Almost three and a half million children will be affected by the cut to Universal Credit (UC) payments from next month, figures suggest.
The organisations, including homelessness charity Crisis, The Big Issue, the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) and the debt charity StepChange, urged the government to reverse the decision in a joint statement.
Coupled with a freeze in local housing allowance, they warned: “We have seen no assessment from the UK government on the impact of either of these policies will have on the capacity of recipients to cover rent payment.”
There were more than 1.8 million households containing around 3.4 million children claiming the benefit as of May 2021, according to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
A temporary £20 a week uplift, introduced to help claimants weather the storm of the coronavirus pandemic and described as a “lifeline”, is to be phased out from late September.
Camilla Kingdon, Neonatologist, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health President wrote in the BMJ: “If the cut goes ahead this autumn, modelling by the Joseph Roundtree Foundation (JRF) indicates that half a million more people—including a further 200,000 children—will be dragged across the poverty line in the biggest overnight cut to social security since the Second World War.
“It must not happen. The loss of £20 from a week’s budget can, quite literally, mean children going hungry—or parents going hungry so their children can eat. It can mean being unable to afford to put the heating on. For many, it will mean choosing one or the other. “
The figures, published on Tuesday, for the first time show the number of children in households claiming UC.
Overall, households without children accounted for around 56% of households claiming UC in May 2021. Of the households with children, three-quarters contained a youngest child of primary school age or younger.
Almost half (46%) had a child under the age of five (850,000 families) and 570,000 families had a youngest child aged 5-10.
Around four in five households had two children or fewer.
Dan Paskins, director of UK Impact at Save the Children, said: “These figures confirm that the Government’s scheduled cut to Universal Credit will affect nearly three-and-a-half million children.
“The £20 increase has been a lifeline for many families. Parents we work with tell us that they’re relying on the extra £20 per week to buy essentials like food and clothes for their children. Without it, we know that many more families will be pushed into the red.
“This is especially worrying since three-quarters of families with children on Universal Credit have a child under ten, and we know that living in poverty as a young child has lifelong impacts.”
Wes Streeting, Labour’s shadow child poverty secretary, said the cut will hit the “lowest paid hardest” and hinder economic recovery.
He said: “There is near universal opposition to this cut, which will push more children into poverty.
“Time is running out for the Prime Minister to see sense, back struggling families and cancel his cut to Universal Credit.
“Labour would maintain the uplift until we can replace Universal Credit with a fairer social security system.”
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Related: 660,000 key workers will be hit when Universal Credit uplift ends
