Pickles’ council tax benefit reform will disproportionaly affect the working-age population, incentivise local authorities to push poor people out to neighbouring boroughs, will penalise councils of poorer areas and create a patchwork of inconsistent systems.
The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, has slammed the coalition’s £18 billion welfare cuts.
James Plunkett, secretary to the Resolution Foundation’s Commission on Living Standards, on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report on ‘minimum income standards’.
Shadow employment minister Stephen Timms MP writes on the failures that lie at the heart of Iain Duncan Smith’s Welfare Reform Bill – the coalition’s next train crash.
Frank Field told the Progress Conference that Labour should not be a feminist party and that people are attracted to a life of joblessness, reports Shelly Asquith.
Tim Nichols, of the Child Poverty Action Group, looks at the policies brought in under Labour thast helped bring child poverty down to the lowest levels for 25 years.
Sue Marsh reports on the welfare reform bill – in particular the changes to Employment Support Allowance, ESA.
A new report out today has revealed nearly 1.6 million children in the UK live in severe poverty, with the highest levels of child poverty in Manchester and Tower Hamlets.
Making hundreds of thousands of families poorer, and then making some a little better off, does not count as a child poverty reduction plan, writes Nicola Smith.
After months of shadow boxing, the campaign proper kicked off this week as the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill finally received Royal Assent.
