For the record: This Writer didn’t hate Gordon Brown. In fact, I sent him a lot of letters when he was PM and received a card with his signature stamp on it from one of his aides when he quit.

But it was under Brown that the wholesale messing with the benefits of sick and disabled people really started to bite. Employment and Support Allowance – with the hated Work Capability Assessment administered by private contractor Atos – was introduced in 2008.

So his recent call for Rishi Sunak to “implement a root and branch reform of the benefits system” because “many families on benefits can no longer make ends meet”.

That was the whole intention of the changes to benefits that Brown’s ‘New Labour’ government put in motion!

Still, there’s more rejoicing in Heaven for a sinner that repentheth, and all that.

He was quoting from an unpublished briefing paper by Prof Donald Hirsch, titled The UK’s Inadequate and Unfair Safety Net, concluding that Britain’s benefit system no longer provides the basic amount needed “to function day-to-day and have healthy lives”.

Here’s what he said:

Speaking to the Guardian, Brown said: “Britain needs to face up to the fact that it is in the throes of a poverty crisis. Donald Hirsch’s important and path-breaking research reveals the arithmetic of poverty, showing just why so many families on benefits can no longer make ends meet.

“It is an evidence based wake-up call to the chancellor to use his March budget to implement a root and branch reform of the benefits system.”

According to the Graun, for single adults on benefits in 2012, minimum basic food and energy costs ate up 73 per cent of their weekly income, whereas in 2023 those costs amounted to 22 per cent more than their benefits provided – leaving them unable to afford to eat properly, let alone meet clothes, toiletries and transport costs.

The poorest families must now spend an average of 63p in each pound to meet basic food and energy needs – nearly 50 per cent more of their income on food and energy than they did in 2012, when the figure was 46p.

The equivalent spend by the average UK family is roughly 20p in each pound earned, the report says.

This is due to the precipitous fall in real-terms value of benefits. Working-age benefits have fallen to 13 per cent below their 2009 peak – their real-terms value falling most dramatically when the government froze benefit levels between 2016 and 2019.

But this has been worsened by holes designed into the safety net that mean most claimants now receive even less money than their entitlement.

These include the Bedroom Tax, two-child limit on Child Benefit and the Benefit Cap, and deductions used to pay back loan advances made to Universal Credit claimants waiting five weeks for a first benefit payment.

And the response from the Department for Work and Pensions? Pathetic.

The Graun reported it as follows:

“The best thing we can do to help those who are struggling is put money back in people’s pockets. That’s why we’ve cut taxes and brought inflation down by more than half while providing support to those who need it most.”

Cutting taxes is no help to people who don’t earn enough money to pay them!

And halving inflation means prices are still rising, as any fool knows!

So we see a serious threat to the lives of people on benefits – especially those who are single.

The best thing the government is doing for them is a rise of 6.7 per cent in the value of benefits from April.

But that’s no help if it still means the cost of essential food and energy is 15.3 per cent more than your entire benefit entitlement.

Remember it. Even if you’re not on benefits now, it doesn’t mean you’ll never need them.

Source: Gordon Brown calls for overhaul of benefits system as study reveals ‘crisis’

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