Bobby Dean

I join the Leader of the House in his comments about Ukraine. It is clear that Vladimir Putin underestimated Ukrainians’ resilience and Europe’s willingness to stand by Ukraine. He will find out that we will all stand by Ukraine right to the end of this war. The cost of living has been piling pressure on people for years, and people have been plunged into debt. Bodies such as Citizens Advice and StepChange offer advice on how to get out of debt situations, and one thing they commonly raise with me—I see it in my inbox as well—is the aggressive debt recovery actions of those in the public sector. If people fall behind on council tax payments, councils are often quite quick to cancel their existing payment plans and order them to pay a fine. They also get to a stage involving bailiffs quite quickly—often within six weeks. This is different from what happens in the private sector, which is more heavily regulated and where there is a need to show more meaningful engagement with residents, offer payment plans, and get to court action much later. I see this again in the case of the Department for Work and Pensions. We have spoken in this place about the carer’s allowance overpayment scandal and how those people were chased for payments, but in the last couple of weeks I have had examples in my inbox of somebody whose debt with the DWP rose to £10,000 due to errors on the Department’s part, and started being chased aggressively for that. Of course, the DWP can automatically deduct payments of up to 15% from someone’s universal credit almost immediately, leaving them with no understanding of what happened in the past, let alone how they will manage going forward. The Government are seeking new powers to go into bank accounts and take payments directly, which is extremely worrying given the errors that the DWP has made in the past. This relates not only to the DWP, but to all public sector bodies, so I am not sure who is the relevant Minister, but I would appreciate it if the Leader of the House engaged with the Government to see if they can get more sympathy and understanding into the debt recovery process across public sector organisations.