Universal Credit: Highlands — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Hear, hear. As I said, I believe that the "once and done" approach applies to the DWP, not the outcomes for constituents. I agree entirely with my hon. Friend The Minister’s letter states: "The Department feels that a support line would cut across this relationship and create delays and confusion." I have news for the Minister: there is already a great deal of confusion and an awful lot of delays, which are causing people problems On arrears, the Minister’s letter states: "This is a complex issue and our research shows that many people are coming onto Universal Credit with pre-existing arrears." Perhaps the Minister could tell that to John, a constituent of mine, who lived in the same house for three years. When he was transferred to universal credit, he found that he was waiting for 12 weeks—three months—for support. That was too long a wait for his landlord, and he was served with notice of eviction. The landlord was nice to him about it, but explained that she could not possibly wait because she in turn was getting into financial difficulties Landlords are waiting for an average of 10 weeks, and many are losing patience. Many are now saying, in signs in their windows and in their advertisements, "No universal credit", because they do not want to take the risk. The proportion of tenants of Albyn Housing Society, a housing association, who are not receiving universal credit and are in arrears is 22%, whereas the proportion of its tenants on universal credit who are in arrears is nearly 100%. The average universal credit claimant arrears amount in the highlands is £900. Highland Council’s arrears through universal credit have risen by 82% since September and now amount to nearly £1 million. Just in case the Minister is wondering, I should add that the council deducted previous arrears from that. The increase is 100% due to universal credit. Services will be affected unless something is done The Minister said in his letter: "We have taken a number of steps to…prevent claimants from falling into arrears." The six-week minimum wait puts claimants in arrears by default. By definition, someone who is waiting for the money to come through will not be paying rent and will already be in arrears. My constituent Gavin’s rent is £175 a week. Under the old system, he received £168 a week in housing allowance, which meant that he had to find £7 from his other entitlements. That was not an easy job for someone on benefits, but it was do-able. Now, under universal credit, he receives £60 a week. Even if he does not eat or turn on the power—even if he does nothing and sits still—he cannot pay his rent. He is automatically in arrears The Minister’s letter advised me to look at "details about the payments process", which "can be found in the Third Party Creditor/Supplier Handbook" The date of the handbook is March 2015, two years ago. It is out of date, as is the information that the United Kingdom Government are obtaining to defend their position There are other issues, and I could spent a great deal of time giving more examples. I hope that the Minister will accept one of the many invitations he has received to visit my constituency and hear for himself, from people and agencies, the travails that are being experienced. However, one issue that I think is particularly damning was raised by Macmillan Cancer Support. Sometimes people who are terminally ill choose not to have their diagnosis given to them directly, because they just do not want to know—they want to live out their lives as they choose. However, universal credit forces claimants to declare themselves to receive their entitlement, which means that they must be told in order for them to make their claim and be put into a work group. Two things are wrong there. First, it is wrong that they should have to do that, so I hope the Minister will take early action to sort that out. Also, why would they be put into a work group? There is no need for them to go into any work group So what needs to be done? The Scottish Government will use their 15%—a very small amount—of devolved power for the welfare system to bring about fairness and dignity, but they have no control over this. All the Minister can ask them to do is to put in more money to cover UK Government issues. Citizens Advice asked for an additional single non-refundable payment to bridge the six weeks of hardship between going off the standard system and on to universal credit. It wants the UK Government to give a choice on the housing element, so that it can be paid direct or as part of a single payment. It, too, is calling for 0800 free helplines, and it wants jobcentre support for those lacking computer skills The roll-out of universal credit can only be described as shambolic. It is punishing families, the disabled, the unemployed and the most vulnerable. There is a damning litany of failure, confusion, heartache and indignity, and a crushing drive towards increased poverty under the universal credit system. The problems include long delays to payments, short payments, lost sick notes and childcare receipts, misplaced documents, failures to respond, and confusion between departments The universal credit full service roll-out should be halted until it is fixed. The UK Government must bring in additional flexibility so that people are able to receive what they need in order to survive. There needs to be an acknowledgement of the situation, and an effort to fix and compensate for the Highland Council rent arrears that have been run up to date.