Universal Credit

Rachel Reeves Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. However, the announcement in this morning’s press release confirms that universal credit is rolling out at a glacial pace. It is just another example of Tory welfare waste. We all know that simplifying and integrating our benefits system has the potential to help people into work and to progress in work. That is why the Opposition have always supported the principle of universal credit and want it to succeed, despite the Secretary of State’s best attempts to make a complete and utter shambles of it.

The Secretary of State has already informed the House that universal credit would be rolled out to families with children this year, but today’s statement tells us nothing more about how many families will be claiming it, in which areas of the country, and whether that will include families with someone in work or families with a disabled member. We were told that at the beginning of next year universal credit would be rolled out to all jobcentres across the country. That has now turned into one in three jobcentres by next spring, but we still do not know which jobcentres, in which parts of the country, whether those jobcentres themselves have been informed and, more importantly, whether local partners, including councils and voluntary sector organisations, which have such a critical role to play in making the roll-out work, have been informed.

However, there was one new revelation buried at the bottom of this morning’s press release: an admission from the Secretary of State that the delivery of this policy will now not be completed until the end of the decade, if then, with only “the bulk” of claimants on legacy benefits transferred by 2019. Let us remind ourselves what the Secretary of State said he would deliver four years ago so that we can see how far plans have gone astray. The White Paper presented to the House in 2010 set out a timetable for

“completing the transfer to Universal Credit by October 2017”.

Since then, the Secretary of State’s timetable has repeatedly slipped, despite repeated assertions that the project was

“on time and on budget”.

In November 2011 the Secretary of State said that he would have 1 million people on universal credit by April 2014. The truth turned out to be just 1% of that figure. The Government told us that they would have 1.7 million people on universal credit by May 2015, but his latest target is for just 100,000 to be on the system by then. As recently as this month, he was insisting that the transfer of all claimants to universal credit would be completed in 2018.

On 5 November, less than three weeks ago, he said in evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee, in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce), that

“we do envisage Universal Credit being complete by the end of 2018.”

Yet buried at the bottom of today’s press release we find the admission that only

“the bulk of this exercise will be complete by 2019”.

I hope that the Secretary of State can answer the following questions and give us some clarification and assurance. First, what on earth does he mean by “the bulk”? Is it a new statistical term that we can appeal to the UK Statistics Authority for clarity on? More importantly, given the concerns and the amount of public money at stake, can he not be more precise about how many people he expects to be left on legacy benefits after 2019? Which claimants will those be, and when can we expect them to be transferred on to universal credit?

Secondly, what are the implications of this further delay in the completion of the roll-out and transfer for the project’s administrative costs and the expected savings and benefits being claimed? Can the Secretary of State confirm that the estimate of £35 billion for the project’s benefits remains correct, and has the full business case now been signed off by HM Treasury?

Thirdly, why did the Secretary of State claim on the BBC’s “Today” programme this morning that “almost 40,000” people are “actually claiming” universal credit when the latest figures show that the current caseload is 17,850? Fourthly, can the Secretary of State tell us how many families he expects to be receiving universal credit by the end of 2014 and by May next year? Will only families with both parents out of work be able to claim? Will families including a disabled member be able to claim by May 2015?

Fifthly, will the Secretary of State place in the House of Commons Library a full list of the “one in three” jobcentres that he expects to be handling universal credit claims by the spring? Sixthly, will the extension of universal credit to families with children, and to jobcentres, be on the new digital platform being developed by the Department, or will it still be running on the old system that we know is inadequate for handling large-scale caseloads? Finally, would the Secretary of State care to repeat his claim that this programme is

“on time and on budget”?

I hope that the Secretary of State will be able to answer those simple and fundamental questions about a programme that was held up as the Government’s flagship welfare reform and has already eaten through more than half a billion pounds of public money. If he cannot give straight answers to straight questions, Members of this House and voters will be forced to conclude that, as with the delays we have seen with disability benefits, the failure of the Work programme and the Youth Contract to help key groups into work, and the failure to tackle the low pay, insecurity and housing shortages that are driving up benefit bills, this is just adding to the legacy of Tory welfare waste—wasted money, wasted time, wasted talents and a wasted opportunity to get our economy and our social security system working for all the people of our country.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I must say that I think that the hon. Lady thought that up about a week ago, before she even got near what I have just said in the statement, but never mind—she likes to rehash the old ones, and we will deal with them. She made the point at the end of her statement that somehow the Work programme is not working. The Work programme is outperforming all of the figures that it was meant to. It is also outperforming what we were left by the previous Labour Government: record unemployment and more people who had lost work as a result of their crashed economy. We have more people in work than ever before and more young people now returning to work. Those are the standing plans.

Let me deal with some of the other issues the hon. Lady raised. She talked about what we are doing on universal services. We have already undertaken a huge amount of consultative processes with local authorities and all other partners in the areas. We have a programme called universal services, to be delivered locally, and we are working closely with the Local Government Association in trialling all sorts of elements of that, including the exchange of information on housing, which is an area that previously was not working. The LGA is represented on the programme of governance, the partnership forum and the universal credit transition working group. As universal credit is expanded nationally, delivery partnership agreements will be established locally so that local authorities, jobcentres, landlords and employers can adjust their requirements to prepare for the UC roll-out. That is taking place at the moment and it is helping to inform hugely the process of helping to improve the nature of the roll-out.

As I said in my statement—I repeat this because the hon. Lady seemed not to have picked it up—40,000 people had claimed, over 20,000 had completed the claim process, and 17,500 were currently on universal credit. [Interruption.] No, that is exactly what they have done. Forty thousand had claimed, 20,000 had made the claim and received—[Interruption.] I do not want to go through this nonsense with her. Let me remind her that many of those who started a claim went to work and therefore never completed the process. In case she thinks it is not worth people claiming the benefit because they are not staying on it, our position is that the purpose is to get them off the benefit and into work.

I will be happy to give the hon. Lady a list of the one in three jobcentres that will be covered by the spring. As I said, by the end of this year one in eight jobcentres will be covered. Families will be included. Depending on the type of claimants and their particular issues, they will be dealt with in jobcentres as the benefit is rolled out to them. The timing and delivery remain exactly as they were.

As we have announced today, we will also be rolling out the first part of the digital trial process, and that will inform us hugely on how we will be able to roll out and expand the system. The hon. Lady said that I had only just announced the timing of the roll-out, but in fact I had said it previously. She might want to ask the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), who is sitting next to her, about that. All the dates were in the answer to a parliamentary question from him about a week and a half ago; I cannot remember the exact date. Nothing has been hidden at all—we have been very clear about it.

The long-term strategic outline business case covers the lifetime of the programme from 2023 to 2024 and provides even more granular detail on costs and benefits and delivery planning until, it is expected, 2025. The MPA has approved our roll-out plans and given them a very strong sign-off.

The hon. Lady asked about the information that will be shared automatically. Claimants are asked to give consent to our universal credit teams sharing information about their claims with local authorities to help to highlight extra support that may be needed.

The hon. Lady says that she is in favour of universal credit in principle, but she has voted against it and attacked every single thing to do with it, just as Labour Members say they are in favour of welfare reform in principle but attack and vote against every single part of what we are doing. I have to say that the way she is going, she will get a lot of practice at being in opposition.