Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I agree. The hon. Lady raises an important point about an area of work—I was just talking to my ministerial colleague about it—that universal credit should help to rectify and improve dramatically, because putting everything into one location will allow us to target it correctly on the intended recipients. One of the biggest problems is that the complexity of the system does not allow that to happen, meaning that lots of people fall through the cracks.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Universal credit will be the greatest revolution in the benefits system for more than a generation. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that every Member has the opportunity, between now and the introduction of universal credit, to get to grips with its minutiae, so that we can be confident of ensuring that our constituents understand how it will work?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I will follow through on that very good suggestion. We are already consulting. My hon. Friend might be aware that in July we had a series of consultations in the Committee Rooms with Members of the other place and of this House. We intend to continue that consultation and to set up demonstrations of how it works at the front end and of what they will need to do. We are determined to ensure that Members understand how to claim it—I hope that some of them may have to use it in due course.