There are currently around six million people receiving Universal Credit (UC) benefit payments, launched in 2010 to replace six-means-tested benefits for working-age households. At the end of 2022, some 2.5m households remained on legacy benefits, with the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) starting to scale up moving people onto UC through its ‘managed migration’ process.
In 2018, the Committee concluded that UC’s introduction was causing unacceptable hardship and difficulties for many of the claimants it was designed to help. The Committee further found that the DWP had dismissed evidence of this, and expressed concern about whether DWP would be able to implement ‘managed migration’ of people to UC without causing further hardship.
DWP aims to complete migrating around one million claimants to UC by March 2025. The Government announced in 2022 that it would defer transferring those on income-related Employment and Support Allowance to UC until 2028, saying the delay would save approximately £1bn in benefit payments.
Based on the National Audit Office (NAO) report on progress in implementing UC, the Committee will take evidence from senior DWP officials on subjects including:
- Plans to undertake ‘managed migration’ effectively’;
- Support for vulnerable claimants;
- Timelines and plans for moving all claimants to UC;
- Implementation costs.
If you have evidence on these issues, please submit it here by 23:59 on Friday 1 March 2024.
Please look at the requirements for written evidence submissions and note that the Committee cannot accept material as evidence that is published elsewhere.
Please note that the Committee is unable to investigate individual cases.
If you need help with an individual problem you are having, you may wish to contact your constituency MP.