Benefit decrease - Write to your MP to ask them to support 10% uprated in benefit Now

The next few weeks will be the best chance claimants have to prevent a catastrophic real-terms reduction in benefits rates from next April.

The prime minister and chancellor have made it clear that they have not yet made a firm decision on whether to uprate benefits in line with inflation next April, in spite of both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak giving an undertaking to do so.

Instead, the idea is being mooted that benefits should be increased by the same rate as wages have gone up. This would be around 5.4% instead of the 10% inflation figure.

This would effectively be a cut in benefits rates at a time of great hardship.

JRT has pointed out that the government has cut the real value of benefits in 7 of the last 10 years.

Uprating by only 5.4% would mean that benefits are worth around 15% below the April 2016 level, when the benefits freeze began to bite. This amounts to £470 a year less for a single adult.

JRT say that if the 5.4% rise goes ahead the poorest will see their income fall by £214 a year, whilst the richest would gain more than £5,000.

Once the decision has been announced it will take vastly more effort to get it changed.

So, the time to write to your MP and give your opinion is right now. And, for once, it will be particularly valuable to write to your MP to ask them to support a benefits increase if they are a Conservative. Because this may be the one time when, looking at an increased chance of losing their job if they don’t, they may just decide to speak up in public for claimants.

Also worth pointing out that the effects of not uprating benefits at the rate of inflation will endure well beyond the current cost of living issues. Had the Bullingdon Club not frozen benefits year after year in the name of austerity we'd all be on more than £77 a week now.

I did email my MP earlier in the week. They are an endangered species, otherwise known as a Red Wall Tory. I await a reply.