Father of Universal Credit Iain Duncan Smith says delay for claimants should be cut from six weeks to a month
MINISTERS should cut the wait for benefits from six weeks to one month, Iain Duncan Smith has urged.
The creator of the flagship Universal Credit programme today pressed the Government to use the Budget to make a climb-down.
Newspaper reports yesterday suggested the move was on the cards after a Tory backbench rebellion threatened to turn the issue into her poll tax.
And today Iain Duncan Smith said he would support such a change.
He told Sky News: "One of the reasons I left from Government was I didn’t agree with the additional waiting days... I am saying the government needs to look at in the run up to the budget.
"When you go to a month’s delay to bring it in line with business, I think the working days are built into that.
"I have made that very clear to them."
Rising debt and rent arrears concerns have been raised as the roll-out of the policy continues.
A shock report out today from the Smith Institute shows that an average claimant in Southwark and Croydon had £156 of arrears nearly five months after joining the benefit - despite being in credit beforehand.
A crossbench peer in the House of Lords said today that the problems were seeing some people "resorting to burglary in order to pay their debts".
Baroness Meacher said today that it was leading to "unprecedented" levels of debt.
Tory MP Stephen McPartland claims critics of the flagship benefit reform said they were “very, very close to getting a resolution”.
A Government spokesman said “no decisions or announcements on any further actions are imminent”.
Only four days ago the PM was forced to defend the system at PMQs and said "it is a system that is working."
She was forced, however, to axe the 55p-a-minute charges to the Universal Credit hotline to beat a revolt over the policy.
A Labour Opposition motion on Wednesday passed - and one rebel Tory joined with Labour to try and pause the rollout.
Sir John Major, and other Tories, have warned Mrs May that the system is undermining her pledge to champion "ordinary working class" families.
And last night the Archbishop of York added to the calls - demanding that ministers cut the "grotesquely ignorant" six week waiting time for payments.
Dr John Sentamu, the second most senior member of the Church of England, said in the Sunday Times that the waiting period is leaving millions of people who are already in debt with "nothing to fall back on".
Work and Pensions Select Committee Chair Frank Field wrote in the Mail on Sunday that the policy is set to inflict "horror" on millions of families if the roll-out continues.
