Category Archives: welfare

MP’s blast over welfare ‘cruelty’

The hardships being suffered by Blackpool residents were laid bare to Prime Minister David Cameron during a heated exchange in Parliament.

Blackpool South MP Gordon Marsden used yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Question Time to put pressure on Mr Cameron about the impact welfare reforms are having on ordinary people.

He said: “As the Prime Minister sits down for Christmas dinner to’ chillax’ with his family and friends, will he spare a thought for my Blackpool constituents, and half a million others, whose Christmas is mired in the incompetence and random cruelty of DWP’s benefits sanctions.

Food bank Britain: Thousands need charity handouts because of welfare system failings

THOUSANDS of people are relying on food banks to survive because of failings in the welfare system.

 Volunteers sort through some of the food donated by people to the Rochdale Foodbank

A Sunday Express investigation has uncovered scores of cases in which people need charity handouts after being denied benefits because of administration errors and punitive sanctions.

As many as 580,000 cuts to benefit payments were made between October 2012 and June 2013, a six per cent rise on the same period a year earlier, before rules were toughened.

Employment Minister Esther McVey said the sanctions, or cuts to benefits are used only against those who were “wilfully rejecting support for no good reason”.

Welfare changes for disabled people delayed

The government said the process of reassessing people was taking longer than planned

 The government said the process of reassessing people was taking longer than planned

People will move from Disability Living Allowance to the Personal Independence Payment next week in only certain areas instead of the whole of Great Britain.

Work and pensions minister Mike Penning said the process of reassessing people was “taking longer than expected”.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Rachel Reeves said it was the “latest example of chaos” in the department.

‘Controlled approach’

Claimants will remain on Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for the time being except those in Wales, the East and West Midlands and East Anglia who will transfer to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) from Monday if their condition changes.