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Universal Credit could be delayed yet again, the Tory minister for the benefit declared today.

Amber Rudd said she is ready to slow down the hated six-in-one scheme's introduction to "make sure it's effective".

The Work and Pensions Secretary revealed she will bring forward plans next month to address fears over the benefit.

But she admitted her proposals are being blocked due to a row within the government.

She told MPs: "I haven't yet been able to get cross-government support for the proposals I want to do."

(Image: AFP/Getty Images)

It came as Ms Rudd, who took the job last month, faced her first grilling by MPs on the Work and Pensions Committee.

Critics warn UC has pushed people to rent debt and food banks due to payment delays and lower rates.

Some 3million new claimants are set to be on the benefit with no transition payments by December 2019.

Millions more existing claimants will be transferred over from summer 2020 after the vast majority were delayed due to concerns about UC.

Ms Rudd admitted she had "particular concerns... about the most vulnerable in society" and "it's not just tinkering. There have been problems."

(Image: PA Archive/PA Images)

Asked if she could slow down the rollout further she told MPs: "I would like to keep an open mind. The priority for me is making sure we can get it right."

She added: "I would much rather every individual gets the personal attention and care getting on to Universal Credit than sticking to a prescribed timetable."

Ms Rudd said she wanted to launch plans to tackle fears that disabled people will particularly lose out when their "premiums" are removed.

She said: "I will be bringing forward proposals in January that will address some of the concerns that you've raised.

"Now I recognise you'd like to draw me much more on that. I haven't yet been able to get cross-government support for the proposals I want to do."

(Image: E+)

Committee chairman Frank Field praised the "unusual honesty" of her answer.

He said: "It is so helpful for not just parliament but the public if we have ministers give an answer like that.

"Who don't bulls***".

Yet Ms Rudd did not commit to 'splitting' all-in-one UC payments - which campaigners fear can be withheld from women by their partners in an act of domestic abuse.

Tory MP Heidi Allen fumed: "As a modern woman Amber, what century are we living in where we say a man and a woman's income is all the same in one lump?"

Promising proposals "in due course" she admitted: "We can do more to help make sure women get the benefit of the UC payment.

"So I'm going to be focused on making sure the main payment is made to the primary carer."

But DWP permanent secretary Peter Schofield said the tiny number of current split payment have to be done manually.

(Image: ParliamentLive)

"Where things are done manually they cost more money to deliver and we need more staff to do it," he said.

If there is a policy change, he said, "we will look at how quickly we can automate".

And the stubborn Cabinet minister renewed her attack on a United Nations report that savaged Tory welfare cuts.

She claimed the report by special rapporteur Philip Alston was "misleading" and "inappropriately political".

Despite years and billions of pounds of Tory welfare cuts under ex-Chancellor George Osborne, she declared: "[Describing] poverty as a political choice I found completely wrong.

"That is not the political choice of this government."