Coronavirus Benefit allowance increase

Kuala

The Government announced a £20 weekly increase to Universal Credit only, I feel this discriminates against others eg, Carer's on Income Support who face the same if not greater financial difficulties during these strange times. Yesterday Matt Hancock in the daily briefing told a parent of a Special Needs child that "Extra Support" had been provided for the disabled (children). I have asked my Local MP what exactly this entails.

Chloe_Alumni

Welcome to the community @Kuala. I hope your MP is able to provide more information. How are you doing? I appreciate that it is a strange and difficult times at the moment.

Kuala

Thank you Chloe for your kind Welcome, we're trying our best to stay positive and I hope everyone here is doing the same. I have not received any details from my local Conservative MP however I did come across the following posted online MIRROR 27 April

DWP accused of 'discriminating' against disabled people in coronavirus pandemic

• 100 organisations want a £20-a-week Universal Credit rise to be extended to all claimants - including up to 2million sick and disabled people on ESA

• the Disability Benefits Consortium (DBC), a network of more than 100 organisations, called the situation "discriminatory".

• Co-chair Ella Abraham, of the welfare charity Z2K, said: "The Government are discriminating against millions of disabled people on other benefits by choosing to only ‘focus on new claimants’ on Universal Credit.

• DWP Permanent Secretary Peter Schofield said last month that the rate of legacy benefits could not be changed quickly due to older computer systems.

I will just have to wait to see what extra support Matt Hancock was referring to.

Kuala

A 'two tier benefit' system discriminates and in this case it does so against some of the most vulnerable. It is absolutely right for the Chancellor to help those on UC new and old but why blatantly ignore others?
Ps still waiting for my MP to reply