Benefit given to 16 million people not mentioned in chancellor’s new support package announcement
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Around 700,000 people, including 300,000 children, will be “cut adrift” into poverty at a time of surging unemployment and plummeting living standards if the government cuts the £20-a-week pandemic uplift to key social security benefits, charities have warned.
The letter reflects growing pressure on the chancellor Rishi Sunak, who failed to say whether he would protect the £20 increase, which benefits around 16 million people, when he outlined his latest Covid-19 support package last week, despite warning that the UK faced a winter of business failures and rising unemployment.
