Meeting of the Parliament 03 October 2017
This is the second time in less than a month that the Parliament has debated the roll-out of universal credit. That is a clear reflection of the extraordinary level of concern that our constituents and their representatives here—or most of them—have regarding this very significant change in the social security system.
Greens support the Government motion and agree that the universal credit roll-out should be paused. However, while the design and delivery of universal credit are clearly a problem, the number of cuts that are being hidden in the transition is equally as serious.
Recently, Musselburgh and District Citizens Advice Bureau and Haddington Citizens Advice Bureau launched their report “Universal Credit in East Lothian: Impact on Client Income”. They surveyed everyone who came to them for help over a two-week period. The results showed that 52 per cent of the universal credit recipients who were surveyed had lost money and that 80 per cent of those who did so saw their income drop by more than one tenth, with an average loss of £44.72 a week. Disabled recipients and lone parents were the hardest hit—that has been a long-running theme of welfare reform under recent UK Governments. Disabled recipients who were surveyed lost up to 20 per cent of their benefit income, with an average loss of nearly £60 a week. It is no surprise, then, that East Lothian Council has faced significantly increased demand for support, with applications for Scottish welfare fund crisis grants being 20 per cent above what would usually be expected. In 2016-17, there was a 12 per cent increase in council tenant rent arrears, but, for universal credit claimants, the figure was almost double, at 22 per cent.
Those are figures from one area, but they accurately reflect the bigger picture, which is that universal credit is
“now less generous on average than the tax credits and benefits systems that it replaces”.
That quote is not from the Child Poverty Action Group or Shelter; it is from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility.
When universal credit was launched, the white paper—incidentally, it was called “Universal Credit: welfare that works”, which is not an apt title, given the problems with the roll-out—said that
“no-one will experience a reduction in the benefit they receive as a result of the introduction of Universal Credit”.
However, since then, the value of universal credit has dramatically eroded. We have had the benefit cap, which Scottish Green Party research shows is hitting more than 2,700 Scots families, with more than 11,000 children being impacted. We have also had the freeze on universal credit uprating from 2016 to 2020; huge cuts to the universal credit work allowances, which mean that a working single parent will lose £554 per year; the two-child limit for child tax credits; and the abhorrent rape clause.