THE government's justification for introducing universal credit (UC) does not offset its “disproportionate” impact on disabled people losing top-up payments, the High Court heard yesterday.

The case is being brought on behalf of two “severely disabled” men who both live alone without carers who found themselves £178 a month out of pocket after being forced to migrate from previous “legacy” benefits to UC when they moved from one local authority area to another.

Their lawyer Zoe Leventhal said that UC treated “natural migrants” — people forced onto UC after a change in circumstances — differently from “managed migrants,” who will have to move to UC from July 2019.