Iain Duncan Smith has again misused statistics on Britain's welfare bill. He wrongly told The Sun that the out-of-work benefit bill was a "huge reason" for the deficit.
Update 1730hrs
Fact-checking website Full Fact have also looked into IDS’s misleading briefing to The Sun, pointing out that:
“…the Sun report also fails to take into account the change from Incapacity Benefit to Employment Support Allowance, a system that came in during 2008. The study also shows that of the people claiming the new benefit, 93 per cent had face-to face ‘Work Capability Assessments’.
“Given that Full Fact has previously complained to the UK Statistics Authority about the inaccessibility of DWP data, the concerns highlighted here show just how important it is for Government departments make the information they are submitting to the press accessible to all.”
Full Fact are also:
“…still trying to obtain figures from the Department to establish what proportion of people were exempt from undergoing any form of PCA [Personal Capability Assessment] in the period covered by the figures quoted in The Sun.”
Iain Duncan Smith has once again been playing fast and loose with statistics on Britain’s welfare bill. The latest embellishment in today’s Sun follows a rebuke from the Chair of the UK Statistics’ Authority last week on IDS’ department’s use of statistics.
Today, IDS claims that out-of-work benefits are “a huge part of the reason” for Britain’s deficit. The numbers are lower than in 1997 and the cost increase since the start of the recession has been due to rising unemployment.
Today’s Sun reports that:
Paying a fortune to the five million on handouts – like X Factor reject Wagner Carrilho – is a major reason the UK’s deficit soared to a crippling £155billion, Tory minister Iain Duncan Smith told The Sun…
[IDS said,] “We have managed to create a block of people in Britain who do not add anything to the greatness of this country. They have become conditioned to be users of services, not providers of money. This is a huge part of the reason we have this massive deficit. We have had to borrow vast sums of money. We went on this inflated spending spree.”
The graph below shows how Britain’s welfare budget has changed since 1950. It shows a minor uptick in the welfare budget in the last three years – dwarfed by the cost in the 1980s and 1990s. On the eve of the recession in 2006-07 when the Tories supported Labour’s spending plans, social security benefits amounted to £131.3 billion (Table C9). According to the OBR, this figure is expected to increase to an estimated £169.3 billion (Table C13) in 2010-11. Adjusted for inflation, the increase – due primarily to increasing unemployment – is equivalent to £24.1bn in today’s prices or just 1.64% of GDP – a small proportion of 10.1% deficit.
The number of people on out-of-work-benefits increased since the start of the recession after falling for a number of years. The rise was due to an increase in unemployment. The total figure of 5.34m in 2009 is lower than the 5.95m who were on out-of-work benefits in 1997 when the Tories were last in power.
36 Responses to “IDS misleads The Sun on out-of-work benefits”
janie_s
i’ve personally met a hundred people on permanent out of work benefits due to illness etc. don’t know what they’r calling it this week. not one has ever had anything wrong with them. just scroungers.
i do have a friend who’s is very disabled but he works and would never consider being a doley.
hindle-a
It is worth pointing out that the Governmental agencies are also complicit in its use of statistics-both in terms of labelling the group -out of work-many people receiving IS also work and although recipients of Carers Allowance alone are not counted not an insignificant amount of Carers receive IS despite the fact that the DWP states that Carers are not included-in fact with the introduction of ESA and the fact that disabled people can no longer claim IS on the basis of disability but a Carer may this was/is one reason why the “other” IS recipients went up.That Duncan Smith labels the sick,disabled,lone parents,pensioners and Carers as not adding to the greatness of the Country and “conditioned” to be sick,disabled Carers,workers and of pensionable age but needing support is the language of the unthinking messianic ignoramus that he is.
hindle-a
Janie-amazing- your medical knowledge and expertise regarding the benefit system and the complex reasons that people receive them as evidenced by your comment is a wonder to behold-gosh a hundred people-the doley benefit-new one on me-I do hope your disabled friend is receiving what they are entitled to
John Ruddy
RT @leftfootfwd: IDS misleads <em>The Sun</em> on out-of-work benefits http://bit.ly/fwQRip
Chris
@hindle-a
Exactly, morons like janie_s see disability as a totally black and white issue either you’re in a wheelchair hooked up to a ventilator or you’re a malinger.