Universal Credit Project Assessment Reviews

Philippa Whitford Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

On Monday last week, I spoke in the Chamber to propose a ten-minute rule Bill to try to tackle some of the organisational and administrative issues that have made universal credit worse. The most important thing that has been discussed in all these universal credit debates is obviously the waiting time and, like others, I welcome the Chancellor’s reducing it to five weeks. However, contrary to what was claimed by the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), 25% of universal credit claimants are waiting longer than six weeks now. That is a DWP figure, so it is simply not the case that no one is waiting longer than five weeks. I also welcome the increase in the advance loans to 100% and the stretching of the payback to a year, but those changes do not come in until next year. People in my constituency, which was hit on Budget day, will face exactly the same set-up that has been discussed repeatedly today.

Last Monday, I proposed some of the flexible options put forward by the Scottish Government, such as fortnightly payments and direct payments to landlords, and I call in particular for separate payments. While the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) said that they are not any use, separate payments are being promoted by women’s charities as a way of avoiding financial control and manipulation. However, a ten-minute rule Bill can only discuss the things around the edges, and universal credit has major underlying problems. It is often described as simple, but rolling so many different types of people on to one benefit has proven difficult. The majority of people on universal credit includes working people who will be receiving child tax credits and working tax credits through universal credit. As has been said, the benefit will eventually be collected by 11 million people, so it is important to get things right before it reaches that scale.

One of the main issues is the benefit freeze until 2020. Inflation is already over 3% and is expected to climb due to Brexit. The average loss of earnings for unemployed people will be £500 a year, but the figure for employed households is £1,200 a year. Of that loss, 57% is due to the change in the work allowance. If the Government want to make work pay, they should return to what was proposed in 2013 and fix the work allowance. The grotesque rape clause has been well aired by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), but it is simply an exemption to another big issue: the two-child limit on tax credits. Three-quarters of a million families with three children or more will lose more than £2,500 a year, and that includes a quarter of a million one-earner families who will lose more than £3,800 a year. With the kind of income that such families have, that loss is enormous. We have already seen the number of children living in poverty increase by 400,000, and any medic or social scientist will talk about the impact that the change will have on children’s lives and how it will cost more in the long term.

The Women’s Budget Group has shown that 86% of all the cuts made over the past seven years have been felt by women, who tend to be at the lower end of the income scale, and by black, Asian and minority ethnic women in particular, which may be aggravated by cultural factors because they may have three or more children. The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith) talked about family planning, and no one can predict the moment at which life can change. People cannot suddenly put their child in a bin because their circumstances have changed or they have been made redundant—that is ridiculous.

My Bill called on the Government to carry out cumulative impact assessments that consider gender and race. We have been calling for the roll-out to be paused and fixed, and we have heard in the past week that it will be paused, but it will be paused between February and April. Good luck to those whose constituencies will not be hit, as mine is, going into the Christmas and new year period, but why is the roll-out not being paused now so that, as we go through the hardest bit of winter, the reforms agreed by the Chancellor can be enacted? The roll-out needs to be changed, and the pause should be now, not next February.

--- Later in debate ---

[Laura Pidcock]

Conservative Members will not acknowledge that power dynamics sometimes prevent the truth from being heard.

[Dr Whitford]

Is the issue not partly the fact that we hear Members talking about meeting DWP staff, but they then say that they do not have the full roll-out? They should come back to talk in the Chamber when they do.

[Laura Pidcock]

rose—