UNIVERSAL-credit architect Iain Duncan Smith admitted today that the five-week-wait policy was not his plan and that he “did not want it” – but does not think it should be changed. 

The former work and pensions secretary was grilled by MPs on the delay in payments, one of the most damaging elements of the scheme that has been a major driver in foodbank use.  

He said that the five-week wait was “never originally part of the structural plan” of universal credit, which he devised in 2010, as he answered questions from the work and pensions committee. 

Asked by committee chairman Stephen Timms if the delay could be changed, Mr Duncan Smith said: “The answer is yes, because it was a policy element. That was a decision made, as I said, not something I necessarily agreed with at the time.”

He continued: “It was not my plan, I did not want it” but added that he would not suggest scrapping the wait given current pressures on the Department for Work and Pensions. 

Mr Duncan Smith said that claimants were no longer having to wait more than four weeks because of the advance payments system –although advances must be paid back over the course of the next year. 

“I think through this whole crisis, the one department that got it [is the] DWP with the staff absolutely determined to make those payments and make those advances,” he claimed. 

However, a review by the committee of the DWP’s response to Covid-19 last week found that the repayments were causing “additional hardship” for people already struggling to get by. 

Although it noted that DWP frontline staff had “successfully withstood enormous and unprecedented pressure” it also found that 7 per cent of claimants — 200,000 — were still being paid late.

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) founder Linda Burnip criticised Mr Duncan Smith’s adulation of the department, saying that its response to the crisis was “not what I’d call a success” as “huge numbers” of people, largely self-employed, had not been able to access benefits. 

As job centres reopened today and the ban on sanctions was lifted, DPAC staged a national online day of action against the re-introduction of sanctions, which Ms Burnip said was “totally crass, totally cruel, totally pointless.”