Neil Couling on increased amounts of UC under Covid-19

The resolution foundation held an online talk this morning on Universal Credit as part of the launch of their new report. On the panel was Neil Couling, speaking about Universal Credit.

The whole thing is interesting, but I was particularly surprised by the way in which the year-long uprating in UC was explained. In effect, it is described as a policy decision which has incidentally assisted all claimants (excepting benefit capped etc). It was too complex to create a new type of UC claimant in order to specifically target additional support to people claiming during covid-19, and so instead the standard allowance was increased, but existing claimants benefitting from this are described as receiving a windfall.

The benefit cap wasn’t lifted because new claimants, who are the targets for the additional support, will be exempt for the first 9 months of the claim. Whether we’ll see that decision revisited near Christmas, when those 9 months are up, I assume will depend on the economy…

He also goes on to describe the apparent difficulties in uprating legacy benefits, but also that given the policy reason for this, that it wasn’t as necessary as most new claimants are anticipated to arrive on UC.

It’s interesting, if only to hear it said out loud that ministers would apparently have preferred to target the uprate to brand new claimants, and leave all existing claimants on the old rates.

You can watch it here: https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/events/the-safety-net-in-action/

That is how I had always interpreted it but nonetheless interesting to have it spelt out.