Universal Credit: Rollout

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

My response to my noble friend is: you bet we will. I called a district manager in Jobcentre Plus and asked her to tell me truthfully how things were going. She said, “It is going much better. It is agile, it is flexible and once we identify problems locally with individuals, we are solving them overnight”. My noble friend should therefore take heart that this will continue and just get better.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, as the Minister said, the DWP makes much of its test-and-learn approach to UC rollout, yet, instead of trying to learn, its public response to the damning NAO report was utterly defensive—although I do welcome the more open response she has given today. What specific lessons for action will the department take from the report’s findings, which were echoed at an APPGUC meeting that I attended just now by front-line welfare rights workers, who reported a catalogue of problems faced by the people they are trying to work with?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

I understand exactly the point that the noble Baroness makes. There are huge lessons to learn and lots of them. Support organisations and job coaches identified that people are being given the wrong information, and are struggling to meet the requirement to submit a claim because of language barriers and not having a bank account or identification. All I can say to the noble Baroness—I would not say it if I did not believe it—is that the work coaches are doing everything they can with people in local communities to overcome these issues. I can see that she is not quite on board with me yet—but she is smiling. I hope that if she asks this question in six months’ time, we will have an even better response for her.