Meeting of the Parliament 03 October 2017
I have brought the motion to the chamber today to allow the Scottish Parliament to make clear its position on universal credit and to give Parliament the opportunity to show that it is on the side of the people who are being damaged by a system that needs to be halted until it is fixed. Despite repeated requests from people who are suffering under the new system and from councils, charities, housing associations and parliamentarians from all parties—most recently, 12 Tory members of Parliament and Dame Louise Casey—the United Kingdom Government continues shamelessly to ignore calls to halt the roll-out of full service universal credit.
Let me highlight again why the roll-out must be halted. It is because of the overwhelming and compelling evidence that the universal credit system is fundamentally flawed, and what is broken must be fixed. Moreover, because of the UK Government’s reckless behaviour, we will continue to see more and more people plunged into debt and despair as the universal credit service is rolled out unchanged. There are two critical areas of problem. In policy, the in-built six-week wait for the first payment runs entirely contrary to the UK Government’s stated intention for the benefit. Six weeks is a minimum wait and, as we know—and as the Westminster Work and Pensions Committee has heard—the wait can often be very much longer and there is no payment for the first seven days.