These proposed powers will apply not only to benefit claimants, but to others who are “linked” to them: the term remains vaguely defined.
The Chancellor explains the thinking behind proposed changes in Universal Credit which would restrict access to people who refuse to actively seek work.
The fourth part of our series on reducing demand for government, in which we set out a programme for change – focused on families, civil society and government.
If Britain’s productivity problem could be fixed by politicians tilting at unpopular targets – in this case, an assumed army of scroungers – it would have been fixed long ago.
The measure is just the tip of the British state’s anti-family iceberg. But as with so many of our other problems, it commands strong (if short-sighted) public support.
The fifteenth article in a new series on ConHome about how government might be made smaller, taxpayers better off and and society stronger – through strong families, better schools and good jobs.
The Conservative Party must not get locked into thinking that improving the efficiency of the public sector will make the sums add up either. We need to move away from ‘The Crisis Management State’ to ‘The Preventative State’.
Sharp cliff-edges mean that the partners of high earners could find it very difficult to justify the expense of returning to employment.
Universal Support was always meant to sit alongside Universal Credit, specifically focused on helping written-off groups. But it was cut by an impecunious Treasury.
Recent governments have strained to take ever-larger numbers out of income tax whilst maintaining a large welfare state. The problem is whether this is sustainable.
Ministers can make the system more generous, easier to access, and contributory – but must rediscover their appetite for reform.
The claim that nothing has been achieved springs from the same lack of seriousness — and is simply untrue.
We need to give more time and resource to those bringing up children. Such parents need a much better package from the state to look after a baby in the first year of its life.
Courts left trying to work out whether benefit levels, pensions, or other cash transfers are enough to avoid poverty, with the public spending consequences not figuring at all.
The expansion of Universal Support is hugely welcome, as is news of a Chance to Work Guarantee. The Chancellor’s decision to restrict access to higher rate disability benefits, however, is harder to defend.