Tackling Short-term and Long-term Cost of Living Increases — House of Commons, 2022-05-17
Topic: Social Welfare
Jonathan Michael Graham Ashworth (Labour, Centre-left): We are pushed for time, so I beg the hon. Gentleman’s pardon—but he can have a word with me when he is voting with us in the Lobby later. Look at the realities facing our constituents: the cost of pasta is up 10%; milk, cheese and eggs, up 8.6%; butter, up 9.6%; cooking oils and fats, up 18%. And the message from Ministers? "Just purchase supermarket own brand." "Buy value beans"—the new three-word slogan from the Tory party Another quotation of which the Chancellor may be aware is from Milton Friedman; I know the Chancellor is a big fan. Milton Friedman said: "Inflation is taxation without legislation" But the Chancellor has legislated. Instead of helping people on universal credit, he legislated to cut universal credit in real terms—a loss of around £500. Instead of helping pensioners with the triple lock, the Government legislated to impose the biggest real-terms cut to the pension for 50 years, meaning a cut of more than £420 for the typical retiree The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is about to embark on a programme of cutting the incomes of some of the most vulnerable people on legacy benefits as they migrate to universal credit. But it does not have to be like this, because—as the Chairs of the Treasury Committee and the Work and Pensions Committee, many charities and the Institute for Fiscal Studies have said—one could bring forward a proportion of the benefit increase pencilled in for 2023 today. Indeed, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said a few weeks ago at the Dispatch Box that the 2023 increase in benefits and the pension will take account of inflation. The Government are promising to increase benefits and the pension in line with inflation in 2023, but in the meantime are sending the very poorest on a rollercoaster. Some 500,000 children will be pushed into absolute poverty To be fair to the Chancellor, he said, "We looked at this, but the IT system said no". As many Members have said, it is a shame that his computer didn’t say no when he was cutting universal credit by £20. But I have been given a briefing note by Oracle, which I understand provides the IT systems for the Department for Work and Pensions, entitled: "How DWP transformed the backbone of the UK benefits system". The note says that the changes that made to the computer system "has built automation into…management—this allows DWP to make changes every week, rather than having to plan six months in advance" Mr Mark Bell, who is the deputy director at the Department for Work and Pensions, said: "This has been widely recognised as one of the best technical achievements delivered by DWP Digital for many years…It also enabled us to make further digital enhancements to benefit millions of UK citizens." Technical lead Mr Nick Cutting says that this has brought "flexibility" and that it led to the Department being able to do things it "never could have done, or that would have taken significant time at a significant cost" if it was still running on legacy infrastructure. You see, Madam Deputy Speaker, the truth is that it is not the mainframe that is preventing the Government from acting; it is their frame of mind.