EXPOSED: How Labour depends on the votes of Welfare Britain

By GLEN OWEN, MAIL ON SUNDAY POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
Last updated at 12:58 AM on 08th November 2009

Young mother smoking with child (picture posed by models)

Battle: The parties are at odds over the £165billion spent on welfare annually (picture posed by models)

Labour has been accused of relying on the 'welfare vote' after the Conservatives published a provocative league table ranking Commons seats according to the number of benefit claimants.

A total of 189 constituencies in the first 200 are represented by Labour MPs, which the Tories claim explains why Ministers are failing to tackle the spiralling welfare bill.

Gordon Brown and 12 Cabinet colleagues represent seats in the top 200, while just four have a Tory MP.

But Labour fought back, saying the research highlighted a widening gulf between the Conservative Party and the most disadvantaged sections of society.

The row is the first salvo in what is set to be a bitter Election battle over benefits. David Cameron has set up a top-level policy group, headed by Shadow Chancellor George Osborne, to look at ways of cutting the number of claimants.

The annual £165billion welfare budget is predicted to balloon further over the next two years as the recession squeezes jobs - unemployment figures being released on Wednesday are expected to show the count passing the 2.5million mark.

The list, which covers seats in England, Wales and Scotland, ranks constituencies according to the proportion of working-age adults in receipt of incapacity, lone parent or jobseeker benefit. Other allowances, such as Housing Benefit, are excluded as they are also claimed by the retired.

The top constituency is Liverpool Walton, represented by Labour's Peter Kilfoyle, where 28.9 per cent of adults claim benefits. Mr Kilfoyle has been vocal on reform ideas, recently criticising plans to hire multinational companies to run back-to-work schemes.

He said: 'Payment by results means that these firms will be motivated by profit, not the welfare of the people concerned.'

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Birkenhead, second on the list with 28.7 per cent, is represented by Frank Field, who was briefly Minister for Welfare Reform under Tony Blair. He lost his job within 18 months after clashing with the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, over ways to shake up the system.

The first Conservative MP appears at 110 in the list: James Duddridge, the member for Rochford and Southend East.

The first Cabinet Minister is Liam Byrne, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, whose Birmingham Hodge Hill constituency is at No6. Foreign Secretary David Miliband's South Shields seat is at 41, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn's Leeds Central is at 46 and Jack Straw's Blackburn seat is at 50.

The Pontefract and Castleford constituency of Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper, whose department runs the welfare system, is at 109. Mr Brown's Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath constituency is 168.

Theresa May, Tory work and pensions spokesman, said: 'It is a damning indictment of Labour's welfare policy that pockets of dependency have developed in their own backyard.

'How can we expect them to run the country when they can't sort out problems on their doorstep? The system is a shambles. It pays out £58million a week to fraudsters but can't help those who need support. The public are paying the price.'

But a Labour spokesman said: 'Labour MPs tend to represent the very communities the Tories wilfully abandoned in the Eighties and Nineties.

'We won't take advice on getting people into work from the Tories who presided over a trebling of people on incapacity benefit and who spent twice as much on unemployment benefits in the 12 years before 1997.

'It is no longer an option for people to sit at home and claim benefits.'

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