Labour launches child poverty strategy but hints costly welfare system has to change | Welfare

The UK’s benefits system is not putting enough people into work and costs have risen significantly, and no-one should think the government is backing away from reforming the system, the Work and Pensions Secretary has said.

Pat McFadden made the comments as the government released its report. new child poverty strategy on Friday.

He said the aim of the strategy was to improve the lives of young people in the long term and that those who survived difficulties were likely to have improved employment prospects in the future.

“This is more than a distribution of money. It is an investment in the future of children affected by poverty,” he said.

McFadden added that further changes to the welfare system to encourage work were important to improving children’s lives, arguing that getting people into work would make families better off and save money on the welfare bill.

The key policy in the strategy is the government’s commitment to end the two-child limit on universal credit, at a cost to the Treasury of £3bn. The move is expected to lift 450,000 children out of poverty by 2031.

Other measures in the package include helping parents choose cheaper baby food, moving families out of temporary accommodation faster, establishing breakfast clubs and extending free school lunches.

Labor MPs are pleased with the move to scrap the two-child limit and won a victory in July, forcing ministers to abandon plans to cut disability benefits.

But McFadden said it would be a “mistake” for anyone to think the government wasn’t aiming for further changes to the welfare system.

“Because of what happened in July, the conclusion was that there was no reform. That’s a mistake. Reform is happening. But I think we’ll need more in the future,” he told the Guardian during a trip. Little Village baby bank It has supported more than 11,000 families with living costs in North London.

In a sign that more significant changes would follow, McFadden said: “I don’t think the right thing to do with the welfare system is to rotate the cars around a system that isn’t delivering as good results as it should and whose costs have increased significantly.

“We need to not only view this system as being about the distribution of benefits, but also ask ourselves: Is it doing everything it can to help people get into work? I don’t think it is at the moment, and that’s why there needs to be further reform of the system, and it is being reformed as well.” 1764995908.”

Chancellor Rachel Reeves also said the relief bill “cannot remain untouched.” Two reviews are in progress: Timms review looks at the disability benefits system and another, chaired by Alan Milburn, examines young people’s inactivity.

Asked whether he plans to cut people’s payments or reduce eligibility for benefits, McFadden said: “I can’t say yet, and I don’t want to rule things out or ignore them.

“This will involve us asking the question: How do we tackle increasing inactivity among young people and what can we offer to increase people’s opportunities and chances of getting jobs in different government departments?”

He said it was wrong to look at cutting costs from the benefits system without considering how the changes would help people get back to work, improve their financial situations and prospects, as well as generate tax revenue for the Treasury.

“If a young person receives benefits and continues to use them they will lose around a million pounds in earnings over their lifetime, costing the government around a million pounds,” he said.

“Instead of approaching it that way [been] It’s been done in the past, people have said: ‘I’ll take X billion figure and then implement a policy on that’, think about that million pounds.

“Everyone we can hire and not get benefits for years is earning and paying taxes. That saves money on the welfare bill, and I think that’s a good thing if that’s the way we save on benefits.”

McFadden also flatly rejected the Conservative Party’s claim that last month’s budget would help welfare recipients more than working people. He said the two-child limit introduced by the Conservative government in 2017 was “never about saving money on the welfare bill”.

“This has always been seen as a political dividing line, in part using children as weapons,” he added. “I think it’s actually wrong to set this up as some sort of distinction between working and non-working.”