Yesterday, after the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions first appearance at Work and Pensions Questions, SNP MP Neil Gray challenged the Secretary of State to use the powers of her office and take action on the well-documented issues that Universal Credit rollout has encountered.
The SNP letter calls on the Secretary of State to:
- Reverse her Department’s punitive benefit cuts, including the £4.7bn cut due next year from the benefit freeze, benefit cap and cuts to ESA.
- Scrap the abhorrent two child cap and rape clause
- Halt the roll-out of Universal Credit until it is urgently fixed.
- Boost wages and lift the minimum wage to a real living wage.
- Take action to finally support women born in the 1950s who have been affected by the acceleration of the increase in the state pension age.
Here in Inverclyde, we’ve had full service Universal Credit for over two years and my office continues to receive stories from constituents who are suffering at the hands of policy decisions by this UK Government.
Any movement to mitigate the worst of the problems that the rollout of Universal Credit has caused is welcome, but it seems that despite a change in personnel, the UK Government doesn’t plan to deviate from its piecemeal approach to reforming Universal Credit.
Action must be taken to pause the rollout of Universal Credit and listen to the many charities and individuals who are calling for changes to be made in-order to fix the system.
Ronnie Cowan MP 