The Chancellor Rishi Sunak has maintained a 22 week silence with regards to maintaining the £20 uplift to Universal Credit.
The Disability Benefits Consortium wrote to the Chancellor on 2 June 2020 requesting that the uplift be maintained going forward. It is still waiting for a response.
DR UK CEO Kamran Mallick said: “It is inconceivable that the Chancellor has not had his staff respond to a letter signed on behalf of over a hundred charities this long ago. We are credible, serious organisations who deserve a credible, serious response to this request.”
In an unprecedented move last week, the outgoing Director General of employers’ organisation the CBI, Dame Carolyn Fairbairn, backed the move to keep the uplift. “A period of impoverishment in our country is unthinkable,” she said. “I think the idea that the supplement would run out in March is something that should really be rethought. It’s also about fairness. There are going to be some people who have been kept in work through variations of the job support scheme, and others who are not so lucky. The gap between those two positions should not be so great.”
The call to keep the weekly uplift has been supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which last month found that three quarters of a million people will be swept into poverty once the uplift is removed next spring. Another half a million could end up in deep poverty (over 50% below the poverty line).
DR UK is among a number of organisations calling for the uplift to be extended to legacy benefits including Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) and Income Support.
You can support our call by emailing your MP. A template can be found here: https://www.z2k.org/increase-legacy-benefits/