Category Archives: Benefits

Pensions triple lock and benefits in spotlight as Sunak delays fiscal plan

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No 10 not committing to keeping triple lock or inflation-linked benefits rise in 17 November statement

Ministers are to re-examine the pensions triple lock and increasing benefits in line with inflation over the next fortnight, according to No 10, after Rishi Sunak delayed the announcement of the government’s fiscal plans from 31 October to 17 November.

The Treasury has said the new date will now be a full autumn statement, with Sunak telling his cabinet that time needed to be made to do things in the proper way.

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Suella Braverman replaced by Grant Shapps; Labour motion calling for fracking ban fails – live

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Home secretary departs after sending an official document by personal email but uses resignation letter to criticise PM

Plans to create Great British Railways, a public sector body to oversee Britain’s railways, have been delayed, MPs have been told.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the transport secretary, told the Commons transport committee that the transport bill, which would have set up the new body, has been delayed because legislation to deal with the energy crisis is being prioritised. She said:

The challenges of things like the energy legislation we’ve got to bring in and various others has meant that we have lost the opportunity to have that [bill] in this third session.

What we are continuing to pitch for will be what I would call a narrow bill around the future of transport technologies, the legislation around things like e-scooters.

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Poorer families risk £1,000 hit from earnings-related benefits rise

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Below-inflation rise would save exchequer tenth of £40bn to be given out through tax cuts, says thinktank

If the government raises benefits in line with earnings rather than inflation next year, it would drastically cut the incomes of poorer working-age families, while saving less than a tenth of the cost of recent tax cuts, a leading economic thinktank has calculated.

Such a change, which would mean a significant real-terms cut given that wages are rising at 5.5% with inflation close to 10%, could see the effective income of some families reduced by up to £1,000 a year, the Resolution Foundation said.

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One in five families in Liz Truss’s seat would lose out under real-term benefit cuts

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Research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows impact of increasing benefits in line with earnings, not inflation

At least one in five working-age families in most UK constituencies – including in Liz Truss’s seat – would lose out by hundreds of pounds on average if real-terms benefit cuts go ahead, a study has found.

The scale of the impact of a below-inflation rise on already struggling households and by extension, local shops and businesses, is revealed in a study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). It would amount to the biggest-ever real terms cut to benefits in a single year.

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Liz Truss meets European leaders in Prague as Irish deputy PM says NI protocol ‘a little too strict’ – as it happened

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This live blog has now closed, you can find our latest political coverage here

In his interview with LBC Jake Berry, the Tory chairman, was asked if he was channelling When Harry Met Sally when he described Liz Truss as the “Yes, yes, yes prime minister” in his speech to the conference yesterday. (Robert Hutton is very funny about this, and much else, in his sketch for the Critic.) Berry said he was referring to Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister when he delivered that line.

In the same interview, Berry revealed that his joke-making has not improved since yesterday. Talking about the conference in general, Berry said:

I think colleagues saw yesterday that when the going gets tough, the Truss gets going.

I do think my language was a bit clumsy in that regard and I regret it.

The point I was making ... is that the government needs to go for growth to ensure that it can grow the economy and Britain can get a pay rise. You don’t have to tell me how hard people graft in this economy. I know how hard people work.

We’ve got to wait until those figures are available … You simply cannot make a decision on figures you do not currently have.

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Liz Truss refuses to rule out real-terms benefits cuts

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PM facing fresh battle with MPs as she declines to commit to raising benefits in line with inflation

Liz Truss has refused to commit to raising benefits in line with inflation, amid a fresh battle with MPs over cuts to spending including concern from among her cabinet.

The prime minister said pensions would rise in line with inflation, having committed to the pensions “triple lock” during the leadership campaign. But she said people on welfare benefits were in a “different situation” and said they were more able to look for more work.

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Kwasi Kwarteng set to address Tory conference with authority on the line after 45% tax rate U-turn – UK politics live

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Chancellor expected to give changed address after confirming plan to axe top rate of income tax has been scrapped

Q: Where does this leave your credibility?

Kwarteng says he has been in parliament for 12 years. He says ministers do sometimes change their minds.

I decided, along with the the prime minister, not to proceed [with the policy].

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Disabled woman wins legal challenge against DWP over automatic benefit deduction

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High court rules DWP scheme to deduct money without consent is illegal and breaches ‘obligation of fairness’

A disabled former police officer has won a legal challenge against the Department for Work and Pensions over its policy of allowing utility companies to automatically deduct hundreds of pounds a year from individuals’ benefits without their consent.

Helen Timson, 51, of Leicester, argued it was unlawful and immoral that the DWP enabled water and energy firms to draw down up to 25% of a claimant’s monthly benefit income at source without undertaking any form of check with the claimant. Hundreds of thousands of claimants are understood to be subject to the deductions.

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Kwasi Kwarteng to shrink part-time work benefits to grow labour supply

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New UK chancellor aims to reverse inactivity in labour market, especially among over-50s

Kwasi Kwarteng will tighten benefit rules for part-time workers, requiring them to work longer hours or take steps to increase their earnings.

The new rule will require benefit claimants working up to 15 hours a week to take new steps to increase their earnings or face having their benefits reduced. The current threshold is nine hours, though it was increased this summer to 12 hours, which will come into force next week.

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Bring back eviction ban or face ‘catastrophic’ homelessness crisis, ministers told

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Sir Bob Kerslake calls on government to protect at-risk tenants as it did during pandemic

The former head of the civil service has warned of a looming “catastrophic” homelessness crisis caused by the cost of living unless the government reintroduces the eviction ban that protected tenants during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sir Bob Kerslake, who chairs the Kerslake Commission on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping, said a failure to act “could see this become a homelessness as well as an economic crisis and the results could be catastrophic; with all the good achieved in reducing street homelessness since the pandemic lost, and any hope of the government meeting its manifesto pledge to end rough sleeping by 2024 gone”.

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6m disabled people in UK to get £150 cost of living payment in September

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Government says one-off sum for those on certain benefits will be paid automatically from late next month

About 6 million disabled people across the UK will receive a £150 cost of living payment from the end of next month, the government has said.

The one-off payment, announced in May, will be paid automatically to people who receive certain disability benefits from 20 September, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said.

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Liz Truss called for patients to be charged for GP visits, 2009 paper reveals

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PM hopeful co-authored pamphlet that also called for doctors’ pay to be slashed by 10% and abolition of universal child benefit

Liz Truss called for patients to be charged to see their GP and for doctors’ pay to be slashed by 10% in a pamphlet she co-authored in 2009, the unearthed document has revealed.

The Tory leadership frontrunner also wanted to see the universal child benefit abolished in the report, which she co-wrote with six other people when she was deputy director of the Reform thinktank.

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British minister accused of trying to hide reports on impact of Tory welfare reforms

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Thérèse Coffey ‘set out to minimise evidence’ on studies including research into deaths of benefit claimants and help for vulnerable

Ministers have been accused of deliberately attempting to hide the impact of the government’s wide-ranging welfare reforms by concealing a range of official reports on benefits.

Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, said she would not publish five reports or research on the benefit cap, deaths of benefits claimants, the impact of universal credit (UC), and benefit sanctions, and that she had no plans to publish two further reports on unpaid carers and work capability assessments.

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Cost of living crisis: some low-paid workers miss out on £326 help

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People on universal credit have payments reduced to zero because of a quirk in the system

Some low-paid workers on universal credit have missed out on the government’s first cost of living payment because of payroll quirks that removed their benefit entitlement during the key window set by the government.

“I was going to use it to load up my gas meter, get ahead on my electricity and fill up the freezer,” said David Evans, a 55-year-old IT apprentice, of his plans for the £326 payment that in recent weeks has been landing in the bank accounts of struggling Britons.

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UK energy bills – six ways to reduce the impact of soaring prices

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Be it a loft insulation drive or a lower price cap, there are many ways to help – but action must be swift and extensive

The UK government has been urged to take further action to alleviate the impact of soaring energy prices, and there are a number of measures it could take.

Any rescue package would need to be swift and extensive to prevent households being plunged into poverty this winter as home energy prices surge. Ministers will also need to dig deep to prevent more businesses hit by rising energy costs from defaulting on loans and declaring themselves bankrupt.

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Benefit cuts since 2010 increased UK child poverty in run-up to pandemic, says IFS

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Austerity-era policies meant poverty among larger families in poverty rose at significantly faster rate, says thinktank

Benefit cuts imposed by the Conservatives since 2010 pushed up child poverty before the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report warning that poorer families are also among the most exposed to the cost of living crisis.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said relative child poverty rose to the highest level since 2007 immediately before Covid-19 hit, as the incomes of poorer families with children fell further behind due to austerity.

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Digitisation of food vouchers for UK families left them hungry and desperate

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Analysis: in a botched upgrade the fruit and veg Healthy Start scheme turned away numerous eligible low-income families

As the cost of living crisis blew up in March, and millions faced “starve or freeze” choices, it emerged – with dismal timing – that the rollout of the government’s newly digitised Healthy Start fruit and veg voucher scheme for low-income mothers was in chaos.

About 550,000 mothers who are pregnant or who have children aged three or under are in theory eligible for the scheme, which is worth between £4.25 and £8.50 a week. Designed to ensure their kids get their five-a-day portions, milk or formula, it should have been a timely boost.

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Boris Johnson promises action on cost of living crisis but says higher wages risk further inflation – as it happened

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This live blog has now closed, you can read more on Boris Johnson’s comments about a potential ‘wage-price spiral’ here

The Queen has received a present from the cabinet to mark her Platinum Jubilee, No 10 says. It is a specially-commissioned musical box, with pictures of all the 14 prime ministers who have served here around the side. When it opens it plays Handel’s Hallelujah.

In every office there is always someone who organises the presents and this picture, on the No 10 Flickr account, suggests that in cabinet that job falls to Michael Ellis, the paymaster general.

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Iain Duncan Smith calls for benefits to rise in line with inflation

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Tory MP says immediate increase in universal credit would provide ‘shield’ against cost of living crisis

The former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith has called for benefits to be immediately brought in line with inflation to provide a “shield” against the sting of mounting living costs.

He said rebates and discretionary funds represented “a step in the wrong direction for tackling poverty”, arguing it would be better to uplift universal credit (UC) as it “links benefits to work”.

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Jump in UK wages fails to keep pace with cost of living

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Pressure for more support for households and businesses after consumer prices rise 6.2%

Business live updates: jobless rate drops and wage squeeze continues

Britain’s cost of living crisis moved into its fourth consecutive month in February despite a jump in wages and a fall in unemployment to just 3.8%, its lowest level since 1974.

The Office for National Statistics said average earnings growth of 5.4%, including bonuses, failed to keep pace with a 6.2% rise in the consumer prices index in February, while for those who missed out on a bonus the situation was even worse after average wages increased by only 4%.

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