BUCFP supports making permanent the £20 per week uplift to Universal Credit.
If the planned cut to Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit goes ahead in October:
140 constituencies would see more than one in four of all families (with or without children) affected, including 36 Conservative seats.
On average 21% of all working-age families (with or without children) in Great Britain will experience a £1,040-a-year cut to their incomes on 6 October.
Over 400 constituencies are set to see over one in three working-age families with children hit by the cut.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has published the following report on the impact of this cut to constituencies across the country, a copy of which can be found here:
https://www.jrf.org.uk/universal-credit-cut-impact-constituency
"Our analysis has shown that 6 million low-income families will lose £1,040 from their annual income, creating serious financial hardship and leave 500,000 people to be swept into poverty - including 200,000 children. Families with children will be disproportionately impacted and worryingly, 6 in 10 of all single-parent families in the UK will be impacted.
The Government is rightly saying that it wants to support people back into work as we emerge from the crisis. But working families make up the majority of families who will be affected.
Politicians of all parties have warned against this cut and called for the investment to be made permanent, including Labour and SNP leadership, all six previous Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions since 2010, the Work and Pensions Committee, the Lords Economic Affairs Committee, the Conservative Northern Research Group and the Conservative One Nation Caucus."
Writing in support of maintaining the £20 uplift, our own MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle has stated:
"Lloyd agrees with you that UC should not be reduced at this time. If the reduction does go ahead, as the Government plans, it will cost six million families an estimated £1,000 a year and support for those out of work will be left at its lowest level in decades. For these reasons, Lloyd supports maintaining UC at its current levels until it can be replaced with a new social security system which provides a proper social security safety net and has dignity and respect at its heart.
In the meantime, Lloyd wants to see urgent reforms to UC and the current social security system. These include an end to the five-week wait for a first UC payment and for UC advances to be converted into grants instead of loans. In addition, Lloyd believes the UC savings limit, the benefit cap and the two-child limit for UC and Tax Credits should be abolished.
More widely, Lloyd supports uprating all six legacy benefits by £20 a week in line with UC. Taking all of these steps would provide immediate support those affected by coronavirus including many people who, as you say, have kept our country running during the pandemic"
The Trussell Trust, food bank network, has been running the following #KeepTheLifeline campaign, which can be found here:
https://www.trusselltrust.org/keepthelifeline/
- BUCFP, Welfare Rights Group.
