Meeting of the Parliament 06 November 2018
I will not at the moment. I need to make progress.
In 2009-10, error and fraud were estimated to have cost the taxpayer about £5.2 billion a year. In the same year, underpayments left customers without entitlements of an estimated £1.3 billion a year in benefits and £260 million a year in tax credits. That was the legacy of Labour Government and the old systems, which the coalition Government inherited in the midst of the most damaging financial crisis of recent times.
Simplification of the system was drastically needed but, sadly, previous Governments failed to take decisive action and instead merely tinkered around the edges. Universal credit is the bold reform that we need—a system that reflects working life as it is, allows for changes to circumstances and flexes with the individual’s needs.
Work is the fundamental route out of poverty, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies highlighted this week, and universal credit is the right vehicle. We see that in the statistics—the level of youth unemployment has fallen by more than 50 per cent since 2010; we have a record employment rate of 75.7 per cent; and, since 2010, our policies have meant that an average of 1,000 people have moved into work every day. The United Kingdom and universal credit are working.