The Secretary of State’s Handling of Universal Credit

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Despite being new at the Dispatch Box, I am under no illusion about the fact that people inside and outside this Chamber may shortly have plans to watch something other than my response to today’s debate. I will seek to respond in a manner that is timely, but that also does justice to the many thousands of people for whom the realities of universal credit are more than just a game—they are an everyday injustice.

Regardless of the result tonight—and I wish my team England well—we can all appreciate the manner in which Gareth Southgate has taken over an underperforming team and turned it around. If only those in charge at the DWP had a similar approach to leadership and accountability. Over the past week, we have seen a Secretary of State who, when called on to show leadership and humility, chose to lecture rather than to listen, to sow division rather than to build consensus and refuse to make a thorough apology at every point.

In fact, the Secretary of State’s attempts to explain away a number of misinterpretations of the National Audit Office facts were so fantastical that they reminded me of an episode of the children’s programme “Jackanory” or of Trumpisms, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) would phrase them. I am talking about a world where pause and slow are fast; where failure is success; and where sign-off is tune out, forget and denial. It is a place where the trusted and respected National Audit Office, armed with empirical data and facts to give good counsel, is almost dismissed as an agent of fake news.

We have the evidence and facts that were signed off by the DWP on 8 June. Here are some of the facts: 113,000 claimants paid late and two thirds of disabled people with limited capacity to work not paid on time. Then there is the continual claim, well documented by Members in the House, that 200,000 people have been put into work, which is not evidenced and not proven.

The contributions today show just how important it is that this Government radically fix and pause universal credit. We are not short of evidence that the current system is failing. The current impact of the roll-out of universal credit has united housing associations across the UK. They are clear that this policy is causing debt, suffering and hardship for the families they house. The Child Poverty Action Group’s early warning system is pointing towards what it says is likely to be a systemic problem.

The Secretary of State may have struggled to accept the NAO’s criticism last week in its unprecedented open letter, but there can be no room for misinterpreting what we have heard today from many MPs across the Chamber: tale after tale of delays, refusals and mistakes, causing suffering, hardship and misery to the very people this policy is supposed to support.

Last week, the Secretary of State went to great lengths to defend this policy, by explaining how universal credit must be judged on the most up-to-date information. Well, it was, and the Department signed it off. The cases and experiences that have been raised today show what is happening here, out there and now. We are talking about real lives, real time and real people—not crocodile tears. It is time to stop. It time to pause. It is time to fix it.