Universal Credit reduction

That this House deplores the Government's punitive decision to remove the £20 per week Universal Credit uplift, which the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates leaves around 5.5 million families worse off by £1,040 per year and will push a further half a million people over the poverty line; deeply regrets that people have been plunged into greater financial jeopardy and, with energy prices surging, now face the Dickensian prospect of going either cold or hungry this Winter; shares the concern of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health that the cut to Universal Credit will increase the number of children who will be disadvantaged in terms of physical and mental health, safety, and wellbeing, and will deepen structural social and health inequalities; and therefore supports Unite Community's call for the Government to reverse its cruel and callous policy by reinstating the uplift and extending it to cover those on legacy benefits in order to relieve financial anxiety, food poverty and energy insecurity.