Work & Pensions Committee: Government faces defeat tomorrow on Universal Credit

Tomorrow, Thursday afternoon the 16 November 2017, MPs will have a chance to debate and vote on a cross-party motion to cut the wait for a first payment of Universal Credit from the standard six weeks down to one month. 

The backbench business debate in the Commons, a week ahead of the Budget, will be focused on the Work and Pensions Committee’s first report on Universal Credit, whose single recommendation calls for the first payment to be made after no more than one month.

Frank Field MP, Chair of the Committee, said: “Universal Credit’s design and implementation have been beset with difficulties that knock claimants into hunger, debt and homelessness, but the most glaring of these in the first instance is the six week wait for payment. I doubt many households in this country could get by for six weeks, and for many much longer, with no income, never mind those striving close to the breadline. The baked-in wait for payment is cruel and unrealistic and Government has not been able to offer any proper justification for it.

“The Government faces defeat tomorrow in the Commons. There will be no ignoring the result of a debate and vote on this cross-party motion, put forward from the single recommendation of the Work and Pension Select Committee’s first report on Universal Credit. Then we will turn our attention to the flaws this flagship welfare reform is riddled with, but for now we will send a clear message ahead of next week’s Budget: the standard six week wait must go.”