Universal Credit Sanctions — House of Commons, 2017-12-04
Topic: Social Welfare
James McMahon (Labour, Centre-left): That is important, because concerns have been raised about when people are underemployed and do not have enough hours for a full-time week and the Government require them to actively pursue work to make up the additional hours. They may be only one or two hours under the threshold, but they are still required to attend an interview. If they work for an employer that has no flexibility and would be happy for them to walk out the door, because there is a queue of 10 people who are willing to take the 35-hour-a-week job, perhaps they cannot get to the appointment or perhaps the employer will not give them the additional hours required to satisfy the jobcentre. That is a real example of what people are going through today In a recent survey, Citizens Advice found that 39% of people had waited for more than six weeks and 11% had waited for more than 10 weeks. We have a heard a lot about the need for welfare to mirror work. It ought to provide a smooth transition between employment, changing contract terms and earnings, and significant changes in circumstances, but at its heart it is part of the welfare state. It is a safety net to catch people when they fall on difficult times that helps them to keep their head above water. It is meant to help people, not treat them as undeserving or with suspicion and resentment. For a safety net to work, it must be there when people fall. It should not let people hit the ground hard and then make them wait six or 10 weeks before help arrives. That is not the spirt of a welfare state that people pay into through national insurance. It is an insurance policy, but it fails to be there when people need it. That is fundamental. There is a contract in place between citizens and the state. If we collectively, through our common endeavour, pay national insurance contributions, that fund ought to be there when we need it. The Government have failed to honour that contract, as far as I can see, and people who pay into that pot have the right to be disgruntled and to question whether it is really there. I would like to believe that that is not what the Government want, but some of the benefits debates in the media are corrosive. We hear the language that gets used by the Government. We are now in a position where the Government would be happy for public support for the welfare state to fall away completely to give them a reason to take the axe even further When the banking crisis really hit, people in Oldham did not blame the bankers or the Government; they blamed their neighbours. They looked at the neighbour who had a slightly nicer car than them and wondered why they could not have a nicer car. They saw the people with their suitcases full who were getting into a taxi to go on holiday and asked why they could not go holiday. That is the cruelty. People on low incomes were set against other people on low incomes, and the Government got away with it. When bankers have not been taken to task and corporation tax cuts have been handed out, the axe has been taken to the welfare state that was supposed to support people Thirty per cent. of people have reported making more than 10 calls to the universal credit helpline before their application was processed, with many waiting more than 30 minutes. Up until very recently, they were also charged a high premium. Some 57% had to borrow money while waiting for their first payment. So far, 101 job centres covering 14% of all job centres in Great Britain operate universal credit full service, and we fear for what the roll-out really means. But this is more fundamental than all the facts and figures. I talked about how we collectively pay into the pot that should be there to support people, and I could go into a lot of detail about the sanctioning regime and just how unfair and inflexible it is and how it does not take people’s lives into account.