The government said the move followed engagement with victims’ families and experts as part of its plan to “put fairness back of the heart of the welfare system”.<\/p>\n
Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden said: “We said we’d act to tackle this gross unfairness and we’re delivering on that promise.<\/p>\n
“For too long these violent criminals have had their living costs paid by the taxpayer twice over, while their victims and families paid the price.<\/p>\n
“That ends today because victims and taxpayers deserve a system that is fair and supports only those who genuinely need it.”<\/p>\n
Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Helen Whately said: “Killers and rapists should not pocket benefits from a hospital bed.<\/p>\n
“Labour has taken all year to stop a loophole it promised to close. And tens of millions saved barely makes a dent in the benefits bill Labour has let spiral out of control.<\/p>\n
“The Conservatives would make universal credit a conditional, time-limited benefit, so taxpayers’ money goes only to those who genuinely need it.”<\/p>\n
The proposed regulations apply to individuals subject to a Section 37 order under the Mental Health Act 1983 and a Section 57A order under the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.<\/p>\n
The offences covered include manslaughter, attempted murder, wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, rape, assault by penetration and rape of a child under 13.<\/p>\n
Murder is not included because a hospital order is not an available sentence for the offence.<\/p>\n
The change in regulation is expected to affect about 2,500 offenders already in hospital and approximately 200 a year in future, the government said, with the full financial impacts of the move due to be published as part of the 2026 Budget on 28 October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The government said the move followed engagement with victims’ families and experts as part of its plan to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":808239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-808238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808238","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=808238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}