Are there going to be more welfare cuts or not? In an afternoon in which the government tried to calm the row following the resignation of Iain Duncan Smith, the key line that stood out was Stephen Crabb telling the Commons that ‘we have no further plans to make welfare savings beyond the very substantial savings legislated for by parliament two weeks ago’. The new Work and Pensions Secretary’s language was qualified by the Treasury, which clarified that this didn’t mean no more cuts in this parliament – just that the government didn’t have any planned. But it has become the big takeaway story from yesterday’s medley of statements.
George Osborne plans to defend his Budget today as part of the wind-up session in the Commons. The Chancellor will inevitably attract questions about this line about ‘no further plans to make welfare savings’, and will have to explain what this means.
But even if Osborne does say that there are no further plans to cut welfare – and ‘no further plans is not the same as ruling something out – then the reality is that the government is going to struggle politically to make big savings from working-age and sickness benefits in this parliament as a result of the two toxic rows that Osborne has suffered in the past six months. The furore over tax credit cuts showed that cutting the benefits of working people doesn’t work very well, and the personal independence payment U-turn shows that it’s pretty darn difficult to cut disability benefits too. And sufficient numbers of Tories seem to be making their support for any more welfare cuts conditional on ministers looking again at the protections offered to pensioners, something Osborne is sympathetic to but David Cameron certainly isn’t. So when Crabb was saying there were ‘no further plans’, he really meant ‘no further scope’.
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