The big changes to DWP benefits including Universal Credit coming into force in 2024

The New Year will bring in a range of changes to state benefits which have been announced by the Government. Changes to Universal Credit and other payments dealt with by the Department for Work and Pensions will come into force in 2024.

The Government previously said that benefits would rise in line with inflation, some 6.7 per cent from April 2024, in line with the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rate of inflation in September 2023. It is not the only change to benefits which will be brought in during the New Year.

Below are seven big changes to benefits for 2024, as reported by Birmingham Live.

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The benefits cap will remain frozen at its current level from April 2024 - meaning 85,000 could be up to £53 worse off.

If you currently claim one of the legacy benefits Universal Credit is replacing, there are three ways in which you could be moved to Universal Credit: your circumstances change; the government asks you to claim Universal Credit as part of the “managed migration” process; or you volunteer to claim because you think you will be better off. DWP plans to transfer all "tax credits-only" claimants onto Universal Credit by the end of the financial year.

Some benefits claimants could lose Universal Credit as part of a crackdown to tackle a “wrong economically and wrong morally” waste of potential. Over the next five years, the Government will spend a total of £3.2bn across five welfare measures designed to get economically inactive people back into the workforce, but the Chancellor said that this would be