The Christmas season is with us again and tinsel is being hung from trees as the internet glows with thousands of individual clicks, each one a present bring bought, setting the virtual tills ringing like sleigh bells.
Behind the saccharine vision presented in the television adverts of major retailers there is another Britain and its inhabitants aren’t likely to have a happy holiday thanks to the government’s determination to introduce Universal Credit at all costs.
‘The Austerity Generation', a report written for the Child Poverty Action Group by Josephine Tucker and based on analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research has labelled Universal Credit as being ‘poverty producing'.
Despite improvements announced in the budget the charity says Universal Credit will push a million more children into poverty by 2020, 900,000 of whom will fall into extreme poverty.
Working families on low incomes will, the report says, lose £420 a year through the introduction of Universal Credit. Families where a member is disabled will be out of pocket by £300 under Universal Credit, if the disability is severe this could rise to £530.
The CPAG report concludes that a decade of cuts to social security has hit families hard, particularly those that were already at risk of falling into poverty.
Criticism has also been levelled at DWP for its decision to close the helpline for claimants over the Christmas period. In a letter to the prime minister Frank Field, chair of the commons work and pensions committee wrote that the thought of claimants potentially being made destitute as a result was ‘deeply troubling.’
In response, the department of work and pensions said that it was usual for government offices to close over Christmas and that payments would be brought forward. Given the so far problematic roll out of Universal Credit their optimism is unlikely to be shared by claimants.
Problems accessing Universal Credit may be a factor behind the rise in the number of people using food banks. In December 2016, the Trussell Trust who run food banks across the country provided 146,798 three- day food parcels with 61,093 of those going to hungry children. This year demand is expected to be even higher.
Interim chief executive Mark Ward said this Christmas ‘will not be a time of celebration' for many struggling families.
Research conducted by the Women’s Budget Group and the Runnymede Trust shows that female and BME claimants will also lose out significantly under Universal Credit. The report suggests that 2.2million female claimants who are in work could lose an average of £1400 a year, those who are out of work stand to lose a average of £600 a year; female BME claimants stand to lose the most with their income falling by £1500.
Green Party deputy leader Amelia Womack said the report ‘lays bare the cruelty of the system', and that it punishes ‘women simply for being women'. She went on to describe Universal Credit as ‘nothing more than an attack on Britain’s most vulnerable people’.
The Green Party advocates the introduction of a universal basic income as a more effective way of tackling poverty. Ms Womack said the party was calling on the government to scrap Universal Credit and ‘invest in a universal basic income trial instead, which would make more of a difference to families living in poverty’.
The government may have gone into the huge social experiment that is Universal Credit with noble intentions to end poverty and make work play. Deep flaws in the plan itself and a shambolic roll out have robbed the scheme of any trace of legitimacy.
Trialling a universal basic income may be too radical a step for a government lacking direction. It is though looking ever more like an idea that merits at least serious investigation as the number of people forced into poverty by a dysfunctional economy continues to grow.
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