BENEFITS PLAN 'COULD CAUSE POVERTY'

Sir Richard Tilt, chairman of the Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC), wants ministers to reconsider plans to force lone parents, disabled people and the long-term jobless to seek work in the face of rising unemployment in the UK, reports claim.

Sir Richard said the welfare-to-work drive could increase hardship in lone parent families and should be delayed by one or two years, the BBC reported.

Under the plans, only full-time carers and disabled people "with the greatest needs" will be exempt from being expected to find work in future.

Currently, single parents with a youngest child under 16 can claim income support without having to show they are seeking work.

But from next week, lone parents with a youngest child of 12 or over who apply for income support will be put on Jobseekers' Allowance and expected to look for work or face sanctions, including having their benefits cut by up to 40%. Only those with disabled or sick children will be exempt.

By 2010, the rule will be extended to lone parents with a youngest child aged seven or over.

Sir Richard said: "Benefit rates are relatively low and if you are going to reduce someone's benefit for a few weeks by 40% you are pushing people much closer to poverty. Of course, the child will suffer, but it's not the child that has fallen foul of the system."

His remarks will come as a blow to ministers who have already faced a backlash over the reforms from left-wing MPs and charities who claim they will penalise the most vulnerable among Britain's 4.5 million benefits claimants.

Work and Pension Secretary James Purnell rejected calls for a delay. "I disagree. I think it would be wrong, at a time when it may be harder for people to find work, to provide them with less help," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.