A conservative who helped create the universal credit system called on the government to urgently increase benefits in line with inflation as the cost of living bites the crisis.
Baroness Stroud, a former adviser to Ian Duncan Smith, also told The Independent that she believes the £ 20-a-week increase, which was lifted last autumn, should be reinstated by the Treasury.
“We are in a crisis of the cost of living; we have the opportunity to intervene; we did it in the past in difficult situations when it affected everyone, “said the Tory colleague. “But if governments have a responsibility to do something, it is to act on behalf of vulnerable people. This is the time to do it. ”
Lady Stroud’s comments come amid escalating pressure on Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak to introduce additional support for families struggling with rising energy bills and food prices.
On Wednesday, it was revealed that inflation had risen to 9% in the 12 months to April, reaching a 40-year high, as the chancellor acknowledged: “The next few months will be difficult.
Last month, however, Mr Sunak came under heavy fire for rejecting calls to increase benefits by more than 3.1% – a figure based on inflation in September 2021 – with a jump in prices. Without the intervention of the Ministry, the benefits will not be increased again until April 2023.
Speaking to The Independent, Lady Stroud, chief executive of the Legatum Institute think tank, said: “I just really think the benefits need to be increased in line with current inflation – they need to be pushed forward.
“It simply came to our notice then. The defense is made that it can’t happen right away. I spoke to DWP staff who said [an increase in] universal credit can be made immediately.
“I know that inherited benefits are much harder to implement,” she added. “You could make a one-time payment of equivalent value for those who inherited.”
Without taking action, Lady Stroud said that households where people receive unemployment benefits, have disabilities or are single parents with young children “will have to start making choices”.
“We will start to see how very, very difficult elections are being made. “We have already begun to see very difficult elections being made,” she said.
Last year, the Conservative was among the people who called on the government not to remove the £ 20-a-week increase in universal credit, a measure introduced at the start of the Covid pandemic.
Rishi Sunak admitted on Wednesday: “The next few months will be difficult”
(PA)
She stressed that the initial introduction of the increase was “a recognition that welfare levels are too low”, adding: “If it wasn’t right for groups of people during Covid, it can’t be right now.”
Concerned about whether the measure should be reintroduced, Lady Stroud replied: “I never thought it should be revoked and I think it should be reinstated.
“The fact that we were able to import it so quickly during the pandemic shows how easy it would be to restore it now.”
Earlier this week, Lord Lamont, a former conservative chancellor, called on the government to reinstate the measure by joining senior Tory MPs, including Jake Berry, chairman of the influential Nordic Research Group.
“Now or never; now is the time for the government to act. Urgency is needed; people are impatient with the November budget to pay their bills,” he said.
Speaking on Friday as calls to the government to ease the pressure on troubled households rose, Mr Johnson told reporters that “we will not pretend that we can magically remove every expense that people will face as a result of the global jump in energy prices.
But he added: “Do not doubt, it will fall, we will take people through it. We will use the firepower we have built to embrace people, just as we did during the pandemic. “
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