Talk of welfare reform being aimed at the vulnerable is ‘nonsense’, according to the Conservatives’ North Down PPC, Mark Brotherston. Mr Brotherston made his comments after Sinn Féin indicated that it was set to oppose the Welfare Reform Bill, at Stormont.
“We’ve got to call people out on these misleading claims, once and for all”, Mark explained. “When we think of ‘vulnerable people’, we think of those who have profound disabilities, or some older people in need of care, or those with serious physical and mental illnesses. From the very outset, the aim of welfare reform was to target benefits at the people who need them the most. In other words to make sure that money gets into the hands of the very ‘vulnerable people’ we keep hearing about from Sinn Féin and others.”
“The main thrust of welfare reform is to help people who can work back into work. It’s also designed to identify those who abuse the benefits system, for instance, by making misleading or fraudulent statements. The welfare reforms driven by the Conservatives have always been about compassion and helping people to get on in life, as well as delivering fairness for tax-payers who foot the bill. Those aims have been constantly distorted by groups like Sinn Féin, whose ideology seems to require people to be jobless and dependent on the state, rather than prosperous and self-sufficient. There’s nothing compassionate about that ideology. Indeed, it’s likely only to hold the whole of Northern Ireland back and consign us to poverty and hand-outs.”