[Lord Freud] reiterated his confidence universal credit would be fully operational by the stated deadline of 2017.
Lord Freud also said the Department for Work and Pensions is working up an alternative to restrictive ‘zero hours contracts’, where workers are contracted to an employer but not guaranteed any hours.
He said: ‘One of the things we are testing is something called “slivers of time”. It is a marketplace for short hours. You would get yourself onto Tesco basic training, so you would be able to work for Tesco. Then Tesco would say “right, we want three hours on Wednesday afternoon – what am I bid?”. That group would say “I’ll do it for £10 an hour, £15 an hour, £30 an hour, whatever, so there would be a marketplace” and we are testing that out.’
