Citizens Advice response to the Work and Pensions Select Committee Natural Migration Inquiry

The delay in the large scale managed migration of existing legacy benefit claimants onto Universal Credit (UC), announced by the Secretary of State in January 2019, is very welcome. This should allow testing of the process before the final rules are set. In the interim however, it is estimated around 1.6 million people are due to move on to UC over the next year. This includes new claimants but also many people who have a change of circumstances and as a consequence will ‘naturally migrate’ to the benefit.

This response [ 240 kb] has recently been submitted to the Work and Pensions Select Committee’s ongoing UC inquiry. It sets out what we believe needs to be done now to protect those who face the biggest financial losses under UC from migrating onto the benefit naturally, and to ensure all potential UC claimants fully understand what having a change of circumstances over the next 18 months or so could mean to their legacy benefit claim(s).