Pressure mounts on Treasury over Universal Credit
MORE than two dozen Tory MPs have backed a campaign to persuade Philip Hammond that billions are needed to save the Government’s welfare reforms.
They are supporting Iain Duncan Smith, the architect of Universal Credit, who said yesterday the Chancellor needs to prioritise benefit payments over tax cuts if he wants to help the poorest.
Mr Duncan Smith quit the Cabinet in 2016 after George Osborne slashed funding for the scheme. now a band of 27 MPs say that the programme needs an extra £2billion to ensure some groups are not left ‘significantly out of pocket’.
They have signed a letter to the Treasury highlighting their fears about cuts imposed by the former Chancellor, adding: ‘As it stands, 3.2million working families are expected to be worse off, with an average loss of £48 a week.
‘Enabling hard-working parents to keep more of what they earn and thus encouraging them to take up more work is at the heart of Conservative policy. This measure would boost the incomes of 9.6million low-income parents and children.’ Tory MP Heidi Allen, who sits on the Commons work and pensions committee, said: ‘Significant numbers of colleagues on my side of the House are saying this isn’t right and are coming together to say the Chancellor
‘Single best system’
needs to look at this again.’ Currently being phased in across the UK, Universal Credit replaces a range of handouts such as housing benefit and jobseeker’s allowance. It is designed to make work pay by ensuring recipi- ents do not lose all their benefits if they take a job.
Yesterday Mr Duncan Smith told Sky news that topping up funding was the best way of reaching the ‘just about managing’ targeted by the Prime Minister.
He said: ‘Theresa May stood on the steps of Downing Street and said, “I want to look after those who are just about managing”. Universal Credit is the single best system to get to those. It’s better than the tax system, it’s better than charitable giveaways.’
He added: ‘The structure works, but we need to put the money in. I think the Chancellor is listening, and I’m asking him to do that.’ Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry called for a root and branch review of Universal Credit, which she said was ‘unfair’.
Miss Thornberry said Mr Osborne had used it as ‘a vehicle for cuts because it’s so complex you could introduce a whole load of cuts and nobody would notice’.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock defended the system, telling the programme: ‘I have sat there with the work coaches meeting people who are on Universal Credit and seen how... people can be helped into work much more.’