The government’s universal credit policy has proved to be neither fair nor simple, argues shadow minister for employment and inequalities Margaret Greenwood MP

In 2010, Iain Duncan-Smith proclaimed that universal credit would restore ‘fairness and simplicity’ to the social security system by replacing a range of in-work benefits with a single payment. The aim was to ‘make work pay as people move into and progress in work; and help lift people out of poverty’. So far it has proved neither fair nor simple.

Repeated delays in the roll-out of universal credit has seen the original full implementation target of 2017 pushed back to 2022. The department’s aim of 6 million claimants by December 2016 has also been missed, reaching just 430,000 instead.

The design of universal credit means that claimants are left for six weeks at the start of their claim without any income while their claim is processed. In some areas the initial delays are even longer. This is causing real hardship. The Trussell Trust cites delays in processing claims as one of the main reasons why people turn to food banks for help. Delays can leave people in arrears with their rent and at risk of eviction. One woman told me that it took three months for her to receive the housing element of the new benefit.

Even once a claim has begun, monthly payments under universal credit, rather than fortnightly as with tax credits, can pose problems with budgeting.

In evidence given to the work and pensions select committee last week, former department of work and pensions minister David Freud admitted that it could take decades to perfect universal credit. Small comfort for those who are suffering at the hands of this government.

Alongside delays in roll-out and flaws in its basic design, cuts to universal credit risk undermining work incentives and seem likely to diminish its potential to reduce poverty. Cuts to work allowances, the amount someone can earn before their universal credit starts to be reduced, mean that some families could be as much as £2,600 a year worse off.

Lone parents are being hit particularly hard. The Child Poverty Action Group estimates that a lone parent working full time on the national living wage and claiming universal credit would have to work an extra two months a year to make up for the cuts to work allowances.

Under pressure from his own backbenchers, the chancellor in his autumn statement reduced the rate at which universal credit is withdrawn (known as the ‘taper rate’) once someone earns more than the work allowance; claimants will keep an extra two pence in every pound.

However, this small change is far outweighed by the cuts to work allowances. The House of Commons Library estimates that a two child family with both parents working on the national living wage would still lose £800 a year. A single parent on the national living wage with one child could see their income fall by £2,600 a year.

Far from providing simplicity, we are seeing increased complexity in our social security system.

Given all this it is little wonder then that the government is now silent on how many people it believes universal credit will lift out of poverty. In 2011 it estimated the figure at 950,000; two years later that had fallen to 400,000; and by last year it was refusing to say at all.

Only Labour will transform our social security system to ensure that, like the National Health Service, it is there for us all in our time of need.

The government is failing working people and their flagship policy universal credit is not fit for purpose.

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Margaret Greenwood MP is shadow minister for employment and inequalities.

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