Don’t be on the wrong end of a Russian missile
One minute, everything’s fine; you have a successful business, a wife, a child, a happy life. Your future looks secure.
Then something happens that turns everything upside down. Russia launches an invasion of your homeland, your wife and child leave for the safety of the UK and you don’t see them again for a long time. You are trying to keep your business going amongst total carnage and uncertainty as to when it might ever end. All of that is enough by itself but then, despite your best efforts to preserve what is left of the life you knew, the unthinkable happens. Your business, your livelihood and all of your infrastructure is blown up by a Russian missile. And the last vestiges of the life you had are gone.
Meet Bodhan (not his real name), now living in the UK with his family, trying to make sense of what has happened to them.
They are living in a privately-rented flat and inevitably, before Bodhan arrived, his wife claimed Universal Credit (UC) as her minimum wage earnings — she works part-time at the school their young child attends — do not remotely cover their basic living expenses. Even with UC, it’s extremely tough going, with the cost of food and energy prohibiting anything like the normal life they used to have in Ukraine.
As the main carer for their child, the rules around looking for better paid work and more hours are somewhat relaxed for Bodhan’s wife for now, which is something.
When Bodhan came, whatever money he had back home was inaccessible; frozen, maybe gone for good. He was trying to understand the ‘system’ in the UK, trying to rebuild contacts with global business associates and was devastated to find his wife and child without enough money to live on.
He asked for help from the government, from local Councillors, from anyone, and eventually an email landed in my inbox. Not a debt matter at all (yet), but advice on benefits is part of the job and I also think I am probably a last resort when all else fails, so Bodhan and I met.
Debt advisers are used to hearing the most heart-rending, tragic accounts from our clients as they tell us what has led them to the point they seek advice, but I have to admit that ‘my livelihood was blown up by the Russians’ was new and shocking territory.
We’ve seen the devastation on the news; cities flattened, soldiers injured and killed, elderly people weeping at the side of the road, but it was an eye-opening hour I spent in the company of this Ukrainian man, relaying in perfect English, the toll that this war has personally taken on him and his family. Leaving behind everything and having to start again from scratch. It’s unthinkable.
Bodhan was clearly not accustomed to any kind of welfare system, let alone the UK version. He didn’t know what to expect or ask for, he just knew he needed help, urgently. The fastest help I could give was to utilise the Household Support Fund to put some essential cash in his pocket as a start.
Then came the advice about benefits. The claim needed to be switched from single to joint which would increase the monthly personal allowance from £334.91 to £525.72 – we rang the UC helpline but they couldn’t do this over the phone as Bodhan’s wife was not present.
They suggested that Bodhan’s wife put a note on her journal advising of the change in her circumstances (two becoming three) and requesting that the joint claim be backdated to the date Bodhan arrived in the UK, some three months earlier.
Bodhan felt a glimmer of hope that he was getting somewhere and his wife followed the advice.
The claim was amended but the backdate refused point-blank. Bodhan tried to explain to the DWP that backdating was their suggestion but they still refused it. (We’ve asked for a reconsideration).
And with the new joint claim came additional responsibilities, when a single claimant commitment became a joint one. And so it came to pass that Bodhan was required to attend a work-focussed interview with a work coach.
A couple of days ago, Bodhan emailed me about his first experience of the Universal Credit Work Coach. It didn’t go well.
It looks like job coaches do not care about people being properly adopted in the country. They want me to get any job, at the lowest possible level, asap. On my reasonable assumption that a highly paid position needs more than a month given by Universal Credit, I received a threat that in case I will not follow their instructions, payments will be suspended.
We do not consider ourselves refugees from the poor country, did not have specific plans to sneak to the country and live on benefits, and I do not get used to such attitude.
I do not need a clerk who will be pushing me in the wrong direction.
What can you say? This is England in 2023, my friend. I replied:
I’m afraid to say that this is the general position to anyone claiming Universal Credit (born in UK or not) that unless you actively look for and apply for work (any work) they can sanction your money.
I can appreciate how this must make you feel but please know that you are being treated exactly the same as anyone in the UK claiming Universal Credit. It’s not a friendly system, I’m sorry.
So that’s all right then. It’s OK to treat you this way, Bodhan, because that’s how the system treats everyone. With contempt.
In a week when it was reported that ‘some two million Universal Credit claimants will be forced to take on “appropriate work” or face more rigorous sanctions from the DWP’, it appears that having your life destroyed by a Russian missile gets you little sympathy from the Jobcentre and does not qualify you for the little-known-about ‘easements’ that work coaches can apply to reduce the work-related ‘requirements’.
Those situations that do qualify for a compulsory relaxing of the work requirements are unfortunate circumstances like the bereavement of a partner or child (you get 6 months off), being a victim of domestic violence (3 or 6 months) and receiving drug/alcohol treatment (up to 6 months).
I know what you’re thinking. It’s simply too generous.
And some of you may think Bodhan needs to crack on and take the first job that comes along, no matter how much experience, or qualification, or expertise he has in his chosen field, because beggars can’t be choosers and so forth. But just imagine if Bodhan was given some time to find his feet, adjust to the new life he has in the UK, reconnect with his business associates and find a well-paid job? He and his wife could stop claiming Universal Credit entirely and they would pay their own way, happily, and pay into that same system that others might need.
The alternative is that Bodhan — faced with the mean-spirited threat of sanctions from someone who wields far too much power and is trained to have minimal empathy with people down on their luck — takes the next available minimum wage job and remains trapped on UC for a long time. Ground down, unfulfilled, barely getting by.
Or maybe Bodhan could stand his ground and not comply. What then? The UC monthly payment is reduced dramatically and the family of three can no longer make ends meet. They will be told that they can apply back to UC for a measly hardship payment, they will probably accrue debt and their tenancy may be jeopardised. How does that make sense or help anyone? How long before they are next in line at the Penny Pantry behind JD?
Once again, I’m reminded that there is no safety net anymore and the ‘clerks’ have big sticks. It’s rather terrifying to be honest.
‘Bodhan’ gave me permission to tell his story.
