Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Conclusion 95
Second Report - Welfare policy in Scotland
Published 23 Jun 2021
Addressed to Scotland Office
Scottish Affairs Committee Welfare policy in Scotland All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Throughout our inquiry we received a significant amount of evidence that suggested the amount of money provided by Universal Credit is insufficient for reducing poverty in Scotland. Below is a table highlighting the standard allowance that a claimant of Universal Credit can expect to receive according to the UK Government’s website:233 Table 3: Standard allowances on Universal Credit Claimant situation Standard Allowance per month Single claimant age under 25 £344 Single claimant aged 25 or over £411.51 Joint claimants both under 25 £490.60 Joint claimants either aged 25 or £596.58 over
From: Scottish Affairs Committee, Second Report - Welfare policy in Scotland (HC 55), 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".