LABOUR in power will build a social security system that “alleviates poverty rather than driving people into poverty,” Margaret Greenwood told a packed fringe meeting yesterday.

The shadow work & pensions secretary said the party would move away from the dishonest “shirker versus striver” rhetoric of the Conservatives.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the abuse of disabled and sick people by the current government had made him “bloody angry.”

He referred to a constituent assessed by Atos as too ill to work for Royal Mail who, in a subsequent work capability assessment by the same firm, was told he was fit for work and ineligible for benefits.

“That young man attempted suicide,” he said.

Labour was consulting those most concerned — those receiving social security and those delivering it — not just on how to reform but on how to replace universal credit and the benefits system, he said.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka saluted evidence that Labour was “under new management” and would fight to rebuild a country where “every person matters.”