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9 March, 2021 Open access

Secretary of State confirms she did not ask Chancellor to extend £20 uplift to legacy benefits in lead up to Budget

Claimants of legacy benefits should be 'encouraged' to check if they would be better off on universal credit rather than waiting for 'arduous process' of migration, Dr Coffey adds

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Dr Thérèse Coffey has confirmed that she did not ask the Chancellor to extend the £20 uplift to legacy benefits in the lead up to the Budget last week.

During Oral Questions in the House of Commons yesterday, Dr Coffey was asked about the implications of measures introduced in Budget 2021, including the decision to extend the temporary £20 'uplift' to universal credit - which was introduced at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic - for a further six months.

Observing that the Budget was a 'kick in the teeth' for those on legacy benefits (which did not have a comparable increase applied), Scottish National Party MP Marion Fellows asked Dr Coffey directly whether she had asked the Chancellor to extend the uplift to legacy benefits, to which the Secretary of State responded - 

'Discussions between Ministers are normally confidential, but the answer is no, the reason being that we have a process that was put in place as a temporary measure relating to Covid.'

NB - in the run-up to Budget 2021, repeated calls were made to the government to extend the uplift to legacy benefits, by groups including health and social care organisations, the Disability Benefits Consortium and the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Poverty.

In addition. rejecting a suggestion that her refusal to request the uplift was to pressurise people on to universal credit, Dr Coffey clarified that she would encourage people who are still on legacy benefits to go to independent benefit calculators to assess whether they would be better off under universal credit, adding - 

'It is really important that MPs encourage their constituents to consider the ways they could be financially better off, rather than waiting for the government to go through quite an arduous process during the next few years.'

The debate on Budget 2021: Departmental Policies is available from Hansard.