Joe Delaney said:

"It's just plain common-sense that introducing universal credit for survivors just before the holiday period will cause many claimants a degree of hardship than can be avoided if the roll-out were postponed until January.

"Peoples' wellbeing and quality of life cannot play second fiddle to an arbitrary target of a distant government department. Postponing this roll-out would be an easy way for the government to demonstrate that compassion plays a part in their activities."

Co-Founder of Compassion in Politics Jennifer Nadel said:

"If ever there was proof that we need more compassion in politics, this is it. The government is willing to risk highly traumatised residents having no cash for Christmas presents so that they can try to hit their own arbitrary – and already missed – targets for a scheme that has been widely condemned as at best unhelpful and at worst cruel and vindictive. We desperately need to put humans and humanity back at the centre of our politics. A truly compassionate political system would recognise the individuals and the families at the centre of the Grenfell disaster and do all it can to help them, rather than simply erasing the story of that atrocious fire by imagining it never happened."