Let off thieves if they have lost their benefits! Former Labour minister's plea to juries

• Ex-minister Michael Meacher urges juries not to convict benefit thieves
• He claimed welfare reforms had left claimants 'forced to steal to survive'
• But critics slam his 'ludicrous' idea as creating an amnesty on crime

Michael Meacher (pictured) claimed welfare reforms had left claimants 'forced to steal to survive'

A former Labour minister has urged juries not to convict people for stealing if their benefits have been withdrawn.

Michael Meacher, an ex-environment minister, claimed that Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare reforms had left claimants ‘forced to steal to survive’.

In an inflammatory newspaper article, he said the policy of removing benefits from those who failed to attend scheduled job interviews was ‘crucifying millions of people’.

And he said it would be ‘perfectly reasonable’ for jurors to follow the example set by those in the 19th century, who refused to convict desperate food thieves to save them from being hanged.

Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps called Mr Meacher’s comments ‘ludicrous’ and said they amounted to an amnesty on crime.

Mr Meacher, who served in Tony Blair’s government, wrote: ‘A million people have been sanctioned by government ministers over the last year, which means they are deprived of all their benefit for often petty infringements such as being five minutes late for a job interview – and hence have no money for at least four weeks and sometimes three months, forcing them to steal to survive.

‘Iain Duncan Smith supervises the sanctioning – though it’s outsourced to a privatised firm doing his dirty work for him – while [Justice Secretary] Chris Grayling takes care of the imprisonment.’

The MP for Oldham West and Royton added: ‘During and after the Napoleonic wars there were up to 200 offences for which a person could be hanged, usually for stealing to keep their family alive.

‘The people of this country sitting on the juries finally got round this draconian repression imposed by the ruling class by refusing to convict. That is what juries and magistrates should do now when faced by the stark injustice of the criminal justice system.’

Writing in the far-Left Morning Star newspaper, he accused ministers of ‘crucifying millions of people even to the point where they’re denying them food and shelter’. Asked about his comments on LBC Radio yesterday, he gave examples from his constituency of two people who had their benefits removed for missing job interviews.

One said the interview letter had been sent to an old address, and another had told the Department for Work and Pensions he was having an operation that day.

Mr Meacher told presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer that people who could not find a job in their area had no to option but to steal. ‘That person should never have been put in that position, the authorities shouldn’t have removed benefit,’ he said. Callers to the programme were split on the issue, but some who disagreed had previously received benefits.

Mr Meacher blamed Iain Duncan Smith (left), Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and Chris Grayling (right), the Secretary of State for Justice, for depriving people across Britain

However Mr Shapps said: ‘Michael Meacher’s ludicrous comments betray how out of touch the Labour Party are. Labour have opposed every decision we’ve taken to get people off benefits and back into work. And now they want an amnesty on crime. Hard-working taxpayers would pay the price.’

A Labour spokesman said that ‘the Labour Party does not condone illegal behaviour’.

The Department for Work and Pensions said sanctions were only applied to 6 per cent of claimants. Benefit payments were stopped 853,000 times in the year to June 2014, a slight fall on the previous year, for failing to attend appointments or rejecting job offers.

A spokesman said: ‘It’s unhelpful to make these claims without demonstrating any solid evidence.

‘Sanctions are a necessary part of the benefits system, but they are used as a last resort in a tiny percentage of cases where people don’t play by the rules.’

He added: ‘We also have a well-established system of hardship payments for benefit claimants who have little or no other resources available to them.’