Citizens Advice responds to the Secretary of State's speech on benefit cuts
Responding to the latest speech by the Secretary of State for Welfare Liz Kendall MP, Dame Clare Moriarty, Chief Executive of Citizens Advice, said:
"Slashing vital support creates desperation, not opportunity. These cuts fail to address why more people need health-related benefits in the first place and will simply shift costs to other public services.
“The government says it wants to help disabled people into work, but cutting the money that many need to be independent isn’t the way to do it. A misguided dash for short-term savings will push far too many deeper into poverty and make problems harder and more expensive to solve in the long run.
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Notes to editors:
Citizens Advice is made up of the national charity Citizens Advice; the network of independent local Citizens Advice charities across England and Wales; the Citizens Advice consumer service; and the Witness Service.
Our network of charities offers impartial advice online, over the phone, and in person, for free.
Citizens Advice helped 2.68 million people face to face, over the phone, by email and webchat in 2023-24. And we had 51.7 million visits to our website. For full service statistics see our monthly publication Advice trends.
Citizens Advice service staff are supported by more than 19,000 trained volunteers, working at over 1,900 service outlets across England and Wales.
Citizens Advice is the statutory consumer advocate for energy and postal markets. We provide supplier performance information to consumers and policy analysis to decision makers.
You can get consumer advice from the Citizens Advice consumer service on 0808 223 1133 or 0808 223 1144 for Welsh language speakers.