Universal Credit — House of Lords, 2017-11-16
Topic: Labor
Patrick Cormack (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I will do my best. I begin by adding my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, for introducing the debate and doing so in a speech that was both powerful and elegant It is not just the road to hell that is paved with good intentions. I often thought of that when, as a constituency Member of Parliament, I was besieged by constituents who fell victim to another good idea, the CSA. Any Member of Parliament who remembers that knows it is difficult to get it right. I do not doubt for a moment the good intentions of those who brought in universal credit, but they have not got it right. Last week, I entertained to lunch a godson of mine, who is the vicar of two parishes in a very deprived urban area of Lancashire. We talked about some of his problems. I asked him to give me a few examples for this debate—something specific from the coalface. He has done so. He says: "To manage the flow of clients, each person is given a day and time to sign on. They are sanctioned"— we have heard about that already— "if they don’t sign in, or try to sign in at a different time. In August, the DWP computer went down for about an hour. All the claimants who should have signed on during that period clearly could not do so. Each was sanctioned … About a year ago, every claimant on one particular day was sent a letter with the wrong signing-in date (the times were correct). All clients arrived at the correct time but one day late. The staff openly admitted the error but … every person … was sanctioned … There are countless cases of people being sanctioned for missing appointments, and probably they received their appointment letter after the date of the appointment. Staff at the Job Centre receive a bonus if they can move people off Universal Credit. The intended method is clearly for them to help clients to move on to gainful employment"— which is very good, but— "the staff … have targets and … we have evidence of people being sanctioned and/or denied Universal Credit with no apparent reason because ‘They can always appeal afterwards’ ... which can represent months with no money whatsoever. A young lady moved to a different address. The Job Centre Plus was informed of the move. Initially her post was sent to the new address. ‘Inexplicably’, the young lady was sanctioned", because they had been sending things to the old address This is a catalogue of human errors but it is also a catalogue of human misery. He told me of another very bad case: "A man in his mid-forties who suffers from learning difficulties, and mental and physical illnesses, was homeless but still in receipt of benefits (not Universal Credit). He found a private landlord who was willing to offer him a property with no deposit. Upon applying for housing benefit, he was told that he was deemed to be changing his circumstances and had to make a claim for Universal Credit. This took fourteen weeks for processing. The landlord was unwilling to wait that long for rent so the man became homeless again" He goes on. This is something we really should not accept in a civilised age. I do not question the integrity or good intentions of any Minister or any worker in any office, but we should remember that old adage, "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it". This is broke and it needs fixing and I appeal to the Chancellor next week to set about the task of fixing it.