Shadow DWP minister Danny Kruger has defected from the Conservative party to join Reform UK, possibly adding to the party’s store of benefits knowledge, but probably not to its supply of compassion for claimants. In fact, Kruger considers that Reform are far too generous when it comes to benefits.
Kruger’s defection comes too late for him to become the Reform spokesperson on welfare benefits, that job having very recently been given to Lee Anderson.
However, Kruger will no doubt be contributing to Reform’s future policy on benefits.
As an Eton, Edinburgh and Oxford educated evangelical Christian son of South African parents - property developer Rayne Kruger and Great British Bake Off judge Prue Leith – Kruger’s formative years were very different to the impoverished start of Lee Anderson.
And as a leader writer for the Telegraph and speech writer for David Cameron, Kruger’s working life was also rather different to that of former coal miner Anderson.
But they will no doubt bond over their shared unhappiness at the number of people receiving PIP for mental health conditions, in particular.
As Anderson assured us earlier this month:
“It’s become fashionable now to have mental health problems, to have your own counsellor, to go for therapy, to have anxiety attacks, to get down to the local benefit centre and sign on for PIP or ESA.”
Kruger aims for a more statistics based assault on claimants, but the sentiment is similar:
“ . . . the incidence of disability in our society is rising by 17% while benefit claims are rising by 34%. For some of the less severe mental health claims, it is far worse. In January 2020, there were 7,000 claims for people with anxiety disorders; this year, there are 31,000. In January 2020, there were 155,000 claims for anxiety and depressive disorders mixed; now there are 365,000.”
And Motability for claimants with mental health conditions is a particular sore point for Kruger:
“One area where the Government do not seem to be looking for savings is in the Motability scheme. It was supposed to help physically disabled people get around, but now we have 100,000 new people a year joining the scheme, many of them not physically disabled at all.”
And again earlier this month:
“I am sorry to hear that there are still no plans to reduce spending on personal independence payments. . . . Given that veto on cuts to PIP, I implore him again to consider the benefits to which PIP is a gateway, such as Motability, disability premiums, council tax discounts and blue badges. Will he promise at least that those entitlements could come down?”
However, Kruger has not always been a fan of Reform’s benefits plans, which he considered far too generous. Just a couple of months ago he was complaining that:
“I do quite like the Reform party and I agree with its Members on lots of things, but there is a problem: they would spend money like drunken sailors. I can see what is happening and I am very worried about it—they will end up in an electoral pact with the Liberal Democrats with a joint ticket to protect welfare spending.”
No doubt, Kruger will do what he can to toughen up Reform’s stance on benefits.
And there is one thing that definitely unites him with the Reform family – a dislike of foreigners claiming benefits, as he explained to DWP minister Stephen Timms when debating the Timms review of PIP:
“I hope that the Minister does not plan to co-produce his plans with foreign nationals—although, knowing Labour lawyers, I expect they will say that the European convention on human rights demands that they do just that. Does he think that subsidising more and more foreign nationals is what the British social security system is for? If not, will he restrict sickness benefits to British nationals only, as we have argued for?”
Reform UK and Danny Kruger seems to be a match made in heaven.
