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Budget 2021 – live: Universal Credit uplift ‘must be extended further’ as loyalists walk away from Good Friday

 (PA)
(PA)

The chancellor’s plan to end the uplift in Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit later this year will put 500,000 people into poverty, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has warned.

As part of his Budget, Rishi Sunak told the Commons on Wednesday that the £20 a week Universal Credit uplift will end in September. This will cause a 7 per cent drop in income for the UK’s poorest households.

Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation think tank, said Mr Sunak had gone big on the economy’s immediate recovery and tax rises in the future. However, he questioned whether “enough has been done to support households”.

Elsewhere, loyalist paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland have written to Boris Johnson to withdraw their support from the Good Friday Agreement.

They said they did so temporarily because of concerns about the Northern Ireland protocol, which governs post-Brexit trade. The organisations added that opposition to it should be “peaceful and democratic”.