[guide.chat] be afraid
- From: "Scott C" <castledine10@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <guide.chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2010 18:33:40 +0100
Remember again kids all of you that told me I was stupid the night before the
election?
Who's laughing now kids?
Have a little read of this.
George Osborne's secret plan to slash sickness benefits.
Chancellor plans to slash welfare bill by £2.5bn for people who are disabled or
too ill to work
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Toby Helm.
guardian.co.uk. , Saturday 11 September 2010 21.02 BST
Article history.
George Osborne George Osborne plans to cut the welfare bill by £2.5bn.
Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA
Secret plans to slash the welfare. bill by £2.5bn for people who are disabled
or too ill to work are being up drawn up by the chancellor, George Osborne. ,
documents leaked to the Observer reveal.
Details of the plan, spelled out in a confidential letter from Osborne to Iain
Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, sparked a furious row as Labour
accused the coalition government of targeting "the most vulnerable people in
the country" with "shocking, arbitrary cuts".
The letter, written by Osborne on 19 June to Duncan Smith and circulated to
David Cameron and Nick Clegg, will fuel mounting concerns that the government's
assault on spending - and particularly Osborne's determination to slash the
cost of welfare - will hit those on the lowest incomes the hardest.
Despite official insistence that no decisions have yet been made on where the
axe will fall, Osborne stated in the letter - written three days before his
emergency budget - that agreement had already been reached to impose deep cuts
on the budget for employment and support allowance (ESA) - the successor to
incapacity benefit. ESA is paid to those judged unable to work because of
illness or disability.
Osborne told Duncan Smith: "Given the pressure on overall public spending in
the coming period, we will need to continue developing further options to
reform the benefits as part of the spending review process in order to deliver
further savings, greater simplicity and stronger work incentives.
"Reform to the employment support allowance is a particular priority and I am
pleased that you, the prime minister and I have agreed to press ahead with
reforms to the ESA as part of the spending review that will deliver net savings
of at least £2.5bn by 2014-15."
In a further extraordinary development, sources within Duncan Smith's
department turned their fire on the Treasury, insisting nothing had been
decided and suggesting Osborne's department may have leaked the letter to
bounce them into accepting the plan.
With under six weeks to go before Osborne's comprehensive spending review,
senior ministers are growing increasingly sensitive to charges of unfairness.
Last week, Nick Clegg sought to dispel anxieties by pointing out that the cuts
would not fall at once, but over five years. And, in an article for the
Observer. , Cameron insists that the government's commitment to devolve power
from Whitehall to the people is driven at least in part by the quest for
greater "fairness".
"There's the efficiency argument - that in huge hierarchies, money gets spent
on bureaucracy instead of the frontline. There's the fairness argument - that
centralised national blueprints can entrench unfairness because they don't
allow for local solutions to major social problems. And there's the political
argument - that centralisation creates a great distance in our democracy
between the government and the governed," the prime minister argues.
A spokesperson from the Department for Work and Pensions said Duncan Smith, who
is battling with the Treasury over potentially costly plans to improve
incentives to get people off welfare and into work, would agree to nothing that
would hit the vulnerable. "We are looking at a range of options for welfare
reform and any decisions will be made in the context of the spending review.
Our reforms will ensure that the most vulnerable in our society are protected."
The leak provides an explosive backdrop to the political conference season,
which opens tomorrow with the start of the Trades Union Congress in Manchester.
The TUC will unveil a report on Monday claiming to show that the Conservatives
have betrayed their election promise to introduce cuts fairly and protect
public services, as the unions prepare a co-ordinated response to the measures.
Government insiders admitted that limits to the time that people could spend on
ESA were being considered, as were plans to means test recipients. But they
insisted nothing would be done that would affect those who were judged as
having no potential future chance of getting into work.
Jim Knight, the shadow employment minister, said: "The budget was already going
to hit most ESA claimants hard; according to government figures, by over £900
if they are also on housing benefit. Now we see the Tories and Lib Dems are
conspiring to take thousands of pounds from the most vulnerable.
"This exposes George Osborne's rhetoric about living on benefits as a
'lifestyle choice', as being a smokescreen to hide vicious cuts on the poorest.
It also shows that Iain Duncan Smith will cave in to the Treasury rather than
deliver the sensible long-term reforms he talks about."
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