THE time people have to wait for their first payment of Universal Credit was reduced by Philip Hammond yesterday – from six weeks to five.
The Chancellor promised to spend £1.5 billion to make the controversial benefit quicker, and less bureaucratic.
He said the Government would make it easier to apply for an advance payment, that those advances would be worth a full month’s payment, rather than a half month’s payment, and that claimants would then get 12 months rather than six to pay it back.
John Dickie, director of the Child Poverty Action Group welcomed the announcement, but said the Chancellor should have gone much further. The long wait between applying for and receiving money has led to claimants ending up in rent arrears, and falling into debt.
Hammond said he recognised “the genuine concerns on both sides of the House about the operational delivery of this benefit”.
Any new Universal Credit claimant in receipt of housing benefit at the time of the claim will continue to receive that housing benefit for a further two weeks.
Hammond also announced he would scrap the seven “waiting days” during which claimants aren’t eligible for any other benefit.
But all of those changes will come too late from claimants struggling at Christmas.
More details are expected today when Work and Pensions Minister David Gauke gives a statement in the House of Commons.
The government has faced sizeable resistance from their own MPs over Universal Credit, which aims to roll together six benefits into one.
Food banks have said it has led to increased demand.
Dickie said: “We’re pleased the Chancellor has acted to remove the waiting days and put in place new arrangements for receiving advances as part of an emergency rescue package, but there wasn’t the structural reform needed to revive the central promise that Universal Credit would strengthen rewards from work.”
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