Ministers refuse to back down on delay to benefits
MINISTERS are to highlight their “moral” mission to get benefit claimants into jobs following criticism of the Government’s welfare shake-up, senior sources said yesterday.
But officials denied that the Government was preparing a retreat over the incoming universal credit payments system to cut the six-week waiting time for handouts.
Insiders indicated that a push to emphasise how the overhaul was directed at improving the chances of claimants to secure work lies at the heart of the changes.
Ignorant
Ministers are understood to be concerned about the way the shake-up is being presented following an attack yesterday by Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu.
He said the six-week wait for claimants applying for universal credit “seems to assume that everyone has a nest egg that will tide them over as they wait a minimum of 42 days”.
He said: “That assumption is grotesquely ignorant because millions of people, especially those in need of support, are already in debt and have nothing to fall back on.
“In the Bible, the hardestpressed of all poor people
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were summarised as ‘widows and orphans’ for they were the group most at risk and with least support.
“Our concern should be for their present day successors whose essential outgoings are costing more and more and their incomes standing still or going down.”
Reports yesterday suggested ministers were looking at ways of cutting the sixweek wait.
But officials insisted no changes to the system were imminent, pointing out that claimants were already able to get cash advances from the moment they sign up.
Whitehall sources say ministers want to do more to demonstrate the benefits overhaul was motivated by a “moral” desire to help claim-
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ants improve their lives by getting jobs rather than living on benefits.
Tory backbench critics of the benefits overhaul were last night still pushing for further concessions of the waiting time.
Tory MP Jonny Mercer urged Work and Pensions Secretary David Gauke to look again at the system.
He said: “The seven-day wait that’s built in, making it six weeks before someone gets their first payment, I think is quite difficult to ask people to do.
“If the Government wasn’t working hard to make these adjustments, to make this actually work, I would say something about it but that’s not the case and they have moved on this stuff.”
Determined
A Government spokesman said: “We remain determined to ensure that people joining universal credit don’t face hardship which is why we recently announced significant improvements to the system of advance payments that people can get as soon as they get into the system.
“As repeated this week, we will continue to monitor and take any actions if necessary.
“But no decisions announcements on further actions are
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or any imminent.”
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before going on TV in police drama Z Cars in 1962. She then played Susan Wheldon in the ITV drama The Power Game in 1965.
Her big screen debut was in the 1973 David Essex rock’n’roll film That’ll Be The Day, as the star’s mother.
She was nominated for a Bafta TV Best Actress for Germinal, Cider With Rosie and The Adventures Of Don Quixote.
In 1984 she was Aunt Fenny in The Jewel In The Crown, and A Room With A View led to a Bafta Film Best Supporting Actress nomination.
She won the 1982 Olivier Award for Best Actress In A New Play for 84 Charing Cross Road. She is survived by her actor husband Colin Starkey.
Actor Robert Lindsay said of his My Family co-star: “I always regarded her as my mum – which is strange as she played David Essex’s mum.”
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