Universal credit payments will not be cut next spring, cabinet minister hints

A cabinet minister has hinted that a temporary rise in universal credit could be extended after the government was warned cutting the support risks plunging half a million people into deep poverty.

As the UK continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic, Work and Pensions Secretary Theresa Coffey said she wanted to keep a roof over people’s heads.

She told MPs that as things stood the extra £20 a week given to universal credit claimants was due to come to an end in April.

But, she added, “a lot of these discussions about what we continue to do with welfare support are still in active discussion with the Treasury”.

A group of more than 50 organisations have written to the chancellor Rishi Sunak to sound a warning over the risks if the temporary increase is not made permanent

Deep poverty is classed as 50 per cent below the poverty line.

Another 700,000 people will also be dragged into poverty, according to the group's calculations.

Ms Coffey’s comments came after she was pressed by Stephen Timms, the chair of the Commons Work and Pensions Select committee, that it would be wrong to cut benefits before the global pandemic was over.

In April as the coronavirus crisis hit the UK ministers announced that the basic universal credit payment would be increased by £20 a week.

Experts warn that welfare payments in the UK are among the lowest of any rich country, however.

Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which organised the letter to the chancellor, suggests 16 million people live in households that will lose £1,040 a year.

MPs were also told that earlier this year there were 105,000 applications for universal credit in a single day.