Hansard

I welcome the Scottish Government’s motion and the opportunity that it affords the chamber to call a halt to the botched accelerated roll-out of universal credit. It follows a successful members’ business debate last month, on a motion in the name of Alex Rowley, which drew support from all but one corner of the chamber. I was very proud to speak in that debate. I reminded members of the origins of social security in the 1940s, when the great Liberal William Beveridge first identified the original giant evils of ignorance, idleness, squalor, want and disease. That language is outdated, but the challenge that it speaks to in many ways still grips large sections of the people whom we are elected to serve.

Welfare reform has been a necessary response to the shifting nature of those social problems and the emerging understanding that, through state support, we can and should give people the power to change their own situation for the better. It was sought by poverty campaigners, third sector organisations and academics over the course of decades, and it fell to my party in its period of coalition Government to co-preside over the much-needed redesign. I am not wholly proud of everything that we did in coalition and there are aspects that I still find shameful, but the extent of the Conservative assault on the welfare state since they found themselves unencumbered by Liberal influence should lead to an understanding of the measure of our positive involvement.

The accelerated roll-out of universal credit is an empirical example of where process and an ideological drive to reduce the size of the state have held sway, irrespective of the misery that lies in their wake—and there has been misery. The difficulties that have been reported by organisations such as the Child Poverty Action Group go beyond even that. For example, people who have switched over to universal credit have had to endure a wait of six or more weeks before receiving their first payment; calculations have resulted in underpayments of benefit due to the inaccurate real-time recording of information; and online applications have simply disappeared without trace. In each of those inadequacies, we can see a toll exacted on families that, in turn, exerts a material risk to their wellbeing.

I rise today in support of the Government motion, recognising that it gives voice to the intolerable human cost that the flaws in the accelerated roll-out have caused, and I am grateful for the Government’s efforts to seek consensus in the conduct of today’s debate.

The Liberal Democrat amendment seeks only to strengthen the Government position. It does that in three key ways. It seeks to ensure that those who are moving over to universal credit are supported to do so. We must offer them comprehensive advice and continuing support on how to manage money and deal with problems in the application process as they arise. That should be underpinned by free, unrestricted access to the universal credit helpline, particularly for the duration of the roll-out. Perhaps most important, the amendment seeks to affirm the consensus that exists across the political parties in the chamber around the view that splitting payments across households is an essential development in the evolution of welfare reform.

I stand on common ground with the Government and other parties when I state my belief and that of the Liberal Democrats that, in the roll-out of a new system such as universal credit, we have an opportunity to blockade a tool of coercive control that has characterised domestic abuse in this country for generations. Splitting payments equally across every claimant in the household, as the Government has committed to do, might go some way towards removing money as a lever of coercive control, which is a key characteristic in nearly 90 per cent of abusive relationships. The measure will not rid our country of abuse, but it represents a frontier in the battle for its eradication and, coupled with other efforts, such as the legislation that was passed by this Parliament last week, would bring us a step nearer to that aim.

With 25 different expert stakeholders in poverty and social injustice calling on us to halt the process, we, as a Parliament, must listen. We must also be clear that the resistance to accelerated roll-out is not a fundamental objection to the principles of welfare reform, but a just reaction to the unintended impact of its introduction. It answers the challenge that was set for us by the Liberal William Beveridge when he said:

“The State in organizing security should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility; in establishing a national minimum, it should leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than that minimum for himself and his family.”

In short, it is the belief of members on the Liberal Democrat benches and of Liberals through the ages that welfare in this country should be constructed on the foundations of compassion and social mobility. We should seek to use it as a tool of liberation from poverty, social isolation and domestic abuse and if, in the roll-out of policy, we harm those citizens whom it is designed to serve, as we appear to have done in this case, we must cease its introduction until that can be remedied.

I move amendment S5M-08035.3, to insert at end:

“; believes that the UK Government must put a comprehensive support package in place before universal credit roll-out accelerates, to make sure that people receive advice on managing their money, advances and dealing with complications in the application process; considers that, to support this, the universal credit helpline should be free of charge, at least until the roll-out is complete; recognises the importance of recipients having financial independence, particularly in domestic abuse settings, and therefore believes that universal credit should be automatically split between adults in a household.”