Jeremy Hunt will vow to ‘make work pay’ today with a boost to the minimum wage and a crackdown on benefit claimants who refuse to look for a job.
The Chancellor will use his keynote speech to the Conservative Party conference in Manchester to announce that the national living wage will rise to more than £11 an hour next April, benefiting two million low-paid workers.
But he will also warn that about 100,000 benefit claimants who refuse to look for work could have their handouts cut for months. Mr Hunt will say the reforms are designed to ‘make work pay’, adding: ‘Those who won’t even look for work do not deserve the same benefits as people trying hard to do the right thing.’
A Tory source said the changes showed ‘we are on the side of the workers, not the shirkers’. In a separate announcement, Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride will unveil plans for a crackdown on ‘deadbeat dads’ who refuse to make maintenance payments for their children.
The Child Maintenance Service will be given new powers to process ‘liability orders’ for feckless fathers directly rather than going through the courts. Sources said the move was expected to slash the time taken for payment orders to be issued – which can be up to several months.
The Chancellor will use his keynote speech to the Conservative Party conference in Manchester to announce that the national living wage will rise to more than £11 an hour next April
The Government had already set a target for the national living wage to reach two-thirds of median hourly pay by October next year. The Low Pay Commission estimates the rate required to meet that target should be between £10.90 and £11.43, with a central estimate of £11.16 – equal to a rise of 7.1 per cent.
‘At the moment it is £10.42 an hour and we are waiting for the Low Pay Commission to confirm its recommendation for next year,’ Mr Hunt will say. ‘But I confirm today, whatever that recommendation, we will increase it next year to at least £11 an hour.’
For a full-time worker, the pay rise will be worth more than £1,000 a year. The national living wage was announced by George Osborne in 2016 as an enhancement to the minimum wage.
Mr Hunt will today say it has succeeded in lifting two million people out of absolute poverty, adding: ‘That’s the Conservative way of improving the lives of working people. Boosting pay, cutting tax.’
Details of the benefits crackdown are still being hammered out by ministers and will be unveiled in the Chancellor’s autumn statement next month.
Jeremy Hunt is also set to crackdown on benefit claimants who refuse to look for a job
A Tory source said the move would be targeted at up to 100,000 benefit claimants who refuse to look for work or take a job.
The source said existing short-term benefit sanctions were not enough to persuade them to ‘engage’ with the system.
A permanent cut to benefits has been ruled out, but people could potentially face reduced payments for months.
‘There are still 90-100,000 people who are completely disengaged with the system,’ the source said. Mr Hunt will also warn that things have gone in the ‘wrong direction’ since the pandemic when it comes to people out of work, with 100,000 a year leaving the workforce ‘for a life on benefits’.
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