The transfer of 1.7 million benefit claimants onto Universal Credit put on hold due to Covid will begin within weeks, it is understood. Ministers are believed to have made plans to "slowly" move people across amid a push to restart the process this spring.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will start with a small number of Tax Credit claimants, up to a cap of 10,000 households. They then plan to remove the cap and move onto disability and other benefit claimants, to have everyone on the new six-in-one benefit by the end of 2024, The Mirror reports.
But charities and the government’s welfare watchdog have raised fears over resuming the "managed migration" of old-style benefit claimants. One charity leader said the Department for Work and Pensions must avoid "a repeat of the shambolic early stages of Universal Credit".
