A one off payment to those on Universal Credit to compensate for planned £1000 cut in April is not a good idea for two big reasons https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/rishi-sunak-plans-500-gift-for-benefit-claimants-to-avoid-tory-uprising-8qcl6j2pm

1. This plans would mean the level of our basic unemployment benefit would be cut to its lowest level since 1992 - that’s madness, particularly at exactly the point at which unemployment is set to rise.

2. A one off payment is a bad way of getting cash to those who will need it most over the year ahead. 6 million households are relying on Universal Credit - but it’s not the same households over time as people have kids or lose/find work.

To make the scale of that problem clear: each month 200k people are becoming new UC claimants. And the OBR expects over 800,000 people to become unemployed in Q2 2020 after the JRS stops. A one off payment in April does nothing for those who start needing UC later

At a minimum government should extend the £1000 UC uplift for another year - but obviously the real lesson of the last year is that the level of those benefits is just not adequate to do their job: insuring all of us against hard times