Royal Wedding Announcement Masks Continued Benefit Freeze

The DWP’s Universal Credit helpline will be shut for most of Christmas. This has caused outrage with many people and organisations, with many claimants facing hardship, starvation and eviction. 

The fact that the benefit freeze will continue till 2020 was quietly announced shortly after the engagement announcement between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle who will marry at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, in May, Kensington Palace says. 

In the Daily Mirror Frank Field, chairman of the Commons Work and Pensions Committee, has written to Theresa May urging her to open the phone hotline for longer.

Warning claimants ‘risk being exposed to destitution over Christmas’, he told the Prime Minister: “The thought of the chaos this will cause to the lives of some of my poorest constituents, and those across the country, is a hugely troubling one.”

He begged her to ‘consider averting this disaster’ by taking ‘immediate steps’ to ensure the helpline is open and available to all claimants.

The fact that the freeze on welfare benefit will continue to 2020 was slipped out just shortly after the Royal wedding announcement. 

Theresa May has already stated there will be no extra bank holiday to celebrate the Royal wedding. 

Therasa May is rumoured to be caving in and giving the EU some €60 billion on top of the billion pounds found effortlessly for the Democratic Unionist Party. The hardline unionists have secured more than £1 billion in extra funding for Northern Ireland over two years in return for propping up May's minority government through a “confidence and supply” arrangement.

Image courtesy of ABC News: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Key benefit rates from April 9, 2018

• Attendance allowance: £85.60 (up from £83.10)
• Benefit cap: £20,000 (frozen)
• Carers’ allowance: £64.60 (up from £62.70)
• ESA work-related component: £29.05 (frozen)
• ESA support component: £37.65 (up from £36.55)
• Housing benefit: £73.10 for many (frozen)
• Jobseekers’ allowance: £73.10 over 25, £57.90 under 25
• Maternity allowance: £145.18 (up from £140.98)
• PIP daily living enhanced: £85.60 (up from £83.10)
• PIP daily living standard: £57.30 (up from £55.65)
• PIP mobility enhanced: £59.75 (up from £58.00)
• PIP mobility standard: £22.65 (up from £22.00)