Chancellor to crack down on benefits claimants refusing to find job

JEREMY Hunt will crack down on benefits claimants refusing to find a job as 100,000 people leave the workforce each year for a life on handouts.

The Chancellor will today warn that the system is heading in the “wrong direction” since the pandemic in getting people clocking on.

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It comes as Ministers step up their efforts to ‘make work pay’ by boosting UK productivity.

He will attack Labour saying they would even remove incentives to work.

He is also announcing the national living wage will rise to at least £11 per hour which will benefit two million of the country’s lowest paid.

Mr Hunt and Welfare Secretary Mel Stride will use November’s Autumn Statement outline plans for a more rigorous system to claim cash.

Addressing the Tory party’s annual rally in Manchester, he will say: “I am incredibly proud to live in a country where, as Churchill said, there’s a ladder everyone can climb but also a safety net below which no-one falls.

“But paying for that safety net is a social contract that depends on fairness to those in work alongside compassion to those who are not.”

He will add: “But since the pandemic, things have being going in the wrong direction. Whilst companies struggle to find workers, around 100,000 people are leaving the labour force every year for a life on benefits.

“As part of that we will look at the way the sanctions regime works. It is a fundamental matter of fairness.

“Those who won’t even look for work do not deserve the same benefits as people trying hard to do the right thing.”

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the upcoming measures will “ensure work always pays” in the plans to be set out in November.

Mr Stride will also use his speech to launch a new crackdown on dads who refuse to pay child maintenance.

The shake-up is part of a longer term strategy to ensure parents “shirking their responsibilities” to their children pay up more quickly.

The national living wage will rise to £11 per hour which will mean full-time workers earning an extra £1,000 per year.

The change will benefit two million of the lowest-paid workers.