Universal Credit

Debate between Neil Gray and Chris Philp

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Neil Gray]

As ever, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Scottish Government have already spent £400 million mitigating the Tory mess on social security. We have used flexibilities on universal credit to make the system better, but we cannot be expected to fill the gaps forever; the change has to happen at source.

[Chris Philp]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that total spending on benefits relating to disabled people stands at about £50 billion a year and that it has gone up considerably in real terms? Since 2010, spending in total has gone up, not down.

[Neil Gray]

The hon. Gentleman has completely ignored the points I mentioned that have been made by the CPAG and other expert groups. He has completely ignored that. Government Members are deaf to the facts.

There are of course some cheerleaders for the version of universal credit before us. There are those who say nothing needs to be changed, and those whose loyalty makes them blind to reality. They continually say it gets people into work, but the National Audit Office has explicitly said that this claim is absolute patent nonsense. Page 10 of its report states:

“The Department will never be able to measure whether Universal Credit actually leads to 200,000 more people in work, because it cannot isolate the effect of Universal Credit from other economic factors in increasing employment.”

I would love to hear the evidence that directly correlates universal credit alone as the factor in increasing employment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, as always. Where there have been systemic issues, measures have been taken to address them. One example is that housing benefit now gets paid for another two weeks after the change to address some of the issues with rent arrears that Members have properly raised. Secondly, claimants can now get a 100% advance, which addresses the point raised by the right hon. Member for East Ham. The seven-day wait has also been eliminated.

The Minister will also want to think about fine-tuning the period when calculating eligibility. A person who receives their last salary payment, particularly if it is quite a large salary payment, towards the end of their last month in employment may not be eligible to receive a universal credit payment in the following month because their final salary payment counts towards the calculation. I have such a constituency case, and the dates need to be fine-tuned and studied a little more carefully. I would be happy to sit down with the Minister to go through the particulars of the case, which is quite technical and complicated, if it would assist him in his work.

Croydon South has the joint highest proportion of claimants who have been moved across to universal credit, at 43%. Only two or three other constituencies in the country have such a high rate, so we have quite a good base of evidence in my constituency. The SNP Front Bencher said that we should take with a pinch of salt what Conservative Members say—

[Neil Gray]

A lorry load of salt.

[Chris Philp]

He said we should take with a lorry load of salt what Conservative Members say about how UC operates in their constituencies. That was of course a slur on the integrity of Conservative Members, but I contacted my caseworker during this debate to ascertain the facts. In Croydon, about 4,000 people are currently in receipt of UC, because 43% have migrated; that is my estimate and so it may not be exactly right, but the figure is probably somewhere in the region of 4,000. In the past six months there have been 21 cases where someone has contacted me as their constituency MP, some of which were to do with eligibility questions, such as where the person lives. I would say that 21 individual cases out of about 4,000 is not an excessive number of queries, but when they are raised I know that Ministers will look to deal with them.

Opposition Members have suggested that this is about cuts, but I respectfully remind them again that benefits paid to people who are disabled have gone up to £54 billion in total—that is a substantial real-terms increase. This is not about cuts, as more money is going into disability benefits now than at any time in history. I shall conclude by saying that a measure of compassion, and of Government success in policy and welfare, is not how much money we spend on aggregate, but how many people we get out of poverty and into prosperity, and that is done through work.

Unpaid Trial Work Periods (Prohibition) Bill

Debate between Neil Gray and Chris Philp

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 16th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

It is indeed fraud as my hon. Friend says, and I entirely agree with his interjection. I look forward to the Minister offering his thoughts on that in due course. [Interruption.] Excuse me Madam Deputy Speaker. I am recovering from the remains of a cold that my children kindly gave me last week. [Interruption.] Does the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) wish to intervene?

[Neil Gray]

She was suggesting you could sit down.

[Chris Philp]

That is a very kind suggestion, but I am afraid I have not yet finished. This is an important matter, and we will give it due consideration—[Interruption.] That has made my cough even worse.

As I understand, under current drafting, any period of trial working, even as little as five minutes, would fall foul of the Bill. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Glasgow South is nodding his head in assent. As with any piece of regulation, there is a balance to be struck. I completely agree that all the examples we have heard about are totally unreasonable. Such behaviour should be unlawful, and those companies should be prosecuted and fined. However, there are examples—I am coming to the conclusion of my remarks—of companies that, quite legitimately, want someone to do a reasonable amount of trial work, by which one might mean a few hours. I would consider three or four hours to be the maximum amount of time considered reasonable, and it could be unfair to impose on those businesses the administration involved in setting up payroll, PAYE, national insurance, a return to HMRC and so on, for a short and reasonable period of trial work.

[Chris Philp]

As we have discussed previously, that would be wholly unreasonable for an entire eight-hour shift. However, a trial for an hour, testing someone serving coffee in a live work environment, for example, gives the potential employer information about that person’s suitability. In the coffee shop example, I would consider it reasonable to have someone work for one hour as a trial and not require payment. Working an eight-hour shift would and should require full payment. My concern is that the one-hour trial would get caught by the Bill as drafted.

[Neil Gray]

I am pretty sure that Members who are employers will have it written into their contracts that all staff start with a probationary period. Is that not a more appropriate way to handle this matter?

[Chris Philp]

I am not sure that it is. If someone is taken on as an employee for a probationary period, the reasonable expectation is for them to work with the company for a few months—a probationary period is typically at least one month, and in some cases three. Asking an employer to employ for between one and three months someone who, it transpires after a few hours, is unsuitable is a little unfair on the employer.

Financial Guidance and Claims Bill [Lords]

Debate between Neil Gray and Chris Philp

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 22nd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I am shocked to learn that the Scottish Government have been so slow to take action when the Westminster Government have been so quick.

[Neil Gray (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman will understand that this is a reserved matter, so the Scottish Government have no locus to act.