All Party Parliamentary Group on Poverty calls for evidence on maintaining the £20 uplift to Universal Credit

Employers For Childcare has published its written submission to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Poverty on the impact of ending the temporary Covid-19 £20 uplift to Universal Credit and Tax Credits. The All Party Parliamentary Group in Westminster is exploring how the £20 weekly uplift is supporting people and is calling for this uplift to continue beyond 1 April 2021 when it is currently due to end. It is also exploring the impact of not extending the uplift to legacy and other benefits during the Covid-19 pandemic across the UK.

Our submission was informed by our work with individuals, particularly parents and families, who are affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and we focused specifically on the impact of this in Northern Ireland. In our submission, we highlighted how the £20 weekly uplift has provided an essential boost to household income for many families. We also noted how families continue to experience financial challenges with a record number of redundancies in Northern Ireland, meaning that families and households continue to face precarious circumstances with many experiencing job losses or a reduction in hours and, as a result, reduced household income. We also highlighted our research findings which identified that many families in Northern Ireland spend a significant proportion of their household income on childcare and losing this much needed £20 uplift has the potential to push households into financial hardship.

We strongly recommend that the Government should make this temporary increase permanent to ensure that individuals and families continue to receive the financial support they need and to prevent financial hardship. We also emphasised that the uplift should be extended to all equivalent legacy benefits.

To find out more about this call for evidence from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Poverty, please click here.