The loss of the ‘uplift’will have awful results. But with even Tories supporting the backlash, could this be the moment things change?
Here it comes. This Wednesday, the Department for Work and Pensions will finally end the £20-a-week “uplift” to universal credit introduced in March 2020. The cut will hit different households at different times, but it will formally arrive on the same day that Boris Johnson gives his big Conservative party conference speech in Manchester, which is sure to be full of boosterish talk about “levelling up”, the new global Britain – and, if recent announcements are anything to go by, the supposed prospect of a country that cannot currently feed itself becoming a major player in space exploration. On Earth, by contrast, millions of people’s sudden loss of £86.67 a month will inevitably trigger increases in debt, evictions and quiet, grinding want.
The surrounding picture only makes the cut look more cruel. Last week, the government’s furlough scheme came to an end, triggering fears of new redundancies and even more people being loaded into a benefits system that makes basic subsistence all but impossible. We all know about rising energy prices and food inflation. What the cut in universal credit will mean for lives already upturned by the pandemic hardly needs explaining; among other issues, in the midst of a crisis of childhood mental health, a change predicted to increase child poverty by nearly 300,000 children looks both reckless and nasty.
John Harris is a Guardian columnist
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