State body attacks low U.K. benefits

Press, 31 October 1979, Page 12

State body attacks low U.K. benefits

From KEN COATES in London

One in ten people m Britain need supplementary State benefits to survive from day to day, according to a report on poverty.

The Supplementary Benefits Commission, which issued the report, says the payments it makes are insufficient and it calls for improvements. Improved pensions and better benefits for the disabled and one-parent families to get them off the supplementary benefits list are needed, the Commission says. It calls for a Government re-employment programme which could be' cheaper than the present

system of paying out welfare cash payments. It also wants a simplified means-test benefit which would amalgamate rents, rates, and housing payments in one lump sum.

A fuel subsidy for the poor is also called for, to replace fuel discounts and discretionary payments. The commission also calls for higher family allowance payments for workers and the unemployed. “Poverty in urban industrial countries like Britain is a standard so low that it excludes and isolates people from the rest of the community,” says the retiring chairman of the commission (Professor David Dennison).