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Universal Credit - internationally “unique” in its harshness, and headed for 7 million of us

Universal Credit is “the flagship policy of a man who does not really believe in social security” and who has mooted a shift to private unemployment insurance schemes, says benefits expert Bernadette Meaden. Can Universal Credit be fixed – or should we scrap it and start again?

By Ian Sinclair
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Image: Theresa May and Iain Duncan Smith discussing poverty in 2011. Neil Lancefield/PA Images, all rights reserved.

Despite opposition both inside and outside parliament, the Conservative government continues to press ahead with rolling out their Universal Credit scheme. I asked Bernadette Meaden - an Associate of Ekklesia thinktank who writes about Universal Credit, welfare reform, and social and economic justice – to shed light on the complex debates around Universal Credit: why it was introduced, who it will affect, and how concerned citizens can resist it.

Ian Sinclair: What is Universal Credit? When was it introduced and where are we at with its ongoing rollout?

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0