Universal Credit Roll-out

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

I am exceptionally worried about the impact of universal credit roll-out on my constituents following today’s debate. The fact that the Government continue to plough on with a failing initiative despite protests from some Conservative Members shows that they are driven more by political pride than considered policy.

As we have heard, Citizens Advice says that half the people it has helped with universal credit were forced to borrow money while waiting for their first payment. The Government may claim that their advance payment system stops people being affected by the six-week waits, but as the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) said so eloquently, we must remember that advance payments are loans. Universal credit claimants will be expected to pay them back. Many people on universal credit already struggle with debt. To offer them a further loan is a completely inappropriate solution to the problem.

We know that single parents are among the hardest hit by waiting times for their universal credit payments. I know personally how hard it was to raise my children on my own while on benefits and what it is like to be in debt. I have lived with the reality of having to feed my children while knowing that any money coming in is already owed to someone else. What a shame that the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) was not a fan of the Labour Government’s life-changing tax credit system! I assure him that those of us who depended on it to feed our children most certainly were.

According to the single-parent charity Gingerbread, a third of single parents were already in debt before universal credit. The loan-based solution to universal credit roll-out puts thousands of single-parent families at further risk of financial hardship.

Those problems are caused by incompetence, confusion and unacceptable delays. They have already happened because the Government are not listening to calls to reconsider the move from direct payments to landlords. I back my union, Unison, which continues to argue that tenants should be able to choose to have the housing part of their universal credit paid directly to their landlord.