The Prime Minister’s speech and press release on disability benefits last week was depressingly familiar. The formula of “moral mission”, “unsustainable cost”, “toughen-up testing” followed by a bit of “they are gaming the system” has been used repeatedly over the past decade – a decade in which the …
benefits
The Spring Statement number you need to know: 600,000 more people pulled into poverty
The most important number from the entire spring statement was not from the Chancellor but from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. They estimated that over the next year, 600,000 people will be pulled into poverty [1]. The 14.6 million people already experiencing poverty will of course be pulled …
Universal Credit: Why do we think more threats and less choice helps the unemployed?
The Government has announced a new jobs “mission”. The headline policy in this mission is to say to people who lose their job that after four weeks they will also lose their choice about what jobs they should apply for. If they insist on having a choice in how they earn a living, they will be …
At last the Government is Rethinking Sanctions: Now let’s do it properly
This is a blog which contains joy and danger in equal measure. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has decided to stop imposing three year-long benefit sanctions as a punishment for not obeying the instructions of the Jobcentre. Such sanctions meant that people had no support for …
One week poverty rises: The next we cut benefits
Announcements you may have missed: Wednesday 27 March: Government announces that life expectancy falls for the poorest women in the UK. Dropping life expectancy in peacetime is extraordinary. The gap in life expectancy between rich and poor is also increasing, as is the gap in healthy …
Amber Rudd’s statement on Universal Credit: So welcome and so inadequate.
I cannot remember when a statement was so welcome, so infuriating and so inadequate all at the same time. Before Monday the Government’s stock answer on foodbanks was that the reasons for foodbank use were “complex” so it was unfair to blame Universal Credit. The new answer appears to be that …
UK Poverty is a choice: UN Rapporteur on Poverty
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights recently undertook a 12-day tour of some of the poorest areas of the UK as part of an investigation into poverty in Britain. Professor Philip Alston is one of the legal global experts in the field of economic and social …
2 Minute Briefing: Will money fix Universal Credit?
Is the Budget enough to save Universal Credit? The budget delivered two tranches of extra money for Universal Credit (UC) - £1.7bn to improve Work Allowances and £1bn to help people moving onto UC from the old system. While the numbers are large they are not sufficient to reverse even the 2015 …
Universal Credit: From bad to farce
If Universal Credit (UC) was a horse, it would be shot - repeatedly. The DWP has just released a flurry of reports which paint a picture of a deeply troubled system. Despite their best efforts at a positive spin there is no hiding the problems. I am sure I will go into detail in other pieces but …