The Chancellor intends to take a further £6.7 billion from benefits and tax credits over the next four years by capping the increase in them at 1%. That is a real-terms cut and an additional squeeze on families, because of the Chancellor’s failure to create growth in our economy, and the delivery instead of a double-dip recession. The Government told us that they would bring down borrowing, but they are now borrowing an £212 billion more than planned. The Chancellor claims that he is cracking down on a benefits culture, but hard-working lower and middle-income working families are those hit hardest by the Bill. Many working families need tax credits and benefits to top up their incomes, as without them work really would not pay. Just 23% of the savings come from jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance, and income support—the principal out-of-work benefits. The rest comes from tax credits such as maternity pay, sick pay and housing benefit, all of which are claimed by working people.
Some 60% of people affected by the changes to tax credits and benefits are in work, and one-earner working families could lose as much as £534 per year at a time when more than 6 million people in working households are already in poverty. Levels of long-term unemployment are worryingly high, because the Government have failed to kick-start the economy and their Work programme has failed. Even excluding the 60% of working people affected by the changes, this is hardly the time to start picking on the unemployed. The Government are always prepared to talk about skivers when unemployment is high and they are worried about costs, but never want to do so when job vacancies are relatively numerous and unemployment is low. Surely, if the Government wanted to inconvenience so-called skivers, this is not the time to target them, when large numbers of people are without work and reliant on benefits.