£20 per week

I have received a very large number of emails asking for my support against a cut of £20 per week in Universal Credit. I think it quite disingenuous to describe the ending what was always a temporary increase in Universal Credit as a ‘cut’.
At the outset of the first lock-down in March last year,  the temporary increase was made in order to address the needs of a surge in the number of newly unemployed people who had no previous experience of having to navigate living on benefits: It was an emergency measure.
If however, you had the odd £6 billion to spare and you wanted to address the needs of our most vulnerable people, you would not spend it by giving every recipient of Universal Credit an extra £20 per week, irrespective of their particular circumstances, including whether they had any children or not. There are much better targeted ways of relieving want amongst the most needy. The action that was taken in that particular way was purely because it was an emergency and that it was a temporary.
The circumstances in which the increase was made have now changed profoundly: Currently we have one million vacancies; Every employer that I meet vents his or her frustration that they just cannot recruit the staff that they need. It would be irresponsible to prolong the increase in Universal Credit when we need to raise the sights of claimants to take the opportunity to work longer hours or get a more demanding and better paid job.

Nevertheless, as a member of the House of Commons Select Committee on Work and Pensions, I am not tin-eared to the evidence that we have taken over recent weeks. I accept that we need to address the aspects of benefits that prevent people from taking a job or increasing their hours. First, childcare costs – the cap on the amount claimable has not been increased for 18 years. Second, the ‘taper’ (the amount of benefit you lose for every additional £1 that you gain from working) was always originally designed to be more generous in order to always ‘make work pay’. Unfortunately, George Osborne raided the budget when the state of the public finances demanded. As soon as it is affordable, we need to put that right.