Jobless mother on £500 a week benefits is ordered back to work

An unemployed mother of five who gave birth four times while on benefits has been ordered to find a job.

Anna Taylor, 26, has been off work for five years since being diagnosed with post-natal depression following the birth of her first child.

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In that time she has had another four babies with husband Alan, 48, who is also unemployed.

Together the couple collect £501 a week in benefits – £179 child tax credit, £64 child benefit, £90 job seeker's allowance, £126 housing benefit, £24 discretionary housing payment and £18 towards their council tax.

They also receive free school meals and around eight pints of milk a day, making an annual total of £26,052, or the equivalent of a £33,000-a-year salary before tax.

Now Mrs Taylor has been told that because she is receiving Jobseeker's Allowance she must actively look for work. Otherwise most of the handouts will be frozen.

She claims her family would be worse off financially if she worked a 40-hour week on the minimum wage.

She would lose her housing benefit, costing her £167 a week in rent, council tax benefit, Jobseeker's Allowance and free school meals.

She has written to Tony Blair to complain and is also lobbying her local MP.

"The world's gone mad," Mrs Taylor, of Camborne, Cornwall, said.

"What's the point of going to slave your guts out for 40 hours? What do you get for it? Absolutely nothing."

She added: "My kids are the most important thing in my life. They're the ones that will suffer."

Her two eldest, Molly, five, and Thomas, four, are at primary school while Harry, three, is at nursery.

The two youngest, Charlie, two, and Amber, one, are still at home.

Matthew Elliot, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said fit and able people who claim benefits had a responsibility to find work "so taxpayers can have a bit more of their money back each month."