Oral Answers to Questions

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Sarah Newton)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Safeguarding the dignity and wellbeing of people with the most severe lifelong conditions is of paramount importance. A number of Members have raised cases with me where people were receiving the highest levels of support, including in personal independence payment, and they were then reassessed as not needing any support. I was very concerned to hear about that, so I am now ensuring that DWP decision makers review all such cases to make sure that we get the right support to the right people at the right time.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

T4. The three-year benefit freeze, on top of three years of capped increases, has caused financial hardship for too many and for too long. Surely enough is enough, and the benefit freeze must be brought to an end in the forthcoming financial year.

[Amber Rudd]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s approach to this, but I must remind him of the terrible financial inheritance that we took on, which required belt-tightening, from which we are now getting some of the benefit. I also point out to him that now wages are rising faster than inflation, this is a significant change for people in receipt of it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

9. What steps her Department is taking to identify people on legacy benefits with high support needs who will be required to transfer to universal credit managed migration.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

11. What assessment she has made of the effect of universal credit managed migration on vulnerable claimant groups.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Justin Tomlinson)]

We welcomed the recent report by the Social Security Advisory Committee and have accepted nearly all its recommendations. We are determined that all claimants are supported through this process, particularly the most vulnerable, and we will be working collaboratively with our stakeholders to ensure that those in need of additional support receive the assistance they require.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I know that the new Secretary of State is very passionate about focusing on this particular area. There will be four to six months of comprehensive preparation for those looking to migrate. There will be personalised communication and information on the support available, and our highly trained and experienced staff will identify vulnerable claimants, such as those with mental health conditions, so that we can instead offer home visits or telephone calls, or even delay or stop the migration process if that is appropriate for the individual claimant.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

Does the Minister agree that the system of implicit consent is absolutely essential for claimants with high support needs under the legacy system, and that it must be rolled out and extended to universal credit urgently and before managed migration begins?

[Justin Tomlinson]

There is real merit in that point. From talking to stakeholders, particularly social housing companies and local authorities, I think that when we can find a way to connect up stakeholders, including the most vulnerable claimants in particular, it increases the chance of making the process as smooth as possible.

Universal Credit

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 16th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

I am happy to have a discussion with the hon. Gentleman on the particular case he raises.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

What will the Minister do to address the fact that too many applications for vital alternative payment arrangements are being delayed, ignored or even lost by the DWP, totally undermining their purpose?

[Alok Sharma]

If the hon. Gentleman has individual cases of constituents facing these difficulties, he should bring them to me. I cannot react to general comments, which we hear quite a lot from the Opposition. When Members have specific cases, they should bring them forward and we will deal with them.

Universal Credit Roll-out

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

Of course the aims of universal credit are welcome, but the simple fact is that full service roll-out is not delivering them. Instead, in too many cases it is causing confusion, stress, financial crises, arrears and debt, and is threatening families with homelessness, including in Kirkintilloch in my constituency. If the Government are serious about their original ambitions for the roll-out, which I think are shared across the House, they should pause and listen and reflect on the genuine concerns raised not just on the Opposition Benches, but by various organisations ranging from poverty campaigners to advice services, from Churches to housing associations, and from staff working in the system to those suffering under it.

These organisations and individuals are not scaremongers. They must be listened to, and almost overwhelmingly and universally they seek a pause. Let us not forget that the roll-out of full service universal credit has barely started. Already, we are hearing how disastrous and problematic it is proving, so the faster roll-out planned in the months ahead risks massive multiplication of all those problems. By going ahead now, without properly ensuring all issues have been addressed, the Government would be making a horrendous and unforgiveable mistake.

We need a pause, and during that pause we need to take this benefit right back to first principles so that it is meeting its original aim of reducing poverty, rather than pushing people into crisis. We need to reverse the cuts to the work allowance and to revisit the idea that six weeks is an appropriate waiting time. Otherwise, the Government will be rolling out all the problems that we have heard about today: increased rent arrears, increased debts, food bank queues and homelessness. We must pause and test; only then can we fix this mess and proceed after resolving all these issues.

Universal Credit

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) on securing this important debate and on her thorough and comprehensive speech.

Like the hon. Lady and probably every other hon. Member present, I am contacted daily by constituents who have encountered significant problems with the benefits system. In some parts of my constituency, principally Kirkintilloch and surrounding villages, that situation has been made many times worse by the roll-out of full service universal credit. I know from speaking to local people, advice agencies and landlords that, in short, the roll-out of universal credit there has been a dog’s breakfast. It has had profound implications for the constituents concerned, and I support those who call for it to be halted now.

I was contacted recently by a constituent who is suffering from depression, anxiety and agoraphobia. She described the “living nightmare” of waiting six weeks for her payment, which itself represented a £30 cut to her previous social security payments. She concluded her email to me by relating the

“enormous negative effect on my mental health…I can honestly understand now why so many people struggle and give up and end up taking their own lives. This has to stop”.

I agree.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North has already pointed out some of the major flaws in universal credit. A key point is that those flaws are not teething problems that can be simply ironed out as we muddle along, which is what the Government seem to think. As the hon. Lady has said, all the evidence suggests that there has been an incredible upsurge in the number of cases of claimants building up rent arrears caused by the huge gaps between applications and payments, the very restricted ability to request direct payments to landlords and significant problems resulting from the system of monthly payments, all of which create huge budgeting problems and personal budget crises.

Most fundamentally, as the hon. Lady has pointed out, many of the changes referred to, combined, are set to punish families with children. We have heard from some organisations that families will be left worse off by up to £1,000 a year by 2020, but single-parent families are particularly hard hit by a massive £2,380 cut on average. We know that overall the Government’s pursuit of cuts looks set to force up to 1 million more children into poverty in the years ahead.

When a social security system acts completely contrary to its original purpose, and when its so-called reforms are substantially increasing rather than reducing poverty, it is surely time to go back to the drawing board and ask what we are seeking to achieve. While people and families suffer, landlords and advice services in my constituency are also finding this situation a nightmare. There are concerns that it is leading private landlords to shy from accepting tenants who are in receipt of universal credit payments.

I want to raise one specific issue that not been touched on yet: what seems to be the shambolic system for processing applications for alternative payment arrangements. The class of people entitled to make such applications is limited, but it will become significant in volume because it includes many of those in arrears. Housing associations in Kirkintilloch tell me that problems arise even from the outset, with applications for APAs not acknowledged or processed. Indeed, multiple application forms are sent out to the organisations involved. Most importantly, payments appear to be utterly erratic. As I understand it, the housing association is supposed to receive one payment for all the tenants on APAs each four weeks.

However, I understand from one housing association that since an initial payment was made in December it has only received payments for perhaps two or three tenants when there are supposed to be around 14 or 15 on APAs. In addition, they are receiving APAs for ex-tenants, despite notifying the DWP that they have moved on. Their concern is that if this is happening in a relatively small area such as Kirkintilloch, roll-out in places such as Glasgow will be an even bigger disaster both for constituents whose arrears are going through the roof and for the housing associations relying on the payments. As Crisis argues, the mechanisms for allowing direct payments must be made simpler and more accessible.

In addition, as with other advice services, advisers working in housing associations highlight the huge logistical problems caused, as the hon. Lady has said, by the abolition of implicit consent. To go beyond that, advisers have also raised the lack of places for them to go now to escalate and resolve issues faced by clients and tenants. For all those reasons, I argue that the roll-out should be stopped now. If the Government insist on carrying on regardless, they should take urgent action to resolve the predicament of too many claimants, just as the Scottish Government are looking to use their limited flexibilities to alleviate the worst features of the system. So, allow tenants to choose to have payments made directly to landlords and to have the option to receive twice-monthly payments. If the Government do not listen, their universal credit promises will have been broken, and a reform that was said to bring simplicity will instead bring complexity and cuts.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb]

We absolutely do want to support more people to move into self-employment and to help develop the entrepreneurs of the future. The new enterprise allowance has now successfully supported the start-up of nearly 85,000 new businesses and I look forward to visiting my hon. Friend’s constituency to see some of those businesses in action.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

T8. For obvious reasons, refugee families and children are not usually required to meet past residence requirements when accessing benefits, so why on earth are the Government trying to overturn a recent tribunal decision so as to deny disabled refugees, including children, access to disability living allowance on the grounds of those very residence criteria? Is that not particularly absurd given that many of them will have been resettled here specifically because they have such a disability?

[Justin Tomlinson]

That is an issue on which we are considering taking legal advice.