Category Archives: Benefits

Benefit cap traps families in crowded, rat-infested homes, report finds

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Limit on welfare support, introduced in 2013, leaves some with just £4 a day for each family member

Low-income families affected by the benefit cap are living on as little as £4 for each person a day, often in overcrowded, rat-infested and damp homes with little prospect of escape, according to a new study.

The cap puts a ceiling on the amount a working-age family can receive in welfare support if no one in the household is working or they are on very low wages. Families affected by it in many parts of the country are, in effect, trapped in poor quality, private rented properties they cannot afford, even though these are often already the cheapest homes available in their local area, the London School of Economics study said.

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‘Will the kids eat or not?’ In Keir Starmer’s constituency, families struggle with poverty

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Alongside prosperity in Holborn and St Pancras are thousands of households for whom lifting the two-child benefit cap could mean an end to hunger

• The two-child benefit cap: what is it, does it work and how much would it cost to scrap it?

It’s been one of Cat Onyac’s better days. Her two children are concentrating on their crochet project, sitting in the sunshine at HvH Arts in north London. And they’ve eaten. “All the children get a hot meal,” she says.

The family is at a summer scheme for children in Camden on the edge of Keir Starmer’s constituency, and food is just as important as learning photography, painting or music.

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Keir Starmer dodges questions on two-child benefit cap in first PMQs as prime minister – UK politics live

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Labour leader quizzed by SNP on benefit cap after suspending seven Labour MPs over their stance on the issue

Cabinet secretary, Simon Case, is reportedly being advised to step down permanently from his role for health reasons at the end of this year, writes Politico.

The outlet reports:

According to people familiar with the matter, Case is likely to need to step down in the new year on the advice of doctors, who are continuing to treat him for a neurological condition diagnosed more than a year ago.

Case is currently working at full capacity, but the condition is affecting his mobility and he now walks with the aid of a stick.”

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Overhaul UK benefits to tackle child poverty, charities urge

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Report warns of crisis of poverty and mental health which ‘casts a shadow’ over young people’s wellbeing

Ministers have been urged to reform the benefits system to tackle child poverty, after a report found it to be a major cause of mental illness that “casts a shadow” over young people’s wellbeing.

The report, by the Centre for Mental Health, Save the Children UK and the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, found that the number of children living in poverty in the UK had increased to 4.3 million, while one in five children and young people aged between eight and 24 had a diagnosable mental health problem.

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Labour MP calls two-child benefit cap ‘heinous’ in latest call to scrap policy

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Keir Starmer under pressure to scrap limit as more than dozen MPs thought to support king’s speech amendment

Keir Starmer has come under further pressure to scrap the two-child benefit limit after another of his backbench MPs described the policy as “heinous”.

Writing in The Sunday Times, Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield said the cap, which came into effect under then-chancellor George Osborne in 2017, was “sinister and overtly sexist” and had been the main reason driving her to stand for parliament.

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‘It’s put so many families in poverty’: people on the impact of the two-child benefit cap

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As Labour backbenchers call for Keir Starmer to scrap the cap, families reveal their struggles as a result of the two-child limit

Keir Starmer has launched a cross-government taskforce to tackle child poverty, but backbench Labour MPs are calling for the government to go further and scrap the two-child benefit cap. Here people reveal how the limit affects their families.

Alicia* is a mother of four children in Newcastle, and is separated from their father. She does everything she can to avoid going to collect a parcel from a food bank. She will often buy a big sack of potatoes and cook them in different ways throughout the week – jacket potatoes, fried chips, wedges – so her kids get variation. She often skips breakfast and lunch herself.

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Vaughan Gething quits as Welsh first minister but hits out at ‘pernicious’ claims of wrongdoing – UK politics live

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His resignation comes after four Welsh ministers stepped down from their posts in an apparently calculated move to force his hand

The JD Vance comment about Britain supposedly becoming an Islamist country under Labour (see 8.42am) is an example of the extreme political rhetoric that has coarsened politics on both sides of the Atlantic in recent years. Yesterday Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, announced that she will chair a meeting of the Defending Democracy taskforce to consider how election candidates are being exposed to more aggression and intimidation than in the past.

This morning Brendan Cox, whose wife, the Labour MP Jo Cox, was murdered by a far-right terrorist during the Brexit referendum in 2016, told the Today programme that he thought the problem was getting worse. He said:

There was a wide range of intimidation, but I do think it was another level.

Having spoken to lots of MPs about it, there was a sense that something had changed, that they felt hunted, that they felt unable to go about campaigning – that there were men in balaclavas, there were fireworks being thrown, there were tyres being slashed …

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Yvette Cooper to chair meeting of taskforce considering ‘alarming rise’ in candidate intimidation – as it happened

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Home secretary to host meeting of government’s Defending Democracy taskforce after reported rise in harassment during election campaign

More in Common, the group that campaigns to reduce polarisation in politics, published a good slideshow presentation last week, based on polling it carried out, giving an analysis of the general election results. It has followed that up today with the publication of a 129-page report on the election, based on the same polling and on what it learned from focus groups.

One of the main interesting points it makes is that the government will be judged, above all, on whether it can bring down NHS waiting lists and the cost of living, polling suggests. The report says:

How does the public plan to judge the government on its delivery of change and what benchmarks will they use to evaluate progress?

First and foremost, the public will look to NHS waiting lists and the cost of living to judge Labour’s success or failure. These are top performance indicators for every segment, with the elderly tending to be more concerned than average about waiting lists and younger generations more so about the cost of living. As inflation falls and interest rates seem set for a summer cut, waiting lists are arguably the new government’s key challenge in maintaining public support.

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Unpaid UK carers ‘face financial hit that can last decades’

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Loss of income, curbs on benefits and soaring bills are piling pressure on people caring for family members

People who look after family members free of charge are taking a huge hit to their finances which could continue into their retirement as they find themselves unable to balance paid work with their caring commitments.

Recent analysis of official figures by the financial firm Just Retirement found seven in 10 people who were receiving carer’s allowance were not in paid work, and missing out on earnings and private pension contributions.

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Sunak and Starmer clash over tax, borders and Brexit deal in final head-to-head before polling day – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can read our full report on this debate here

YouGov will have a snap poll on who won the debate, with the results available minutes after it finishes.

This is what Labour is putting out ahead of the debate, in a stateement from Pat McFadden, the national campaign coordinator.

Tonight, the British people will witness the choice at this election: five more years of chaos with Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives or change with Keir Starmer and Labour.

On 4 July, the British people will have the chance to vote for change. To stop the chaos, turn the page and start to rebuild our country with Keir Starmer and a changed Labour party.

Tonight, Keir Starmer has the opportunity to announce loud and clear to the British public what his intentions are.

Throughout this campaign we have challenged the Labour party, time and time again, to come clean on their plans for taxes. Time and time again they have declined to do so.

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Campaigners hope Labour will scrap two-child benefit cap once in No 10

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Manifesto has no pledge to end rule Angela Rayner called ‘inhumane’ but there have been hints at more to come

Senior Labour figures have been crystal clear in the past about the two-child benefit limit, with Angela Rayner saying it was “obscene and inhumane” and Jonathan Ashworth calling it “heinous”.

Yet, as expected, Keir Starmer’s safety-first manifesto lacked any promise to reverse it, and shadow ministers have been wheeled out to underline the need to make “tough choices” and avoid unfunded promises. Rayner has said Labour has to “prioritise”.

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Starmer faces further calls for Labour to axe two-child benefit cap

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IFS research shows 670,000 more children will be hit by policy by end of next parliament if limit stays in place

Keir Starmer is facing renewed pressure to scrap the two-child benefit limit, as research reveals that 250,000 more children will be hit by the policy over the next year alone.

Labour’s manifesto for government, published last week, included the promise of an “ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty”, but no mention of the two-child limit.

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Tory welfare reform cost working-age families thousands while pensioners benefited – report

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Retirees or those on disability benefit are biggest annual winners, while large families are £4,600 worse off, says Resolution Foundation

Pensioners and people on disability benefits are the winners from radical changes to the welfare system made by the Tories over the last decade, while working-age families are losing out by thousands of pounds every year, according to a report by the Resolution Foundation.

The Conservatives’ 14-year overhaul of social security has shifted spending away from children and housing to supporting elderly people, and broken the link between entitlement and need for some of the poorest households in the country, the report says.

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UK politics: Anas Sarwar says election is about ‘getting rid of Tories’, not Scottish independence – as it happened

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Leaders of Scotland’s five main political parties clash during live TV debate

Momentum, the leftwing Labour group set up when Jeremy Corbyn was leader, is not happy about Keir Starmer’s jibe about Corbyn’s manifesto.

Labour’s 2019 manifesto was fully costed.

Keir should know, he stood on it as a member of the shadow cabinet.

How about stopping attacking your own side during an election @Keir_Starmer?

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‘It feels like contempt’: DWP tells 85-year-old dementia patient to repay £13k

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Cypriot-born Sia Kasparis, who speaks limited English, was not told about disability premium overpayment for several years

Eighty-five-year-old Sia Kasparis was in her hospital bed in the living room of her small north London flat when there was a knock at the door.

The grandmother-of-five has been bedbound for the last two years, the result of a collapsed vertebra and a range of other health problems, including vascular dementia, heart failure and kidney disease.

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Ministers clawing back £251m from carers hit by DWP’s allowance failures

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‘Strikingly large’ sum being recouped from people who fell foul of system that did not flag overpayments

Ministers are clawing back more than £250m from unpaid carers over benefit infringements that occurred largely as a result of government failures, it can be revealed.

More than 134,000 people who care for loved ones are being forced to repay often huge carer’s allowance overpayments. The debts are incurred in many cases through no fault of their own, and leave carers saddled with enormous debts, and some with criminal convictions.

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Kate Garraway: persecution of carers has ‘horrible echo’ of Post Office scandal

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Presenter, who cared for late husband, said she was approached by people in street pleading for intervention

The TV presenter Kate Garraway has said the UK government’s prosecution of unpaid carers for thousands of pounds in benefit payments has a “horrible echo” of the Post Office scandal.

In an emotional intervention on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Garraway said many people had pleaded with her to “please do something” to help those being pursued by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

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Humza Yousaf quits as Scotland’s first minister – as it happened

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Scotland’s first minister resigns after failing to muster enough votes to survive a no confidence vote this week

Humza Yousaf is holding a press conference at noon, Sky News and the BBC are reporting.

Mandy Rhodes, editor of the Holyrood magazine, says she was due to interview Humza Yousaf this afternoon, but he’s cancelled.

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Work and pensions committee chair tells ministers to fix carer’s allowance issues

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Stephen Timms says DWP letting unpaid carers incur ‘enormous accidental overpayments’

Ministers have been told to “immediately” fix the issues causing tens of thousands of unpaid carers to incur “enormous accidental overpayments” amid growing anger over the carer’s allowance scandal.

Stephen Timms, the chair of an influential parliamentary committee, said he was “very troubled” that scores of carers were being forced into financial distress as a result of the government’s mistakes.

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Sunak under pressure to grant amnesty to unpaid carers fined for rule breaches

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Concern grows over legality of government’s approach as new figures show more than 150,000 carers facing huge penalties

New figures show more than 150,000 unpaid carers are now facing huge fines for minor rule breaches, as MPs, charities and campaigners demanded an immediate amnesty.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, joined calls to write off the vast debts incurred by tens of thousands of people who care for sick, disabled and elderly relatives after experts raised concerns about the legality of the government’s approach.

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