STRUGGLING Scots will be left unable to afford food and essential bills if the uplift to Universal Credit is removed, a charity has warned.

The benefit was increased by £20 a week in March in response to the Covid pandemic, but the support is due to come to an end from April.

Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) has called for the uplift to be made permanent in evidence submitted to the Scottish Affairs Select Committee, which is holding an inquiry into welfare policy in Scotland.

The charity says a recent analysis of “complex” debt cases – where someone owes a large amount of money in relation to their income or has multiple debts – shows 58% of people in this situation are unable to meet their living costs even with the additional £20 a week.

But if the extra payment is taken away, this would rise to 80%.

The CAS submission states: “Even as an ‘emergency measure’, forecasts from the Bank of England clearly show that our economic emergency will not be over by March.

“In fact, the Bank expects that unemployment will not even peak until Q2 of 2021 at almost 8%, meaning the £20 a week uplift will continue to be a lifeline not just to individuals, but to the economy as a whole well beyond March next year.”

Last month Scottish Social Security Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville joined ministers from Wales and Northern Ireland to write to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions calling for the uplift to be continued.

Nina Ballantyne, CAS spokesperson, said: “The £20 uplift to Universal Credit has been an absolute lifeline for people and it simply must be retained beyond March 2021.

“Our own analysis of complex debt cases in Scottish Citizens Advice Bureaux has shown that removing the £20 uplift will push more than one in five of these clients into a negative budget, where they are unable to meet their living costs.

“Cutting this support could plunge many people into an income crisis. The UK Government must urgently commit to maintaining the £20 uplift and end the uncertainty.”

The submission from CAS also shows a huge surge in Universal Credit claims as a result of the Covid crisis, with the number of people claiming the benefit in Scotland rising by 85% since February to reach 473,457 in October. Between March and September, the bureaux network has provided over 85,000 pieces of advice on Universal Credit alone.

That is more than double the 39,286 instances of advice recorded over the whole of the financial year 2018-2019.

Almost a third of those seeking advice on the benefit live in the most deprived areas, but there is now a greater proportion from the least deprived parts of Scotland with 11% of new clients from the most affluent areas.

A UK Government spokesperson said it has paid out more than £100 billion in welfare support this year.

They said: “Scotland has significant welfare powers and can top-up existing benefits, pay discretionary payments and create entirely new benefits in areas of devolved responsibility.”