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PA
UK News

Bishops criticise government's 'deeply problematic' welfare reform

The Bishop of St Albans, the Rt Revd Alan Smith, and the Bishop of Durham, the Rt Revd Paul Butler, spoke during a House of Lords debate on Tuesday night.

Discussing the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, which the government says will help reducing the borrowing bill, will see a number of reforms to benefits.

Work and pensions minister Lord Freud told peers: "For too long this country has been dependent on unsustainable borrowing. We simply cannot continue in this way."

The Bill would put the welfare system on a "sustainable footing" while continuing to protect the most vulnerable, and was for "working Britain" by restoring fairness in the system.

Lord Freud warned that "just throwing money at the problem isn't the solution".

He said a new £20,000 benefits cap under the Bill was fair and provided the right incentive for people to "move into work".

The legislation also includes a freeze on working age benefits for the next four years "helping to bring welfare spending under control" with some exclusions, including pensioner benefits.

Bishop Alan told peers he was concerned how vulnerable adults and the disabled would be hit by the measures.

He raised worries about the freeze on the basic employment support allowance.

"The Motor Neuron Disease Association has estimated the freeze will leave those suffering terminal and degenerative illnesses over £250 a year worse off by 2220 when the projected rise in prices is taken into account. This is deeply problematic," the bishop said.

Bishop Paul added that the changes would end-up "penalising" children and creating more poverty.

"Larger families will lose up to £2,780 for each child beyond the first two. Two million children will be affected by the end of the parliament, many of whom are already in, or at risk of, poverty. As faith leaders we believe that this measure is fundamentally anti-family and fails the Government's own family test.

"In extreme circumstances older children may be forced to leave home before they are ready, and large families may break up in order to avoid the two-child penalty.

"If the two-child limit is designed to encourage lower income families to have fewer children then, I have to say, there is very little evidence that it will be effective, instead the impact will be to increase child poverty, penalising children in a largely futile attempt to influence the behaviour of their parents," the Bishop said.

The senior Church of England figure also criticised moves to stop measuring child poverty by income levels.

"To scrap all of the income based measures ignores the importance of money in meeting people's basic needs. It also ignores the wealth of evidence pointing to the effects that income poverty has on children's lives in terms of their health, education and future opportunities.

"Life chances are affected by a multiple of factors and basic income is one of these," Mr Butler said.

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