L

Lord Cryer (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 9 January 2025

Debate

Benefits: Eligibility

Contribution

I appreciate everything that the noble Baroness said. I was a Member of the other place when universal credit was introduced, which is some years ago now, and the process was very complicated. I am not making a party-political point—although I could—but the process was extremely complicated, every time a new cohort was moved on to UC. However, the particular issue she raised is about claimants on ESA only or ESA with housing benefit, who started receiving migration notices from September last year. This gave them a reasonable amount of notice that they would be moving to UC, the aim of which was to give individual assistance to those experiencing difficulties in the move to UC by the end of December 2025. The window is fairly wide; it gives a lot of opportunities to iron out any difficulties. In addition, the department provides what is now called the enhanced support journey—ESJ—for claimants moving to UC from ESA. That supports the more vulnerable claimants to make the transition to universal credit.

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