Tory Minister rules out return of UC uplift

 

Growth of businesses in Blyth will slow as a consequence says Councillor Eileen Cartie

With the recent announcement from Simon Clarke, a Treasury minister ruling out restoring the £20-per-week uplift to Universal Credit, introduced during the Covid pandemic, as a measure to tackle the cost-of-living crisis. Councillor Eileen Cartie, Labour Councilor for Wensleydale Ward in Blyth, which covers much of the retail and business area in the Town, challenges his decision.

Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury, said it had been "explicitly clear" that the increase was only intended to helduring the pandemic. He said that cutting the taper rate - the amount of Universal Credit that is withdrawn for every pound that claimants earn through work - from 63p to 55p in December amounted to "a tax cut worth an average of £1,000 to two million of the lowest earners in society."

 Councillor Eillen Cartie in challenging his decision said:

“This man has no idea how East Coast former industrial towns have suffered over the last twelve years with the permanent and ever ongoing loss of services which when added together allowed families to be able to put food on the table and pay their bills.”

“ The Tories have been very good in attacking the unemployed and have hidden the roll out of Universal Credit to the wider benefit claimants as a way of attacking unemployment, the truth behind their spin is that people who are being forced over to universal credit from other benefits in the main lose thousands of pounds as they go onto the frozen payments slate and will not get a rise for years.knocking back any business growth that the Tories shady ‘full employment’ statements are designed to lead people to believe”

 “This harrying of benefit claimants most of whom suffer problems caused by industrial disease toiling to ensure Britain remained among the richest countries in the world can not and will not help the levelling up agenda as without cash traveling through local businesses the whole tower of economic cards will collapse to the floor and when the political designer of Universal Credit who decided to run with the Steven Brien plan, Iain Duncan Smith openly supports the retention of of the additional £20 per week then it shows to me at
least that some Tories have seen the error of their ways”.