New analysis based on the latest Universal Credit data reveals the staggering cost oflast week’s Universal Credit cut to Hackney’s families and economy. The cut, which will see 34,614 recipients of Universal Credit in Hackney lose £1,040 a year, will cost the borough £35.99m.

The cut also comes as the Government introduce a £500m winter support fund, although this is compared to the £6bn cut overall to Universal Credit.

The analysis comes as this week Conservative MPs partied in Manchester just as the cut came into effect, and after refusing to back a Labour motion in the House of Commons to ditch the cut last month. Hackney Labour previously lobbied the Government against the cut in a letter to the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak MP.

The Labour and Co-operative Mayor of Hackney, Philip Glanville, said: “Tax rises, pay freezes, fuel shortages, rising inflation and now benefit cuts ─ the Tories are charging Hackney’s most vulnerable and hard-working families for the cost of the pandemic.

“Universal Credit was already the lowest real-term income support since the 1990s, and their latest cut is the single biggest slash to benefits since the welfare system was created. Instead of ‘levelling up Britain’, Boris Johnson is about to make our residents and local economy £36m poorer.”