BBC Democracy Live - Duncan Smith is 'in denial' about Universal Credit, Labour claims The work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, has been accused of mismanaging his flagship welfare reform, which replaces a variety of benefits with one unified payment. Following confirmation that the Department of Work and Pensions has written off £40.1m on computing costs in implementing the new system, shadow work and pensions secretary Rachel Reeves summoned her opposite number to the House with an urgent question on 10 December 2013. "The secretary of state has not resolved key policy issues before spending hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money on an IT system," she contended. She went on to say that "the secretary of state is in denial" and that "until he 'fesses up, no-one will have any confidence in his management of the programme." She claimed that by 2017, there would be 20,000 welfare recipients still not on Universal Credit, but Mr Duncan Smith countered that 6.5 million would be signed up by then. "This programme is essentially going to be on time," he insisted, adding: "What they are in denial about themselves is the legacy they left us on welfare failure." The first Conservative backbencher to contribute was Philip Hollobone, who said that to make adjustments now was "far better than incurring the £2.8bn of waste through fraud, error and overpayment" that he alleged Labour had overseen. But Labour chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, Dame Anne Begg, listed a number of plans for Universal Credit that had since changed and asked: "Why should anyone believe him when he says delivery of Universal Credit is now on track?" The secretary of state responded: "We intervened early when there were problems. We did not let this programme roll out so that anyone was damaged, unlike the government that she served. In reply to a question from Lib Dem Ian Swales, Mr Duncan Smith also told the Commons that recommendations in the Public Accounts Committee report of 7 November had "already been implemented."