Tories’ Universal Credit robbery
Jimmy Haddow, Lothian Socialist Party Scotland
In his initial response to the Covid crisis in the March 2020 budget, the Chancellor announced a temporary one-year uplift in the entitlements to Universal Credit – UC – and Working Tax Credit – WTC – of £20 per week.
In the next budget – March 2021 – the uplift was extended for UC for another six months. Those on WTC were given a one-off payment of the same amount of £500.
Recipients of the UC uplift have been, during August, receiving texts and email messages from the DWP like this one sent to a Socialist Party Scotland member recently: “You have been getting an extra £86.67 since the 10 July 2020….your payment on October 10 is the last time you will receive this amount.”
As if to rub salt in the wounds, the messages finish with a link to “Help with debt and managing your money”. In a cold and heartless move, the uplift will be removed at the end of September, the same time as the furlough scheme will also terminate.
The impact on low paid workers, the unemployed and the poor will be devastating. Research found that removing the uplift will see 37% of working-age families with children losing £1,034 per year.
Glasgow contains the three constituencies in which more than half of all families with children would be affected: Glasgow Central (63%), Glasgow South West (55%) and Glasgow North East (54%).
A major campaign has been fought demanding the uplift become permanent. Socialist Party Scotland have been fighting throughout the summer on the issue.
Even Tory MPs, including the previous six Tory secretaries of state for Work and Pensions – Ian Duncan Smith among them – and housing bodies in all four nations of the UK, as well as social charities like the CAB are opposed to its removal.
On the eve of the pandemic 2.6 million families were claiming UC – with another four million-plus claiming the legacy benefits that UC replaces. Since then the number on UC has doubled to just over to five million families because of changing circumstances, like loss of jobs.
It is interesting to note that of the over five million families claiming UC, 3.7 million adults are not employed yet 2.3 million adults are employed; an indication of the poverty wages many families are forced to live on.
The UC temporary uplift represented the first significant real terms increase in entitlements for out-of-work claimants without children for nearly 50 years; although still well below international out-of-work benefits.
