Universal Credit Roll-out

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

No, I will carry on, given the number of people who want to speak.

Compassion alone is not enough. The effectiveness of our welfare system should be properly judged by the number of lives that it transforms, and that transformation comes from well-paid work. Universal credit ends the well-documented problem of single parents effectively working for free if they want to work for more than 16 hours. Universal credit ensures that all work truly pays, and it is working. Compared with the system that it replaces, claimants spend twice as much time actively looking for work and, for every 100 claimants who found employment under the old system, 113 will find employment under universal credit. In reality, the lives of more than 250,000 people will be transformed over the course of the roll-out through having a decent job and the opportunity to build a stake in our society.

Finally, universal credit is fair to the people who pay for it. In Britain today, we spend around twice as much on working-age welfare as we do on education. To put it another way, for every £1 that the taxpayer sends to the NHS, they also send £1 to the working-age welfare bill. Given the sums involved, I make no apology for speaking up for those who ask me, “Is this money well spent?”

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman talks of the transformational impact of universal credit, so will he please comment on the transformation for my constituents? In Croydon, two thirds of families in local authority housing are now in rent arrears and face eviction, compared with less than a third before universal credit was introduced.

[Rishi Sunak]

I obviously cannot comment specifically on what is going on in Croydon, but the reasons for rent arrears are complicated. The evidence shows that the level of rent arrears after three months of universal credit is exactly the same, if not lower, than under the old system.

Returning to the sums involved, universal credit ensures a responsible and sustainable system by putting in place a sensible regime of conditionality. That gives hard-working taxpayers the confidence that when they contribute to the system, not only will that help somebody to get back on their feet, but that the person will also have a responsibility to do their bit. That is fair.

Universal credit is not perfect—no system so large and complex can be—and we should make improvements where we can, but it is significantly better than what it replaces, and the fundamentals of what it is trying to achieve are sound. It has been implemented slowly and methodically. It is insane to argue that it has been rushed when the full roll-out will have taken almost a decade from start to finish. This is welfare reform in action: making things simpler, ensuring work pays, and transforming lives. I urge the Government to carry on with their plan.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

My cautionary tale from Croydon is similar to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle). People in my constituency were among the first to experience the full service roll-out of UC back in 2015, and the size of Croydon means that our borough has the highest case load in the country. In Croydon, we have seen UC’s problems play out slowly over time, and the results make my weekly surgeries a very difficult place to be. Conservative Members have talked at length about the test, learn and rectify regime. My constituents have been tested, but I have seen no learning and no rectifying from Conservative Members.

As my colleagues have said, in many ways and giving many strong examples, the DWP takes weeks to assess a claim, and when my constituents are finally paid, getting backdated payments is like pulling teeth. In Croydon, two thirds of people living in local authority housing who claim UC are in rent arrears and at risk of eviction—that is more than 1,000 families. That is just a proportion of the overall figure, as many more are facing the same fate in private rented housing. Conservative Members have suggested that the situation was just as bad before UC was introduced, but in Croydon the average rent account balance for tenants on housing benefit was £2.50, whereas for those on UC it is now minus £1,224.

The problem is not just that delays to payment cause debt, that mistakes are made time and again, that communication is rubbish, and that it takes months to respond to evidence provided and months to pay what is owed; the biggest problem for my constituents is that when all the benefits were lumped together, with a laudable aim, the Government also trimmed the components, leaving my constituents with not enough money to live on. Universal credit is not enough to live on in Croydon. One of my constituents, a single mother who lives on her own after fleeing domestic violence, has been left with a £400 rent shortfall under the new system. The damage this programme has had on our town has meant that families are leaving because they cannot afford to stay. I met headteachers and the council last week, and they told me that primary school numbers in Croydon are now going down, as a direct result of the implementation of UC.

Can I finish with one—[Interruption.] No, I cannot, because I have run out of time. I just ask Conservative Members to vote with us today and pause UC.