Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Richard Graham and Tulip Siddiq

Report stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Tulip Siddiq]

Yes, I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, who made a wonderful speech.

[Richard Graham]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. She is making some interesting points, but it is really important for us all to understand that this is not some sort of act of racism. Anna Chapman was a Russian spy with dual nationality and she had her nationality revoked. So I urge the hon. Lady to do the right thing by her old friend Jo Cox and to do the things that bring us together. This is about the good of the nation. It has nothing to do with colour or race.

[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. What I would say to everyone is that I am not trying here to flame tensions or to play politics. I am genuinely saying that ethnic minorities in this country are in fear of this clause. It has created widespread fear in communities. If we start treating non-white criminals and terrorists as though they are the responsibility of another country and not our responsibility, we will send a signal to law-abiding non-white British citizens that they are somehow less British in this country. I genuinely ask the Government to consider this.

Universal Credit Work Allowance

Debate between Richard Graham and Tulip Siddiq

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I would like to start by reassuring the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) that I think universal credit is a total and utter shambles. I invite him to my constituency to speak to my constituents who are claiming benefits, because all of them are already in work. Tax credits did not stop them from going to work; tax credits incentivised them to go to work. He needs to visit constituencies in London to find out the truth and to dispel the myth that people claiming benefits are just scroungers. They are working hard; it is just that work does not pay.

[Richard Graham]

I have never said and would never say, and I do not believe anyone in this House would say, that people who work or do not work are scroungers. That is way beyond what I was implying. Let me put the record straight.

[Tulip Siddiq]

The hon. Gentleman certainly implied that in my opinion.

In January 2012, a considerable period of time before I entered the House, I listened to the Secretary of State tell the House in departmental questions:

“Universal credit is on track and on budget.”

Several years later and several billions of pounds of expense to the taxpayer later, his claim that

“I am not complacent about delivery”—[Official Report, 23 January 2012; Vol. 539, c. 8.]—

has not stood the test of time. Millions of families across the country, and especially in my constituency of Hampstead and Kilburn, have faced periods of relentless anxiety over the future of their welfare support. The year 2015 did not bring any fresh hope.

The Work and Pensions Committee’s report in December revealed that the roll-out of universal credit, from Royal Assent to resolving the final outstanding legacy payments, could stretch beyond a decade. The Government promised that universal credit would reach 4.5 million people by the 2015 general election. This has not happened. The Secretary of State may be content for his Department to cruise through endless periods of trial and error, but the delays to the roll-out have been at a significant cost to the taxpayer, with the Major Projects Authority revealing an increase of £3 billion in the past two years. The bill now stands at a staggering £15.8 billion. If the Secretary of State truly understands the pressures faced by claimants, he will apologise for the years of anxiety his delays have subjected them to.

The autumn statement fundamentally contradicts the Secretary of State’s ridiculous claim on “The Andrew Marr Show” that “nobody loses a penny” through the changes. They also mark the end of the Chancellor’s ludicrous claim at the Conservative party conference that the Tories are the new workers’ party. Nothing could be further from the truth. Cuts to the work allowance are so severe they will mean that single people and couples with no dependent children will lose out the moment they start working. Just listen to the facts: the poorest 20% are on average set to lose between 6% and 8% of their income. Just listen to Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who stated that 2.6 million families will on average be £1,600 a year worse off. Further to that—this point was made eloquently by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms)— we know that transitional protections for claimants moving from the old system to universal credit will provide only £200 million against a background of £3 billion of cuts. Transitional protections are dropped when a claimant’s circumstances change. We know that new claimants will have no protection whatever.

[Richard Graham]

Is the hon. Lady aware that the IFS has actually said that anyone transferring on to universal credit will be protected and will not be worse off in cash terms?