We’re hearing more and more horror stories about the effect of Universal Credit on the people who are forced to claim it, now.

The latest accounts seem to have done some good, prompting the Conservatives to delay completion of the flawed benefit’s rollout across the UK while they consider ways of minimising hardship caused to people being transferred onto it.

Joy at the decision has been dampened by the revelation that the options being considered won’t do much good – and the fact that the benefit would still target families with children, women, and minority groups with disproportionate cuts in income.

We have been led to believe that even Conservative backbenchers have been considering rebelling against their own government, in the belief that a show of defiance over a matter that has outraged the public might save them from losing their Parliamentary seats at the next general election, which might not be far away.

Perhaps the decision to delay completing the rollout of UC across the whole of the UK was made to pacify these potential rebels.

Their opportunity to make a stand would have come in an Opposition Day debate on Universal Credit today (October 17). Whether that happens or not, the Labour Party has almost certainly outflanked both them and the government itself, with its plan for a “humble address”, in which the Queen is asked to direct that certain documents be released.

In this case, the documents would be private briefing papers on the impact of the roll-out of Universal Credit on recipients, household income and on claimants’ debts:

It seems certain that any papers released in this manner would show that the Conservatives were well aware of the harm their Universal Credit would do – but went ahead with it anyway.

That would include the potentially-rebellious Tory backbenchers; they would have been perfectly aware of the drawbacks to claimants of the benefit as it had been designed.

So Labour’s move – if successful – would expose the Conservatives on multiple levels.

The resulting scandal could be catastrophic for the Tories.

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