Local MP supports ‘Make it Work for Single Parents’ campaign
Alison Seabeck, the MP for Plymouth Moor View, has recently met with Gingerbread, a charity that supports single parents, who have released a report into the impact of Universal Credit on single parents.
Plymouth Moor View has an above average number of single parents, and the MP believes the Universal Credit changes will have a disproportionate impact in her constituency.
Ms Seabeck cites the report ‘Credit Crunched: Single parents, universal credit and the struggle to make work pay’ by Professor Mike Brewer and Dr Paolo De Agostini at the Institute for Social and Economic Research, which has found that working single parents will be the biggest financial losers under universal credit. She argues that despite the government’s promise that universal credit will always make work pay, researchers found that there will be little financial incentive for single parents to increase their hours beyond mini-jobs.
Almost all of the UK’s two million single parents will move on to universal credit, which replaces both in and out of work benefits. But Alison Seabeck argues that on average, single parents earning the minimum wage will lose out in cash terms under universal credit. Those in work are facing the biggest loss, she claims.
Alison Seabeck said:
“One of the fundamental aims of Universal Credit, and indeed this government, was to ensure that work will always pay more than benefits; this report shows that this is clearly not the case.
“The move to Universal Credit will have a big impact on my own constituency, of which 38% of families are headed by a single parent. This government has shown time and time again how out of touch they are with the people of this country; those 38% of families will not benefit from their policies such as the Married Persons Tax Break but will continue to struggle to make ends meet. These are people working on low incomes struggling just to keep up with the cost of living rises and they are being affected yet again by Government policies.
"I know from my surgery cases that there is a very strong sense of unfairness and the question is ‘Why are they doing this to people like us?.’ ”
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