Does Suella Braverman understand welfare?

Suella Braverman’s welfare tirade exemplifies the current Tory pandering to baby boomer myths about social spending and moral decay. Interviewed by ITV News on Monday, the leadership candidate said:

I think we spend too much on welfare. There are too many people in this country who are of working age, who are of good health, and who are choosing to rely on benefits, on taxpayers’ money, on your money, my money, to get by. I don’t think there’s enough rigour. Universal Credit’s been a brilliant thing in stamping out the culture of dependency but there’s further we can go, there’s more we can do.

Since I’m about to be very critical, let’s begin in a spirit of charity. There are roughly 3.5 million people on out-of-work benefits during a labour shortage, or 5.3 million if incapacity-related benefit is included. Are there people ‘choosing to rely on benefits’ instead of working? Yes. One way we know this is because there is a problem of benefit fraud.