Benefits

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Both leaders left smiling after PMQs

Today was one of those PMQs when you sensed that both sides were fairly happy with how it had gone. Ed Miliband turned in one of his stronger performances, cleverly splitting his questions and so allowing himself to have a go at both the economy and the coalition’s troubled NHS reforms. Cameron, for his part, got through what was always going to be a difficult session for him after this morning’s negative growth numbers.   Strikingly, there were four planted Tory questions on the benefits cap. The Tories know that Labour’s vote against it compounds one of their biggest vulnerabilities, the sense they are the party for people on benefits

Tuesday

Oliver Lewis

In defence of the Welfare Bill

The government’s welfare reforms seem to be staggering on, despite the concern from the Lords that they’ll harm those who need help most: children and the disabled. But before the Bill goes back to the Commons, and everyone becomes more agitated, let me put the case for the Bill from the perspective of someone it might affect.  I have a vested interest in the impending changes to disability benefits, because both my brothers are autistic – one severely so. My family depends on the Disability Living Allowance; caring for my brothers is a full time occupation for both my parents, and without support they simply wouldn’t be able to cope.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The bias towards migrant workers

Why are you never served by a Londoner in a London branch of Pret A Manger? I asked this in the Telegraph recently, and yesterday’s Evening Standard had a great piece tracking down four who applied, and were rejected without an interview. Some suspect there is a bias in favour of immigrants: if your name doesn’t sound exotic, game over. I doubt that a company like Pret, whose most valued ingredient is the famous enthusiasm of its staff, can afford to discriminate in any way. But the wider point is a very serious one: that British employers have come to prefer immigrants, believing that they work harder. And that a

Monday

James Forsyth

A defeat that delights the Tories

Rarely can a government have been so pleased to have been defeated. The Tories are, privately, delighted that the Lords have voted to water down the benefit cap, removing child benefit from it. The longer this attempt to cap benefit for non-working households at £26,000 stays in the news, the better it is for the government. It demonstrates to the electorate that they are trying to do something about the injustices of the something for nothing culture. The matter will now returns to the Commons where the coalition is confident it can be reversed. I understand that Nick Clegg remains solid on the issue, despite the fact that Ashdown and

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Benefitting the Tories

The longer the row over the benefit cap goes on, the better it will be for the Tories. The cap chimes with the public’s sense of fairness. Polls show massive public support for capping benefits at £26,000 a year for non-working households (the cap won’t apply to the disabled or war widows), and if Labour oppose it, they’ll be handing the Tories a stick with which to beat them. Chris Grayling has already declared that tonight’s vote in the Lords is ‘a test of Ed Miliband’s leadership’. Those who argue that the cap isn’t fair because it will force people to move out of their house are missing the point.

Sunday

James Forsyth

Labour’s confusion is the Tories’ advantage

Today’s polls make grim reading for Labour. Even three months ago senior Labour or Tory people wouldn’t have thought that the Tories would be five points ahead at this point in the cycle. Part of Labour’s problem is that its positions require too much explanation. As one Number 10 source jokes, ‘Ed Miliband can do a Rubik’s cube in less time than it takes him to explain his position on the cuts.’ A prime example of these overly complicated policy positions is Labour’s approach to the benefit cap. The leadership says that it is in favour of a cap in principle but against this one in practice. But, I suspect

Friday

Melanie McDonagh

What today’s immigration numbers tell us

During the leaders debates before the last general election, David Cameron declared that he wanted to make immigration a non-issue and he would go about it by reducing immigration numbers from hundreds of thousands a year to tens of thousands a year. He hasn’t succeeded in the second objective — more than half a million people arrived here in 2010, only 30 per cent of whom were from the EU — and he most certainly hasn’t succeeded in the first. At least if the reaction to today’s revelations about immigrants on benefits is anything to go by. Chris Grayling, minister for employment, and Damian Green, immigration minister, wrote an article

Saturday

James Forsyth

Simon Hughes speaks out against the benefit cap

In the Cameroon effort to redefine the politics of fairness, the benefit cap of £26,000 a year is key. When George Osborne announced it in his 2010 conference speech, he explained it – rightly – as a matter of fairness that ‘no family on out-of-work benefits will get more than the average family gets by going out to work’.   The Tories were also aware of just how potent a wedge issue it would be. If Labour opposed the cap, they would be in favour of some households in which no one is working receiving more from the state than the average salary people achieve by working. This is, to

Friday

Fraser Nelson

IDS must stay the course on welfare reform

Welfare wars are erupting again, with Iain Duncan Smith’s bill amended in the Lords and more showdowns ahead. Number 10 has been completely robust, threatening to use rarely-invoked powers to overrule the Lords. In my Telegraph column today, I say why it’s so important that David Cameron does not go wobbly – as his predecessors did.   Tony Blair understood the need for radical welfare reform, especially when his idol Bill Clinton introduced it in America. Listening to his speeches in the mid-90s is heartbreaking: he had precisely the right idea, but lacked the determination to implement it. Frank Field was asked to ‘think the unthinkable’, but when disabled protesters

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron hints at child benefit taper

David Cameron’s comments to The House magazine on child benefit are causing quite a stir this morning. The Telegraph splashes on the PM’s line that ‘Some people say that’s the unfairness of it, that you lose the child benefit if you have a higher rate taxpayer in the family,’ he said. ‘Two people below the level keep the benefit. So, there’s a threshold, a cliff-edge issue.’ ‘We always said we would look at the way it’s implemented and that remains the case, but I don’t want to impinge on the Chancellor’s Budget.’ I suspect that what Cameron means by this is that they are looking at a taper. When one

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

Byrne offers ‘something for something’ — but what does it mean?

What’s this? Seems like Liam Byrne has emerged from his policy review with an idea. He calls it, in an article for the Guardian today, ‘something for something’: ‘…“something for something” means reward for those who are desperately trying to do the right thing, saving for the future and trying to build a stable, secure home. Right now, these families are offered too little reward and incentive — in social housing and long-term savings — for the kind of behaviour that is the bedrock of a decent society.’ In truth, it’s not a new or surprising idea at all. Labour’s brain-in-exile, James Purnell, urged this sort of thinking on his

Friday

Fraser Nelson

We cannot forget the riots, nor ignore their causes

If I’d said that an MP had accused the Church of England of being too obsessed with gay marriage and women priests — and not worried enough about how God can keep young boys out of harm’s way — you’d probably imagine that a Tory had gone nuts. But this is the David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham, who has gave an interview to our Books Blog. In it, he elaborates on the theme of his new book: that his colleagues are so keen to help single mothers that they’ve lost sight of what really helps working class boys. Amongst the contributing factors, he mentions two things that may cast

Thursday

Jonathan Jones

Cameron: ‘We have to end the sicknote culture’

The Prime Minister has backed the proposal for a new independent service to sign workers’ long-term sicknotes, instead of GPs. The plan, which Pete wrote about at the weekend, is aimed at ensuring that people on sick pay or sickness-related benefits really are too ill to work. Cameron describes how it would work in today’s Mail: ‘The independent service would be free to all employers from four weeks of sickness absence, with the option for employers to pay for it earlier. It would provide an in-depth assessment of an individual’s physical and mental function. So if they’re unable to work, they’ll be helped – but if they are fit, they’ll

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

Assessing the sick

Should GPs determine whether people on long-term sick leave are too ill to work? Perhaps not, according to the draft copy of a government-commissioned review into sickness absence. It proposes setting up a new, separate and independent body to assess those on long-term sick leave, on the grounds that doctors have no incentive — nor, perhaps, the specific knowledge — to prod and coax them back towards employment. The new service, it is said, would advise sick leavers, and their employers, about just what they can and can’t manage. If the government does introduce this, it will be another sign of their intent to untangle the problems with sickness benefits.

Thursday

James Forsyth

Benefits won’t rise in line with September’s inflation figures

Jill Sherman, the Whitehall editor of The Times, reports tomorrow that the government will not raise benefits in line with September’s inflation figures as normally happens. However, there’ll be no freeze in benefits. Instead, they’ll rise in line with a six month inflation average which stands at 4.5 percent rather than September’s 5.2 percent figure. This move will save the government a little less than a billion pounds as pensions will be exempt from the move. I suspect that there’ll be objections to this shift from various quarters. But it is worth remembering that 4.5 percent is far larger than the pay rises most private sector workers will see while there’s

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Miliband finds his niche

I spent this morning with Ed Miliband on a trip to a factory in Sunderland. Miliband was visiting the Liebherr plant there, which manufactures cranes. The centerpiece of the visit was a Q&A with the workforce. Now, a factory in the North East is not the toughest venue for a Labour leader to play. But Miliband appeared far more comfortable in this setting than he does when giving a traditional speech from behind a podium.   Unlike Miliband’s Q&A at Labour conference, the questions were not softballs or traditional left-wing fare. One set of three questions were: why don’t we close the borders, bring back national service and do more

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

Will IDS’s reforms get stuck in Whitehall’s digital mire?

“7m caught in tax blunder,” trumpets the cover of this morning’s Daily Mail. “After a series of errors, six million will get an average £400 rebate, while a million face demand to pay £600.” It’s a good story — but it’s also sadly, wearily familiar. Rewind the tape to last November, and the Telegraph was running with the headline, “New HMRC tax blunder means thousands face demands to repay”. Last September, the Guardian had an article about the 10 million people who might be owed rebates. Last August … oh, you get the point. Nary a month has passed without some tale of how HMRC has screwed up once again.

Monday

Vicky Pryce

Trust in bricks and mortar

If George Osborne is serious about growth, a relatively easy decision awaits him: to stimulate the economy by spending more on housebuilding. David Cameron knows there’s a problem, and during Tory conference announced a “Tory Housing Revolution” to tackle the failing housing market, and plans to boost Right to Buy and release more land for house building that will deliver 200,000 new homes and create 400,000 jobs. All welcome, suggesting the government has recognised the role that housing can play in creating growth. But if the Treasury is looking to stimulate demand in the short term, there’s still much more that could be done. Investment in housing can happen fast.

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson

The poverty of the poverty measure

‘400,000 children will fall into relative poverty by 2015, says IFS’ we read on The Guardian’s front page today — yes, one of the most pernicious ideas of recent years is back. It’s the definition of ‘poverty’ as being figures on a spreadsheet, households deemed to fall beneath an arbitrary threshold. It’s almost entirely meaningless, and diverts energy and resources away from a real fight against poverty. I really do believe that, as ideas go, this one has damaged Britain more than almost any other over the last two decades — and it’s high time it was confronted.   The ‘poverty’ that the Institute of Fiscal Studies is talking about

Thursday

Ed Howker

The Winter Fuel Allowance is indefensible

Freed from the shackles of elected office, Steve Norris remains an electrifying speaker. He is also refreshingly honest. So, when I met the 66-year-old former mayoral candidate at a Tory conference fringe on the future of London, he was only too happy to admit how spent his Winter Fuel Allowance: “I’m amazed by the Chancellor’s annual gift. I spend it on Claret,” he said. In fact, he said that when paid to the wealthy, the allowance is “a complete waste of money” and “a bribe to older voters”. I mention this only because the Allowance was referred to again in a different context this week: during David Cameron’s own address.