Universal credit rollout to be 'delayed' once more, reveals leaked documents

Leaked documents reportedly reveal that ministers are to delay the rollout of universal credit once more following reports of hardship and intense criticism from MPs across the political spectrum.

It comes after claims from an MP in the Commons that women have been left destitute and pushed into sex work as the government further rolls out its flagship welfare reforms.

Just last week Esther McVey, the work and pensions secretary, also admitted that some people "could be worse off" when they switch to universal credit after reports emerged that she told the cabinet their loss could reach £2,400 a year.

According to the BBC, the anticipated large-scale rollout of universal credit next summer has been pushed back until November 2020 at the earliest, adding an additional nine months to the final deadline for full implementation - now predicted to be December 2023.

This is to make way for considerable reforms to the programme, the BBC said, including plans to continue paying income support, employment support allowance, and job seekers allowance for two weeks after a claim for universal credit has been made by an individual.

The policy - first announced in 2010 - combines six means-tested benefits and tax credits into one payment and has been described by the former prime minister Gordon Brown as "cruel and vindictive".

Responding to the report, Margaret Greenwood, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said: "After months of pressing ahead in the face of the evidence, the Conservatives seem to have quietly accepted their flagship social security programme isn't working."

She continued: "People's lives are being destroyed by poverty and debt. The government must stop the rollout of universal credit immediately. We need urgent answers from Esther McVey about what's going on and what action the government will take to tackle the many flaws in the system."

Dame Louise Casey, a former senior government adviser, also told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that universal credit should be "halted and sorted out" to prevent thousands of families falling into "crippling debt".

"My worry about more pauses is this needs to be halted and sorted out. Something also needs to be done for the thousands of people who have already transferred over to it who are now in crippling debt," she said.

"People having to wait for five weeks, who are used to being on either weekly or fortnightly pay, just doesn't add up, and making those people take out loans just pushes them further and further into destitution."

But a spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said: "We have long said that we will take a slow and measured approach to managed migration. This will not begin in January 2019, but later in the year after a period of preparation.

“For a further year we will then begin migration working with a maximum of 10,000 people, continuing with our ‘test and learn’ approach. This is to ensure the system is working well for claimants and to make any necessary adaptions as we go.”

“We will publish full plans for the next stage of universal credit rollout, including managed migration, in due course. Anything before that point is speculation and we do not comment on leaks.”

On Monday, in the Commons, Ms McVey was told by Frank Field, the independent MP and chairman of the work and pensions select committee in Westminster, that some women had resorted to prostitution in his Birkenhead constituency after being placed on the new welfare system.

He told MPs: "Might I raise a question that I wrote to the Secretary of State about, about how Universal Credit is being rolled out in Birkenhead, how it is not going as well as we're told in the House of Commons, and some women have taken to the red light district for the first time?

"Might she come to Birkenhead and meet those women's organisations and the police who are worried about women's security being pushed into this position?"

Ms McVey replied: "We need to work with those ladies and see what help we can give them - from work coaches right the way through to various charities and organisations.

"In the meantime, I might add perhaps he could tell these ladies - and the work coaches can - that now we've got record job vacancies, 830,000 job vacancies, and perhaps there are other jobs on offer."