Universal Credit a positive local change in Northumberland to the way we provide welfare support

The Universal Credit is a key part of this Government’s welfare reforms, replacing six benefits with one monthly payment. It is designed to sweep away the complexities and traps of the previous system, to ensure work always pays.
We are making positive progress. Those on Universal Credit compared to the old system spend around 50% more time looking for a job, are 13% more likely to be in work, and are twice as likely to be looking to increase their hours.

I am proud that we have reached this important milestone. Universal Credit is now in all 712 jobcentres across the country for single jobseekers, giving them the right incentives to move into work. In the system Universal Credit is replacing, at certain points, for example at 16 hours of work, work simply doesn’t pay. Universal Credit ends this – as earnings increase, Universal Credit payments reduce at a steady rate, so claimants can be sure they will always be better off working and earning more.

Crucially, it also gives people the tools they need to change their lives for the better. Universal Credit claimants are given a dedicated work coach, to mentor and support people into work. And, for the first time, that work coach will stay with a person once they are in work, helping them increase their hours, earn more – and eventually move off benefits completely.
I have seen the motivation and dedication of these work coaches first hand, and the real difference they are making to people’s lives. I encourage colleagues and councillors to visit their local jobcentres to see for themselves how Universal Credit is giving people a helping hand, rather than leaving them trapped on benefits.
This is all part of a wider package to make sure people on low pay keep more of the money they earn in work: raising the tax-free personal allowance to £12,500 by 2020, doubling free childcare to 30 hours a week; and introducing the National Living Wage, which will give someone working full-time on the minimum wage a £5,000 pay rise by 2020.
There is more work to do as we continue Universal Credit’s expansion to all claimants.

Pleased that Universal Credit is being extended and that a slow and steady roll out is taking place

Universal Credit is being extended – starting to take claims from families from this week, and making sure work always pays more than benefits.

The Coalition inherited system of welfare that disincentivised work and trapped people in poverty. The public, and more importantly the people on welfare, lost trust in the system because it did not reward work. There were often few incentives to escape a benefit trap.  

That’s why reforming the welfare system is a key part of our long-term economic plan to secure a better future for Britain. Universal Credit is restoring fairness to the system by making sure work always pays more than benefits. By spring next year, it will be in a third of job centres. Universal Credit claimants are now moving into work faster and staying in work longer, and the system is being road tested so that we are now bringing families on-board with extra childcare support and flexibility for employers.  

Universal Credit is already changing lives: we are seeing claimants spending more time looking for jobs and moving smoothly into employment safe in the knowledge that it will always pay more to be in work. This gives people security and hope for the future. People have criticised the Coalition for doing Universal Credit changes slowly. I disagree; I want this ground breaking and highly complex reform to be road tested before each new quantum leap.

Miliband will never reform welfare

Labour have opposed every reduction in welfare spending over the last 4 years. Every single one.

Indeed Miliband has made it clear that he wants welfare spending to go up, even though we are still clearing up the mess of Labour's debts, 5 million people on benefits in 2010, and the wider financial crisis. Ed has spent the last 4 years attacking every reduction in the welfare bill. There is never an alternative to how we balance the books - just criticism for us as Coalition in trying. On Monday he again proposes to criticise and hold a commons debate; at no place in that debate is he proposing an alternative; governments do not get every decision right - particularly when trying to balance the books as we have had to do but we cannot spend money we do not have any more, and that must mean welfare reform.  

Ed wishes to undermine the radical reform that is Universal Credit; he has proposed one reform himself, by tinkering around the edges of welfare policy. It will not last. Dan Hodges in the Telegraph makes the point very clearly: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100276909/theres-no-point-trying-to-fix-ed-miliband-labour-needs-to-work-out-how-it-can-move-on-from-him/