Sir Iain Duncan Smith
MP for Chingford and Woodford Green · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I raise the cases of Ryan Cornelius and Jimmy Lai—both United Kingdom citizens—to the attention of the Foreign Secretary, who I welcome to his position. Ryan Cornelius has been incarcerated for 19 years—trumped-up charges by a corrupt regime that is supporting a war in Sudan at the moment.”
“Has the Secretary of State been made aware of the case of Joshua Wong, a Hong Kong resident who is being prosecuted by the Administration in Hong Kong using the national security law?”
“A particular memory is that during the Maastricht debates, when, I have to confess, I and one or two others here were deeply rebellious, Ann lectured me from the Dispatch Box—she was in government—about how I should support the Maastricht treaty and the European Union, which rather worried me.”
“It was phenomenal, because she was so certain about the way that she was. Ann embodied something else: the passion that is necessary for us in this Chamber to make our arguments without the fear of any other person doing something to us.”
“We need to reiterate, and the Government and the Home Secretary need to specify, to all the social media companies that they must do something to close down the visceral, violent language that some people use in attacking others personally, as they did over Ann’s murder, which shocked me.”
“Friday was a funny day. I heard the news very early in the morning that Ann had died, and I was utterly surprised about that because she had seemed perfectly fit the last time I saw her, so I gave my condolences and spoke about it on the radio.”
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“Migrants must now meet a much tougher habitual residence test than before, showing the efforts they have made to find work before coming to the UK and that their English language skills are not a barrier to getting a job. They must also have been resident in the UK for three months before being able to access out-of-work benefits. We have plans to make it even stronger, by introducing a minimum earnings threshold, with tougher questions on whether work is genuine, and job seekers from the European economic area will not receive housing benefit.”
“As has been made clear beyond this Chamber, we are looking at that matter at the moment, and we have been discussing it with a number of other European nations, the vast majority of which are clear and with us on the idea that freedom of movement should not result in an opportunity for people to take benefits from wherever they want and to pick and choose their benefit areas. We are looking at how we can come to an agreement on those time scales and limits.”
“Based on caseload projections, we expect more than 6,000 claimants from the pathfinders to be on universal credit in January. Beyond the pathfinder scheme and in the live running of universal credit, we are also rolling out other components, such as the claimant commitment. Jobcentre Plus advisers have agreed around 120,000 JSA claimant commitments, rising by some 30,000 each week. That continues our progressive approach to date, enabling a safe and successful delivery.”
“Actually my right hon. Friend did not make that claim. If the hon. Gentleman had gone on with the quote, we would hear that he said: “I’m a very strong supporter of what he is doing…and I’m absolutely confident that” he is capable of implementing it.”
“I welcome industry figures that suggest that business hiring intentions are at their highest for two and a half years and that even more UK businesses are reporting that they intend to recruit in 2014. Those positive signs are backed up by the latest labour market statistics that show that more people are in private sector employment than ever before—up by more than 1.6 million since the general election.”
“We have already made it clear that the number is likely to be between 3,000 and 5,000, but we will be clearer about that when the local authorities, which are responsible for collecting the data, come forward with the final facts.”
“Yet again, what we have from the hon. Lady is a moan about a policy that helps people in difficult circumstances. I said earlier that not once has she come to the Dispatch Box and said that she was concerned about those her party left behind living in overcrowded accommodation. Not once has she mentioned the 1 million on the waiting list or apologised for the fact that building levels for social housing fell to their lowest point since the ’20s. Of course we will look after those affected by the policy, but she must make it clear that she supports one of these policies; otherwise, there will be a total cost to the Exchequer. The shambles is on the Opposition’s part.”
“Of course, the key point is that all contracts must be clear from the beginning and every employee must know what contract they are on. A very small percentage of the population are on zero hours and great care is needed, as some jobs and some individuals prefer such contracts—as the hon. Gentleman’s Government found out when they were in power.”
“The total figure for the fall in the number of workless households has been in the order of 17%. The position we inherited was that it had not fallen for 30 years and approximately 2.5 million children were living in such households. That number has fallen by several hundred thousand—a clear change and a clear improvement for the public and those going back to work.”
“Universal credit is set to roll out according to the timetable I laid out the other day. We have been round this— [ Interruption. ] With respect, Mr Speaker, I know that Christmas is over but I think one of the pantomimes left its dame behind on the Opposition Front Bench. Universal credit will roll out in the time scales available and will be a major benefit to all those who come under it, including the constituents of the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith).”
“My hon. Friend is right: many people are shocked by what they see. That is why the public back our welfare reform package, which will get more people back to work and end these abuses. All these abuses date back to the last Government, who had massive spending and trapped people in benefit dependency.”
“We have made great progress in pursuing more people than have ever been pursued before. The reality is that the amount got back from those who have been defrauding the state is better than it has been, but in the answer to which my hon. Friend refers, we made it clear that we have much more to do. It is the nature of many benefits that they are open to abuse; changes such as universal credit will simplify the process and give far less opportunity to those who would defraud the system. That is the right way to deal with the issue.”
“It is this Government who have stood by that. The Prime Minister gave a pledge before the last election, and we intended to, and will, see that all the way to the election. As always, all further commitments will be made and published in the manifesto.”
“I can indeed. Universal credit replaces the benefits that are most open to fraud, in many cases. Also, housing benefit doubled in value under the last Government; universal credit will deal with those problems, get things back into order, and provide an incentive to go back to work; that is the key thing. Getting people back to work, which the Opposition are not interested in, is the key element of welfare reform.”
“That is exactly right. The reality that my hon. Friend has spotted is that the Opposition have voted against every single one of our welfare reforms. Not only would the welfare bill have been £45 billion higher under them, but more people would be out of work and they would have failed the British people.”
“Yet again the Opposition are farming in and around old e-mails. The truth is that universal credit and the Cabinet Office are working together, with the Cabinet Office supporting us on the digital ask. The Minister for the Cabinet Office made it absolutely clear that that is where we are going. I know that in reality the Opposition do not support universal credit, but it would be better if they came clean: it will be delivered and they will be thankful in the end.”
“We are retraining 25,000 Jobcentre Plus advisers while implementing digital jobcentres and rolling out the new claimant commitment, which is now on track to be in place in half of all jobcentres by the end of the year, and across the country by the spring. Yesterday I announced and discussed at length with the Work and Pensions Committee our plans for the next stage of implementing universal credit, following my Department’s work over recent months with the Government Digital Service to assess delivery options. That work has explored the use of the latest digital technologies and assessed the utility of the work we have done to date— [ Interruption. ]”
“This is a major and challenging reform which will transform the welfare state in Britain for the better, ultimately accounting for some £70 billion of benefit spending each year, with 3 million people better off. Rightly for a programme of this scale, the Government’s priority has been, and continues to be, its safe and secure delivery. This has been demonstrated throughout our approach to date, which started with the successful launch of the pathfinder in April 2013 and has continued with the controlled expansion of universal credit, starting as planned in October 2013 and running through to spring 2014. What is more, we are already pushing ahead with the cultural and business change required as part of universal credit.”
“It rushed the delivery of tax credits, which cost £5 billion immediately and 400,000 people suffered directly as a result. Once we have closed down the new claims, we will test, learn and implement—unlike Labour when it rolled out its information technology programmes. The new claims to the legacy benefits that universal credit replaced have been closed down, with the vast majority of the remaining legacy case load moving to universal credit during 2016 and into 2017. Final decisions on these elements of the programme will be informed by the development of the enhanced digital solution.”
“The majority of people who are on the programme tell us that it pays to work, with 65% to 70% reporting that universal credit offers better work incentives than jobseeker’s allowance and is less complex—upheld by the 65% who agreed that it was easier to understand their obligations as a result. As we progress with the future delivery of this flagship programme, we will continue the same careful approach—test, learn, implement—as it is rolled out through the regions. On this basis— [ Interruption. ] Actually, I am going to pick this point up. The shadow Chancellor is sitting on the Opposition Front Bench. I will tell you, Mr Speaker, what we will not do: we will not take any lessons from the party that rolled out tax credits early.”
“This will enable us to learn from the live running of universal credit at scale and for more claimant types, including the more vulnerable and the more complex, while extending to more people the positive benefits of universal credit. It is important to note that the information that we are getting back from the pathfinder tells that 90%—I stress, 90%—of people are claiming universal credit online and that 78% are confident about their ability to budget with monthly payments. It also tells us— [ Interruption. ] I know that Labour Members do not want to hear about this, because they have been wrong on welfare reform from day one.”
“The conclusions of this work were set out yesterday. First, as part of the wider transformation in developing digital services, the Department will further develop the work started by the GDS to test and implement an enhanced digital service. This will be capable of delivering the full scope of universal credit and make provision for all claimant types. Meanwhile, we will expand our current service and develop functionality so that from next summer we progressively start to take claims for universal credit from couples and, in the autumn, from families. Once safely tested in the 10 live universal credit areas, we will expand the roll-out to cover the north-west of England.”
“The reality is very simple. Let us take the legacy systems right now. The legacy computer systems that are working were written down years ago, but they are still delivering value to the Government by delivering benefits. Maybe the hon. Lady needs a teach-in about the difference between written-off equipment and written-down equipment. I want to deal with one other point that is quite clear and is the reality. We have been clear— [ Interruption. ]”
“Let me deal with a couple of the points raised by the hon. Lady. I said all along, and I repeat, that this programme essentially is going to be on time. By 2017, some 6.5 million people will be on the programme, receiving the benefits. Let me deal with the hon. Lady’s comments about what is written down and what is written off. For somebody who was supposed to have been working for the Bank at one point, she does not seem to know the difference between equipment of no use that is being written off and equipment—this is the case in any company over a period of time—that is written down each year. That is exactly right. If she drives a motor car, I wonder whether she has noticed that, over a period of years, its value actually depreciates. Perhaps she has not; perhaps she is still trying to sell the car for the same value she bought it for.”
“This Government have already saved £11 billion on the welfare bill, £48 billion over this Parliament. The Office for Budget Responsibility has confirmed that welfare bills will fall in real terms to below the level at which we received them. Employment is up by more than 1 million. More households are now in work than ever before, with the lowest proportion of children living in workless households since records began. Child poverty is at its lowest level since the 1990s, and pensioner poverty is at its lowest for almost 30 years.”
“We do not take any lessons from the Opposition about computer failure: the tax credit system crashed, the health system crashed and they lost billions and billions of pounds while the shadow Chancellor was at the right hand of the then Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). I might also say that although the Opposition have asked an urgent question on universal credit today, the truth is that they are themselves in denial about the legacy of welfare failure they left us. Welfare spending increased by 60% in real terms under the previous Government—£3,000 a year for every household in Britain. More than £170 billion was spent on tax credits alone. There were 5 million on out-of-work benefits, and nearly a quarter of working-age people were economically inactive.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Opposition want to talk about universal credit, but the reality is that, unlike tax credits, it will roll out without damaging a single person, and it will also deliver massive benefits, under control by our test, learn and implement approach. The waste that we inherited was the waste of people who did not listen, rushed programmes and implemented them badly.”
“The proof of this will be as we roll out the programme. I say to the Chair of the Select Committee that we intervened early when there were problems. We did not let this programme roll out so that anybody was damaged, unlike the Government whom she served, who rushed IT programmes into service, damaged vast numbers of people and wasted a huge amount of money. I wonder whether the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee ever asked the shadow Chancellor or the previous Prime Minister why they did that.”
“I can tell my hon. Friend that all the recommendations have already been implemented. They were drawn from our own reports internally—both the red team report that I instigated and the PricewaterhouseCoopers report—and all these changes have been made. This roll-out programme bears complete authority on the basis of that.”
“The funny thing about the Opposition is that they do not know what they want. They say that they support universal credit— [ Interruption. ]”
“Do the Opposition want us to rush out universal credit, as they did with tax credits, or do they want us to take our time to implement it correctly? The reason we are not moving the support group and the work-related activity group on from employment and support allowance is that they are very vulnerable. We want to take our time so that those who are on those benefits are brought on to universal credit carefully. It seems that the hon. Lady’s party wants to rush those people on as fast as possible, rather like what it did with tax credits.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Universal credit is worth doing properly because of the benefits it brings to so many people. Just in case he does not remember, although the Opposition say that they support it, they voted against it. We will take no lessons from them because of the chaos, mess and cost that they left for us in the welfare system. We are having to pick up the details of that and put them right. We are doing that every day.”
“The Department has carried out probably the most exhaustive impairment review. It is now being signed off by the National Audit Office. I gave the figures to the Work and Pensions Committee yesterday. The total write-off figure was £40.1 million. We should bear it in mind that Opposition Front Benchers have been running around saying that hundreds and hundreds of millions of pounds will be written off. They will not be. That will be in the published accounts today.”
“In more than 10 years in government, the last lot never did a thing to improve the quality of life for those who were seeking work. So far, we have more people in work and we have systems of change that will improve the quality of life of those who are disabled and those who are on sickness benefit. Universal credit will complete that process. It is no surprise to me that the Opposition have nothing to say on welfare reform, but want to nit-pick away about this programme.”
“I have heard what the Scottish National party has said. All I would say is that it is in complete denial about the cost of welfare and pensions. The reality is that it will not be able to afford the pensions bill with Scotland’s demographic make-up, and welfare alone will cost it a large amount of money. I do not know where it thinks it will get the money from if Scotland breaks free from the United Kingdom.”
“The system will roll out for all the complicated groups right the way through until we have 6.5 million on it. There were some reports in today’s papers that were wrong. The pathfinder rolled out to singles to begin with. Next it goes on to couples, then to couples with children, then we bring in the more complicated groups and then we bring in the tax credit group. I simply say to the hon. Lady that she needs to understand the difference between an approach that rolls something out at every stage and learns from it, and the approach that Labour took on tax credits, which was to rush them in and see them fail.”
“To deal with the first part of what the hon. Lady said, the reason we are proceeding like this—testing, learning and then implementing—is to ensure that nobody so far has been damaged at all by the changes brought in under universal credit. I repeat again that I learned my lesson from the last Government, who rolled out tax credits in a rush, all at once. The system crashed, £5 billion was lost and 400,000 people were damaged. The then Prime Minister, Mr Blair, had to go out and apologise publicly for the mess they had got in. I am saying today that we will roll this out and 6.5 million people will be on the system by 2017.”
“My hon. Friend is right. The way we have chosen to do this is to ensure that we test, learn and implement as we go along. This is exactly how we are rolling out the other programmes of change on disability living allowance and the personal independence payment, on the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, and on the cap, all of which are now bringing benefits to many people throughout the country. The previous Government wasted £13 billion on the NHS computer system and £500 million on the Child Support Agency mess, including £120 million on the rescue scheme which was later scrapped. The benefits processing replacement programme, which some of those on the Opposition Benches were responsible for, was axed after £140 million of waste.”
“My hon. Friend again raises the point that the Opposition talk a lot about supporting universal credit but they voted against it. They have nothing to say about welfare reform. That is the problem. Up till now, they have failed on welfare reform. They are known as the welfare party because they have opposed everything that we have brought in. We will save more than £40 billion over this Parliament. They have opposed everything, which would cost them an extra £40 billion if they were to get into power.”
“Welfare reform would benefit Northern Ireland as much as it is benefiting the UK. I suggest that the hon. Lady and her colleagues get on and implement it.”
“My hon. Friend will see from the published accounts that the National Audit Office agrees that the proposed roll-out, which will go ahead, will in every single year save money, ultimately to the Exchequer. The point that is being made is that the net value of the asset of £152 million that we have will deliver huge benefits to the public and huge savings to the Government.”
“There is no money lost to fraud, error and overpayment under the universal credit system. As we roll it out, the system itself will save a huge amount in fraud and error on the current system, which is a mess. The level of overpayments and clawbacks of tax credits every single year is a scandal; the scandal is that the policy and the programme left to us by the Opposition, which has been failing every year, is costing huge sums of money.”
“Quite the contrary; I have made it very clear that by 2016 universal credit will be the benefit that people go on when they apply for employment and support allowance. The people who were on it—we know them as the stock—are the most vulnerable. [Interruption.] Well, that is the term used—those are people who are on the benefit at present. [Interruption.] How pathetic is that? The Opposition used the term themselves when they were in government, and now they try to pretend that they have discovered a new way of referring to such people. Those who are on employment and support allowance will be migrated to universal credit over a period so that we can bring them in safely, securely and to their benefit. Would the hon. Lady want us to rush them in, or does she think we ought to take care over how we do it?”
“The gains will be enormous. The roll-out has already begun. The question is not whether it will begin; it has already begun. We have already rolled out universal credit to pilot centres in the north-west. We are rolling out to a further six centres. That will be complete early in the new year, then we will bring in couples, couples with children, and eventually the tax credits. We will roll out completely in the north-west, then every region after that. It will be complete by 2016. This will bring huge benefits to all those who struggle under the existing system to make work pay. If they lose 6p in every pound, it is hardly worth while. That is the system that the Opposition left.”
“I take full responsibility for everything in the Department and there will progressively be an IT system that rolls out this programme. It will deliver, and I rather hope that by the time of the next election the Opposition come back and say sorry.”
“My hon. Friend is right. The problem is that the hon. Lady went touring around all the studios, also saying that we would be writing off hundreds of millions of pounds. She is wrong on that. I see she has dropped that today, but the point is that the Opposition have nothing to say about this, so they want to pick away at a plan which, apparently, they support. [Interruption.] When you support something, you support it. They actually oppose it. [Interruption.]”
“Because back in 2011-12, as a result of that work, I decided there were problems in the way the system was being developed, so I intervened and brought in a group of people from outside to look at it. They agreed with me and we have since reset the programme. The truth is that Labour never did any of that when in government, and the right hon. Lady needs to ask herself, why not?”
“My hon. Friend is right. Again and again what is going on is a kind of hypocrisy, with Labour Members somehow claiming that they did things properly. They never did; they lost billions and billions on programmes, whether in the Ministry of Defence or in my Department. We have been picking up the pieces and putting it right.”
“I have more credibility than the Labour party, which wasted money galore. My answer is that I will deliver this and we are already delivering welfare reforms— [ Interruption. ] The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) needs to remember that he was in a Government who watched welfare spending rise by 60% under their watch.”
“In the private sector, programmes allow up to 30% or 40% for write-downs and reworks, which is well within the amount we have written down. I believe that this programme will roll out more efficiently than almost any other programme in the private sector.”