Election 2015: Conservative benefit cut options leaked

The Conservatives are considering options for scrapping several benefits, the BBC has learned.

Leaked documents from the Department for Work and Pensions also suggest a regional benefits cap, taxing disability benefits and reducing eligibility for the carers' allowance.

The proposals are aimed at helping to save £12bn from the welfare budget by 2017/18.

The Conservatives insisted the proposals were not party policy.

"This is ill informed and inaccurate speculation," a spokeswoman for Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said.

"Officials spend a lot of time generating proposals - many not commissioned by politicians.

"It's wrong and misleading to suggest that any of this is part of our plan."

The leaked documents were prepared by civil servants and commissioned by Conservative Party officials.
"True colours"

Rachel Reeves MP, Labour's shadow work and pensions secretary, said: "If they are ruling out these extreme cuts for the most disabled and carers, then it is clear they will be hitting the tax credits, and support for children, for millions of working families.

"Labour has a better plan to control the costs of social security, by tackling the root causes of spending in low pay and rising housing costs.

"We will raise the National Minimum Wage to £8 an hour, promote a living wage, and get at least 200,000 homes built a year."

Liberal Democrat general election campaign spokesperson Lord Scriven said: "The election campaign has barely kicked off and already the Tories are showing their true colours.

"Conservative plans for £12bn worth of welfare cuts means £1,500 cut for 8m households.

"To build a stronger economy and a fairer society, the welfare system should be designed to help people get on in life.

"But, surprise, surprise the Tories are hell-bent on punishing disabled people and working families with crippling welfare cuts."
Benefit cap

Welfare reform has been a controversial, but often popular, policy pursued by the coalition over the past five years and the Conservatives intend to pursue more changes should they win in May's general election.

Chancellor George Osborne refused to give details of how the Conservatives planned to save the £12bn when questioned last week following the Budget.

He has previously said the Tories would freeze the rate at which benefits are paid to people of working age, while Prime Minister David Cameron has discussed lowering the benefits cap - the maximum amount in benefits a household can receive - from the current £26,000 to £23,000.

The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests those measures would save no more than about £2bn a year by 2017-18.

An investigation by BBC News has uncovered several of the benefits under consideration for change:

Industrial Injuries Compensation Scheme - could be replaced by companies providing industrial injury insurance policy for employees. Any that did not would become members of a default national industrial injuries scheme, similar to the programme for asbestos sufferers. DWP predicted saving - £1bn
Carer's Allowance - this could be restricted to those eligible for Universal Credit. Leaked documents suggest about 40% of claimants would lose out. DWP predicted saving - £1bn
The contributory element of Employment and Support Allowance and Job Seekers Allowance - currently claimants who have paid enough National Insurance contributions can get the benefits with little means testing; DWP analysis suggests 30% of claimants, over 300,000 families, would lose about £80 per week. DWP predicted saving - £1.3bn in 2018/19
Disability benefits - Disability Living Allowance, Personal Independence Payments and Attendance Allowance (for over 65s who have personal care needs) would no longer be paid tax free. Possible saving - £1.5bn per annum (based on IFS Green Budget calculation )
Council Tax Support - to be incorporated into Universal Credit. Possible saving - not known
Child Benefit - Limiting the benefit to the first two children. Possible saving IFS estimates £1bn saving per annum in the long run but little initially
Regional Benefit Caps - The £23,000 limit would vary in different parts of the country, with for instance Londoners receiving the top amount due to the higher cost of living. Possible saving - not known and dependent on where levels were set

Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls has said he is in favour of a regional benefits cap, but the idea has been opposed by some Labour MPs.

Meetings about these options have taken place in recent weeks between the chancellor and Mr Duncan Smith.
'Easier cuts'

It is also understood that the permanent secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, has been coordinating some of the efforts to find savings.

The government has cut around £20bn from projected welfare spending over the course of the past five years, through a range of measures from freezing payments rates to cutting housing benefit.

But Robert Joyce, a senior economist with the IFS, says finding another £12bn over the next two years will not be easy.

"The easier benefit cuts are the ones that will have been done first, so what's left will be harder.

"In addition, the Conservatives want to do this by 2017-18, in the next two years. It means they have to be looking at less palatable options that would involve overnight takeaways from certain families."

Rosanna Trudgian, policy officer at the charity Mencap, said the proposed changes were unfair.

"Disabled people don't choose to have their disability. They don't choose to pay for these additional costs related to that disability," she told BBC News.

"For example, if you have to go to hospital on a regular basis and you are paying for those huge car parking fees. Therefore, it's just unfair if this is treated as taxable income."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32084722

From a man who admitted last night 'he couldn't live on a zero hours contract'. What other horrors do they have in mind.

Broken Promise # 25 "You can read my lips. That is a promise from my heart."(Cameron in Opposition promising to look after the elderly, frail, poor and needy" and protect pensioners' benefits

Think that is why the pensioners at Age UK were waving their sticks at him the other night. They have lived long enough not to be fooled by his lies.

And he wants another 5 years to finish the job.

Good grief!