But if I told you those aren’t my words but the damning verdict of the United Nations, no less, you get a sense of the damage wrought by nine years of Tory austerity.
Their policy of Universal Credit pushes people into the jaws of loan sharks forces proud men and women to depend on food banks and turfs families out of their homes.
The Tories promised it would make work pay. But more and more people who are falling into poverty have jobs.
A Labour goverment will change the whole culture of the DWP. It will become the Department for Social Security to give people dignity and respect.
Social security shouldn’t be about forcing women into the indignity of having to fill out a four-page form to prove their child was born as a result of rape as 500 women had to do last year.
Labour will scrap Universal Credit and introduce an emergency package to immediately end its worst aspects. Ending the benefit cap and the two child limit, which alone will stop up to 300,000 children being pushed into poverty.
And, yes, that means the end of the disgusting rape clause.
We’ll end the five week wait for the first payment, end the Tories’ vicious sanctions regime, end the bedroom tax and – because we’re committed to reducing poverty – we’ll end the benefit freeze.
We’ll control welfare spending by tackling low pay and insecure work … and rip-off rents. Social security shouldn’t be subsidising bad employers and greedy landlords.
