logo
welcome
Telegraph

Telegraph

The ways Reeves’s new sidekick could reshape the welfare state

Telegraph
Summary
Nutrition label

74% Informative

Torsten Bell spent years heading the Resolution Foundation , one of Britain ’s most high-profile think tanks.

Before entering Parliament , he advocated for more generous unemployment benefits.

He has also called for Universal Credit reforms to stop penalising people who want to work.

Bell argued that higher benefits could boost the economy by allowing those made redundant to devote more of their energies to job-hunting and by encouraging people to switch jobs.

Torsten Bell has long called for the end of what he has called the appalling’ Conservative-era policy of a two -child limit on Universal Credit and tax credit claims.

Bell argued the 2.5bn it would cost to scrap the policy would “overnight lift half a million children out of poverty” Yet in July he voted to keep the limit, arguing that reducing child poverty is about more than benefits.