Ella Abraham responds to the Chancellor’s budget, the inexcusable silence on the issue of those on legacy benefits not receiving the same £20 increase that those on Universal Credit have seen and why we need more from the Leader of the Opposition.
This budget fails to provide people on Social Security benefits and tenants in privately-rented accommodation with the stability and support they so desperately need right now.
The past few months have seen organisations in the anti-poverty world coming together in a powerful campaign to challenge the Chancellor to keep the £20 a week increase in Universal Credit he introduced at the start of the Coronavirus pandemic.
I’m Carl, I’m 39, and I’ve been receiving UC for three years. Around the same time I started claiming UC I was diagnosed with degenerative disorder, a condition that affects the vertebrae and nerves in my back and gives me problems with chronic pain.
I’ve been working in the advice sector from the days of the House of Lords case of Street v Mountford – too many years, some may say! And I thought I knew most of the tricks London Boroughs use to deny homeless people their legal rights. But its only when I came to Z2K and started dealing with Westminster City Council’s Housing Options Service on a regular basis that I realised I didn’t know the half of it.
At the beginning of the year, the Government responded to the Work and Pensions Select Committee’s report ‘Universal Credit: The wait for a first payment.’ This report contained extensive evidence from a range of stakeholders on the hardship Universal Credit’s (UC) design flaws, including the minimum five week wait for a first payment, is causing – as well as considered recommendations put forward by the Committee that could help alleviate these. The Government’s response was pitiful – it ignored and refuted the evidence, instead outlining how it will continue to push forward with policies that have very little regard for the people who depend on them for support.
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