The Government’s “shameful” welfare reform plans will end up increasing the social security bill in Northern Ireland rather than generating any savings, the Communities Minister has said.
Gordon Lyons said the Labour Government had made an “incredible mess” of its welfare reform agenda.
On a separate issue related to the benefits system, Mr Lyons said he had received confirmation from the Treasury that Stormont could potentially share in savings achieved by any Stormont-devised plan to target fraud around benefit payments in Northern Ireland.
The minister said he would now proceed with a business case on a fraud prevention plan with the hope of getting it on the agenda of the Executive for consideration.
At an appearance before his Assembly scrutiny committee, the minister also said that the Government’s U-turn on eligibility for winter fuel payments for pensioners would result in 86% of pensioners in Northern Ireland (288,000) receiving the payment this coming winter – a proportion higher than the UK average of 80%.
Facing questions from MLAs at Stormont on Thursday, Mr Lyons also defended his own department’s recently published draft poverty strategy, a document that has faced criticism from several community and civic society organisations.
The DUP minister’s appearance came days after the UK Government was forced into a late climbdown on a central plank of its welfare reform agenda in a bid to avert a major backbench rebellion.
In a late concession on Tuesday, only 90 minutes before MPs were to vote on the Bill, ministers shelved plans to restrict eligibility for the personal independence payment (Pip), with any changes now only coming after a review of the benefit.
Mr Lyons was scathing of the Government’s approach while giving evidence to the committee.
“I think it is important that I place on record just how appalled I am by this Labour Government and how they have conducted themselves over the last number of months,” he said.
“I believe their approach has been shameful. I believe that it has caused significant stress for many in our society, even those who I believe would never have been affected by the changes that have been proposed and those that perhaps would have been.
“It has caused a huge amount of stress.”
The minister added: “We’re at very early stages of assessment, but we believe ultimately that it will end up costing, it will not create any saving at all in Northern Ireland.
“So, I think that that has been an incredible mess, they’ve made a real hames of it, if I’m being honest.”
On the winter fuel payments, Mr Lyons said: “There are 336,000 pensioners in Northern Ireland and HMRC are now estimating that 86% or 288,000 will receive the winter fuel payment in 25/26 because they have an income of less than £35,000.
“Twenty per cent will not receive it in the UK as a whole, that is only 14% in Northern Ireland. Again, another mess by this Government. It was inevitable that they would have had to have changed course.”
The minister said he had received confirmation on Thursday that Northern Ireland could potentially have a share of savings generated by any welfare fraud measures taken by the Executive.
“If there are savings through us tackling welfare fraud and error that are certified by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Treasury will consider providing for us a share of those savings,” he said.
“And those savings are massive.
“A very, very small amount of money that we put in (to introduce fraud prevention measures) and you can get incredible savings from those.
“So that could be a net benefit to Northern Ireland. We will be progressing that business case.
“I have a paper with the Executive. I hope it will get on the agenda, because I think that could be very, very important.”
Mr Lyons faced several questions on his draft anti-poverty strategy.
The minister said he respected those who had criticised it, but made clear he did not agree with several of the claims that had been made about the plan lacking ambition and targets.
He said he remained open during the public consultation phase to listening to alternative proposals.
SDLP MLA Daniel McCrossan put it to the minister that Sinn Fein First Minister Michelle O’Neill had appeared to distance herself from his proposed strategy.
Mr Lyons said he never encountered any “push back” from Executive colleagues when the draft proposals were presented to ministerial colleagues for consideration.
“I think it’s safe to say there was not a lengthy debate around this issue, and I certainly left that Executive meeting believing there was good consensus on the way forward, and that we were open to consultation on this and to listening to what people had to say, and that there was broad agreement on what we had in front of us,” he said.
“I listen to what others have to say. I will do that through the consultation period, but I was not getting push-back at all within the Executive and I believe that there was good unity among Executive colleagues.
“I understand people can come under a bit of pressure, and they can change their positions, or they want to be seen to be on the right side, but I’ve taken on board all of the criticisms that have been made of this, and we will certainly listen to those.
“I believe a lot of those don’t have a basis in reality.
“I hope I’ve explained and I’ve reassured the committee today about the approach that I am taking.
“But if anybody inside or outside the Executive have changes that they want to make to that that they haven’t expressed to me so far, I’m open to listening to those, but I hope that they will also be willing to provide the funding that is necessary if it comes at an additional cost as well.”
