Iain Duncan Smith is 'arrogant, smug' and 'the worst human', Labour MP Jess Phillips says

Birmingham Yardley MP attacks Work and Pensions Secretary over cuts to the Universal Credit Work Allowance

Jess Phillips attacked Iain Duncan Smith over cuts to the Universal Credit Working Allowance (Scott Heavey/Getty Images)

Labour MP Jess Phillips has labelled Iain Duncan Smith "the worst human" for presiding over cuts to Universal Credit that will cut in-work benefits for low-income families.

The Birmingham Yardley MP took to Twitter to attack the Work and Pensions Secretary during a debate on the Government's latest assault on welfare, which is estimated to make some benefit claimants up to £3,000 a-year worse off when the cuts to the Universal Credit Work Allowance come into effect in April.

"Its official Ian [sic] Duncan Smith is the worst human," Ms Phillips tweeted. "He is so arrogant and sits smug in face of single parents losing money. Entitled fool," she added.

Universal Credit will combine a number of different benefits into one payment and is being rolled out to 500,000 new claimants in April, but the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank calculated that an estimated 2.6m families will be an average of £1,600 a year worse off due to cuts to Universal Credit announced in November's Autumn Statement.

An estimated 1.9m families will be better off, the IFS said.

Ms Phillips has not held back from expressing her views since she entered Parliament in May and her attacks have included her own leader.

She said she regularly criticised the Labour leader and his office in person and preferred open criticism to behind the scenes leadership plotting.

Last month she said she was "very frustrated" at Jeremy Corbyn's leadership and said she would "knife" him as party leader if it becomes clear he cannot win the next general election.

“I would do anything that I felt was going to make the Labour party win the next election because if I don’t have that attitude all I’m doing is colluding with the Tories,” she told journalist and left-wing activist Owen Jones in an interview for his YouTube channel.

“If that’s making Jeremy better I’ll roll my sleeves up.

“If that’s not going to happen - and I’ve said that to him and his staff to their faces - the day it comes that you are hurting us more than you are helping us, I won’t knife you in the back – I’ll knife you in the front.”