Universal Credit Claimants Are Being ‘Trapped In A Downward Spiral Of Debt And Hardship’

Field said: “It is simply irresponsible of government to suggest that the way around this policy’s inherent problems is for struggling, striving parents to take on more debt – still more so to claim, untruthfully, that it is not a debt at all. It clearly is.”

The committee had already raised serious concerns about DWP’s approach to claimant debt and to recovering debt in its previous report about the new benefit system.

Regardless of how DWP describes them, the advance payments are a debt which must be repaid out of current income going forward, the committee said.

Persistent debt can prevent claimants from finding and staying in work, and the extra costs and pressures of debt can quickly spiral out of control, the committee found.

Yet, as the report noted, debt advice is not routinely offered as part of the  service intended to help claimants navigate the transition to Universal Credit.

On Sunday, the committee published the government’s response to that report, alongside an exchange of correspondence on the question of claimant debt.

The DWP asked the Trussell Trust, 11 days before Christmas, to promote advance payments to claimants coming to their network of food banks because they are suffering hardship and hunger during the 5 week wait.

In a letter to the DWP following the request to the food bank charity, Field said he was “very concerned” that DWP did not mention that advances are a loan which must be repaid.

The committee has heard substantial evidence that many people who need to rely on food banks will already be swamped by debt, he said.

The “help” the department is offering would “simply pile another debt on top and add to [households’] misery”.

He added that Citizens Advice has also expressed to the committee in multiple evidence submissions the view that advance payments are simply another form of debt.