Universal Credit: Highlands

George Kerevan Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to debate the universal credit full service roll-out in the highlands. My constituency was a pilot area for the programme before it went to full service, and at the time I was very wary of the prospect. I was told that that would provide an opportunity to iron out all the problems and difficulties to make sure there were none when it came to full service roll-out, but I am afraid that that has not been the case. The problems have not been ironed out, and the situation is causing pain, anxiety and hardship for people in my constituency.

The aim of the debate is to highlight the problems, to offer solutions to the Minister and, I hope, to get him to accept the need to pause this harmful roll-out. I am sure that the intention behind universal credit was not to cause this type of difficulty, and I am also sure that the Minister is not intent on punishing people by continuing with the programme as it is. I hope that an outcome of the debate will be an understanding by the Minister of the problems that exist and his commitment to take action.

I was grateful to the Minister for a letter that he wrote to me on 14 March in response to my very detailed letter to him. It is important, in the interests of clarity, that I refer to a number of points in that letter. He wrote:

“We are building and developing the universal credit service all the time.”

By definition, “building and development” means that the process is not completed—it is incomplete. In fact, I contend that at the moment the system is unfit for use. During the period in which we were building and developing a house, we would not allow somebody to live in it. That is tantamount to what is happening to my constituents just now—this is dangerous to their health.

My constituency office alone has seen more than 100 cases involving issues with universal credit. That is just us—the number does not include the other agencies involved. The number does not cover the countless many, many more people who are not getting any help at all because they do not know where to turn. One constituent of mine who contacted us is called Ian. He waited for six weeks without any money. He had to eat at a food bank and to go for days without electricity, all with a two-year-old living in his house. That is not acceptable, and he did not even get any explanation of why that happened.

The Minister said in his letter:

“I recognise that Inverness Jobcentre Plus covers a large geographical area, and many claimants live some distance from the Jobcentre. Claimants are required to submit their evidence, for example childcare cost receipts, to the Jobcentre before the end of the Assessment Period.”

Submitting evidence is not that easy, as we found out when another of my constituents, Jane, had to travel from Grantown-on-Spey to Inverness to hand in her childcare vouchers. That is a journey by public transport of an hour and a half each way—a three-hour return trip. It would have been bad enough if, after she had put in her childcare vouchers, that had been the end of it, but the jobcentre lost the data and Jane had to make several more trips. The matter is still not resolved—that is not acceptable. People are not able to upload the information online; they actually have to hand in the vouchers at the jobcentre. Why is it not possible for them to go to another local authority location to take care of the business? There should be far more flexibility in the system.

The Minister went on to say:

“Universal credit is designed as a digital service to be accessed online”—

as I have just pointed out, that aspect of the system is not complete—and that if people were having difficulty, they could use an 0345 number. He said further that operators

“will offer to call a customer back if concerns are raised over the cost of the call.”

If we look at the issue of digital by design, we find that there is a big gap. Some 17% of people in the highlands have never used the internet, and there are other big areas of digital exclusion.

[George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP)]

My East Lothian constituency was the first in Scotland to implement the full service roll-out. Has my hon. Friend had the same experience as us that because so many clients either lack access to IT equipment or are inexperienced at using it, they have to seek help from the citizens advice bureau, local library staff or local social security staff? That has the result that full service roll-out can be implemented only with the addition of massive amounts of staff time from all those bodies?

[Drew Hendry]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I shall provide some further examples in a few moments.

For people who suffer from digital exclusion, that is not the end of the problem, because that 0345 number is, in effect, a premium phone line. Another constituent, Claire, was in tears in my office because she had used her last £20 of credit for her mobile phone while being held on the phone for 30 minutes waiting to get through. When her call was eventually answered, after she had used up all that credit, she was promised a call back—she was looking for money to feed her children, by the way—but that call back never came. Two days later she appeared in our office, and when we phoned, it took 34 minutes to get through so that we could get an answer on her case.

The Minister said in the letter:

“Our latest data from February has shown a speed of answer time of between 8 and 9 minutes and I can reassure your that more resource is planned”—

I can tell him that more resource is definitely required. That is a big change from what I was told in a written answer that I received, and it is as an admission that the length of time is increasing, even if the Government’s figure is not accurate. On 16 December, when I asked the Minister what the average call time was, I was told that it was three minutes 27 seconds. That is clearly not correct, even according to the Minister’s letter. Citizens Advice and my constituency office decided to undertake an experiment in which we timed the calls, so the Minister does not have to take just my word for it. It took 28 minutes on average to get through to that line. There is a requirement for a free 0800 support line, and I hope that the Minister will take that on board.

In response to my claim that there was no support line for agencies or MPs, the Minister’s letter said:

“As I mentioned earlier Universal Credit is designed to be accessed online”,

and that there is a “once and done” service. It might be “once and done” for the DWP, but it is certainly not “once and done” for my constituents who are under pressure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

Let me thank the hon. Gentleman for that offer. I welcome the opportunity to speak to local organisations throughout the country. My most recent visit to a jobcentre was this morning, and I plan to make another on Thursday. There are several hundred jobcentres throughout the country, and my aim is to get representative feedback and critiques to help our understanding of these issues. I also welcome the communication that I have had from and with the hon. Gentleman in that regard.

[George Kerevan]

Will the Minister give way?

[Damian Hinds]

I will not, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.

We have established a dedicated team of employer and partnership staff, who are deployed to engage directly with stakeholders, including local authorities and landlords, to ensure that there is a joined-up approach to supporting universal credit claimants.

I know that housing arrears are an area of concern, which is why that is a regular subject of discussion in our Highland operational forum. Discussing the issues in this way has led to the introduction of some effective troubleshooting measures. To begin with, we are embarking on a specific piece of work to monitor Highland Council cases involving housing costs, to try to establish the root causes of any delays in the process. I appreciate the concerns over rent arrears. I know that it is an issue that matters to a lot of people, but the reality is that a lot of complex, overlapping factors are at play. The roll-out of universal credit is by no means the sole factor contributing to arrears. Let us consider for a moment that, according to the latest report published by the National Federation for Arm’s-Length Management Organisations, over three quarters of its ALMO tenants who have fallen into arrears were already behind with their rent before commencing their universal credit claim.

Some of the rent arrears are clearly attributable to the charging policies of landlords that can create book arrears from the outset of a tenancy. This is a simple definitional point. A landlord who previously charged rent on a weekly basis will of course appear to be missing rent payments under the new system, which pays claimants’ housing costs on a monthly cycle in arrears. We have been clear about the reasons for this change. The key motivation is to create a welfare system that more closely mirrors the world of work. Our research shows that the majority of UC claimants are comfortable managing their own budgets. Furthermore, we know that after four months, the proportion of UC claimants who were in arrears at the start of their claim fell by a third.