Is universal credit fit for purpose?

IT’S unbelievable that Tory politicians believe you can survive for six weeks without money for food, heat or shelter while you are waiting for universal credit. The benefits system needed reform, but the Government didn’t need to introduce a scheme that punished the claimants. We need compassion as well as change and a system that encourages people into work, not forces them into servitude. Austerity hasn’t worked, inflation is increasing, wages shrinking and housing is in chaos. Universal credit may have merged six benefits into one, but it’s also merged hardship into poverty.

S. T. VAUGHAN, Birmingham. PEOPLE are lucky to get universal credit. When I was a single parent with a large mortgage in the midNineties, I had five part-time jobs. In the words of Norman Tebbit, get on your bike and help yourselves.

SUSAN ANDERSON, Portsmouth.

IT IS wrong to expect people on universal credit to exist for up to six weeks before they get any money. As a former benefits officer, we had a simple solution for when there was a gap between registration to claim benefits and the commencement of payments. If a claimant reported hardship, weekly emergency payments were made. These were taken into account once the entitlement had been agreed and deducted from the first payment.

TED SHORTER, Tonbridge, Kent. I AM disgusted at the way the rollout of universal credit has been handled after Theresa May’s first speech as Prime Minister about helping those who are just about managing. Universal credit is nothing short of an attack on the poor and needy in this country. I believe that the high-handed and hard-hearted way Mrs May has dealt with this issue will cost her dearly.

GORDON KENNEDY, Perth.

I UNDERSTAND the logic of only having to make one claim for benefit, but the way universal credit has been rolled out has caused a lot of suffering. My partner’s daughter, Hannah, is 30 and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and lymphoedema. She was in receipt of employment and support allowance, which is awarded to people with a long-term illness. Hannah was called to a review of this benefit in July and the woman who interviewed her had never heard of lymphoedema. Despite a report from her doctor, she declared Hannah was fit for work and the allowance was stopped immediately. Her doctor certified she was unfit to work, but it was six weeks before she was awarded barely enough to pay her rent. The stress of all this has had a terrible effect on her health.

PAM CARR, Deal, Kent.