Welfare Reforms 'Chaos' Attacked By Labour

Labour has claimed the coalition's flagship welfare reforms are in chaos and are set to cost the taxpayer £1.4bn by 2015.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Liam Byrne blamed Iain Duncan Smith and argued his "welfare revolution" has collapsed.

In a speech to mentoring charity Chance UK, Mr Byrne highlighted a series of projects at the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) that are allegedly out of control.

They include the youth contract, the switch to universal credit and the cost of implementing housing benefit changes - dubbed the "bedroom tax" by critics.

The DWP insists its plans are on track and a spokesman for Mr Duncan Smith declared: "This is a last-ditch attempt by Liam Byrne to keep his job in the shadow cabinet."

According to Mr Byrne, the largest cost will come from extra Jobseeker's allowance claims due to low take-up of the youth contract.

It is now due to miss its targets by 92% which will cost the public purse £457m, the Labour frontbencher will claim.

Labour reached this figure by estimating around 148,000 more young people would be on the dole in April 2015 than if all the youth contract wage incentives had been taken up.

The DWP said this approach was "ludicrous" because it was calculated by equating unused wage incentives to Jobseeker's allowance, which not all young people would need or be eligible for.

Implementing universal credit will cost another £300m and the housing benefit changes another £102.5m, according to the Opposition.

The work programme is also costing £130m, with failures by private contractor Atos - which is in charge of its delivery - adding £287m, Mr Byrne claimed.

The ex-chief secretary to the Treasury, who in 2010 famously left a note warning there was no money left, also estimates £140m has already been wasted because of rising fraud and error.

He said: "Three years into this Government, their promised welfare revolution has collapsed because of a failure in basic delivery."

Mr Byrne backed universal credit but say it is being badly implemented and call for cross-party talks with civil servants to work out the way forward.

He also suggested Atos should be given just weeks to stop failing in delivery of work capability assessments or face being stripped of its Government contract.

And he repeatedLabour's call for a banker bonus tax to fund a jobs guarantee for young people.

The DWP refute his claims, insisting that money needed to implement universal credit did not reflect extra costs and that the housing benefit changes would save £500m each year.

It pointed out that fraud and error was not a new issue, and had been a problem Labour had been unable to tackle when it was in power.

Officials also argued the work programme was better value for money because it paid providers by results instead of giving out taxpayers' money up front.

A spokesman for Mr Duncan Smith said: "His talk of wasted money is frankly laughable when you consider Labour have voted against £83bn worth of savings to the welfare budget.

"Labour is panicking. After a summer of discontent, here is yet another disastrous speech, void of any ideas. Same old Labour is in the wrong place on welfare.

"They want people on benefits to make more money than the average hard working family earns. They want unlimited amounts of benefits to be a basic human right.

"Labour have even gone as far as to ban the word 'welfare' in the hopes we all forget they are The Welfare Party. The taxpayer supports what we're doing on welfare. Ed Miliband has got it wrong yet again."

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