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To: Mayor of London, Southwark's Members of Parliament and Leader of Southwark Council

Southwark faith groups concern about Universal Credit

We, the under singed leaders and members of faith congregations, groups and charities in Southwark, want to show our support for the actions you are taking to challenge the government on the roll out of Universal Credit (UC). We believe UC needs to be paused and changed to stop people being drawn into unnecessary financial crisis by the way the system currently works.

Why is this important?

As faith congregations, groups and charities in this wonderful borough we have seen at first hand the growing number of people suffering with the negative affects of the way that Universal Credit has been introduced into our borough during the pilot phase. We know of far too many families, couples and individuals who have been left destitute and in fear due to the way the system works.

Our experience, time and time again is that most people just don't have the financial resilience to survive the wait for benefits and are spending far too long having to repay the debt they have built up waiting to receive a payment. The system needs to focus providing a situation where people can have financial security, so that they can concentrate their time on improving situations rather than just finding ways to survive.

We want to show our support for the work you are doing in asking the government to pause the roll out to other boroughs. It is not good enough for us to continue to provide the sticking plasters of foodbanks, cooked meals and fuel poverty support alone. These help to make the situation easier. They don't stop it happening. In the words of Bishop Desmond Tutu;
“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”

Well Universal Credit is making people fall in to financial crisis. We want to support you to do everything possible to stop people falling into crisis due to Universal Credit.

How it will be delivered

We will email the signatures to the Leader of Southwark Council, Southwark's MP's and the Mayor of London

London Borough of Southwark

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Updates

2018-12-27 15:46:05 +0000

10 signatures reached