Rishi Sunak has been criticized for claiming that the “computer says no” has forced him to impose real cuts in benefits in his spring mini-budget.
The chancellor has been sharply criticized for increasing payments to people in difficulty by just 3.1% last month – well below inflation at 7% and rising.
Mr Sunak has now blamed the government’s antique computer system, although he had previously speculated that it would be too expensive and that other help was available.
“The work of our social care system is technically complex,” he told Bloomberg News.
“It’s not necessarily possible [increase benefits] for each. Many of the systems are built in such a way that it can be done only once a year, and the decision was made a long time ago.
Mr Sunak acknowledged that accusing the technology “sounds like an excuse”, but insisted it was “somewhat limited by the workings of the social system”.
But the claim has been challenged by experts, who say that while changing so-called “inherited benefits” and pensions is complex, Universal Credit levels may or may not have increased at a rapid pace.
Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Research, said Mr Sunak had increased Universal Credit as soon as the Covid pandemic hit in 2020.
Thorsten Bell, director of the Resolution Foundation, said: “The Chancellor is right that it is very difficult to change benefits outside the normal cycle, especially for pensions. But these barriers can be overcome. “
The Ministry of Labor and Pensions seems to contradict the Chancellor’s claim that the system can only be changed once a year, saying the changes take “several months to process”.
It states that the inherited benefits use “complex and inefficient paper systems that are further delayed by aging, inflexible IT”, referring only to plaintiffs who have not yet switched to Universal Credit.
It states that the inherited benefits use “complex and inefficient paper systems that are further delayed by aging, inflexible IT”, referring only to plaintiffs who have not yet switched to Universal Credit.
Angela Raynor, the Labor’s deputy leader, made a contemptuous statement, tweeting, “The computer said no? He insults your intelligence. “
Effective reductions in benefits have led to warnings that many more people will be forced to go to food banks and that Mr Sunak has turned the “crisis of living costs into an emergency”.
The oversight body of the Ministry of Finance, the Office for Budgetary Responsibility, predicts that the British will suffer the biggest decline in living standards since the beginning of the recordings in 1956.
In a spring statement, the chancellor chose instead to raise national insurance thresholds – to partially mitigate the increase in the rate paid – and to promise future income tax cuts.
The city hall’s emergency fund was increased by £ 500 million, but councils warned that this failed to offset previous cuts to their support schemes.
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