Claimants tell of Universal Credit fears
A MUM on Universal Credit says she is “petrified” for the future after being left to choose between paying her mortgage and keeping her daughter warm and properly fed.
Five years ago Jessica was working in Cardiff, bringing home £2,000 a month. She was struggling to conceive and, together with her husband, they took the decision she would stop working and rely on the money from his job.
Jessica – who had worked in the legal profession for 10 years – is now mum to a four-year-old girl, but three months ago, the relationship with her husband broke down, leaving her with no income, a mortgage and a young child.
Having sold many belongings – including her daughter’s toys as well as her wedding and engagement rings – five weeks ago, Jessica started claiming benefits for the first time in her life.
But, when the first payment came through this week for just under £600, Jessica – who is already in £15,000 of debt – broke down. She thinks she is going to lose her home.
Universal Credit is the biggest change to the welfare state in a generation. It is being rolled out across the UK to replace six other benefits with a single monthly payment.
It started in Wales in April 2017 in Flintshire, with new areas being added ever since. It arrived in Cardiff in February and last month, it was rolled out in parts of Rhondda Cynon Taf. By the end of the full rollout – scheduled for 2023 – Citizens Advice estimates more than 400,000 households in Wales will be in receipt of Universal Credit.
But people in the system say they have been beset by problems – and pushed into poverty – from the start. One common theme is that families have to wait for five weeks until the first payment comes through.
Jessica received her first £600 payment last week. The mortgage for her three-bedroom house is £420 and she says she won’t get any help to pay it until she has been on Universal Credit for nine months, when she says she’ll get £30 a week.
Jessica, from Blaenau Gwent, who is in her 30s, said: “If I was renting, I would be able to get housing benefit but because I own my house I am being punished.” She said when she found out how much she was going to get paid, she broke down in the job centre.
“I am lucky my parents are helping us with food at the moment and I have not had to go to a food bank yet, but that is not far off.”
Jessica isn’t alone. 60-year-old Giovanni Scaccia from Tongwynlais recently bought a caravan so he has somewhere to live. But he said he’s been told by the DWP he isn’t entitled to any money as a result, because the caravan is an asset.
He said the process has affected him in “a bad way” and he is on medication for stress and anxiety.
Cardiff Foodbank said it provided 5,976 three-day emergency food supplies to people in the city between April and September.
The figures are an 11% increase on the same period a year ago. Of the total supplies handed out, 2,247 went to children.
A DWP spokesman said: “Universal Credit is supporting over a million people, and the vast majority receive their payments in full and on time.
“The best way to help people improve their lives is through work and with Universal Credit people are moving into work faster and staying in work longer than the old system.”