Duncan Smith defends benefit cuts from Church criticism

WORK AND Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has defended cuts to welfare payments following criticism of them by senior church leaders, writes Christopher Lamb.

Last week, Mr Duncan Smith, a Catholic, explained that Cardinal Vincent Nichols had been “factually wrong” earlier this year to say that the benefits system was becoming “punitive” and leaving people without money. He told The Tablet that there was a reserve fund of money to help those people who had not received their payments.

The Archbishop of Glasgow, Philip Tartaglia, said this week that the British welfare system was “unfit for purpose” and was driving people into poverty. But Mr Duncan Smith has insisted his reforms were fair, saying: “It can never be right that people can earn more on benefits than if they are working.”

In February, days before he received the red hat in Rome, Cardinal Nichols said the Coalition Government’s reforms of welfare had removed the safety net from people, and that it was a “disgrace” that some in Britain had been left with nothing to live on.

It was a point reiterated by Archbishop Tartaglia, speaking at the Drumchapel Citizens Advice Bureau on Tuesday, who said: “People face an impenetrable bureaucratic jungle to try to access payments.”

Three weeks before the cardinal made his remarks, a House of Commons Select Committee on Work and Pensions reported that many benefit claimants had been left facing hardship.