Oldham’s benefits bill tops £205m

THE bill for Oldham’s benefit claimants topped more than £200 million last year.

It comes as sections of the controversial Welfare Reform Bill, which would change payments to disabled, cancer sufferers and jobless people, were rejected in the House of Lords.

Official figures reveal the most recent annual benefits bill for 2010-11 across the parliamentary constituency of Oldham East and Saddleworth was £96 million, compared with £109.6 million in Oldham West and Royton.

In addition Ashton, which includes Hollinwood and Failsworth, claimed £101.1 million.

Details of last year’s welfare cost for each constituency were revealed, with the highest total in Knowsley, on Merseyside, at £178.3 million, and the lowest the Western Isles, at £28.6 million.

Ministers seized on the figures to claim justification for their bid to transform the benefits system — and said Government will press ahead with changes despite opposition in the Lords.

But Labour said ministers had crossed “the basic line of British decency”.

Employment Minister Chris Grayling said: “We are not taking away benefits from people who’ve got no other form of income, we’re not taking away from people who are going to be sick and disabled and unable to work.

“What we’re doing is for people who are on the path back to the workplace and who have got other financial means... you will receive benefits for a period of time, but you can’t receive benefits indefinitely.”

The statistics include benefits such as jobseeker’s allowance, income support, disability allowance and carer’s allowance.

Measures contained in the Welfare Reform Bill include a 20 per cent saving on disability living allowance payments, a cap on housing benefit and the creation of a single universal credit made up of six payments, including tax credits.

Ministers say the uiniversal credit will be less complex, cheaper to administer and harder to cheat , but critics claim it is wrong to make such fundamental changes to benefits at a time of soaring unemployment.