Universal Credit Roll-out

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry]

I completely agree, and I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point. I have had constituents whose carers have helped them struggle to my constituency surgeries to tell me about their difficulties with the process. People who are blind or incapable of walking unaided are having to go for work capability assessments. That is humiliating and degrading, and the roll-out should be paused. Those things should be fixed or taken out of the system.

[Mr Paul J. Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Government have lauded the fact that the system for processing universal credit will be entirely online, but 35% of people do not have access to the internet in my constituency, which has one of the highest claimant counts in Scotland. Surveys by Citizens Advice have found that 32% of people will be totally unable to access the system and that another 32% will have great difficulty in doing so. This is just a Kafkaesque nightmare that further frustrates, demoralises and depresses the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.

[Drew Hendry]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution, and I completely agree. I have experience of exactly the same—