BENEFITS CITY
Inside UK city where quarter of people are on benefits & hoodlums sell crack from mould-infested ‘Drug Towers’
One local woman, who has been on benefits for 18 years, receives £2,100 a month from the government
IN Manchester’s inner city area of Harpurhey, Bernard Manning’s smiling face looks out from his World Famous Embassy Club – straight on to one of Britain’s benefit blackspots.
Dole cash is a common topic of conversation here: How to get it, who has got it and how to avoid losing it.
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As new figures reveal that more than one in five people across the UK are classed as economically inactive — meaning they have no job and are not looking for one — The Sun spoke to locals in the deprived town, population 20,000.
We met one former barmaid, who has been claiming sickness benefits for 18 years, receiving £2,100 a month.
While an unemployed cleaner told us the Government was making it too complicated to get hold of payouts.
On Tuesday, employment minister Alison McGovern admitted that claimants can get more money being off sick than working.
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Speaking to the Lords Economic Affairs Committee, Ms McGovern said the present system “doesn’t work for anybody” as it makes it too difficult for the long-term sick to find employment while increasing costs for taxpayers.
And she described it as “bleak” that more young people are being signed off with issues over their mental health.
The cost of sickness benefits is predicted to rise to £65billion this year and projected to hit £100billion by the end of the decade.
‘Some tough love’
Analysis by the Centre for Social Justice think tank found people on the top level of sickness benefits receive an average of £23,900 a year, while those on the minimum wage take home £20,650 after tax.
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The number signed off with long-term ill health has risen by 650,000 since the pandemic, now standing at 2.8million.
Ms McGovern said: “Universal Credit was supposed to be designed as a system that would strongly incentivise work and it’s turned out not to do that.”
Bernard Manning tells his classic 'Bisto joke'
Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall last month unveiled their Get Britain Working white paper.
It sets an ambitious 80 per cent employment rate target, which means getting two million young people back into work.
But while the Government claims it will force the long-term sick to take jobs or lose their benefits, critics have slammed proposals for only planning to rename job centres and add more NHS nurses in areas with high rates of sickness benefits.
Employers all over the country have been screaming out for workers, but many tell the same story — no one replies to their job adverts.
And if they do and are offered a job, they do not turn up to start work, they claim.
Many also believe that for some, furlough never ended and that the Department for Work and Pensions is not cut out to handle the huge level of cases it would need to take on to tackle the problem.
It’s going to take some tough love, but we need to have an expectation of work, where not working is the exception and not the rule
Former Conservative Work and Pensions Secretary Sir Iain Duncan Smith
Even Sir Keir admitted last month the Government needed to “crack down hard on anyone who tries to game the system”.
Former Conservative Work and Pensions Secretary Sir Iain Duncan Smith last night told The Sun: “For too long people on sickness benefits just haven’t been spoken to by anyone.
“Lots of them actually want to work but are concerned they are going to lose their benefits.
“It’s going to take some tough love, but we need to have an expectation of work, where not working is the exception and not the rule.
“For most people with anxiety and depression, work is actually health treatment where they earn money and feel a sense of purpose, rather than parking them on sickness benefits.”
Manchester has one of the highest proportions of “economically inactive” people in Britain, with a quarter of those aged 16 to 64 falling into that category.
One in five residents claim out-of-work benefits.
Everyone’s on benefits round here but they make it so difficult and complicated to get my cash. I’ve had to borrow off family. I’d be going to food banks and things without them
Julie Stealey
And in Harpurhey, locals are convinced it is even higher.
Jobless Peter Harris, 61, said: “It’s more like one in three round here. Everyone seems to be on benefits.”
In Bernard’s Embassy Club, which has now turned into a pub, unemployed cleaner Julie Stealey, 46, who has been on benefits for five years, said: “It’s a joke, I’ve been waiting ages for my money.
“Everyone’s on benefits round here but they make it so difficult and complicated to get my cash. I’ve had to borrow off family. I’d be going to food banks and things without them.”
Local Labour MP Graham Stringer, who also used to be a councillor in the area, said: “The factory jobs here years ago have not been replaced.
“We now have families with third or fourth generations of worklessness.
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“Those who are educated get jobs at the airport or the city centre and then move out.
“We have a lot of people in Harpurhey who are just not used to working. However, most are decent, hard-working people, although there are a few villains who ruin it for a lot of people.”
In the nearby shopping precinct, long-term disability claimant Siobhan Lynch has to be pushed in her wheelchair by her teenage son to get to the shops.
The mum of two has been on benefits for 18 years, receiving £2,100 a month after being diagnosed with a range of health conditions including depression and fibromyalgia, which causes chronic pain and fatigue.
The 42-year-old former barmaid, who caught a taxi to the shops, said: “There are too many people on benefits around here.
“There are genuine people like me who can’t work, but there’s also a lot of people who shouldn’t be claiming.”
Son Brendan, 18, is also unemployed and on benefits.
He said: “I can’t even get an interview for a job, it’s that bad round here. So many people are on benefits.”
His brother Josh, 17, is studying to be a plumber but is not confident of getting a job.
He said: “I’m doing an apprenticeship but I think I’ll end up on benefits too. All my friends think the same.”
In 2007, Harpurhey was named the most deprived neighbourhood in England — and it is still plagued by crime and poverty.
Unemployed delivery driver Kim Whittaker, 58, lives on the Kingsbridge estate, which has a block of flats dubbed Drug Tower.
Hooded figures sell heroin and crack cocaine there, while addicts shoot up in the halls.
Kim said: “I’m too scared to go out at night. It’s a nightmare. There’s drugs everywhere and lots of kids in gangs.
“I hate living here and want to move out. Plus, I have mould in my flat. I’m terrified of falling ill.”
Kim gets about £750 a month in Universal Credit and has been claiming for a few years.
She said: “It’s easy to fall into a trap when you’re on benefits. You get listless and a bit depressed.
“You don’t want to go out and find a job, but it is boring. Things have definitely got worse after Covid, when I got ill, and people just don’t want to work or can’t face it.
“But there are too many people on benefits. I think a lot of people just don’t fancy work.
“And they self-diagnose mental health problems when work has become too much.
“I used to work as a delivery driver but there were certain areas which were just not safe. I would deliver prescription drugs and lads would come up to you and say, ‘Have you got this, have you got that?’. I was terrified they were going to rob me.”
And she had good reason.
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Six years ago, delivery workers were attacked by teenagers as young as 13 who set up road blocks to carry out robberies.
And Parcel Partner delivery boss Mark Livsey branded Harpurhey and nearby Moston as “no-go zones” for his drivers.
Mum-of-three Sarah Hughes, 39, said: “There’s a lot of gangs round here who recruit young kids. There are lots of problems on the estates with young kids delivering drugs.
“It can be pretty intimidating.”
Unarmed air cadet Nathaniel Shani, 14, was stabbed to death with a knife and a screwdriver in a row over stolen cannabis in September last year.
Nathaniel had only got involved in low-level drug dealing two weeks before his death after being exploited by older teens.
His baby-faced killers, Kyle Dermody and Trey Stewart-Gayle, were aged 14 and 13 at the time.
Back at the precinct, dad-of-one Lee Jones, 37, said: “A lot of kids fall into gangs as they don’t see a lot else. There are jobs out there but I think people don’t want them. They’d rather sit round and play video games and fiddle the benefits.”
Sitting on a bench near the market, pensioner Alexander Timson, 74, said: “I had my pension credits cut. We don’t have a lot of spare money. I can afford food but bills and heating are a problem.
“I can’t afford the heating on all the time, that’s why we come out.”
His wife Valerie, 71, added: “It’s a struggle for a lot of people around here. But we always worked and didn’t claim benefits, unlike a lot of them.”
Harpurhey was the birthplace of A Clockwork Orange author Anthony Burgess.
It was also where comedian Bernard Manning set up the Embassy Club, where he honed the act that would see him rocket to fame.
Bernard was a household name in the 1970s, appearing on ITV’s smash-hit stand-up show The Comedians, but died in 2007 age 76.
The funnyman was notorious for his foul-mouthed act, with critics branding some of his routines sexist and racist.
His Embassy Club is now run as a pub by his son.
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Smoking a cigarette outside the club, a barmaid said: “At least you can get up and go the toilet now without Bernard ribbing you about it. But it’s not what it used to be.”
And the same can be said for Harpurhey, too.
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