Universal Credit

(asked on 15th October 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the effect of the national roll-out of universal credit on the incidence of food bank usage in the UK.


Answered by
Alok Sharma Portrait
Alok Sharma
COP26 President (Cabinet Office)
This question was answered on 23rd October 2018

People use food banks for many reasons, and it would be misleading to link them to any single cause. We are constantly reviewing research carried out by organisations including the Trussell Trust, to add to our understanding of food bank use, and will consider requirements to add to our evidence base. Work offers people the best opportunity to get out of poverty and Universal Credit gets people to work faster and staying in work longer than the outdated legacy benefits system.

As a safeguard for people needing more support, we have a well-established system of hardship payments, benefit advances and budgeting loans. We have introduced a further package of measures this year for Universal Credit claimants which were announced at Autumn Budget 2017. This comprehensive package worth £1.5 billion to help people in their first assessment period included, the abolition of waiting days, the introduction of advances up to 100% of a claimant’s indicative award (repayable over a period of up to 12 months), and a two week transitional payment for those previously claiming Housing Benefit.

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