Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
ARISE SIR CUT A LOT
Duncan Smith knighted for hitting needy
WELFARE slasher Iain Duncan Smith – the man behind the disastrous Universal Credit and the Bedroom Tax – has been knighted in the New Year Honours.
IDS claimed his changes would simplify the benefits system and encourage people to find work, but his reforms have left tens of thousands struggling to cope.
As Tory Work and Pensions Secretary, Mr Duncan Smith also slashed disability benefits by £30 a week, presided over the use of humiliating work capability assessments and oversaw a rise in cruel benefits sanctions.
Labour MP Stephanie Peacock said: “A knighthood for IDS will seem like a joke to the many families who struggled this Christmas thanks to his cuts.”
Fellow MP Alison Mcgovern said: “Universal Credit has been a universal catastrophe for my constituents. Iain Duncan Smith is the architect of that failure. What message does this honour send about the Tories and what they value?”
UC replaced six other benefits with a single monthly payment for people out of work or on a low income.
The system has been blamed for pushing families into debt because of a five-week delay to receiving the cash.
An Institute for Fiscal Studies report in April found UC disproportionately reduced incomes among poorer adults.
The Mirror has campaigned for it to be completely reformed. The Bedroom
Tax, means social tenants receive less in housing benefit if they have one or more spare bedrooms.
Labour’s Rosie Duffield, who sat on the Work and Pensions Committee, said: “I see first-hand in my surgeries... the impact UC has had on low-income families. It is far from honourable what UC has done to the most vulnerable in our society.”
Millionaire IDS, 65, was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2010 to 2016, and Conservative Leader from 2001 to 2003.
In 2002, he visited the Easterhouse estate in Glasgow and was pictured close to tears outside a dilapidated tenement block.
Sections of the Press called it his, “Easterhouse epiphany”.
It was said to have “converted” him to fighting for social justice, so moved was he by the poverty he saw. But the reforms he introduced have led to misery for thousands.
Others to receive honours include Labour MP Diana Johnson. She is made a Dame for charitable and political service after her successful campaign to decriminalise abortion in Northern Ireland.
The youngest person to received a gong this year is 13-year-old Ibrahim Yousaf, of Oldham, Greater Manchester, who has raised many thousands of pounds for charities.
The schoolboy has been awarded a British Empire Medal for his efforts. He said: “I truly believe the real stars and the heroes are the charities...”
Universal Credit has been a universal catastrophe. Duncan Smith is the architect of that ALISON MCGOVERN LABOUR MP ON IDS KNIGHTHOOD