Neil Coyle
Main Page: Neil Coyle (Labour - Bermondsey and Old Southwark)Department Debates - View all Neil Coyle's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Chris Philp
Is not the real way to combat poverty to get people off benefits and into work, is not the evidence that people on universal credit are more likely to get back into work than people on the old benefits, and is not that the real test of this system’s success?
Mr Speaker
Order. I say to the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), whose grinning countenance belies an aggressiveness of spirit in this matter, that it is not really in order to yell out, “On the same point,” as a way of trying to ensure that one is called.
Ms McVey
Conservative Members have made sure that since 2010, 1,000 people each and every day have got a job. I want to give out a very, very important statistic that came out yesterday—youth unemployment has fallen by 50% since this Government have been in office. That is thousands of young people with a future that this Government have given them.
Mr Speaker
Order. Before we hear from the hon. Gentleman—I am sure that his intervention will not be aggressive—we have a point of order from Frank Field.
Mr Speaker
I did not have any impression that the Secretary of State was having any particular difficulty; I think she was spoilt for choice and taking a little while to exercise her choice. But we are always grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s advice, solicited or otherwise. [Interruption.] Well, I am not going to comment on the glasses situation—it is rather beyond the ken of the Speaker. However, we note the right hon. Gentleman’s well intentioned advice.
Neil Coyle
The Secretary of State is making her usual robust case and claims that the system has improved. Why is it, then, that the Department acknowledges that thousands of landlords, especially private sector landlords, will never be part of the landlord portal; that the Government have had to exempt supported housing fully from universal credit; that 300,000 people will get late payments this year, according to the Department; and that underpayments and overpayments are increasing under universal credit to levels not seen with the legacy benefits?
Ms McVey
To be fair, 76% of people coming on to universal credit had arrears in their housing benefit, according to the report by the National Federation of ALMOs. That is the reality of it. I have given the figures for the extra debt people got into under the previous Labour Government.
Some very interesting speeches were given in the House in 2016, when people understood that we had to get the benefits bill down. This is what was said on the Floor of the House:
“The deficit has to be eliminated. We believe in controlling the cost of social security so that it is fair”
on
“the people who are paying for it”—[Official Report, 20 July 2015; Vol. 598, c. 1265]—
and for those who need it. That did not come from a Conservative Member but from Labour’s acting shadow Secretary of State for the Department for Work and Pensions. We all believe in making a fair benefits system and getting people into work, and that is what universal credit is doing.
Gordon Henderson
As my hon. Friend will understand, the claim is being made that some people who use those food banks were forced to do so because of the difficulties faced when claiming UC. When I pressed them about those difficulties, they said that one was the requirement for claims to be made online, which was also raised by the shadow Secretary of State. Some people claimed that they either were not computer literate or did not have access to a computer.
Gordon Henderson
I will not give way again because I do not have time. I pointed out that such people could visit the local jobcentre, where they would be able to use one of the bank of computers installed there. In addition, they would be helped to navigate the system by a member of staff or a volunteer from one of the voluntary organisations that are now based in the jobcentre.
Of course, there were people who faced other difficulties, so I asked the food bank to provide me with details of those people so that I could get somebody to contact them to investigate and take up their cases with the DWP. When we received that information, we discovered that many of the people were living in a local hostel that provides temporary accommodation for homeless adults. A member of my staff contacted the people concerned and it soon became obvious that some of them suffered from underlying problems that affected their ability to manage the transition to UC, and that forced them into using the food bank. Those problems included drug addiction, alcoholism, mental health problems, an inability to manage money, or plain fecklessness. Automatically blaming their problems on UC, which is what the Opposition appear to be doing, is doing those people no favours. If somehow the delivery of UC could be made perfect overnight, that would not make people any less dependent on drugs or alcohol. It would not solve their mental health problems. It would not help them to manage their money better and it would not make them less feckless. Of course, we have to do something to help those people, but the truth is that they would still have the same problems, whatever benefits system was put in place.
Luckily, such people are in the minority. However, there are some people who have genuine concerns, which leads me nicely on to the faults in the system that I mentioned at the beginning of my speech. My No. 1 concern is the five weeks’ delay in the receipt of the first benefit payment made under UC. I urge the Department to look at whether there is a way in which that can be phased in over a longer period. Of course, people can get an advance payment, but some people are simply unable to manage that money well enough for it to last five weeks, so again, I ask for that to be looked at. I know of claimants, by the way, who spend the money in the first week and then have to resort to food banks for the remaining weeks.
The second problem is the repayment requirement for an advance payment. That is something else I would like the Department to look at to see whether it could be done over a two-year, rather than a one-year, period. The third problem is that under the legacy system, claimants were provided with a letter confirming what benefits they were receiving. Under UC, that is not provided and I would like that to be changed if possible. The final thing, which I have taken up with the NHS, is that there is no box for UC on the back of prescriptions, and I would like that to change as well.