Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Timms Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I commend my hon. Friend for working for such organisations, about which he has spoken to me in the past. A huge amount of progress has taken place in this area, as he maintains. It is worth noting that, as a result of what we have been doing with the reforms and in working with organisations such as the one he mentions, the youth claimant count is at its lowest level since the mid-1970s, the number of those unemployed is down nearly 300,000 since 2010 and, most importantly, the unemployment rate for those not in education is 5.8%—pretty near the lowest it has ever been. We will carry on trying to get this right, but this is good evidence that welfare reform is working.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

On 1 November 2011, the Secretary of State issued a press release saying that

“the Universal Credit IT programme is…progressing well with 30% of the new technology required to deliver it now complete”.

Will the Secretary of State tell the House what proportion of universal credit IT has now been completed?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

The roll-out of IT across the country is nearly complete. The roll-out nationally will be complete before April, as I said to the right hon. Gentleman last time he asked exactly the same question. It is always good to have old questions: the old ones are always the best. The roll-out is progressing well. As he knows, he has an invitation to come and visit the final digital development, which will start to roll all the other benefits into universal credit in May.