UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak is planning to give a one-time benefit payment of 500 pounds ($680) to nearly six million people, to help ease the economic fallout from a third coronavirus lockdown, the Times of London reported on Saturday.
The plans come ahead of an April deadline when last March’s 20 pound-per-week uplift to universal credit payments is set to end. The Times cited a Friday meeting between Sunak, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey aimed at finding alternatives to last year’s payment hike.
A bloc of Conservative lawmakers have called on Sunak to extend tax breaks and the increase in benefits payments in a letter.
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