Tories slam ‘dangerous financial selections’ for ‘driving folks onto welfare and passing the invoice onto taxpayers’
A complete of 8.4million folks are actually claiming Common Credit score (Picture: Getty)
Common Credit score is in “full-blown disaster” after claimant numbers soared by 1.5million underneath Labour. Startling new figures present that 8.4million individuals are getting the fee, up from 6.9million when Sir Keir Starmer swept to energy in July 2024.
Of the 63,000 new claimants final month, greater than 25,000 usually are not required to work, with many having been deemed too unwell. Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Helen Whately branded it a “full-blown disaster with a declare type connected” and blamed Labour’s tax-and-spend agenda. She fumed: “Increased taxes, extra regulation, fewer jobs. Labour’s dangerous financial selections are driving folks onto welfare and passing the invoice onto taxpayers.”
Labour introduced the cap could be lifted within the November Funds, which was branded on the time by rivals as a “Funds for Advantages Avenue.”
However a Division for Work and Pensions (DWP) spokesperson stated Ms Whately’s remark was “deceptive” as a result of a lot of the 1.5million “moved from previous legacy advantages onto Common Credit score – a transition began by the earlier authorities”.
As well as, a bigger proportion of the working-age inhabitants is claiming incapacity advantages. Private Independence Funds for folks claiming to undergo from anxiousness have elevated to £427million final 12 months alone, in accordance with the Mail on Sunday.
The present system permits anybody, even these in work, to say the fee with out seeing a medical skilled.
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A DWP spokesman added: “We’re fixing the damaged welfare system we inherited, rebalancing Common Credit score to deal with the perverse incentives that discourage work, whereas redeploying 1,000 work coaches to help 1000’s of sick and disabled individuals who have been beforehand left with out contact for years.
“We’re additionally enterprise the largest employment reforms in a technology, overhauling Jobcentres and dealing with employers to ship our Jobs Assure, guaranteeing each younger particular person has the possibility to earn or study.”
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