THE Universal Credit cut has been branded as 'sickening' as thousands across North Wales will be affected.

Member of the Senedd Ken Skates says the decision will leave a £6.5m-a-year black hole in his constituency as a total of 6,260 households claiming Universal Credit or Working Tax Credits in Clwyd South will be £1,040 a year worse off.

Mr Skates said: “I am one of many, many people who has called on the UK Government to reverse this cut. Some have asked Tory MPs to vote with their conscious, but it has been clear for some time that there is a moral vacuum at the heart of this Conservative Government.

“Every MP who voted to take more than £1,000 a year from some of the poorest people in our society is complicit in making the lives of millions of people even more difficult.”

Mr Skates said 2,668 of people affected in Clwyd South – around 41% – are in employment.

He added: “There are also 4,749 children living in households in Clwyd South which are in receipt of Universal Credit whose parents are now going to be worse off. It’s sickening – and it’s ideological.

“This move will leave £6.5m-a-year black hole in Clwyd South. So much for ‘levelling up’.”

The Welsh Labour Government, along with the UK's other devolved administrations, had urged the Secretary of State for the Department of Work and Pensions to think again – but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

Last month Mr Skates and Lesley Griffiths, Member of the Senedd for Wrexham, called on the UK Government to ‘show some humility’ after it emerged their constituencies would be among the hardest hit in Wales.

Mr Skates added: “As Lesley said recently, this is the largest reduction to the basic rate of social security since the Second World War. It has become more clear than ever that Boris Johnson and his Tory lapdogs even begrudge normal people the crumbs from their table.”

Figures recently published by the independent Joseph Rowntree Foundation revealed that all but four Welsh constituencies will see over a third of working-age families with children hit by the cut – including all six won by the Conservatives from Labour at the 2019 General Election.

A Government spokesman previously said: “We’ve always been clear that the uplift to Universal Credit was temporary.

“It was designed to help claimants through the economic shock and financial disruption of the toughest stages of the pandemic, and it has done so.

“Universal Credit will continue to provide vital support for those both in and out of work and it’s right that the Government should focus on our Plan for Jobs, supporting people back into work and supporting those already employed to progress and earn more.”