My experience of Universal Credit

Well really this is the story of a friend whom I helped through the tricky process of getting on to Universal Credit. My friend had her work as a carer disappear.  She had no transport so could only work in her local vicinity.  I persuaded her she needed to get help from the Job Centre and together we went to town, incidentally there was only public transport on a Friday, so she relied on friends to get her to town.  First we went to apply for housing benefit but we were told this could not be done until universal credit was sorted.  We went to the job centre just up the road.  There she was told she must apply online.  Before the look of horror could spread across her face I said,"It's o.k. I can do that for you." How many others in her age bracket who are not familiar with a computer do not have a friend to help out.  Always it is the weaker and more vulnerable who cannot cope with these things. Once we had got her signed up, the difficult six weeks had to be endured with no money coming in and only a small amount in the bank.  People who apply for universal credit are mostly already living on the breadline, so how are they supposed to survive during the six weeks before their money arrives. If as an M.P. you have never known what it is like to live hand to mouth I suppose you don't understand that these people really do not have the money to tide them over for six weeks. Now that she has the benefit I have to say it works well for her.  She has managed to get a fair amount of work and the credit makes up the rest. But always there are people who suffer, who should be given more help.  Not everyone has friends to help them out.