Huge rise in claims for “unfit for purpose” Universal Credit.

 

Thérèse Coffey: Defends Universal Credit by Crook and by Hook.

“Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float….”

Ancient prophecy foretelling Universal Credit.

Peter Grimes. George Crabbe – national poet of Suffolk Coastal, Therese Coffey’s constituency.

Yesterday, if you watched the BBC, television heard the radio, or glanced at other media outlets,  you could hardly avoid the Work and Pensions Secretary.

Therese Coffey talked about the glories of Universal Credit and how well the benefit system is dealing with the avalanche of new claims.

And a lot more.

She made this gaff,

Thérèse Coffey has suggested “wrong” scientific advice could have led to blunders in the Government’s response to the pandemic.

The Suffolk Coastal MP did not get an easy ride from Piers Morgan on GMB on the assertions about her mates’ response to the pandemic.

The  TV presenter, ungentlemanly, said she had come our with a “pack of lies”.

 

I can’t decide if this is more embarrassing for Therese Coffey or the hosts of BBC breakfast pic.twitter.com/N3LpoHz8TG

— Michael Walker (@michaeljswalker) May 19, 2020

 

Her ‘it’s everybody’s fault but ours” burbling was quickly repudiated by the government.

No 10 distances itself from Therese Coffey after she suggested any Govt mistakes down to ‘wrong’ scientific advice

But what of the Suffolk Coastal MP’s tangled weed, Universal Credit?

This is what this Blog is concerned about – after all!

The New Statesman publishes an excellent article on the sea wrack dragging many people down below water.

The number of people claiming Universal Credit has risen to 2.1 million – here are the problems they are encountering: https://t.co/GC0v1qMpPH

— Anoosh Chakelian (@Anoosh_C) May 19, 2020

Coronavirus is introducing the pitfalls of Universal Credit to many new claimants

 

Universal Credit is a reformed benefits system introduced under the coalition government, designed to mimic salaried employment via monthly payments into one household bank account, with the stated aim to “make work pay”.

This design jars with a period of rising unemployment, when it is even harder to transition back into work after a brief stint on benefits during a blip in your working life. The jobs and hours just aren’t there. In the last two weeks of March, the total number of weekly hours worked saw the largest drop in a decade, and a quarter fewer hours were worked in the last week of that month than in any other weeks in the same quarter.

Plus, the new welfare system is already beset with problems. A five-week wait for the first payment is built into the system – a design that has caused rising foodbank use, and now leaves people for over a month

There’s another point.

Coffey talked, on one of her many, many, respectful interviews, of an extra £20 for Universal Credit claimants.

This is what she was referring to:

The Government has introduced another increase in response to the coronavirus outbreak, which has forced more people to apply for Universal Credit. From April, for 12 months, the Universal Credit standard allowance is increasing by £20 a week.

The ‘I’.

 

Some Benefit Claimants (UC) get the extra money; others don’t.

Legacy Benefits (such as JSA) remain at this kind of rate: JSA, single person basic rate:  £74.35 a week

UC single person basic rate:  £ 409.89 a month.

Do the maths…

We assume that JSA and other non-UC claimants don’t need the money and are happy as they are…

Or not, as a top IUA contributor , Sire Sedley, says:

Hath not a Legacy JSA Claimant hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Universal Credit claimant is ? If you prick us, do we not bleed ? If you tickle us, do we not laugh ?

Therefore Mistress Coffey I prithee, renounce this cruel delay and make haste to right the great wrong that hath been performed unto the legacy claimants. Revoke this intemperate withdrawal of twenty English pounds and give it in all justice to claimants, each alike unto another.

Over 4.2 million people are now claiming Universal Credit. This is an increase of 1.2 million people (40%) in one month. The DWP must now make UC fit for purpose by:

– ending the five week wait
– scrapping the benefit cap
– removing the two child limit
– uprating legacy benefits

— Turn2us (@turn2us_org) May 19, 2020

These demands should be pushed and pushed!