Martin Lewis asks Rishi Sunak why he’s ‘not willing’ to help legacy benefit claimants

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Martin Lewis, during The Martin Lewis Money Show Live on ITV at 8.30pm tonight, questioned Rishi Sunak on a number of his Budget decisions. Martin commended many of the Chancellor’s efforts but was critical of his Universal Credit choices.

Martin welcomed the £20 uplift extension and minimum income floor news but he then quoted Claire, a benefit claimant who was struggling with the system: “I’m shielding, adult disabled son for nearly a year [are some words missing here? doesn’t run quite right], huge extra expenses due to Covid, why have people who are on legacy disability benefits e.g. Employment Support Allowance not been included in the extra £20 a week Universal Credit payment; why isn’t this backdated?”

Following this example, Martin noted the same problems are affecting income support and job seekers allowance and a number of other legacy benefits.

Martin asked the Chancellor if he’d look into these issues and in response, Mr Sunak detailed the following: “So the original rationale for doing the temporary uplift in universal credit was to help those in low income, people in work but on lower incomes, whose incomes were going to be affected by the crisis and it’s UC and working tax credit that are the benefits that capture the vast vast vast majority if not all of those people, the legacy benefits don’t do that.”

Before Mr Sunak could continue, Martin interrupted: “But the disabled, the carers out there who aren’t getting that support?”

Mr Sunak responded by noting: “Well the intervention for UC was to help those in work and in low income work who were affected by the change in restrictions.”

Martin “accepted” this but asked the Chancellor directly: “But you’re not willing to help the others who are struggling because of Covid?”

Despite Martin’s best efforts, Mr Sunak refused to budge: “It’s a totally different rationale for what we’re doing and it is also possible for those that can they can also transition to UC, that option is available for everybody because obviously that is the system that we want to move everyone to over time and I’d urge people to have a look at that, if that might make sense for them.”

Universal Credit migration was covered in the Office for Budget Responsibility’s Economic and fiscal outlook, which was released at the same time as the Budget.

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As quoted from the report: “The Government has again paused the pilot phase of the UC managed migration scheme, this time until April 2022.

“The surge of new UC claims during the early stages of the pandemic led to a pause in managed migrations as operational capacity became stretched.

“It also increased the number of ‘natural migrations’ from legacy benefits, reducing anticipated managed migration volumes by 50,000.

“There remain around 3 million cases on the legacy benefits that will transfer to UC, with 1.6 million of those expected to go through managed migration.

“The full rollout is still assumed to finish in September 2026”.

The full list of legacy benefits that Universal Credit is replacing includes:

  • Child tax credit
  • Housing benefit
  • Income support
  • income-based jobseeker’s allowance (JSA)
  • income-related employment and support allowance (ESA)
  • Working tax credit

The DWP notes claimants of these benefits will not need to take any action unless:

  • They have a change of circumstances you need to report
  • The DWP contacts them about moving to Universal Credit

Full details on Universal Credit and legacy benefit rules can be found on the Government’s website.

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