Skiving Employment Minister Mark Hoban has confirmed what many people suspected, which is that he isn’t clever enough to understand the benefits system.
Speaking at a recent anti-poverty conference organised by the Catholic Church, Hoban admitted: “I can’t navigate my way round the benefits system.”
The Guardian Diary reports (spotted by Obi Wan Kenobi in the comments) that Hoban claims the system is ‘complex’ and that whenever a constituent has a problem concerning social security he sends them to Citizen’s Advice. Hoban will do almost anything to get out of actually doing some work.
Unfortunately it’s not just his own constituents that Hoban is abandoning. Over five million people are on some form of social security. Many are facing unprecedented poverty and homelessness due to the brutal and bungled welfare reforms.
And Hoban’s comments are the clearest indication yet that DWP Ministers don’t even understand the very system they are reforming.
Claimants manage to understand the benefits system. As do advice workers and (some) Jobcentre staff. Yet the man in charge hasn’t a clue. The skiving scrounging bastard is picking up a huge tax payer funded salary and even he admits he isn’t up to the job.
The scary thing is that compared to Iain Duncan Smith and Lord Fraud, Mark Hoban is the clever one.
The Void
