Universal Credit

Baroness Thomas of Winchester Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for his intervention. While we are very proud of the fact that we are getting more people into work, one issue that we really must tackle and which we have been thinking about—hence our response—is the need now to focus our efforts on in-work progression. That is why the Government have allocated additional funding of more than £8 million over four years to run a suite of tests and trials inside and outside government to support the development of evidence about what works to help people progress in work—we have already had ministerial meetings to discuss this—including those who are insecure at work and women returning to the labour market. The Social Security Advisory Committee at the Department for Work and Pensions—which is entirely independent of us—has just published a report on this which is extremely helpful in terms of our thinking. We need to complement record-high employment and record-low inactivity with a labour market that increases living standards, with economic security for everyone across the country. That is why the right reverend Prelate is completely right; we have to focus on that.

With regard to debt, when someone goes on to universal credit, they will have a work coach, with personalised support and assistance. There are noble Lords across the House who have been very involved, as I have, with the passage of the single financial guidance body Bill which, at its heart, is all about financial capability. This is extremely important in complementing our work and progression of universal credit. It is about education from an early age, helping people to manage, signposting people who are in difficulty to really good support. At the moment, support comes from three different bodies, but one purpose of the Bill is to bring them into one single financial guidance body that everyone can have access to for free advice, debt support, guidance and further signposting of what might help them. I am rather proud that we have seen that through your Lordships’ House. Through its passage—I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson—we have also sought to clarify our commitment to introducing a debt respite scheme with breathing space, which I am confident will help thousands of people who are in debt and in difficulty. Again, this Government are very proud of that and we wish the passage of that Bill well in another place.

I know that I am taking up time but, briefly with regard to universal support, we have invested £200 million in universal support and all claimants can access help with managing their finances when they come on to UC through those different channels.

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester (LD)]

My Lords, why are people being sanctioned so unfairly, as reported in the debates last week in both Houses, or does the Minister think those reports are being exaggerated? Is it because the people did not let the Jobcentre Plus office know that they were, say, in hospital, or that a bus had broken down? Supposing they do not have a mobile phone—are all UC claimants given a phone number to ring if they are unavoidably stopped from getting to an appointment at the jobcentre?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, in response to the noble Baroness, I have to say that, on sanctions, we believe it is right that there is a system in place to reinforce conditionality and to support and encourage claimants to do everything they can to move into or towards work or to improve their earnings. Imposing a sanction is not something that we do lightly. Claimants are given every opportunity to explain why they failed to meet their agreed conditionality requirements before a decision is made.

Based on last year’s data, each month, on average, fewer than 1% of ESA claimants in the work-related activity group had a sanction in place and fewer than 4% of UC claimants had a sanction in place. We are still quality-assuring the data for JSA but, in August, the DWP published a new sanctions statistics release with a revised methodology showing how many people were undergoing a sanction. This development is part of DWP’s commitment to the PAC to improve its published statistics and to be absolutely clear about what we are doing. The important thing is that we do not impose sanctions lightly; there has to be a tangible issue at hand.