Universal Credit wait

SIR – Do new members of the Government and the Treasury only get paid after five weeks? This seems the only possible explanation for the failure to reduce the wait for an initial Universal Credit payment to four weeks (report, November 23).

If you lose your job having been on the minimum wage, you will be unlikely to have any savings to cover your basic needs while you wait for your first UC payment. In some cases this will push people into debt, which they will then struggle to clear. Cdre Malcolm Williams

Chief Executive, Shipwrecked Mariners’ Benevolent Society Chichester, West Sussex