Claimants will pay for universal credit delay

Your leader on universal credit (Rudd’s adjustments are no solution to the serious problem of welfare reform, 12 January) is too kind to Amber Rudd. The delay she announced in the roll-out of universal credit (UC) to existing claimants of means-tested benefits may appear to be a concession to the benefit’s countless critics. But in fact it will cost some claimants dearly. Cynics might even regard the delay as a cost-saving measure for the government.

When existing claimants are eventually moved to UC in the course of what is known as managed migration, their previous level of benefit will be protected if it is higher than their UC entitlement (though it will not rise until their UC entitlement catches up with the amount they receive). But pending the managed migration, existing claimants whose circumstances change must claim UC without this protection: their previous benefits stop and they are treated as new UC claimants. There is no rationale for this distinction between “managed” and “natural” migration beyond stinginess.

A relevant change of circumstances for UC purposes might consist of a move to a different area, or a change in household composition or in employment status. Inevitably, as many years go, by some claimants’ capacity for work will lessen; some claimants will need to relocate; couples will form or split up; babies will be born. This means that the longer the managed migration of existing claimants is postponed, the more people who would be helped by transitional protection will have to forgo it.

For fairness, transitional protection should be introduced immediately for all claimants of means-tested benefits moving to UC, with compensation for those who have already lost out.
Patricia de Wolfe
London

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