Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Grant Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

As I said, we are watching with interest the Scottish Government’s commitment to deliver access to free sanitary products in schools and other educational institutions, along with the Welsh commitment. We will look at and review the outcomes of those studies and projects.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

3. Whether she has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the effect of the operation of universal credit on women in abusive relationships.

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

8. Whether she has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the effect of the operation of universal credit on women in abusive relationships.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Kit Malthouse)]

Universal credit continues to support victims of domestic violence through a range of measures, including special conditions for temporary accommodation, conditionality easements and same-day advances. Work coaches will also signpost domestic violence victims to expert third-party support.

[Peter Grant]

The Women’s Budget Group has confirmed what we all knew: the practice of insisting on paying universal credit into a single bank account per household makes it much easier for domestic abusers to exert financial control over their victims. What discussions has the Department had with the DWP to end the practice and make split payments the default, rather than an exceptional practice?

[Kit Malthouse]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, there have been several debates on split payments, not least the Westminster Hall debate last week. The Scottish Government have of course mandated—and I think legislated for—the introduction of split payments. We are going to work with them to make that happen and we will see how it goes. The issue of mandatory split payments does, though, raise much more complexity than I think the hon. Gentleman might at first realise. There are questions about what the split should be if one person is not working and the other person is, or if one person pays more of the household bills than the other. There are lots of questions about whether people who are mandated to have split payments are able to opt out of them and, if so, whether they are doing so under duress. Much more important than split payments is our ability to detect and support the victims of domestic violence on the frontline.