North East Universal Credit Claimants Who Have Had Payments Stopped or Cut By DWP

Thousands of Universal Credit claimants in the North East have seen their payments stopped or cut since the scheme started.

13,650 people in the North East have seen their payments stopped or reduced at least once since the scheme rolled out, according to official figures as of October 2018.

Experts have warned it means more people are having to use food banks, are being pushed into debt, and are forced to “struggle against the tide of poverty”.

The news comes following Department for Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd’s admission earlier this month that the Universal Credit rollout has been linked to rising food bank usage.

Answering a ministerial question in the House of Commons, she said: “It is absolutely clear that there were challenges with the initial rollout of Universal Credit, and the main issue that led to an increase in food bank use could have been the fact that people had difficulty accessing their money early enough.”

The scheme - first introduced in 2013 - was supposed to be fully rolled out by 2017, but management failures, IT blunders and design faults mean it has already fallen at least six years behind schedule.

Meanwhile in Scotland

The SNP Work and Pensions spokesperson has demanded that the Chancellor end the cruel Tory benefits freeze at the upcoming Spring Statement, as new figures show the cost of basic goods has sky-rocketed.

New figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show that whilst the 2016 benefits freeze has kept most working-age benefits at the same value as 2015/16, essential items such as sugar and butter have increased by 17% and 23.1% respectively since benefits were frozen.

Neil Gray MP has argued that it is therefore even more imperative that the Chancellor use his Spring Statement to lift the freeze.

The SNP has previously highlighted that the final year of the benefit freeze will cut more than the Government originally intended – more than an extra billion, bringing the total cut up to £4.4bn in the final year alone. This is more than the UK Government are spending on the boost to the Universal Credit Work Allowance they announced in the Budget 2018 in total up to 2022.

Commenting, SNP Work and Pensions spokesperson Neil Gray MP said:

“With the price of the most basic household items increasing steeply in the last few years, many people are struggling to make ends meet due to the punitive Tory benefits freeze - a policy that has held their payments static for over three years.

“As the government continues to prioritise a hard-Brexit, which could see families thousands of pounds even worse off, the Chancellor must finally step up and scrap this utterly punitive benefit freeze at the Spring Statement and help those on the lowest incomes that this government has been so intent on punishing.

“People on low incomes are struggling to make ends meet as prices continue to rise as a result of Brexit uncertainty, and the UK government has done nothing about it. The quickest and easiest way to get money into people’s pockets as soon as possible would be to lift the benefit freeze a year early and boost these benefits by inflation.”

ABC Comment: Government borrowing is going up and Austerity has not worked. Chancellor Phillip Hammond is trying to grow GDP (Gross Domestic Product) so the debt looks smaller in proportion to the means able to repay it. However, benefit claimants are finding themselves sanctioned or simply not paid without reason in order to reduce goverment spending. 

Image courtesy: UK Public Spending

ABC Comment, have your say below: