Welfare reforms raise 'risk of destitution'

Anti-poverty charities, disabled groups and the TUC all agreed that making work pay more than benefits was vital.

But they complained that threats to remove benefits risked pushing many further into financial trouble and questioned where the jobs would come from for people to do.

Oxfam's Kate Wareing said the Work and Pension Secretary's proposed changes to the welfare system "will expose people to the risk of destitution."

She said: "Most people receiving benefits do want to work and punishing them as if they are criminals repaying a debt to society is not a fair way to treat someone entitled to support."

Richard Hawkes of disability charity Scope said the welfare white paper "does not address the state of the employment market today."

The sanctions would "effectively penalise disabled people, pushing them further into poverty, further away from work and ultimately creating more dependency on the state."

Sam Royston of the Family Action group said: "The existing sanctions regime creates sufficient incentives to actively seek work. Further toughening of sanctions for jobseekers would be unnecessarily punitive."

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber added: "Making work pay is an admirable objective but with five people already chasing every job the problem is not workshy scroungers but a shortage of jobs."

louise@peoples-press.com