Welfare reforms a 'disgrace', says UK's most senior Catholic

Archbishop of Westminster says Duncan Smith's reforms leave people with nothing if they fail to fill in forms correctly



Britain's most senior Catholic cleric has described the coalition's welfare reforms as a "disgrace" and said they have removed even the most basic safety net for those threatened by poverty and left society's most vulnerable facing "hunger and destitution".

Cardinal-designate Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, attacked the reforms led by Iain Duncan Smith. The work and pensions secretary is a practising Catholic.

He said that the welfare system had become more "punitive", leaving people with nothing if they fail to fill in forms correctly.

His move follows attacks by prominent figures in the Church of England against the government's programme.

"People do understand that we do need to tighten our belts and be much more responsible and careful in public expenditure," the archbishop said.

"But I think what is happening is two things: one is that the basic safety net that was there to guarantee that people would not be left in hunger or in destitution has actually been torn apart.

"It no longer exists and that is a real, real dramatic crisis. And the second is that, in this context, the administration of social assistance, I am told, has become more and more punitive."

The archbishop also told the Daily Telegraph: "So if applicants don't get it right, then they have to wait for 10 days, for two weeks, with nothing – with nothing. For a country of our affluence, that, quite frankly, is a disgrace."

You know, you really can't polish one!

Cutting benefits part of a 'moral mission', Cameron tells new Cardinal

David Cameron says he is giving unemployed Britons “new hope and responsibility” by cutting their benefit payments and claims his welfare reforms are part of a “moral mission” for the country.

In an article for the Telegraph, the Prime Minister issues a sharp rebuke to Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, who said recent changes had left many in “hunger and destitution”.

Mr Cameron argues that the Archbishop of Westminster’s criticism is “simply not true” and says the overhaul of the benefits system, led by Iain Duncan Smith, himself a practising Catholic, was about “doing what is right” and not simply “making the numbers add up”.

Archbishop Nichols insisted that he was not attacking the principle of welfare reform but giving a voice to the reality on the ground which is being reported to him by a network of clergy and charity groups in deprived parishes.

“I said … that the fact that people are left in destitution was a disgrace, I didn’t say the Government’s policies were a disgrace,” he said.

“I said the fact of people left for weeks on end without any support and therefore having to have recourse to foodbanks in a country as affluent as ours was a disgrace.”

He said that it was clear that welfare reform is “necessary” and “difficult” adding: “I [am] sure that these things were unintended consequences of this attempt to reform.

“What I notice in Government statements is that they are mostly cast in the future tense: 'these reforms will achieve this, will achieve that’.

“My concern is to echo the voices that come to me of the circumstances today in which people are left without any support for weeks on end, are hungry, are destitute.

“There must be something wrong with the administration of a system which has that effect on so many people’s lives.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 78536.html

UN investigating British Government over human rights abuses caused by IDS welfare reforms

The UN is to visit the UK to investigate whether Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms have caused “grave or systematic violations” of disabled peoples’ human rights, it has been reported.

A leading disability charity says that they have been contacted by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as part of an investigation into human rights abuses against disabled people in the UK.

The UN conducts such investigations “confidentially” and will not confirm or deny if they are currently investigating the UK.

The UN’s special investigator on housing has previously urged the government to scrap the bedroom tax, after hearing “shocking” accounts of how it was affecting disabled and vulnerable people.

Last week, the Department of Work and Pensions revealed that 2,380 people have died within six weeks of being declared ‘fit to work’ by the government between 2011 and 2014.

I think we all know someone who is fiddling benefits and it is only right that this is stopped. I think it also right that benefits be capped as it's wrong that someone on benefits has more income that those working. However, IDS with his reforms has systematically hit the weakest and poorest in society. This is simply wrong.

In the UK today, the fact that we're seeing food-banks is a disgrace. Our politicians ought be ashamed to see it and to have had it develpe under their watch.

Yes, reform is necessary, but let's do it properly and fairly. Most in this country are only one pay cheque from being on welfare, but let's also not forget that they're paid to protect themselves via NI.

I also think it immoral to harass the weakest in society whilst not chasing after the tax dodgers, but that's another argument.