Universal Credit

Neil O'Brien Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Universal credit has had add-ons and add-ons ever since the Government proposed it. That has made it very complex and, as I have outlined, work will not pay for some in receipt of it if these proposals go forward.

I would like to make a little more progress and address the issue of free childcare. Once again, the Government have a policy in transition—one that they are seeking to restrict. About 200,000 two-year-olds are currently eligible for 15 hours of free childcare, but there will be more than 400,000 two-year-olds in families receiving universal credit. Ministers have refused to say how many children will be eligible under their policy, so will they finally do so now? I ask that because hundreds of thousands of children may lose out under their plans. Once again, some of the most vulnerable children are first in line for Government cuts.

[Neil O'Brien (Harborough) (Con)]

In this House, we all believe in an honest and balanced debate, so may we just hear from the hon. Lady that it is clear that 50,000 more children will be entitled to free school meals under universal credit than under the previous system, and that 7,000 more children will be entitled to the two-year-old free offer—it is more, not fewer?

[Angela Rayner]

The Government have plucked the 50,000 figure from their own consultation document, but it had no accompanying methodology, so I am not convinced. Indeed, that makes up less than 5% of those who are in poverty. The regulations would mean that those who would currently be eligible for support under the transitional protections this Government laid out for universal credit would have that rug pulled from under them—[Interruption.] Conservative Members can keep making faces, but those are the facts.

Once again, this creates a cliff edge for families in receipt of childcare, and the policy will squeeze the income of working families who are already struggling to get by. Under universal credit, they have to pay their childcare costs up front and then claim the money back. With childcare costs rising faster than wages, meeting these costs up front will make it impossible for many working families to make ends meet, so yet another barrier is put in their way. Only months ago, several Conservative Members asked the Chancellor to look again at the taper rate because it meant that work would not pay for low-income families. Today’s vote is on exactly this issue. When the Government have already made those families bear the brunt of their cuts, adding yet another burden is just wrong.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate, particularly after my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen), whose speech was really powerful. It showed how badly Opposition Front Benchers have misjudged this debate. For weeks, outside this House, they have sought to pretend that we are taking free school meals off 1 million children, but that has come to this House and has bombed, because it is not true. The reality is that not a single child currently eligible for free school meals will lose them and that, under UC, 50,000 more children will be eligible for free school meals. This shows the limits of an approach that is all about the viral video and getting something that goes around on social media quickly; it goes too quickly for the fact-checkers to catch up with, but when it comes to this House and we learn the facts, it absolutely bombs.

If people are serious about being in government, they have to make choices, and this Government have made choices. The Opposition say they would like simply to give free school meals out universally, as part of a wider strategy in which we can just spend more money on everything and no one will have to pay any more tax—of course, it is all nonsense. It is the kind of dangerous nonsense that led to the Government borrowing a quarter of all the money they were spending in 2010, a disastrous situation in which we also had half a million men and women thrown on the dole in the worst economic meltdown for a generation.

If we choose priorities that enable us to do important things for working families with children, that allows us to extend eligibility for the new tax-free childcare from 600,000 people to 1.5 million people, to have important things such as the 30 hours’ free childcare offer, to have the important two-year-old childcare offer, which under UC is being expanded by another 7,000, and to have the more generous childcare element of UC, which is going up from 75% to 85%.

Prioritisation also helps with important interventions such as the pupil premium, with another £2.5 billion for the most disadvantaged children, and the new fair funding formula for schools, which is backed up by another £1.3 billion. The year 7s I met the other day at Beauchamp College in my constituency, of whom 60% will be eligible for the pupil premium, will get to go to Cambridge, do a science project and see their lives and opportunities absolutely transformed, because we are prepared to take the difficult decisions, to invest in those children’s futures and to give them a better chance in life.

It is incredibly important that we do not simply drift back to the mistakes of the past. Compared with what it was like when I was at school, the help for children who are less advantaged is so much better now. We have done brilliant things such as destigmatising free school meals: pupils no longer go in with their money, so it cannot be seen who is on free school meals and who is not. When I think back to what it was like when I was at school, I can see the big improvement we have made since my generation.

We have seen big improvements for working families with children because even as we have brought down the worst Government Budget deficit in this country’s entire peacetime history, we have prioritised, and we have done so in ways that help the most vulnerable and that help to improve life chances for those who do not have them.