Ministers reject benefit reform call

POLITICS: The Government has rejected a number of recommendations designed to ease the burden of benefit sanctions on vulnerable claimants contained in a damning report which branded the system “pointlessly cruel”.

In its report in November, the Commons Work and Pensions Committee said that the human cost of the sanctions regime was “simply too high” and called for new protections. Committee chairman Frank Field has now accused ministers of “failing utterly to grasp the seriousness of the matter”.