The UK welfare system is not helping enough people into work and has significantly rising costs, and no one should think the government is backing away from reforming it, the work and pensions secretary has said.<\/p>\n
Pat McFadden made the comments as the government published its new child poverty strategy<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n He said the aim of the strategy was to improve young lives for the long term and that those lifted out of hardship are likely to have improved prospects for employment in the future.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is about more than the distribution of money. It\u2019s an investment in the future of the children who are affected by poverty,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n McFadden added that further changes to the welfare system to encourage work were important for improving children\u2019s lives, arguing that getting people into jobs will make families better off and save money on the benefits bill.<\/p>\n The flagship policy in the strategy is the government\u2019s pledge to end the two-child limit on universal credit, at a cost of \u00a33bn to the Treasury. The move is expected to lift 450,000 children out of poverty by 2031.<\/p>\n Other measures in the package include helping parents choose cheaper baby formula, getting families out of temporary accommodation faster, establishing breakfast clubs and extending free school lunches.<\/p>\n Keir Starmer visits a children’s centre in Cardiff on Friday. Photograph: Peter Byrne\/PA<\/p>\n Labour MPs are delighted with the move to scrap the two-child limit, and won a victory in July when they forced ministers to abandon plans to cut disability benefits<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, McFadden said it would be a \u201cmistake\u201d for anyone to think the government was not aiming for further welfare reform.<\/p>\n \u201cI think because of what happened in July, there\u2019s been a conclusion that no reform is happening. That\u2019s a mistake. Reform is happening. But I think we will need more in the future, too,\u201d he told the Guardian as he toured a Little Village baby bank<\/a> in north London that has supported more than 11,000 families with the cost of living.<\/p>\n In a sign he is set to pursue further significant changes, McFadden said: \u201cI don\u2019t think the right thing to do with the welfare system is just to circle the wagons around a system that is not delivering as well as it should and has such significantly rising costs.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should see this system as not just about the distribution of benefits but ask ourselves: does it do everything it can to help people into work? I don\u2019t think it does right now, and so there is a case for further reform to the system and there\u2019s also reform happening 1764956223.\u201d<\/p>\n The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has also said the benefits bill cannot \u201cremain untouched\u201d<\/a>. Two reviews are currently underway: the Timms review looking at the disability benefits system<\/a>, and another headed by Alan Milburn, examining youth inactivity<\/a>.<\/p>\n Asked whether he was planning to cut people\u2019s payments or reduce eligibility for benefits, McFadden said: \u201cI can\u2019t say yet and I don\u2019t want to start ruling things in or ruling things out.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cWhat it will involve is us asking the question: how do we deal with rising inactivity among the young and what can we offer to enhance people\u2019s opportunity and the chance to get into work right across different government departments?\u201d<\/p>\n He said it was wrong to look at taking out costs from the welfare system without considering how reforms would help people back into work \u2013 improving their finances and prospects as well as generating tax revenue for the Treasury.<\/p>\n \u201cIf a young person gets on to benefits and stays on them, they will lose out about a million pounds in earnings over the course of their life and it will cost the state about a million pounds too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cRather than approaching this the way that it has [been] done in the past, where people say: \u2018I\u2019m going to take a figure of X billion, and then retrofit a policy onto that,\u2019 think about that million pounds.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery person that we can get into work and not have them on benefits for years is earning and paying tax. That does save money on the benefits bill and I think that\u2019s a good thing if that\u2019s the way that we save money on the benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n McFadden also firmly rejected the Conservative\u2019s claim that last month\u2019s budget would help those on benefits more than those in work.<\/p>\n He said the two-child limit brought in by the Conservative government in 2017 was \u201cnever really about saving money on the benefits bill\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has always been seen in part as a political dividing line with children used as the weapon of choice,\u201d he added. \u201cI think setting this up as some sort of division between the working and the non-working is just factually wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK welfare system is not helping enough people into work and has significantly rising costs, and no…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[96,391,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-300808","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}