Universal Credit shake-up might see households lose entry to free prescriptions
The Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, outlined modifications to advantages with a view to incentivise these on Universal Credit to get into work throughout his Autumn Statement.
Around 9 million Britons of working age are at the moment unemployed.
If a claimant doesn’t discover work inside 18 months of receiving help from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), their advantages shall be pulled.
This signifies that these in receipt of Universal Credit will even lose entry to different freebie advantages, similar to free prescriptions and authorized help.
Mr Hunt insisted there have to be equity for hard-working taxpayers and anybody shirking employment should face the implications.
Under the scheme profit recipients who do not search for jobs threat dropping entry to free NHS prescriptions, dental care, authorized support and power invoice help.
And sick notes shall be permitted by civil servants as a substitute of medical doctors in a trial the place sufferers shall be handled by therapists working for DWP.
New mums will nonetheless get the 12-month free prescriptions and dental care.
Digital know-how shall be used to trace claimants’ attendance at job festivals and interviews as a part of the beefed-up regime.
The Chancellor stated the modifications are the most important set of welfare reforms for the reason that introduction of Universal Credit again in 2012.
Reforms additionally imply that no claimant ought to hit 18 months out of labor on full advantages in the event that they’ve not taken all affordable steps to adjust to Jobcentre calls for.
Last month, Benefits Minister Mel Stride outlined the Government’s “Back to Work” plan which is able to rollout in three phases all through 2024.
In the assertion, Mr Stride claimed some unemployed folks “resolutely refuse to engage in job seeking activities and continue to receive benefits”, regardless of “being able to work”.
He added: “No claimant should reach 18 months of unemployment in receipt of their full benefits if they have not taken every reasonable step to comply with jobcentre support.”
Latifa Patel, the chair of the consultant physique on the British Medical Association, believes that the Government shouldn’t “hold people’s health to ransom especially when their poor health may be the very reason they are unable to work in the first place”.