Welcome to F.T. Politics, the Financial Times's podcast on all things British politics.

I'm Sebastian Payne and in this week's episode we'll be discussing the growing debacle over

Universal Credit, Welfare Reforms and the latest in the Brexit Culture and

Parliamentary Wars. I'm delighted to be joined by Henry Mansance, the F.T.'s political

correspondent, political commentator Miranda Green, and Henry Newman from the

Open Europe Think Tank. Thank you all for joining. Let's kick off with

Universal Credit which has been increasingly popping up in the headlines in recent weeks.

It's the government's major welfare reform program that is beginning a nationwide rollout.

It's been in gestation since 2010 and has suffered numerous delays,

technical setbacks, full starts and cut back. Now that six working age benefits

are being rolled into one single payment, is it ready to serve millions

of Britons or will it be another white or administrative calamity?

Miranda Green, can you just begin by explaining what universal credit is? Essentially essentially it's a way of simplifying the benefit system

and making sure it's always better off to be in work than collecting benefits.

Yes, that's right, Sebs. So it was supposed to be a rationalization of the very complicated

series of benefits that are available to people of working age and it was invented in the coalition

years.

It was supposed to be actually more generous than the previous

collection of benefits as a way to actually encourage people off welfare and

into work. The huge problems that Mrs May is now facing with rebellion even on her

own backbenches over this flagship reform are due to a bunch of factors, several of which actually

to do with the design, but principally this idea that people

...