Even The Sun, the ultimate scrounger bashers, thinks Steve Hilton’s latest idea is “daft”, writes Richard Darlington, head of news at the IPPR.
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Richard Darlington is head of news at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)
Even The Sun, the ultimate scrounger bashers, thinks Steve Hilton’s latest idea is “daft”.
On page 2 today they quote a source close to Iain Duncan Smith saying the idea to cut another £25bn from the welfare bill is “absolute nonsense”, adding:
“Steve’s gone totally rogue.”
Lib Dem peer Lord Oakeshott says:
“This is wacky even by Hilton’s standards.”
But let’s take a moment to test the hypothesis. If you really did want to get £25bn cut from the welfare bill, how would you actually do it? Try and do-it-yourself.
Here are your options:
• Breaking down the benefits bill 21 Mar 2012
Even if you entirely scrapped all out of work benefits – jobseeker’s allowance, plus income support and ESA – you’d come up £4bn short. You’d have to almost halve the state pension – not really a vote winner. Or you could entirely scrap Child Tax Credit and Child Benefit or Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit.
Like The Sun says, daft. Bye, bye Steve.
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41 Responses to “£25bn welfare cuts? Hilton’s plan is absolute nonsense”
@GrannyWils
RT @leftfootfwd: £25bn welfare cuts? Hilton’s plan is absolute nonsense http://t.co/BoCRRPhF
TheCreativeCrip
RT @leftfootfwd: £25bn welfare cuts? Hilton’s plan is absolute nonsense http://t.co/ppmQhUgW #ppnews #wrb
Anonymous
State pension isn’t welfare.
The state pension was paid for many times over up front.
Anonymous
One way the benefit bill could be reduced is to regulate certain areas more i.e. the private rented sector, where by caps can be put on what they charge, this would gradually feed through the system as a saving.
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The problem is that there is a disconnect in your argument from the cost to provide, and the cost of the service.
Now how are you going to cap Local Authorities and Housing associations, because under EU law, you have no choice or all BTL landlords will be winning massive damages for illegal state aid.
Anonymous
So why did Brown implement socialism for the banks, rather than capitalism and letting them fail?