Universal Credit Roll-out

Ronnie Cowan Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Neil Gray]

That is another appalling constituency case of which we all have many. I am about to raise one myself.

[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)]

My constituents had universal credit rolled out last November, and we have been bearing the brunt of it since then. The only measurable difference we have seen is that food bank referrals have gone up by 70%. People cannot wait for the Government to make up their mind on how they are going to fix this system.

[Neil Gray]

I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend, as do the expert charities and organisations involved in alleviating food poverty. The Secretary of State will, of course, claim to have listened to concerns and made a concession by apparently reducing the time taken to process advance payments and crisis loans. Leaving aside the point that I have already made that for many, myself included, the very fact that these advance payments exist highlights that universal credit is failing, I struggle to see what has changed since his announcement. I know from my written parliamentary question this week that there is no data available on how long the claims took to process previously, but my suspicion is that it will not be too dissimilar to before the supposedly big concession in the Secretary of State’s Tory conference speech. I do not think that anything has really changed.