Delaying full rollout of Universal Credit until 2023 will not make it a fair system

So yet again the government has delayed the full rollout of its flagship Universal Credit policy. Iain Duncan Smith at the outset claimed it would be fully in place by 2017, now it is 2023.

I heard the Tories trying to make a virtue of further delay, but there is a lot more wrong with UC than will be cured by going more slowly. What is being delayed is moving existing claimants onto UC. Edinburgh is still scheduled to see anyone claiming for the first time (or claiming after a gap) having to apply for UC from November. So instead of someone in low paid work claiming Tax Credits from November they will have to claim UC, and the same if you are unemployed or unable to work for health reasons. In 2017 East Lothian Citizen’s Advice Bureau, where this stage had already happened, compared clients still on the old benefits with what would happen if they had to claim UC instead. Some 52 per cent would lose out, and 31 per cent would gain. But the real standout from this research was that the median loss was £44.72 per week for the losers, but the median gain for gainers was only 34p per week.

Some of this result is due to changes made to UC by George Osborne in 2016. The Government says it will put more money in to reverse that – but will it be enough?

Some of the problems people experience are IT and administrative, but many were “baked into” the system from the start, such as insisting on monthly payments, and that rent payments would no longer go to landlords. People working in the field pointed out these, and many other issues right from the start, but such expert advice was ignored.

Tinkering and small changes are not enough. A thorough review is needed, not just of UC but also of many of the benefits which are being incorporated into UC. For instance the problems with the system for deciding if someone is fit for work have been well documented. That applies just as much to the existing benefits as to UC.

SHEILA GILMORE St Catherine’s Place, Edinburgh