APPG inquiry call for evidence

Summary

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Ending the Need for Food Banks (APPG ENFB) is inviting evidence for a new inquiry into how the level of support offered by Universal Credit is decided. The inquiry team want to better understand whether the current approach to setting levels of financial support from Universal Credit is fit for purpose, including its impact on food banks, local communities and employment. The inquiry will also explore the feasibility and potential merits of adopting an independent, evidence-based approach to setting Universal Credit, as well as the different options for doing so.

Background

In 2023 the Work and Pensions Select Committee carried out an inquiry into benefit levels in the UK. The final report pointed to “a wide range of evidence which suggests that benefit levels are too low, and that claimants are often not able to afford daily living costs”. Their recommendations included the government setting out a benchmark for income-replacement benefits, reviewing the extent to which current levels are meeting this benchmark and setting out a plan to reach it. They also noted that the government’s “decision making might be assisted by independent advice”. These recommendations, including the use of independent advice, are similar to those made by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Trussell in their proposal for an Essentials Guarantee for Universal Credit and by the APPG on Poverty and Inequality in their 2023 inquiry into the adequacy of social security benefits.

In the Pathways to Work Green Paper, the Department for Work & Pensions itself acknowledged that a “series of benefit freezes and benefit increases at a lower rate than inflation has left the value of the [Universal Credit] standard allowance at a 40 year low by the early 2020s, contributing to hardship and destitution”, and that the “value of the standard allowance (or its pre-UC equivalent) has fallen from around 40% of full time earnings at the minimum wage at the turn of the century to less than 25% of the same at the National Living Wage today”. As we reach the end of the transition to Universal Credit, this inquiry team believe it is therefore the right time to explore the feasibility and potential merits of using independent advice to improve how the levels of financial support offered by Universal Credit are determined.

The current UK government committed in their manifesto to review Universal Credit so that it “makes work pay and tackles poverty” and to “end the mass dependence on emergency food parcels”. This inquiry intends to produce insights and recommendations to guide these ambitions.

Submitting your evidence

The call for evidence will run from Monday 29 June until Monday 7 September. We welcome evidence from all interested stakeholders including charities, think tanks, food banks, people with lived experience of hunger and hardship, academics, community organisations, trade unions and parliamentarians.

This inquiry will primarily focus on the process to determine the levels of support offered by Universal Credit, as the UK’s main working-age, means-tested social security system. However, we recognise that many households receive support from other parts of the social security system, and we understand that it may be difficult for submissions to isolate the specific impact of the adequacy of Universal Credit. We therefore encourage respondents to focus on Universal Credit where possible, while recognising these wider interactions, which we will take into account in our analysis.

In responding, you do not need to provide answers to all questions, only those which are most relevant to you or your work. Please share your views by either:

• Completing the online form
• Sending an email or voice note to public.affairs@trussell.org.uk. Email submissions should be no more than 3,000 words and should be sent as a single document, with a short opening summary. Voice notes should cover no more than one question or section per recording.

Your submission should not have been published anywhere already, but you may draw on work you’ve already published. Unless we receive a specific request not to, submissions by organisations may be published in full. Submissions by individuals will be published anonymously.

Please indicate in your submission if you or a representative of your organisation would like to be considered to give evidence at the inquiry’s evidence sessions in October.

If you have any questions about submitting your evidence, please get in touch with us at public.affairs@trussell.org.uk. 

Call for evidence questions

Part 1: Impact of the current approach to setting levels of Universal Credit support

The levels of financial support offered by working-age means tested benefits (now primarily Universal Credit) have never been based on any logical calculation or assessment of adequacy. Today’s rates are simply the result of years of successive updates to those implemented in the 1940s – below those initially recommended by Beveridge, each shaped by the rate in the year before, inflation, social security cuts and freezes.

1. What impact has this approach had on the subsequent adequacy of support from Universal Credit?
2. Can you share any insights on the impact of this subsequent adequacy on:
   • the system’s ability to enable households to avoid financial crisis and the government’s commitment to end the mass dependence on emergency food parcels?
   • communities and public services?
   • the system’s ability to support households to stay in or progress in employment? Or to recover from work limiting ill-health?
   • the standard of living and financial security enjoyed by recipients?
   • other elements of the UK’s social security system?

Part 2: Potential role of independent advice to determine the levels of financial support offered by Universal Credit

This section explores the feasibility and potential merits of using independent advice in the process of determining the financial support offered by Universal Credit.

3. What role, if any, should independent advice or independent processes play in helping to determine the levels of financial support offered by Universal Credit?
4. If the government were to implement an advisory process:
   1. How should it be designed and who should be involved? Should people with lived experience be involved and, if so, how?
   2. What principles or benchmarks should be used in its decisions?
   3. To what extent would it support the government’s ambition for Universal Credit to ‘make work pay and tackle poverty’ and their commitment to ‘end the mass dependence on emergency food parcels’?
5. What can be learnt from UK or international uses of independent processes or advice for relevant decision-making?
6. What alternatives to independent advice could ensure a robust and credible process in setting Universal Credit levels?

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