Thousands of households are not yet on Universal Credit

Debt charity StepChange said many claimants are being pushed into hardship by having to wait more than a month for their first Universal Credit payment after migrating from older benefits.

And measures recently announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak to help with the cost-of-living crisis have been criticised for not going far enough to help low-income households.

In Blackpool South, 11,476 households were claiming Universal Credit in February after being transferred from legacy benefits, while an estimated 5,401 remained on the old system, according to figures from the House of Commons library.

This means around 32% of households in the parliamentary constituency are still on older benefits, such as Employment Allowance, Income Support and Jobseeker’s Allowance, which are set to be fully replaced in two years’ time

StepChange said moving from legacy benefits to Universal Credit – which rolls six means-tested benefit payments into one monthly deposit – is challenging because new claimants must wait five weeks for their first instalment, meaning some people need a budgeting advance, while others can be pushed into debt.

Ed McDonagh, senior public policy advocate, said: "Overall, Universal Credit can work to support people, but it also has features that can cause real hardship and can actually worsen people’s debt as they try to work around them."

Across Great Britain, 4.8 million households were claiming Universal Credit in February – 66% of the total number receiving benefits.