Universal Credit Roll-out
Debate between Siobhain McDonagh and Mark Harper(7 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Harper
Let me address part of that point now and I will also come on to it later in my remarks. We should not compare universal credit with some mystical world of perfection; we should compare it with the existing system. Under the existing system, housing benefit is not perfect. There are lots of issues with housing benefit and tax credits in the existing benefit system. I understand that the citizens advice bureau has about 600,000 ongoing cases under the existing benefit system, so we are not talking about comparing universal credit with perfection. The existing system is not very good, does not work very well, and does not support people very well. Universal credit is an improvement.
On housing and the direct payment of landlords, which I know is controversial, my own view is that it is better to assume that people can manage their rent themselves. In cases where they cannot, and it is shown that they cannot, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green made it clear—as the Secretary of State did, with the roll-out of the housing portal—that we can deal with that. I do not think it is reasonable to assume that everybody on universal credit is incapable of managing their own money. That is what is assumed with the insistence on paying landlords directly. The other advantage of paying the person directly is that landlords cannot then discriminate against people who get housing benefit. If universal credit is paid directly to you and you make the payment, the landlord does not know that you are a benefit recipient and therefore cannot discriminate against you by having signs in the window saying, “I won’t take people on DSS,” which I know some landlords do.
