Thousands of Rutherglen and Hamilton West households still on legacy benefits

Thousands of households remain on legacy benefits in Rutherglen and Hamilton West ahead of the Government’s target to complete the Universal Credit rollout by 2024, new figures show.

Debt charity StepChange said many claimants are being pushed into hardship by having to wait more than a month for their first Universal Credit payment after migrating from older benefits.

And measures recently announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak to help with the cost-of-living crisis have been criticised for not going far enough to help low-income households.

In Rutherglen and Hamilton West, 9,204 households were claiming Universal Credit in February after being transferred from legacy benefits, while an estimated 5,210 remained on the old system, according to figures from the House of Commons library.

This means around 36% of households in the parliamentary constituency are still on older benefits, such as Employment Allowance, Income Support and Jobseeker’s Allowance, which are set to be fully replaced in two years’ time

StepChange said moving from legacy benefits to Universal Credit – which rolls six means-tested benefit payments into one monthly deposit – is challenging because new claimants must wait five weeks for their first instalment, meaning some people need a budgeting advance, while others can be pushed into debt.