Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
420,000 KIDS IN POVERTY IF CREDIT IS CUT
Calls to end plan to axe £20 boost
CUTTING £20 a week from Universal Credit will plunge hundreds of thousands of children into poverty, researchers warn.
A temporary hike in the benefit, brought in last March to help hard-up households in lockdown, is due to be axed at the end of next month.
Pressure is increasing on Chancellor Rishi Sunak to extend the increase beyond April when he delivers his Budget on March 3.
The rise is worth £1,040 a year for six million households, costing the Treasury £6billion annually. If it is scrapped, 420,000 kids would fall into relative poverty after housing costs are calculated, shows Commons Library research seen by the Mirror.
A briefing note by Labour MP Emma Lewell-buck and Feeding Britain boss Andrew Forsey says: “With the social and economic consequences of the pandemic likely to persist beyond March 2021, when this increase is due to cease, more people will be plunged into significant financial difficulties.”
They fear foodbank demand, up 47% in the first six months of the pandemic, would soar further if the temporary UC rise was withdrawn.
Mrs Lewell-buck said: “Poverty isn’t inevitable, it is a direct result of years of cruel Tory policies. If the political will is there, they can ensure no child goes hungry.”
Her local foodbank, the KEY Project in South Shields, Tyne and Wear, said demand was up 310% on last year. KEY’S Jo Benham Brown said: “If families already don’t have enough money to buy food they will have little chance if their situation worsens still.” Children’s Commissioner for England Anne Longfield said: “This isn’t the time for families to have that uncertainty or that drop in income.” The Department for Work and Pensions was approached for comment yesterday.
A spokesman said previously: “We’ve targeted our support by raising the living wage, spending hundreds of billions to safeguard jobs, boosting welfare support and introducing the £170million Covid Winter Grant Scheme.”
PLUNGING another 420,000 kids below the breadline would be a cruel cut by a Government lacking a moral compass.
The Tories are toying with ending life-line £20 a week Universal Credit payments in April.
This is torment for six million hard-up families who deserve better.
Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak must promise to keep giving the vital £20s, awards which make a significant difference.
Every child matters and that includes the kids whose lives would be blighted for decades to come by Tory-inflicted deep scars of poverty.