Two-thirds of disabled claimants have had to go without essential items during Covid-19 pandemic, says Disability Benefits Consortium

Coalition of charities urges government to keep the £20 'uplift' in universal credit and working tax credit and extend it to legacy and other benefits

Two-thirds of disabled claimants have had to go without essential items during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a new report from the Disability Benefits Consortium (DBC)

In Pandemic Poverty: Stark choices facing disabled people on legacy benefits, the DBC - a national coalition of more than 100 charities - follows up on a survey it carried out in April 2020 that found that more than 90 per cent of disabled people were experiencing increased costs as a result of the pandemic, and lead the DBC to launch a campaign calling on the government to stop leaving disabled people behind and extend the temporary £20 a week 'uplift' to universal credit and working tax credit introduced at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic to legacy benefits.

NB - the DBC highlights that the uplift has not applied to more than 2.5 million people claiming legacy benefits, the majority of whom are disabled people on employment and support allowance (ESA).

However, with the government having chosen not to respond to the call, and the temporary uplift due to expire at the end of March 2021, the DBC's new report presents evidence and lived experience from a new survey of 1,384 disabled people claiming universal credit or legacy benefits on the difficulties and increased financial costs caused by the pandemic.

Key findings include -

• 54 per cent are spending more on food;
• 54 per cent have increased heating costs;
• 12 per cent are spending more on travel;
• 50 per cent have reduced access to healthcare treatment; and
• for many who have been shielding, communication via the internet or phone has been the sole means of social interaction over the past 10 months.

The DBC reports that while the £20 uplift has provided a vital lifeline for universal credit claimants, the majority of the respondents on legacy benefits have had to look elsewhere to try to find similar financial support, for example using food banks, extending credit or taking out loans. Two-thirds of all respondents (67 per cent) said that at some point they had gone without essential items such as food, heating, and medication.

As a result, the DBC calls on the government not only to maintain the £20 uplift in universal credit and working tax credit, but to also extend it to income support, the contributory and income-related versions of ESA and jobseeker’s allowance, carer’s allowance, and the housing benefit personal allowance, and to provide payments backdated to April 2020.

NB - in addition, the DBC argues that urgent action must also be taken to reverse the damaging impact of other recent policies, including ending the benefit cap and two-child limit; re-introducing the work-related activity component of ESA (and universal credit equivalent); adding a disability element to universal credit; restoring the losses sustained during the four-year benefit rate freeze; and permanently restoring the local housing allowance to at least the 30th percentile of local private sector rents.

Pandemic Poverty: Stark choices facing disabled people on legacy benefits is available from the DBC website.