Greater Manchester Mayor ‘Andy Burnham has called for an end to the ‘punitive’ approach to benefit cuts that he believes is designed to ‘please certain newspapers’ rather than get people back into jobs’
Appearing in front of the Work and Pensions Select Committee in Manchester earlier today he said
“Benefits policy in this country is too much – under all governments – been written to create headlines to please certain newspapers and not actually do the job of encouraging the recovery of people to a better position in their life.”
He told the committee “If you really want to help people, if you really want to save money & get more people into work, I think you have to come at it a completely different way”
Asked about what the government could learn from Greater Manchester’s success, Mr Burnham said: “You can’t order people’s recovery from the top down, you can’t batter them with sanctions towards work.
