Thursday, 28 Mar 2024

Labour wants to axe 'inhumane and cruel' Universal Credit

Jeremy Corbyn is set to call Universal Credit an ‘unmitigated disaster’ as he announces plans to replace the Tories’ flagship welfare reforms.

Tomorrow the Labour Party leader will outline proposals for a social security system with ‘dignity and respect’ to replace the current one designed to ‘punish and police’.

He says he wants to introduce an an ’emergency package of reforms’ to end unnecessary suffering and hardship.

Corbyn will reveal the plans during a rally in the Chingford and Woodford Green constituency held by Universal Credit architect and former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith.

Labour wants to ditch the benefit cap and two-child limit, which they say will drag 300,000 children out of poverty.

If they won a general election, Corbyn says the controversial benefit sanctions regime criticised for forcing people to use food banks would be scrapped.

He says the five-week wait for people waiting for their first Universal Credit payments is causing ‘so much misery and suffering’.

Instead, Labour wants to introduce an automatic interim payment and a switch for fortnightly payments.

Labour’s plans also include hiring 5,000 advisers to end the system’s ‘digital-only’ requirement, which the party says excludes people who cannot access the internet or lack computer literacy.

Corbyn is expected to say: ‘Universal Credit has been an unmitigated disaster.

‘As well as being behind schedule and over-budget, it is inhumane and cruel, driving people into poverty and hardship.

‘Social security is supposed to give people dignity and respect, not punish and police them, make them wait five weeks for the first payment or fill out a four-page form to prove their child was born as a result of rape.’

‘We will introduce a new system that will be based on the principles of dignity and respect, and it will alleviate and end poverty, not drive people into it.’

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