The Leader of the Opposition and of the Liberal Democrat Group on Oldham Council, Cllr Howard Sykes MBE, has expressed his disappointment that the new Tory Government has just decided that new claimants receiving Universal Credit should wait seven days for their benefits, rather than three.

Cllr Sykes said: “Last October, I wrote to the Secretary of the Social Security Advisory Committee, an important parliamentary body that advises the Government on social security matters, in response to a public consultation on the proposed change to a seven day wait.”

“In my letter, I repeated the objections I made when a seven day wait period was proposed for claimants of job Seekers’ Allowance (JSA) and Employment Support Allowance (ESA). Unfortunately, despite most of the respondents to the latest consultation indicating that they too were opposed to the changes, the Secretary of State has just advised the Committee that he has still decided to go ahead anyway.”

Cllr Sykes said: “This latest proposal will have its greatest effect in Oldham.”

“Oldham was a pathfinder area for Universal Credit. We have almost 4,500 claimants, the largest number in the UK; and this figure is steadily increasing. New claimants will therefore continue to suffer financial loss as a result of these changes.”

“Many of these claimants are young adults under the age of 25. They are therefore unlikely to be entitled to redundancy payments if they are claiming after leaving employment. They may therefore have no immediate sources of ready cash to meet day to day needs and my primary concern is that these individuals will be forced to turn to ‘loan sharks’ to borrow money to survive or to food banks to eat.”

“These claimants will now have to wait seven days. The view of the Oldham Liberal Democrat Group is that if someone is unemployed they should be entitled to receive their benefits from day 1; no ifs, no buts.”

“It is also disappointing that whilst the Oldham Liberal Democrat Group raised objections to the proposal, the ruling Labour Administration did not.”