On Wednesday the news broke that the Government was going to measure the level of hunger in the UK. This is a major victory for supporters of the End Hunger UK campaign, including the four Churches which work together in the Joint Public Issues Team. More importantly the scale of hunger in the UK …
Universal Credit
Amber Rudd’s statement on Universal Credit: So welcome and so inadequate.
I cannot remember when a statement was so welcome, so infuriating and so inadequate all at the same time. Before Monday the Government’s stock answer on foodbanks was that the reasons for foodbank use were “complex” so it was unfair to blame Universal Credit. The new answer appears to be that …
2 Minute Briefing: Will money fix Universal Credit?
Is the Budget enough to save Universal Credit? The budget delivered two tranches of extra money for Universal Credit (UC) - £1.7bn to improve Work Allowances and £1bn to help people moving onto UC from the old system. While the numbers are large they are not sufficient to reverse even the 2015 …
Meet Your MP: Using our voices
In a guest blog, Revd Katy Thomas, a Methodist minister from Wilmslow in Cheshire, writes about her experience of arranging a meeting with her MP last month. At the Methodist Women in Britain Conference earlier this year, Rachel Lampard from the Joint Public Issues Team spoke about Universal …
Should the government’s power ever be used to create destitution?
Twenty Church leaders have written to Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, to call for an end to the Government’s hostile environment immigration policy because “it is inhumane to use destitution, or the threat of destitution, as a policy tool to encourage people to leave the country.” As we outline in …
Updated Universal Credit Briefing
Universal Credit: increasing hunger by design Read the briefing in full. Summary Last updated April 2019 As Churches we are concerned that the design of Universal Credit does not sufficiently take into account the lives, skills and resources of the least well off, and as a result will lead …
“A benefit system which drives families into debt and leaves people hungry is a failing benefit system” say Churches
Speaking on behalf of the Baptist Union, the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church, Paul Morrison commented on the release of the National Audit Office (NAO) report, Rolling out Universal Credit, saying, “Churches have repeatedly expressed concerns about Universal …
Universal Credit: From bad to farce
If Universal Credit (UC) was a horse, it would be shot - repeatedly. The DWP has just released a flurry of reports which paint a picture of a deeply troubled system. Despite their best efforts at a positive spin there is no hiding the problems. I am sure I will go into detail in other pieces but …
Universal Credit: Solving one problem by creating another
The changes announced in Wednesday’s budget are likely to improve the often awful first weeks of a Universal Credit claim. The problem is that, rather than address the core flaws in the benefit’s design, they patch it over. The announcement is not so much a step in the right direction as making the …
JPIT briefing ahead of today’s Universal Credit debate (updated January 2018)
Universal Credit will be debated in Parliament today and the JPIT churches have sent a briefing to every MP outlining our concerns. The briefing outlines some of the key problems but the central message is simple: Universal Credit’s processes suit the lives of the relatively well-off, the people …