Anger over Universal Credit trial

RUGBY is to be one of the first places in the country where the new Universal Credit will be paid to jobless and those on low pay.

The single benefit payment - created by the amalgamation of six existing benefits and tax credits - will come into force for newly unemployed people in October in a move supposedly to make the system simpler.

But it has drawn fresh criticism from those campaigning against welfare cuts who say new conditions to be introduced as a result will see existing claimants worse off and make it harder for new ones to claim.

Pete McLaren, spokesman for the Rugby Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), branded it an attack on the poor and working class.

He said: "It is yet another attempt to make the poor and ordinary working people pay for the economic crisis, and we will campaign vigorously against it before, and as, it is being introduced.

"It clearly it will cause untold extra suffering to low paid workers and those unable to work. It has not been introduced in isolation, but is part of a package that will cut over £18b a year from the social security budget by 2014/15."

Mr McLaren said it would be harder for people to claim as they would be pushed to do so online.

And he criticised new criteria for claimants which would require people expected to look for jobs up to a 90-minute commute, see a reduction in the rate of support available for children with disabilities and reimburse 70 per cent of child care costs compared to current 80 per cent.

Anyone with savings of over £6,000 would be penalised while it would be withdrawn completely when savings reached £16,000, hitting workers receiving compensation for an industrial injury or redundancy lump sum, added Mr McLaren.

The government claimed Universal Credit had been successfully tested in North West England and confirmed other areas also to get it later this year were Hammersmith, Inverness, Harrogate, Bath and Shotton in north Wales.

Lord Freud, minister for Welfare Reform, said "The current welfare system holds people back from getting into work and too often traps them on benefits. That has to change and that’s why we are bringing in this fundamental reform."

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