TORIES TARGETING WRONG PEOPLE – WILSON

By Martin Walker

Newton Aycliffe MP Phil Wilson is accusing the current Government of trying to stigmatise people on benefits – and reckons the Tories have got their welfare reform all wrong.

The Government’s spring announcement to cut a further £10 billion from the national benefit bill – making a total of £28bn in savings – represented the biggest change to our welfare system for 60 years, and will have a major impact on Aycliffe residents.

And while Mr Wilson agrees that benefit cheats need to be weeded out, the Tories are victimising working-class people.

Durham County Council, which has to save £175m over the next four years, have published statistics which show the welfare reform act will take £150m out of our local economy.

It will effect half of the people in Durham – 120,000 households in the county will feel the pinch – and Mr Wilson says the majority of them are people who actually work.

He says the Government needs to take a closer look at the private rent sector, which, he says, is largely to blame for driving up the benefit bill from £132bn in 2000 to £192bn in 2010.

Mr Wilson, the MP for Sedgefield, told the Sedgefield Residents Federation: “Popular opinion seems to think people on benefits are scroungers, and that’s not true.

“Yes there are people who abuse the system, and they need to be clamped down on.

“The benefit system is there to help people bring up families. Seven out of eight housing benefit claimants are actually in work, but they’re on low incomes and can’t afford the rents.

“Private landlords are making a killing and are contributing towards the housing benefit going through the roof.

“We need to build more houses, and have a really close look at the private rent sector, which is being subsidised by the tax payer.

“The Government is trying to stigmatise people on benefit. People abusing the system have to be dealt with, but there’s more to this than meets the eye.

“We need to look at the housing sector in its entirety. We need more social housing and we need to regulate the private rent sector.”

Mr Wilson joined Durham Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Manager Feisal Jassat at the Sedgefield Federation meeting at St Clare’s Church in Aycliffe.

Mr Jassat revealed the following stats for the Durham County:

● At least 32,000 DWP benefit claimants affected by Welfare Reform will transfer to Universal Credit (UC). An estimated further 24,000 IB claimants may transfer depending how IB/ESA migration develops.

● 53,000 Tax Credit Families will transfer to UC.

● 47,000 Housing Benefit claimants in total will transfer to UC.

● 63,000 Council Tax Benefit claimants subject to Welfare Reform.

● 23,000 DLA claimants (of working age) subject to Welfare Reform.

Mr Wilson added: “Half of the households in County Durham will be affected by the reform and it will take £150m out of our local economy.

“One of the ways to get out of a recession is to grow the economy, but if the money isn’t there to spend you can see what kind of an impact it’s going to have on the economy.

“The Tories are trying to say housing is a privilege. I think it should be a right to have a house. I grew up in a council house in Trimdon when the community spirit was really strong.

“I still live in the same estate I grew up on and the spirit is still very good in so many ways.

“I don’t like being stigmatised for coming from that background, and I think that’s what they’re trying to do.”

See two parts of Mr Wilson’s speech at the Sedgefield Residents Federation in our Video Vault