Submission to the Commission on Social Security

The Women’s Budget Group has made a a submission to The Commission on Social Security, a project set up to find out how to make the welfare benefits system better. The project is user led, meaning all the people on the panel (the Commissioners) are people who are on or have been on benefits. The Commission asked people to submit their ideas on improving the social security system by responding to the following questions:

1. What steps can be taken to make Universal Credit better?
2. Do you think the Government should get rid of Universal Credit? If so, what could they replace it with?
3. How can the welfare benefits system better support people who sick or disabled?
4. How should the system work out who should get sickness or disability benefits?
5. Should there be a certain amount of money that anyone can get if they are struggling and how could this be done?
6. How should benefits rates be worked out and how much should each benefit be?
7. What should be done about benefit sanctions?
8. What ideas and suggestions do you have for changes to these or other welfare benefits?
9. Are there any other changes you think should be made to the benefits system?
10. If any of your ideas would need more government spending, how might they make this happen?

The Commission will produce a White Paper on welfare benefits which will outline the changes they think the Government needs to make to the law. Once the White Paper is finished, there will be a campaign to put the ideas in place to make the welfare benefits system better.

You can read more about the Commission on Social Security here.

You can view our submission here.

The deadline for submitting evidence to the Commission is The deadline is 31 July 2019 and you can do so here.