already made in addressing some of those serious issues. I hope that that work and progress will continue.

Some Members have used an extremely critical tone, and I think that that is wrong. This is a serious debate, and we are here because we care about our constituents. I am a very privileged person, and I am the first to say so. I have never had to rely on benefits, and I am sure that some Opposition Members have not had to do so either. That, however, does not preclude any us from feeling compassion for and empathising with people who are in that position. That is why I have visited my local jobcentre and spent a long time discussing the issue with social landlords, people who work in debt counselling, and the jobcentre staff themselves.

I do not recognise the stories that I have heard about jobcentres. I heard at first hand from the jobcentre staff about how hard they were working to support the most vulnerable customers through their journeys, and they are proud to do that. Their policy is to make advance payments by default, rather than forcing people to ask for them. They are working hard on an individual basis, providing a tailored package of support for every single claimant in the constituency.