Gordon Brown demands 'cruel and vindictive' Universal Credit rollout is STOPPED in bombshell intervention
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- 10 Oct 2021
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Gordon Brown today calls for a halt to the rollout of “cruel and vindictive” Universal Credit , warning it will plunge a record five million children below the breadline.
The Daily Mirror is backing the former Prime Minister by launching our “fix it or bin it” campaign and we are calling on readers to support us.
In trials, the new benefits system has already plunged families into debt and rent arrears – yet the Tories are rolling out nationally from July.
Mr Brown, architect of Labour’s tax credits programme to take children out of poverty, predicts that left unchecked, UC could lead to a repeat of the Poll Tax fiasco that triggered riots and toppled Margaret Thatcher.
Writing in this newspaper, Mr Brown says that after 50 years in politics, he never expected to see poverty and hardship returning on such a terrible scale.
He says: “With the convulsions of Brexit in March and Universal Credit four months later, we face a summer of division and despair.”
Mr Brown is the most prominent voice among a growing number of public figures demanding an end to the national roll out of a complicated, meaner system which experts say leaves families short-changed.
Critics complain UC, merging six benefits into a single structure, is harsher on people both in and out of work and is effectively a near £3billion welfare cut.
Campaigners have said some families could end up £200 a month worse off.
In trial areas, claimants have waited up to six weeks for payments with many relying on foodbanks for handouts.
Mr Brown, who describes UC as “cruel and vindictive beyond austerity”, says four million children are already in poverty and that figure is set to hit five million by 2022. He and the Mirror are demanding a halt to the expansion of UC from trial areas to the entire country. We say it should be axed and replaced with a fairer system unless cuts are dropped and a review fixes the problems.
And we say instead of benefit cuts masquerading as reforms, the system should improve the incomes of low-paid families and lift children above the breadline. Mr Brown is challenging Tory Chancellor Philip Hammond to unveil a Budget for Children on October 29 with higher child benefit and tax credits.
The former PM and Labour Chancellor will tonight emphasise his demands in a speech at Edinburgh Unviersity in memory of motor neurone disease campaigner Gordon Aikman.
The Mirror are demanding a halt to the expansion of UC and for a review to take place
We say there are three options:
-Redesign UC to be fit for purpose
-Axe it in favour of the old system if UC is unfixable
-Introduce a brand new system
He will say: “For the first time that any of us can remember, the safety net is not now the welfare state but charity and the lifeline for families in need is not social security but foodbanks.
Voluntary groups are being swamped with desperate and almost unanswerable requests for help.” Theresa May sidestepped the controversy in her Tory conference speech last week. Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey presented it as an “up-to-date system” which “ensures that work always pays”.
“I have listened to the concerns of claimants, constituents, charities, welfare organisations and colleagues and I have made significant changes,” she insisted.
Yet her arguments convinced few, if any, critics. Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has called for a halt to the scheme. And today Unite trade union will today call for UC to be scrapped.
The Mirror revealed two weeks ago Labour was considering axing it.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said on Sunday: “I think we are moving to a position now where it is just not sustainable. It will have to go.”
