The influential Labour back-bencher John Cruddas will use the politics column in this week’s New Statesman to launch a withering attack on the Coalition’s changes to housing benefit – likening the policy to a “modern-day Highland clearance”.
In response to Liberal Democrat MP Bob Russell at the end of Prime Minister’s Questions today, David Cameron confirmed that the “key change” in housing benefit was “a cap of £20,000”, a measure which, according to the June budget, will save only £65 million by 2014/15 – the least effective revenue raising measure the government has announced.
Previously when a cancer drug was put to NICE for appraisal there was a strong incentive for the drug company to offer a decent NHS-wide price that might be accepted as value for money. Indeed NHS drug prices are generally very competitive.
Last week, the new National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review gave conflict prevention a high priority, and committed more resources to addressing instability in fragile states as far upstream as possible to save both lives and money down the line; this week, ippr publishes its own review of the lessons to be learned from conflict prevention and peacebuilding.
Chris Grayling is at it again. DWP has been telling porkies on the number of households affected by the new benefits cap. The true figure is 25,000 rather than 100,000.
David Willetts today announced the effective end of state funding for degree courses in arts, humanities, and social science subjects.
A leading health think tank has warned the NHS faces a funding gap of £6 billion a year by 2015. The King’s Fund says that, contrary to George Osborne’s claim the NHS will get an annual real-terms rise of 0.1 per cent, the NHS will in effect face a reduction of more than 1 per cent a year if it is to maintain existing levels of treatment and cover, given changes in the population.
Labour leads the Tories in the Times/Populus poll series for the first time in three years in the wake of the comprehensive spending review as voters begin to realise the full scale of the coalition’s cuts agenda. Ed Miliband’s party are up one point on 38 per cent, with the Conservatives down two points on 37 per cent and the Liberal Democrats up one point on 15 per cent.
The UK economy grew far more rapidly than expected in the third quarter. Real GDP (the total output of the economy) increased by 0.8 per cent and was 2.9 per cent higher than in the third quarter of 2009, according to figures released today by the Office for National Statistics. Economists had expected an increase of just 0.4 per cent.
So far we have few details, and all that has been confirmed by the Department for Work and Pensions is that there will be a green paper – the most tentative form of government policy statement – before Christmas.
