Budget shares DWP update as 600,000 people being moved to Universal Credit

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is working to move people claiming older 'legacy benefits' onto Universal Credit through a process called Managed Migration

Hundreds of thousands of benefit claimants are being moved to Universal Credit sooner, with Budget documents detailing how the process has been accelerated for some people.

Rachel Reeves delivered her first Labour Budget to Parliament - but alongside the announcements made in the House of Commons, the Treasury also publishes the Budget in full online. These documents detail other plans, one of which was for the benefit Employment Support Allowance (ESA).

Currently, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is working to move people claiming older "legacy benefits" onto Universal Credit through a process called Managed Migration. ESA is one of the legacy benefits impacted alongside Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA), Income support, and Housing Benefit.

The DWP has been phasing out the legacy benefits for a few years and restarted the move again last year after briefly pausing during the Coronavirus pandemic. At the time of the managed migration restarting, around 2.6million people were still claiming old-style legacy benefits in the UK.

Under the Tory regime, the DWP was planning to move those claiming ESA over to Universal Credit by 2028. However, the DWP had previously announced it was to move these claimants over sooner with the ESA claimants receiving migration notices this Autumn. The Budget document reconfirmed that Labour has sped this up by bringing the date forward to September 2024.

The documents read: "This move will bring more people into a modern benefit regime, continuing to ensure they are supported to look for and move into work. Around half of ESA claimants will receive more financial support on UC, while others will receive transitional protection to ensure nobody is worse off at the point at which they move over to UC."

Around 600,000 people were claiming ESA in the UK when the move was announced earlier this year, and the managed migration process is expected to be completed by the end of 2025. The DWP is sending letters called Migration Notices" to those claiming these benefits asking them to move to Universal Credit. Once you receive one of these letters, you have three months to put in a claim for Universal Credit. If you don't, then your benefits could be stopped.

You can put in your claim online, or over the phone by calling the Universal Credit Migration Notice helpline on 0800 169 0328, or you can also ask your local Job Centre. Once you have made your claim, you will have to wait five weeks until your first Universal Credit payment and you will continue to receive it going forward - unless your circumstances change.