Universal credit is the ‘key to many families avoiding real hardship’, the Resolution Foundation think tank has claimed.

The welfare scheme, which has been widely criticised for its failures in the past, has been lauded as a last resort by the think tank’s chief executive, Torsten Bell after it emerged that nearly a million new claims had been made in the past fortnight.

Mr Bell said: ‘We have never seen anything like this – it is not remotely normal even in the grim circumstances of a recession. 

‘While attention has understandably focused on new retention and self-employment schemes, Universal Credit delivering in the face of this huge jobs shock is the key to many families avoiding real hardship.’  

The Department of Work and Pensions said almost 950,000 people had applied for Universal Credit in the past two weeks, following the coronavirus outbreak, up from around 100,000 in a normal two-week period.