DWP urged to stop 'vindictive' benefit debt collections before Christmas

Gordon Brown has called on the government to pause deductions from households' benefit payments to recoup loans they owe to the department for work and pensions (DWP) ahead of Christmas.

He called the approach, which sees money automatically taken from people's weekly universal credit payments, as “vindictive beyond austerity” during a winter cost of living crisis, and called for a "Christmas of compassion, instead of cruelty".

Writing in the Guardian, the former prime minister warned that the decline in the value of benefits are pushing families into desperate circumstances, with essentials such as toothpaste and toilet roll becoming a luxury.

His remarks concern the government's universal credit advance system, whereby new claimants in financial hardship can be given a loan by the government to cover the time before a first payment is given.

This is then paid back through deductions from families' future weekly universal credit payments over an agreed period of 24 months or less.

It takes around five weeks for a first universal credit to be paid, so people can be left without income if they do not take out an advance.

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Brown said the system means the DWP has become the UK's "biggest debt collector".

"There is no huge cost to the government in suspending deductions, for it will get its money back later," he said.

"But this could be a lifesaver for millions now suffering under a regime that seems vindictive beyond austerity."

Brown said the scale of poverty in the UK right now is leaving parents "desperate and ashamed that their children cannot be fed".

"When the money runs out, and the food bank tokens are gone, parents become desperate and ashamed that their children cannot be fed, and fall victim to loan sharks hiding in the back alleys who exploit hardship and compound it, and prey on pain and inflame it," he said.

He went on added: "Our long term priority must be to persuade a highly unequal country of the need for a decent minimum income for all, but our immediate demand must be for the government to suspend for the duration of this energy crisis the deductions that will soon cause destitution."

The former prime minister has become a strong advocate against poverty since stepping down as prime minister in 2010.

In August, he said he was seeing levels of poverty and suffering "did not expect to see again" in his lifetime – and urged the government to help.

"If charities and organisations in the community are taking urgent action to do something, I think it's about time the government responded," Brown told Sky News at the time.

"The vacuum at the centre of government really has got to end."

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His intervention this week comes as anti-poverty organisations warn families are facing extreme hardship winter - with many unable to afford to heat their homes.

Rachelle Earwaker, senior economist at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), said families "won't be able to get through the winter with current levels of support".

“For hundreds of thousands of households it’s not a choice between putting the heating on or not," she said.

"Our research shows they can’t afford anything recommended to protect themselves from the effects of plummeting temperatures."

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