12:03pm Saturday 31st July 2010
A SQUEEZE on benefits is set to hit 32,000 people across Hampshire, Southampton and the Isle of Wight, the Daily Echo can reveal.
Yesterday the Government announced proposals to reform the UK’s benefits system, pledging the biggest overhaul in decades.
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith set out a series of options aimed at helping people see the value of moving from benefits to work.
They included combining elements of the current income-related benefits and tax credit systems, bringing out-of-work and in-work support together in a single system, and supplementing monthly household earnings through credit payments reflecting circumstances such as children, housing and disability.
The process is due to begin next April.
But Southampton Test MP John Denham has warned if the Government rushes these tests, it could see people forced into work, who are not fit to be there.
He said: “The Government is trying to do this in a rush which will almost certainly see them bungle it and that will ruin people’s lives.”
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