Welfare Reform And Work Bill
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The Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 (c. 7) is an Act of the
Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...
. It was introduced into the House of Commons on 9 July 2015 by
Iain Duncan Smith Sir George Iain Duncan Smith (born George Ian Duncan Smith; 9 April 1954), often referred to by his initials IDS, is a British politician who served as Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2001 to 2003. He was S ...
and received
Royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in other ...
in March 2016.


Background

The Act implements policies that were contained in both the
Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...
manifesto A manifesto is a published declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party or government. A manifesto usually accepts a previously published opinion or public consensus or promotes a ...
ahead of the 2015 general election as well as statements made in the July 2015 budget. Among other measures that Act represents the Government's attempts to increase employment, curb the welfare budget, reduce
child poverty Child poverty refers to the state of children living in poverty and applies to children from poor families and orphans being raised with limited or no state resources. UNICEF estimates that 356 million children live in extreme poverty. It's estima ...
and support working households.


Provisions

*Section 1 establishes a duty to produce an annual report on progress towards full employment. *Section 2 establishes a duty to report on progress towards three million apprenticeships during this
Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
. *Section 5 amends the
Child Poverty Act 2010 The Child Poverty Act 2010 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom "to set targets relating to the eradication of child poverty, and to make other provision about child poverty". More specifically, the act has been summarised as compris ...
so that the Secretary of State must produce an annual report on 'life chances'. *Section 7 repeals much of the
Child Poverty Act 2010 The Child Poverty Act 2010 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom "to set targets relating to the eradication of child poverty, and to make other provision about child poverty". More specifically, the act has been summarised as compris ...
. *Section 8 amends the Welfare Reform Act 2012 so that the annual limit for benefits is "£23,000 or £15,410, for persons resident in Greater London nd£20,000 or £13,400, for other persons." *Section 11 freezes a number of social security benefits for four years. *Section 18 replaces Support for Mortgage Interest with Loans for Mortgage Interest. *Section 23 requires social housing providers to reduce rent levels by 1% each year for four years beginning from 2016/17.


Criticism

Many people have criticised the bill, with some even going as far as to defining it as a " Pandora's box for Britain's poorest families". The cuts to tax credits have been criticised for unfairly affecting the working poor, and a clause in the bill allows the benefits cap of £20,000 (£23,000 in London) to be reduced further, without any further consultation with Parliament (apart from the passage of the act through parliament), thus making those from larger families even worse off. It also called for £12bn to be made in cuts. Harriet Harman, then interim leader of the Labour Party, required Labour MPs to abstain from the vote for the bill as opposed to voting against it (a move which US-based magazine ''
The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
'' said "underline Labour's moral and intellectual bankruptcy".) However, the Labour Party was in the process of choosing a new leader at the time, and one candidate associated with the party's left-wing, the eventual new leader
Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialist ...
, voted against the bill along with 48 of his Labour colleagues who also defied the Labour whip. Other parties in opposition to the bill were the
Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; sco, Scots National Pairty, gd, Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from ...
(who said that the Bill was "...an attack on civil society, it's an attack on our poorest and hard working families, and it's a regressive Bill that takes us back in time with cuts that will hit women and children the hardest"), the Liberal Democrats, the
Democratic Unionist Party The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is a unionist, loyalist, and national conservative political party in Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1971 during the Troubles by Ian Paisley, who led the party for the next 37 years. Currently led by J ...
(Northern Ireland), Plaid Cymru and the Green Party of England and Wales.


References


External links


Welfare Reform and Work Bill
{{Welfare reform in the United Kingdom (2010-Present) Welfare in the United Kingdom United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 2016