Oral Answers to Questions

Teresa Pearce Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

That is a lot of learnings, but I will do my level best to help my hon. Friend. I shall tell him what we know so far. Some of these are early figures, but interestingly, after all the scaremongering about how people would be unable to cope, which, as we know from the local housing allowance, is not the case, the centre at Sheffield Hallam university has found so far that only 2%—less than people thought—of claimants moved because of eviction or a landlord refusing housing to housing benefit tenants, and few claimants gave financial reasons for actually moving. So we are making some good discoveries. We are on the right track and heading in the right direction.

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

24. What discussions his Department has had with Baroness Grey-Thompson following the publication of her report on the effect on disabled people of the introduction of universal credit.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

Since Baroness Grey-Thompson’s report was released, I have attended meetings with her twice where the contents of her report have been discussed.

[Teresa Pearce]

“Holes in the Safety Net”, the report just mentioned, indicated that about 450,000 disabled people lose out under the universal credit rules. This number was also raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, in a recent Westminster Hall debate that the Minister attended. Will she listen to these two highly respected women and amend her plans?

[Esther McVey]

We have been listening very much. We found some of the reports to be highly selective and quite skewed. They did not take into consideration how much extra support was going to people with disabilities, but we are listening, there is transitional protection and we will be releasing the assessment criteria later in the year.