The Tories are determined to cut the 'welfare' costs, but what most people don't know is that the largest part of them is state pensions. I'm not a fan of means testing but a lot could be saved if state pensions and child allowances were means tested. I worked up until last year and my boss was rather shamefaced when he told me he had received his first winter fuel allowance. As a very senior tax accountant with a multinational oil company the money was not needed. He had a property in the UK and a Chateau in France to which he later retired with a full salary pension.
I have never been on benefits but my daughter was due to illness. As a single person she wasn't eligible for food banks, even though she received no payments at one point for five weeks. Apparently she hadn't filled out and returned a form they sent her. She had never received the form but they stopped paying her nevertheless. We had to give her money for weeks for food and basic bills. Some people do 'work the system', others are treated abominably. The worry of it made my daughter sicker than she was in the beginning. The government pays private companies to 'assess' those who are ill: they don't believe the GP's. The companies are used to reject as many as they possibly can and force them onto JSA, which pays less.
People claiming JSA are forced to use the internet to apply for jobs. Some older men haven't a clue how to do it, but they get their money stopped if they don't do it. As they're not eligible for food banks and their rent payments are also stopped if their money is stopped they can end up homeless and starving. These are men my daughter has spoken to who have lost their manual jobs through no fault of their own. They are in complete despair.