The Department for Work and Pensions has responded to claims that families will not gain from Universal Credit.
It said that welfare reforms "improve the lives of some of the poorest families", and that Universal Credit simplified the "complex myriad of benefits".
The benefits system this Government inherited was broken, trapping the very people it was designed to help into cycles of worklessness and welfare dependency. The simpler Universal Credit will make it easier for people to move off benefits and into work and will ensure work always pays.
'Nine out of ten' will gain nothing from Universal Credit
Nine out of ten families will gain nothing overall from the introduction of Universal Credit, with any benefits offset by recent social security cuts, a report has found.
It said that the process will be made more complicated by requiring people to claim online and make joint claims with their partners.
Universal Credit is not bad in principle, but taken together with the other benefit changes introduced by the Government, it will make most people worse off.
For all the claims of simplicity, in practice it is such a complex system that the Government has been forced to delay its roll-out.
We are also concerned at the impact Universal Credit will have on disabled workers, as well as its plans to take away benefits from second earners as soon as they find work.
Ministers 'overstate' generosity of Universal Credit
Ministers are overstating the generosity of Universal Credit, with most families gaining nothing from the benefit, a new report has claimed.
The new single benefit payment, now being trialled in parts of the country before being introduced across the UK, is in danger of failing to deliver on its key objectives, the TUC and Child Poverty Action Group said.
Universal Credit will replace other benefits such as jobseeker's allowance and income support Credit: Owen Humphreys/PA Wire
The two groups admitted that Universal Credit will improve some aspects of the benefits system.
However it added that its ability to lift families out of poverty and remove barriers to working will be "severely undermined" by the Government's wider tax credit and benefit changes.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has defended Universal Credit's system of monthly payments, saying the reform was about "changing people."
He told Radio 4's Today programme:
We keep completely flexible. We need to try and get people on monthly managed payments.
Hugely when people who have been out of work for a while who go back into work who are not on monthly payments, most companies now pay monthly, and it's important to get them ready for that.
Often when they go to work they crash out of work because they can't cope with being paid monthly.
But Mr Duncan Smith said he would work with local councils to make sure the vulnerable do not go on to monthly payments immediately.
He added:
If they do have problems about drug addiction, surely what we should be doing, which this system will, is to trigger them into some form of treatment, to get them off their drugs, to get them settled.
They are not going to survive in work if they can't manage a benefit payment.
What we have to do is start changing people and that's what this system is about.
Universal Credit 'a kick in the teeth for workers'
Liam Byrne MP, Labour's Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, has said that Universal Credit is a “kick in the teeth for workers."
He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme:
The way it's been designed means that about two million people who are in work will actually see the amount of help they get they get cut.
The way Universal Credit is being delivered is actually going to lock in a kind of strivers' tax for working people.
Mr Byrne also warned that the payment of the benefit in one go at the end of the month could mean families get "pushed under".
He added:
If you are saying to people we are only going to pay you in arrears and you are going to have to wait until the end of the month to get anything, there are some really live risks that lots and lots of families are just going to be pushed under.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has said that Universal Credit will be rolled out gradually "to ensure that as we go along we rectify any issues we discover."
He added: "In the old days, under the last government, we had the big bang process. Those days are gone. We need to do this carefully."
