A market-trader told IDS he was left with just £53 a week after the new round of cuts slashes his housing benefit and council tax assistance
Rex
Living rent free in a £2million home with an annual salary of £134,565 hardly gives Iain Duncan Smith the experience to comment on how to get by on a pittance.
But the arrogant Work and Pensions Secretary yesterday laughingly claimed he could survive on the £7.50 a day market trader David Bennett is left with after the spiteful Tory cuts that will all but destroy the safety net of the Welfare State.
His astonishing claim came after he even tried to insist the savage £2.5billion raid on the poor that will leave hard-pressed families £891 worse off while giving tax breaks to millionaires was “fair”.
Furious David said: “These ministers, in their mansions and ivory towers, need to get out in the real world to find out what it is like.”
Millionaire Mr Duncan Smith spoke to David when the pair appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme to discuss the welfare reforms.
The 51-year-old stallholder told the minister he was left with just £53 a week after the new round of cuts slashes his housing benefit and council tax assistance.
That works out at £7.50 a day and when Mr Duncan Smith was asked if he could live on that, he replied smugly: “If I had to I would.”
David, of Hunwick, Co Durham, added: “The £53 a week is what I am expected to live on, pay my bills and feed my kids.
"I would love for Mr Duncan Smith to come with me and work in a market for a week and see what it is like.
“He should go to any market in the North East, everyone is facing the same as me.
"Market traders usually get enough in the summer to see them through the winter, but we’ve had no summer.
"So far this year I’ve worked 21 days because of the weather.
Rex
“You’ve got to remember you’re paying rent for your stall and petrol to get there.
"You have to pay the council to work. So, in bad weather it doesn’t make sense.
“I’ve been punished for trying to do the right thing, setting up my own business and looking after my kids.
"So much for David Cameron’s Big Society.”
David spoke as the first round of savage cuts in the cruellest shake up since the Welfare State was created after the Second World War came into force – the bedroom tax and council tax aid reductions.
His £57-a-week housing benefit, recently slashed by £18-a-week, covers barely half his £400-a-month rent.
He pays for the rest – including £174-a-month in utility bills – with his £50-a-week working tax credit, leaving him to live on his £2,700-a-year market earnings.
David is being forced out of his home into a council house because he can’t afford the rent.
The divorced dad-of-two will need two “spare” rooms because his children stay with him for half of the week.
But that means he will be clobbered by the bedroom tax, stripping a further £14.25-a-week from his housing benefit.
Contrast that with Mr Duncan Smith’s lavish lifestyle in his mansion with at least four spare bedrooms on a sprawling Buckinghamshire estate.
The home, given by his father-in-law, has a swimming pool, tennis courts and sits in acres of beautiful countryside.
And while David, who snubbed the dole after being made redundant from a previous job in 2010, struggles to get by on his meagre earnings, Morgan-driving Mr Duncan Smith enjoys countless expenses supplied by the taxpayer.
The market trader’s £53 a week wouldn’t even cover the minister’s perks. He recently billed the taxpayer £110 for a Bose bluetooth mobile phone headset to use in his car, according to official parliamentary accounts.
He also claimed £12.42 for a USB cable.
Mr Duncan Smith’s phone bill alone has been more than £53 every month in the latest financial year.
He owes his reported £1million wealth to the aristocratic Fremantle family which he married into in 1982.
The politician and wife Betsy Cottesloe were given use of the family home by her dad the 5th Baron Cottesloe.
Mr Duncan Smith’s comfortable existence will further infuriate David, given his comments on the radio show.
The former credit manager, who works up to 70 hours a week on his stall, decided to set up his own business rather than claim unemployment benefits, having worked all his life.
In his first year he made a loss. But between December 2011 and January this year he scraped a profit of £2,700 – or just over £50 a week.
Because he managed to turn a small profit the council cut his housing benefit by 25%.
Steve Shepard
Thousands of angry voters yesterday backed David by signing an online petition calling on Mr Duncan Smith “to prove his claim of being able to live on £7.57 a day”.
It states: “Iain Duncan Smith would be called upon to live on this budget for at least one year.
“This would help realise the Conservative party’s current mantra that ‘we are all in this together’.
“This would mean a 97% reduction in his current income, which is £1,581.02 a week or £225 a day after tax.”
By last night - just hours after the petition was launched - more than 100,000 names had been added.
The Tory-led Coalition’s vicious assault on the poor means thousands of people face paying the bedroom tax for nine years because of a shortage of homes.
Figures show councils will be unable to rehouse 19 out of 20 families looking to move to smaller properties to avoid the heartless penalty.
Around 330,000 will be hit by the tax. But according to a parliamentary answer only 33,000 one-bed homes became available last year.
Labour welfare spokesman Stephen Timms, who unearthed the figures, said it would take at least nine years on current forecasts to find a smaller home.
He added: “These figures expose the cruelty of this tax and the great majority of those being hit can do nothing about it. This is a deeply cynical measure.
“It is a straight-forward money raising move dressed up as something else.”
The petition can be found here.
Tale of the tape
Iain Duncan Smith, 58
Job: Work and Pensions Secretary
Earns: £134,565 a year or £2,587 a week. Believed to have earned £1million as an after-dinner speaker
Marital status: Married to Betsy Cottesloe, daughter of 5th Baron Cottesloe
Children: Four – Alicia, Edward, Harry and Rosie
Homes: Rent free £2million 16th-century farmhouse with pool and tennis court in Swanbourne, Bucks, owned by his father-in-law. Made £600k selling Fulham house in 2002.
Motor: Spotted driving a Morgan sports car
David Bennett, 51
Job: Market trader
Earns: £2,700 a year or £53 a week
Marital status: Divorced
Children: Two
Home: Rented three bedroom house in Hunwick, Co Durham
Motor: Battered 12-year-old Transit van
