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McVey pledges changes to Universal Credit

The government will change Universal Credit so that it works better for housing, Esther McVey has promised.

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Esther McVey, work and pensions minister
Esther McVey, work and pensions minister
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Esther McVey has promised to improve how Universal Credit works for housing #ukhousing

Speaking at an event hosted by the thinktank Reform, the work and pensions secretary listed areas where the government could improve Universal Credit.

The welfare reform has been criticised by the social housing sector, and recent figures from the National Housing Federation revealed that 73% of housing association tenants in receipt of the benefit are in rent arrears, compared with 29% who are still on the old system.

In response to a question from Inside Housing about this statistic, Ms McVey said: “I don’t have an ideological reason that people should pay for their rent if they can’t, and we should support them but because Universal Credit is an in-work and out-of-work benefit, I don’t want to start taking people away from being able to pay the bills and look after them.”


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She added: “Obviously, housing is key and therefore, as I said, we’ve done some significant changes but where we can do more, we’ve got to do it because housing is key.”

Tenants are still struggling with rent arrears even after the government brought in changes such as a landlord portal and the ability for landlords to receive rent directly rather than it going to tenants first.

In her speech, Ms McVey promised to act in other areas that could help with the rent arrears issue. She said: “We realise that there is more to learn, and we want to work with you to understand where we can improve on this important reform. And there are changes which are still needed, which I’m working on.

“There’s the debt repayments, support for the self-employed, payment cycles for those in work, and an extension of outreach work and an extension of flexible support for claimants.”

She also confirmed that the government wants to reduce further the rate at which a Universal Credit payment reduces as someone moves into work, the ‘taper rate’.

She said: “The taper rate is there, it has already been reduced from 65p to 63p and that is something that we will keep a watched eye on. If we can, we would look to reduce that.”

 

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