Labour has promised to replace ‘inhumane’ Universal Credit with a new social security system.
Jeremy Corbyn said a Labour government would also end the benefit cap and the two child limit to stop up to 300,00 children being pushed into poverty.
They would also suspend the punitive sanctions regime and replace the Department for Work and Pensions with a Department for Social Security.
Jeremy Corbyn said: ‘When a Labour government takes office we will introduce an emergency package of reforms to end the worst aspects of Universal Credit.
’And we will introduce a new system that will be based on the principles of dignity and respect and it will alleviate and end poverty, not drive people into it.’
Think tank, the IPPR welcomed the plans warning Universal Credit was failing to meet its stated aims.
Clare McNeil, associate director at IPPR, said: ‘Levels of trust in Universal Credit are dangerously low in many communities in the UK. It urgently needs a fundamental re-engineering because some of the design principles are profoundly misconceived.'