Roll-out for Universal Credit put off till 2023

THE roll-out of the Government’s troubled welfare reforms has been delayed again amid a growing Parliamentary revolt.

Ministers had originally planned to start moving claimants on to Universal Credit (UC) in January 2019 – but this will not now happen until the summer.

It means UC will not be fully operational until the very end of 2023 – compared to the original plan aiming for April 2017.

The system, which will merge six benefits into one payment, has been beset with problems.

It also emerged yesterday that ministers plan to spend hundreds of millions of pounds to prevent claimants suffering hardship as they move onto it.

Work and Pensions secretary Esther McVey said: ‘Under the process of managed migration, the roll-out will be slow and measured. It will start not in January 2019, but later in the year.

‘For a further year, we will be learning as we go with a small amount of people – maybe 10,000 – to ensure the system is right. The roll-out will then increase from

‘Approach will be slow and measured’

2020 onwards.’ Leaked documents seen by the BBC show ministers are also considering changes to limit impact on the low paid.

This includes paying Income support, income-related Employment and support Allowance, and income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance for two weeks after a claimant applied for UC.

UC replaces these benefits and three more – Housing Benefit, Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit – with a single payment. Its roll-out began in pilot areas in 2013 and, so far, only new benefit claimants have been put on to the system.

Dame Louise Casey, the former head of the Government’s troubled families team, told the BBC the roll-out of UC should be ‘halted and sorted out’ to stop thousands of people falling into ‘crippling debt’.

A DWP spokesman added: ‘We have long said that we will take a slow and measured approach to managed migration.’

Meanwhile the Bishop of Durham, the Right Reverend Paul Butler, said the Government must make a ‘long-term commitment’ to making sure the flagship system would allow recipients to feed themselves properly.