Today the UK Statistics Authority confirmed that Iain Duncan Smith’s statements about the impact of welfare changes were “unsupported by the official statistics”. Since we sent you this petition started by disability activists Jayne and Debbie, more than 52,000 people have joined their campaign.

Will you add your name to the petition today to help Jayne and Debbie ensure Iain Duncan Smith is held to account for his statements?

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butlin –

One million people are claiming benefits yet able to work. That’s what Iain Duncan Smith told journalists last week. There’s just one problem — it’s not strictly true.

That one million includes single mothers who are at home looking after young children, people who are seriously ill but may eventually get better, and people who may be ill but have yet to be tested[1].

As two disabled people affected by the benefit changes, we’re fed up with the spin. That’s why we’ve started a petition on Change.org calling for Iain Duncan Smith to be held accountable for his use of statistics which, according to reports, is in question. Click here to sign.

Iain Duncan Smith needs to realise that what he says affects people. We live everyday with the reality of the benefit changes and it’s awful to keep hearing people like us portrayed as scroungers. Worse, it’s not the only the only misleading thing that Iain Duncan Smith has said. He was recently criticised by the former Chief Economist at his own department for spreading misinformation about the impact of welfare changes[2].

Last month over half a million people called on Iain Duncan Smith to live on £53 a week and succeeded in changing the conversation – the media was full of stories about holding IDS to account. Now you can help make that happen for real.

The job of the Work and Pensions Committee is to scrutinise government policy and the action of Government ministers. They can question Iain Duncan Smith about his statements and get to the truth behind the statistics.

Please sign our petition calling on the Work and Pensions Committee to hold Iain Duncan Smith to account for misusing government statistics.

The government can debate policy but it should tell us the truth.

Thank you,
Jayne Linney and Debbie Sayers

[1] The Economist – Government Statistics: Fixing the figures
[2] The Guardian – Conservative claims about benefits are not just spin, they’re making it up