17 February 2014
DWP’s response to Archbishop Vincent Nichols ‘seriously misleading’
• Welfare reform is set to be the driving force behind increasing child poverty for the next decade
The response of the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to
Archbishop Vincent Nichol's criticism of welfare
reform has come under fire from Churches today.
The Baptist Union of Great Britain, Methodist Church and United
Reformed Church say that the DWP's response to the Archbishop is
misleading and only shows a carefully selected 'airbrushed' picture
of UK welfare reform.
The DWP states that 3 million households will be better off because
of Universal Credit, but it neglects to mention that its own
figures also state that over the long term 2.8 million families
will be worse off under the new system. Universal Credit is only
one part of the welfare reform programme. Analysis by the Institute
of Fiscal Studies shows conclusively that, taken together, the raft
of tax and benefit changes that make up welfare reform will
increase the levels of both child and working age poverty.
"The DWP's response to the Archbishop's criticism is seriously
misleading and disappointing," said Paul Morrison, Public Issues
Policy Adviser and author of
The lies we tell ourselves: ending comfortable myths about
poverty. "The DWP states that Universal Credit will lift
hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. However, the
other changes that are part of welfare reform are likely to push
these children straight back down again. Indeed, welfare reform is
the driving force behind the predicted increases in both relative
and absolute poverty in families with children over the next
decade.
"People are entitled to take different views on the merits of
welfare reform, but they should be given a clear and fair picture
of the reality. The British public deserve better than the diet of
half-truths and skewed statistics they are currently being
fed."