Universal Credit

Ruth George Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Ms Esther McVey)]

As the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) is on the Opposition Front Bench, may I start by congratulating her on her promotion? I am sure that she would have liked to have got it in happier circumstances, but none the less I welcome her to her role. I hope that she does not fall victim to the bullying culture of the Leader of the Opposition’s office, as the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) has.

Well, well, well, what a strange old topsy-turvy world we find ourselves in. Measures so strongly fought for and won by claimants, MPs, stakeholders and charities only months ago are now being opposed by the Opposition. These changes were proposed by the most vocal defenders of benefits, and they are now being obstructed. We in the Chamber should not be giving the public misinformation, but unfortunately that is what has been happening so far.

Last month, stories emerged from Opposition Members—particularly the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner)—that have been repeated today: namely, that our plans for entitlement to free school meals would deprive more than a million children. It took a “Channel 4 News” FactCheck to point out that no child who currently receives meals would lose their entitlement and that, in fact, some 50,000 more children would benefit under our proposals when compared with the previous system.

I understand that it is the nature of the Opposition to oppose, but the scaremongering and misinformation from the Opposition has surely reached a new low as today they seek to annul regulations that consist largely of changes that were introduced purely to support benefits claimants—changes that Opposition Members have themselves called for. All this after a recent intervention by the UK Statistics Authority, which made it clear that the claims made by Opposition Members about universal credit causing poverty, debt and eviction were not supported by the evidence.

Of course, the scale and nature of the change represented by universal credit means that scrutiny is inevitable and important, and I welcome that, but unsubstantiated and exaggerated claims about widespread problems caused by universal credit amount to nothing less than scaremongering. They cause claimants alarm and, in the worst cases, stop them getting the money that they are entitled to, yet we find ourselves here again, debating universal credit, with the same false alarms coming from the shadow Cabinet—only this time we are debating the very regulations that we have designed to address the legitimate concerns of Opposition Members and our stakeholders.

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has said that claims should not be made when they are unsubstantiated. I have been asking parliamentary questions about the £50,000 increase that is in the consultation response, and I have received no facts about how the figure has been arrived at—none whatsoever. Will that be published, please?

[Ms McVey]

The numbers have been calculated and modelled by civil servants. These facts come from independent people and they can be relied on, unlike the facts that come from people who, as we have heard today, make it up as they go along.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

As the chair of the all-party group on universal credit, I want to lay out the facts of the measures for Members from across the House. I am very sorry that they have not been before Select Committees to allow them to look properly at the case. Unfortunately, the facts in the Government’s case are wrong. They claim that this is about parents of school-age children who are on about £7,400 a year and say that, with other benefits, those people will be on between £18,000 and £24,000 a year. However, according to the benefits calculator on the gov.uk website, we are thinking about a single parent with one school-age child who is on £14,200. She will be on the poverty line but will not be eligible for free school meals. Under tax credits, that single parent would have been £1,600 a year better off. She will lose that money and her child will not be able to claim free school meals. She will be £25 a week worse off and will still have to pay around £11.25 a week towards school meals. She does not get a free school meal at the moment, but she can afford that, because she is on tax credits, which is a far more generous system.

This is the trouble with universal credit: it cuts an average of £1,300 a year from working single parents. At the moment, one in three of the children of these single parents is in poverty. Gingerbread, the Child Poverty Action Group, the Children’s Society, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation all say that universal credit will increase the number of children in poverty over the next four years by 1 million. Not only will those children be in poverty, but now, thanks to a statutory instrument, they will not be able to claim free school meals. They will not get that hot, nutritious meal at lunchtime that will help them to concentrate throughout the day and to realise the levels of nutrition that they need. This also affects their eligibility for school trips through the pupil premium.

My hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), the chair of the all-party group on school food, gave Education Ministers the proposal of delinking the pupil premium to enable pupils to still be able to receive free school meals. Children might not be in poverty now and might not be receiving a free school meal, but they will be in poverty in four years’ time, thanks to the cuts introduced under universal credit. They will not be eligible for a free school meal either, and they should be. Not to make that change, not to look properly at it and to go on figures about benefits that are wrong—to try to mislead the House with figures in a consultation document that are blatantly wrong about the people’s income—does a disservice to the 1 million children and the 280,000 families who will be on the cliff edge and seeing a disincentive to work. Across this House, we all want to see an incentive to work. Any parent with children who is earning between £7,400 and around £11,000 a year will not be better off in work.

[Mrs Hodgson]

My hon. Friend mentioned decoupling the pupil premium. Under the Digital Economy Act 2017, that is now possible. Schools already know how to claim pupil premium for the universal infant free school meals offer. Does she agree that we are totally able to decouple the two?

[Ruth George]

Absolutely. I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. In a Westminster Hall debate a few weeks ago, Conservative Members said it was because of the cost of the pupil premium that they did not want free school meals extended, and that we could therefore set the pupil premium at the level proposed by the Government. We must, however, make sure that every child in poverty is entitled to the free school meals they need so that they have a better chance in school and better life chances, and to ensure that we try to eradicate child hunger instead of increasing it.