Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Recommendation 21
Second Report - Welfare policy in Scotland
Published 23 Jun 2021
Paragraph 123
Addressed to Scotland Office
Scottish Affairs Committee Welfare policy in Scotland All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We recommend that the DWP consider alternative arrangements to the five week wait for a first payment and associated advances system (which currently acts as an interest free loan) and should consider again the recommendation from the Work and Pensions Select Committee of implementing a ‘starter payment’ to a claimant two weeks after their initial claim. This change would assist claimants in climbing their way out of poverty and address the issues that have affected claimants as a result of the five week wait and associated advance payment system on Universal Credit.
From: Scottish Affairs Committee, Second Report - Welfare policy in Scotland (HC 55), paragraph 123, 23 June 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 19 November 2021 (deadline 23 August 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The UK Government "notes the Committee's recommendations" and responds to each in turn, accepting little of the report's welfare-policy proposals and referring several to the Scottish Government.
- On the £20 uplift and legacy benefits, it states "There was never any plan to extend the uplift to legacy benefits."
- On work allowances, it states it "has no plans to extend the work allowance to single adults".
- On Help to Claim funding, it "considers the existing resource to be sufficient", and says DWP agreed to fund Citizens Advice Scotland for another year, "up to 31 March 2022".
- On data sharing and Recommendations 2, 7 and 8, it says each data request "must be examined" by DWP as Data Controller, and treats several recommendations as "for the Scottish Government".