What is really going on in politics? Get our daily email briefing straight to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Labour dramatically opens the door tonight to scrapping the Tories' entire welfare reform Universal Credit.

Benefits chief Margaret Greenwood refused to rule out the bombshell move after flaws and cuts in the policy forced thousands of desperate families to foodbanks.

The policy shift comes ahead of Ms Greenwood's address on Monday to the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool - where she will launch a year-long review into redesigning the entire “toxic” benefits system, top to bottom, in all areas.

Labour's official policy is to “pause and fix” UC, which was announced in 2010. But disabled activists want to go further and “stop and scrap” it.

Now Ms Greenwood has said she is “looking into” whether the multi-billion pound regime should be scrapped entirely – adding: “We're not ruling anything out.”

(Image: Jeff J Mitchell)

In an exclusive interview with the Mirror, she also:

Said Labour would ban all benefit sanctions for people who turn up late to a JobCentre;

Confirmed Labour would "end the benefits freeze" by raising rates in line with inflation every year - something party chiefs stopped short of saying in last year's general election;

Claimed her "ambition" is to end all private firms carrying out disability benefit tests - but didn't fully commit to doing so;

Revealed Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) staff call their system "the circle of hell".

Last week Tory ministers claimed ditching UC and reverting to the old system would cause "massive disruption" and be “complex and expensive" - because "the changes have become increasingly embedded."

But the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary said: "We need to query that assertion. Because we need to know exactly what is and is not practicable to do."

Asked if she could envisage Labour wanting to undo the whole of UC, she said: "This is something we're sort of in the process of looking into."

Asked if she ruled out scrapping UC in its entirety she said: "We're not ruling anything out, because we think it's important to be on top of all of the detail of it before making a decision."

Ex-teacher Ms Greenwood became MP for Wirral West in 2015 – ousting now-Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey.

During her speech she will announce a consultation into redesigning the entire benefits system, “changing the narrative” from punishment to support.

It will invite contributions from Labour members, benefit claimants and charities and aim to form the blueprint for a new system by this time next year.

She said Tory ministers have “vilified” people on benefits. “I meet a lot of people in their middle years who say 'I can't face going to the Jobcentre because I find it too humiliating',” she said.

(Image: PA)

“Well that's absolutely wrong, because those people have worked 20, 30 years, they're entitled to get support.

“They shouldn't be made to feel that somehow there's a stigma attached to them.”

She added: “If you talk to people working in the social security system at the moment, I've had it described to me as the circle of hell.

“We're not going to be squandering money on a punitive regime which at the moment seems to have lost sight of itself. It seems to be punishment for punishment's sake.”

Labour plans to take the £240million spent running benefit sanctions – which dock people's payments for a month – and spend it instead on “employment and careers support”.

(Image: Ian Cooper / Liverpool Echo)

Sanctions would not be wiped out completely, she admitted, but she claimed the system would move away from “punitive” measures.

“We're not going to be saying we won't do anything if people are defrauding the system, of course we will,” Ms Greenwood said.

“But when it comes to using a stick to beat people, when it comes to forcing people to jump through hoops, we're not prepared to do that.”

Ms Greenwood told the Mirror she would ban any benefit sanctions for turning up late to a Jobcentre appointment.

She added: “At the moment someone can be sanctioned for being late for a Jobcentre interview, missing the bus, and lose a month's money.

“We think this is really punitive, unnecessary and highly damaging.

“So what we're going to say is we will not continue with that regime. We will absolutely stop the punitive sanctions regime.”

(Image: Getty Images)

But sanctions could continue for people who miss their entire appointments. Ms Greenwood said: “You'd have to look at what the reason was why they missed it.”

The review will also look at the privately-run “assessments” for disability benefits PIP and ESA. The tests are regularly branded a failure after two-thirds of appeals against them were successful.

Labour has vowed to scrap the current system but has not said what would come in its place.

Asked if she would rule out outsourcing the tests to private firms in future, Ms Greenwood said: “I'd have to look at the costings of that. The ambition would be to, certainly.”

Meanwhile there was confusion over Labour's policy last year when Jeremy Corbyn said the benefits freeze would end – but stopped short of saying rates would be raised in line with inflation.

Speaking to the Mirror, however, Ms Greenwood said: “We would end the benefits freeze, and that would mean uprating in line with inflation every year.”

(Image: PA)

Ms Greenwood's comments reveal a big shift in attitudes in Labour.

Benefit 'conditionality' was used by the Blair and Brown governments, and in summer 2015 the party's leadership refused to vote against Tory plans to slash benefits and tax credits.

Ms Greenwood was one of 48 Labour MPs who defied orders, and voted against. Another was Jeremy Corbyn.

But she skirted the question of whether Labour should apologise for its attitude in the past.

She said: “I think we're living in quite different times now.

“People are used to food banks. People are used to seeing people sleeping in the streets – and we don't want to live like that.

“So I think public opinion's really shifted, and I think there's far more – I think people have been touched by the kind of hardship people are having to face because of government failure over social security.

“It's really changed the narrative within the population.”