Iain Duncan Smith was 'exceptionally difficult to work for,' Pensions Minister says

'IDS undermined my efforts to help on important pension policy issues like women's pensions," she wrote on Twitter

Sunday 20 March 2016 00:31 GMT

The now former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith leaves Downing Street after a Cabinet Meeting on March 16, 2016 in London, England (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Former Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith was "exceptionally difficult to work for," Pensions Minister Baroness Altmann has said.

Mr Duncan Smith quit the Cabinet on Friday. In his resignation letter, he said the latest planned cuts to disability benefits were "indefensible" in a Budget which benefited higher-earning taxpayers.

"[Iain Duncan Smith] undermined my efforts to help on important pension policy issues like women's pensions," she wrote on Twitter.

In a personal statement reported by Sky News, Baroness Altmann said she was "extremely shocked by the news of Iain Duncan Smith's resignation and the way he has behaved".

She wrote: "Having worked alongside him as a minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, I have seen that he championed the very package of reforms to disability benefits he now says is the reason he has resigned.

"I simply cannot understand why he suddenly chose to quit like this when it was clear that Number 10 and the Treasury had told him they were going to pause and rethink these measures."

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

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1/77 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Closing Remploy factories

The Work and Pensions Secretary called time on Britain’s system of Remploy factories, which provided subsidised and sheltered employment to disabled people. People employed at the factories protested against their closure and said they provided gainful work. “Is it a kindness to stick people in some factory where they are not doing any work at all? Just making cups of coffee?” Mr Duncan Smith said at the time, defending the decision. “I promise you this is better.” The Remploy organisation was privatised and sold to American workfare provider Maximus, with the majority of the organisation’s factories closed. The future of the remaining sites is unclear

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Scrapping the Independent Living Fund

The £320m Independent Living Fund was established in 1988 to give financial support to people with disabilities. It was scrapped on July 1 2015, with 18,000 often severely disabled people losing out by an average of £300 a week. The money was generally used to help pay for carers so people could live in communities rather than institutions. Councils will get a boost in funding to compensate but it will not cover the whole cost of the fund. This new cash also doesn’t have to be spent on the disabled

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Cut payments for the disabled Access To Work scheme

Iain Duncan Smith is bringing forward a policy that will reduce payments to some disabled people from a scheme designed to help them into work. The £108m scheme, which helps 35,540 people, will be capped on a per-used basis, potentially hitting those with the more serious disabilities who currently receive the most help. The single biggest users of the fund are people who have difficulty seeing and hearing. The cut will come in from October 2015. The charity Disability UK says the scheme actually makes the Government money because the people who gain access to work tend pay tax that more than covers its cost. The DWP does not describe the reduction as a “cut” and says it will be able to spread the money more thinly and cover more people

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Cut Employment and Support Allowance

The latest Budget included a £30 a week cut in disability benefits for some new claimants of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). The Government says it is equalising the rate of disability benefits with Jobseekers Allowance because giving disabled people more help is a “perverse incentive”. The people affected by this cut are those assessed as having a limited capability for work but as being capable of some “work-related activity”. A group of prominent Catholics wrote to Mr Duncan Smith to say there was “no justification” for this cut. Mental health charity Mind, said the cut was “insulting and misguided”

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Risk homelessness with a sharp increase disability benefit sanctions

Official figures in the first quarter of 2014 found a huge increase in sanctions against people reliant on ESA sickness benefit. The 15,955 sanctions were handed out in that period compared to 3,574 in the same period the year before, 2013 – a 4.5 times increase. The homelessness charity Crisis warned at the time that the sharp rise in temporary benefit cuts was “cruel and can leave people utterly destitute – without money even for food and at severe risk of homelessness”. “It is difficult to see how they are meant to help people prepare for work,” Matt Downie, director of policy at the charity added

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Sending sick people to work because of broken fitness to work tests

In 2012 a government advisor appointed to review the Government’s Work Capability Assessment said the tests causing suffering by sending sick people back to work inappropriately. “There are certainly areas where it's still not working and I am sorry there are people going through a system which I think still needs improvement,” Professor Malcolm Harrington concluded. The tests are said to have improved since then, but as recently as this summer they are still coming in for criticism. In June the British Psychological Society said there was “now significant body of evidence that the WCA is failing to assess people’s fitness for work accurately and appropriately”. It called for a full overhaul of the way the tests are carried out. The WCA appeals system has also been fraught with controversy with a very high rate of overturns and delays lasting months and blamed for hardship

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

The bedroom tax

The Government’s benefit cut for people who it says are “under-occupying” their homes disproportionately affects disabled people. Statistics released last year show that around two-thirds of those affected by the under-occupancy penalty, widely known as the ‘bedroom tax’, are disabled. There have been a number of high profile cases of disabled people being moved out of specially adapted homes by the policy. In one case publicised by the Sunday People last week, a 48 year old man with cerebral palsy was forced to bathe in a paddling pool after the tax moved him out of his home with a walk-in shower. The Government says it has provided councils with a discretionary fund to help reduce the policy’s impact on disabled people, but cases continue to arise

She added: "I'm particularly saddened that this really seems to be about the European referendum campaign rather than about DWP policy.

"He seems to want to do maximum damage to the party leadership in order to further his campaign to try to get Britain to leave the EU."

Mr Duncan Smith was replaced by Stephen Crabb, who previously served as Welsh Secretary and has been an MP for Preseli Pembrokeshire since 2005.

In an interview with local media, Mr Crabb, 43, said he wanted to bring "the same passion and thoughtfulness" to the job as his predecessor.

David Cameron said he was "puzzled and disappointed" Mr Duncan Smith had quit.

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Iain Duncan Smith was 'exceptionally difficult to work for,' Pensions Minister says

'IDS undermined my efforts to help on important pension policy issues like women's pensions," she wrote on Twitter

Thanks for signing up to the
View from Westminster email

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Closing Remploy factories

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Scrapping the Independent Living Fund

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Cut payments for the disabled Access To Work scheme

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Cut Employment and Support Allowance

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Risk homelessness with a sharp increase disability benefit sanctions

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Sending sick people to work because of broken fitness to work tests

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

The bedroom tax

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