In the chamber this afternoon, Rachel Reeves has taken IDS apart over the failure of Universal Credit. Granted an Urgent Question, Reeves asked the following:
Mr Speaker, on 5 September, the Secretary of State told the House “We will deliver this in time and in budget”. On 14 October, he said “Universal credit will roll out very well and it will be on time and within budget”. And just last month on 18 November, he said “universal credit will roll out and deliver exactly as we said it would.”
The SoS must answer these questions:
- How on earth can this be on time when in Nov 2011 he said “all new applications for existing benefits and credits would be entirely phased out by April 2014” and we have now learnt that this milestone will only be reached in 2016. Will the SoS confirm that this is a delay of two years. And will he also confirm that even by 2017, 700,000 will not be on Universal Credit?
- How can the SoS say that universal credit would be on budget when even by his own admission, £40.1mn is being written off on IT costs. What budget heading was that under?
- The SoS also revealed yesterday that another £90mn would be written off by 2018. Does this mean an additional IT system is having to be built?
- The reset exercise began in February. On Nov 18 he still claimed there would be no delay to universal credit. At what point did he learn that there would be a delay of 2 years?
- The underlying problem is surely that the SoS has not resolved key policy decisions before spending hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers money on an IT system. One of the issues which has a fundamental impact on whether people are better off in work is free school meals – so which recipients of universal credit will get free school meals? Some? None? Or All?
The SoS is in denial. Doubtless he’ll deny he’s in denial in a moment. But we all know that until he fesses up, no-one will have any confidence in his management of this programme. Its no surprise that a source close to the Chancellor says: ‘There are some ministers who improve in office and others, like IDS, who show they are just not up to it’ .
In response, IDS denied being in denial. Now that’s denial…
More from LabourList
2024 local election results: Live updates on key races for Labour as counts begin
Ian Murray: ‘John Swinney offers nothing new – Scotland can send a government to Westminster, not just a message’
Local elections 2024: Live polling day updates as activists urged to give mayor candidates final push