1m People to Have Disability Benefits Cut by Labour

THE TIMES: Rachel Reeves vows to ‘get a grip’ on the burgeoning welfare bill but cabinet ministers express disquiet over £5 billion savings

A million people face having their ¬benefits reduced under an overhaul of the welfare system that means only the most severely disabled will qualify.

Cost-cutting reforms due to be ¬announced next week are set to deny payments to many people with mental health conditions and those who ¬struggle with washing, dressing themselves and ¬eating.

The changes to eligibility criteria have been estimated to hit about a million people and are set to be applied to new claims and reassessments of ¬existing claimants. » | Chris Smyth, Whitehall Editor | Friday, March 14, 2025

Poor Must Accept Benefit Cuts: Clegg on Collision Course with Own Party by Backing Welfare Axe
MAIL ONLINE: Nick Clegg has waded into the row over welfare reform by warning that benefits should not be there 'to compensate the poor for their predicament'.

On the eve of the Liberal Democrat conference, the Deputy Prime Minister backed the Coalition's programme of welfare cuts and dramatically shifted his party's policy on the subject.

He said the billions spent on welfare should be used as an 'engine of mobility', instead of just leaving people 'stuck on benefits, year in, year out'.

His comments are likely to infuriate his party's left-wingers, who have publicly accused the Coalition of targeting the vulnerable and Mr Clegg of breaking promises to ensure all cuts were 'fair'.

The issue is likely to prove a flashpoint with the LibDem Left when activists gather in Liverpool from Saturday for the first time since joining the Tories in government.

But Mr Clegg made clear he considered welfare reforms to be essential. In a newspaper article, he said: 'A fair society is not one in which money is simply transferred by the central State from one group to another.

'Welfare needs to become an engine of mobility, changing people's lives for the better, rather than a giant cheque written by the State to compensate the poor for their predicament.

'Instead of turning the system from a 'safety net' into a 'trampoline', as Labour promised, people have been stuck on benefits, year in, year out.' Read on and comment >>> Jason Groves | Thursday, September 16, 2010

Millions Forced to Work in Benefits Shake-Up
THE TELEGRAPH: Millions of benefit claimants will be forced back to work in the biggest shake-up of the welfare state for 60 years, ministers will announce.

Large parts of the benefits system are to be privatised, with companies hired to find jobs for the unemployed, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Private firms will be given incentives of up to £50,000 each to get people back to work and reduce the country's £12 billion annual incapacity benefit bill.

Only last month, David Freud, the government adviser on whose recommendations the reforms are based, said he believed that up to 1.9 million of those claiming they are too sick to work could be found jobs.

In addition, hundreds of thousands of lone parents will face stiff requirements to find jobs or face losing their benefits, a move certain to infuriate Labour backbenchers.

People who refuse to co-operate and reject work interviews will have their benefits "sliced". Millions forced to work in benefits shake-up >>> By Andrew Porter, Political Editor

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Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Britain’s Tax and Benefit System Harsh on the Traditional Family
DAILY MAIL: Married couples are being brutally punished by Labour's tax and benefit system, according to research to be published tomorrow.

Experts say that couples where one partner works and the other stays at home are the worst affected, paying a far higher proportion of their incomes to the taxman than in almost any other civilised country.

Britain is almost alone in failing to reward couples that stay together, according to the first international study of its kind.

A one-earner couple on average earnings of £30,800 a year pays 40 per cent more tax in Britain than in comparable members of the OECD group of developed nations.

And, compared to European Union states, the average family is paying 25 per cent more tax.

The study, carried out for Care, a Christian charity that tackles poverty, concludes that single people with no children do far better than families.

In other OECD countries, the tax paid by one-earner married couples on average wages is around 50 per cent of that paid by a single person on the same income.

But in Britain the figure is 75 per cent - even when tax credits and child benefit are taken into account. The findings will fuel concern that Labour's tax and benefit policies are helping to destroy family life. How Labour's tax system punishes couples for being married >>> By James Chapman

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)