reform's lee anderson boasts of 'gaming' benefit system at citizens advice

Reform UK’s Lee Anderson admitted ‘gaming the system’ to get people on benefits when he worked at Citizens Advice.

The Ashfield MP was appointed as his party’s welfare spokesman at the Reform conference in Birmingham last month,partly due to his experience working at the service.

This morning marked his first major intervention in the role,with a press conference on proposals to reshape the benefits system.

Anderson told reporters: ‘Before I came into politics,I worked for the Citizens Advice Bureau.

‘We used to fill the form out for clients… I can tell you now,we were gaming system.’

The former Conservative,who became Reform’s first MP when he defected last year,described the relationship between advisers and the Department for Work and Pensions as a ‘competition’.

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Craig Munro breaks down Westminster chaos into easy to follow insight,walking you through what the latest policies mean to you. Sent every Wednesday. Sign up here.Some people he worked with had ‘a 100% hit rate’,he said,and were able to get the ‘fittest man in Ashfield’ on the Personal Independence Payment (Pip) disability benefit.Reform head of policy Zia Yusuf told the press conference about an ‘assessment handbook’ he said was available online,to help guide people through claiming the maximum amount of benefits possible.He argued this was akin to ‘doing your driving theory test and having the answers online for you’.Anderson said there is an ‘anxiety generation’ in the country who are ‘staying at home all day,courtesy of taxpayer-funded employment support,loans and personal independence payments’.Liz Kendall was unsuccessful in her efforts to rejig the benefits system during her time as Work and Pensions Secretary (Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)A Reform government would stop providing Pip payments to recipients with ‘non-major anxiety’ and put those people on a ‘Fast Track to Work’ programme.It would also replace the vast majority of remote interviews with face-to-face ones,Yusuf said,while those who qualify would be subject to more frequent reassessments.The proposals come after the Labour government’s plans to shake up the benefits system collapsed in the face of a backbench rebellion.A Labour spokesperson said: ‘Like all of Reform’s policies,their latest plan is already falling apart.‘It’s no surprise Reform don’t seem to know what their own plan is on face-to-face assessments,given their welfare chief Lee Anderson was a cheerleader for the Tories when they slashed the number by over 90%. Labour is increasing them.’