Q & A

How the Tories’ benefit reforms work and why are they so hated

What is universal credit?

One system to replace six benefits: child tax credit, working tax credit, jobseeker’s allowance, income support, employment and support allowance and housing benefit. Tory Iain Duncan Smith, right, launched it in 2013, supposedly to make work pay. Who claims it? About 1.1 million low earners, jobless and sick or disabled, getting an average of £630 per household per month. Some 37% are in work. UC will be in every Jobcentre for

new claimants by December 2018. From July next year, 3.95 million existing benefit claimants, in around three million households, will be “migrated” to UC.

What are the problems?

UC coincided with billions in Tory benefit cuts which made it less generous than in its design. Three quarters of claimants struggle with bills, according to the DWP’s own figures. Rent arrears soared £115 a head in two trial zones. Foodbank use in another area, Hastings, rose 80%. Work and