Universal Credit

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I am pleased to speak in this vital debate, not only because when universal credit is rolled out it will affect millions of lives, but because two significant parliamentary events are coming soon: the Budget and the regulations on managed migration.

I have been a member of the Work and Pensions Committee since 2015 and I have seen the Government do the right thing time and again. We halted the planned cuts to tax credits in 2015, we reduced the taper rate from 65% to 63% in 2016, and last year we invested a further £1.5 billion to reduce the six-week waiting period to five weeks and provide two weeks of extra housing benefit run-on for people who move on to UC. We know that when presented with facts, the Government will act, so that is what I shall do today.

I wish to talk about how we can improve universal credit. Let me start with the existing system. The awarding of a national contract to Citizens Advice will transform the experience of claimants struggling to get on to the system for the first time, but it still will not fix the risk of debt faced by those who cannot wait five weeks for their first payment and who subsequently struggle on reduced payments when they are paying back their advance loan. If press rumours that the pay-back rate will be reduced from 40% to 30% are true, that is welcome, but for me that does not go far enough. Does the fact that we are paying advances to 60% of claimants not tell us that people cannot wait for five weeks, so the system design is flawed? As we are paying out taxpayers’ money at the start, let us give them better value for money by making that first payment the actual payment itself, not an advance loan. If our estimation was wrong, we can readjust slightly at the end of the month and claw back any slight overpayment at the end, when the claimant’s life is more settled and their debts are under control. I believe that that would tackle the majority of debt and food bank-related cases that we hear about. Let’s just do it.

As we have heard today multiple times, we need to make sure that universal credit can handle occasions when there are two pay cheques in a long month and ensure that that does not disproportionally affect the following month’s benefit. We should support the Scottish Government trial to see whether split payments give greater support to sufferers of domestic violence, and we need to look again at how universal credit works for self-employed people.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

Totnes has a vibrant arts sector. My hon. Friend will know that many self-employed artists take longer to establish themselves as a business, and there may be great variation, month to month, in what they are paid. In the light of her detailed work, does my hon. Friend have any suggestions about how we can improve the situation for self-employed artists?

[Heidi Allen]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is a fact that universal credit was not built for self-employed people, and it shows. The monthly assessments do not work and the minimum income floor needs to be looked at again because it typically takes more than a year for people’s businesses to settle down.

To make the existing system really fly, I suspect that we need a boost to IT and admin man and womanpower behind the scenes, because let us make no mistake: universal credit is not yet fully automated. Claiming for childcare costs is a prime example of the manual work that is still being done. That brings me on to how we move legacy claimants across and the regulations that we have still to vote for—in November, I suspect. I am pleased that migration will start a lot later than originally planned, but I and many others still have concerns about the regulations. As a Government, we are choosing, for all the right reasons, to move people—that is people—across to a new system. I fail to see why that should be the complete and utter responsibility of those claimants. I have led on IT transformation projects in business and it would be unheard of for there not to be some kind of automated population of data from the old system to the new. We need to look really seriously into doing that, because it would save us hardship in the long run. Let us not forget that a third of migrated claimants are on ESA—the most vulnerable in society who have some kind of illness or disability—and we should look after them and not let them drop off the system. The population of data should be automatic and there should be no break in those people’s payments at all.

Finally, when people arrive safe and sound on universal credit, the work allowances need to be what they should have been prior to 2015. How in this fair Great Britain that we call home can we have two families in identical circumstances living next to each other, but one has been protected across through migration and their next-door neighbours are £2,500 worse off a year? That is not Great Britain.

Universal Credit Roll-out

Debate between Sarah Wollaston and Heidi Allen

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I support the principles behind universal credit. My question is this: why are we undermining a policy with the potential to change lives for the better by not addressing a fundamental flaw at its heart?

We have heard many compelling cases today, and we cannot ignore them. The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) set out one of the flaws, but we have seen that a policy of test, learn and rectify can work. Today there have been universal congratulations for the Government on the introduction of a free helpline, and the bringing forward of access to advances has also improved the policy, but that does not get us away from the fundamental problem of a minimum six-week wait. That means that our constituents who are living on the edge—we are talking about real people’s lives here—are going to start this process in debt and in arrears, as we have heard.

It is possible to apply test, learn and rectify to this process. I want to hear from the Minister in the winding-up speech that Front Benchers recognise that and that they are going to address the six-week wait. The advance does not solve the issue; it does not cover the entire amount. Those of us who represent our constituents have a cushion and we would probably manage, but many of the people I used to look after when I was in clinical practice and the people I represent now who come to my constituency surgeries have no cushion whatever. This is devastating for them, and we cannot ignore the very real, compelling case histories that we have heard. We cannot allow those to continue.

There are things that we can do. Bringing forward the initial payment would mean that fewer people needed advances in the first place. That would save us a complicated bureaucracy, allowing people to say for themselves when they start universal credit, “Please would you pay my landlord direct, because I know I am going to find that complicated? Please would you give me payments every fortnight, because I don’t currently receive monthly payments?” Once they are established on the system, give them, with their advisers, the option to transfer to taking over their own monthly payments for their rent.

[Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that that would be sensible not only from an administrative point of view, but because work coaches could be helping people get into work, rather than helping them to deal with debt, stress and mental health issues?

[Dr Wollaston]

I absolutely agree. I say to the Minister, please, can we hear an assurance at least that there is a recognition of this fundamental flaw and that it will be addressed?

I know that Members on this side of the House will be abstaining tonight. Personally, I do not agree with that. The House should have an opportunity to express its view, and there have been occasions on which these debates, even though they are advisory, have led to changes in policy. If there is no way for me to express my view, on behalf of my constituents, that I think this fundamental flaw must be addressed before the policy is rolled out to the Totnes constituency next year, I am afraid that I will have to vote against the Government. I do not wish to do that because I support the underlying policy of universal credit—we have heard about many of its benefits—but, I say again, we are undermining it by not addressing the fundamental flaw at its heart. I hope the Minister will give an assurance from the Dispatch Box so that I do not have to vote against the Government.