UK cost of living payments were ineffective sticking plaster, IFS says

Thinktank says nearly 19bn cost of scheme would have been better spent on raising value of benefits

Billions of pounds of taxpayer cash spent on one-off cost of living support has proved an expensive and ineffective sticking plaster" that would have been better used to raise the value of benefits, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said.

Britain's foremost economics thinktank said the government's cost of living payments scheme, introduced by Rishi Sunak while he was chancellor, had cost the exchequer almost 19bn over two years.