What will it take for the Government to enact welfare reform?

[Schlossadler]

What has to break, before the Government is finally willing to enact welfare reform?

Will they - now we are a pretty insignificant poor country will they do anything?

Why do you think the Conservatives would change things in future when they didn't when in power?

This government? A fucking miracle!

Hell will freeze over before a Labour govt enacts welfare reform.

What does that even mean?

And what's the expected impact on policing, health and other services of the increased poverty?

It's such a short paragraph, it's not a serious response.

That’s the government’s problem - not the taxpayer.

Increased poverty -but what’s the alternative -to keep loading more and more debt onto our children and grandchildren so our lives are ok but they bear the brunt and suffer the poverty -that’s really fair -and you can be sure those that can afford to will be offski- to a better life abroad and leave the punters to wallow

Exactly. There is an enormous body of evidence which shows capping welfare benefits mostly fails to achieve long-term net savings for the taxpayer: arbitrary caps might reduce the welfare bill itself, but they shift the cost elsewhere, so any savings to the tax payer are cancelled out by increased spending in health, housing etc.
https://ifs.org.uk/articles/what-impact-did-lowering-benefit-cap-have

There’s also little evidence that arbitrarily cutting off benefits automatically gets people back into work.

If we actually want less money spent on welfare and more people in work, we’re going to have stop with the populist, simplistic demands for cuts based on ideology and get pragmatic about serious structural reform.

But it is the tax payer’s problem if blunt cuts to the welfare bill increase costs and negatively impact services elsewhere - for example in health.

Would you do back to work benefits first or PIP? Has to be back to work benefit cuts.

depends which welfare you’re talking about.

pensions: any party that fucks with the state pension will lose the next election. Lots of pensioners and they all vote. Nobody will do that anytime soon.

the rest of it: nobody is going to do more than tinker round the edges. If Andy Burnham had signed up to the defence spending plans then the cuts to welfare needed would have left hundreds of thousands homeless and Britain hasn’t seen that in a very long time. I don’t think any party would make that decision.

Same thing when it comes down to it.

We have a huge rate of sickness benefit -I can’t believe we would have so much more sick people than other countries if the benefits were reduced or limited to a certain length of time - it isn’t good for people to be on endless sickness welfare (unless they are genuinely long term ill ) - nowadays so much is treatable, medicable or operable.

This. No mainstream UK party will do it. They prefer to be seen as the good guys and have it forced upon them. So we will not even talking about benefits but all public spending in the end.

If sickness benefits were limited to a certain amount of time then people would stop claiming them but would still be sick.

i’m 49 and early retired for medical reasons. I get sickness benefits but if I didn’t I wouldn’t be magically capable of work I’d just rely on my private pension instead.

most sickness benefits are paid out for stuff like cancer, stroke, MS, heart attack, things that hit adults and hit older adults in particular.

yeah, once you’ve had a stroke you can relearn the stuff you lost (talking, walking, etc) up to a point but you’re unlikely to recover to where you used to be.

there’s a lot of people on my position who are relying on private pensions to fill the gap until I’m old enough for state pension.

And also it’s hard to get votes to do it.

The taxpayer has had a skinful, let me tell you.

Seems like the government is finally waking up - check this out in the FT.

Ministers are seeking to stop young people being stuck on benefits for life by overhauling disability assessments to make awards more flexible, as a think-tank says the current system does not link payments to claimants’ level of need. As the government seeks to balance a need to cut welfare costs with avoiding another clash with Labour MPs, the Institute for Fiscal Studies set out options for saving billions of pounds a year from personal independence payments, the main disability benefit.

BTW “Last year 8.2 per cent of all 16-64 year-olds in England and Wales claimed the benefit, up from 5.5 per cent in 2019”.

The UK government also spends more on PIP than on R&D.

Utterly shocking and utterly irresponsible.

Sorry what!?! If something costs more taxpayer money that is definitely a problem for the taxpayer.

But also please explain your policy proposal.

Saying 'cut welfare' is easy when you don't actually have to explain how.

Yes under the last government the health waiting lists rose rapidly.

Some due to consistent underfunding of healthcare but also COVID created a big backlog.

How do you work that out? Its still the same PLP. And Andy Burnham a left wing tax-and-spend PM. There'll be no cuts on his watch.

I think the next government will have won the argument on the need for welfare cuts. Most people know the current level of spending is unsustainable, as well as most people caring about their children's futures.

Not everyone agrees with Labour's jam today but no jam will be possible tomorrow as the jam will have all gone policy.

Your argument is that if welfare is cut, it will still cost the taxpayer.

Please explain why that would be the case - be clear.

The incentive for benefits fraud is clear. You get a tax free cash payment of up to £10k per year which is not means or employment dependent. Applications do not require a physical assessment and there are plenty of “PIP coaches” on social media to “help you understand the system”. (Search YouTube)

The median salary is £33k. After tax this is £27k. If you get PIP you get an 37% net pay rise. No wonder people are clamouring to sign up. PIP should be restricted to severe physically disabilities and mental disabilities that make it near impossible to work. It should be means tested and not available to those who are employed (as employed already legally have to provide reasonable adjustment for those with disabilities). It should be assessed in person and where possible provided not in cash but therapy or vouchers.

I should bloody well hope so - R and D is a private company responsibility mainly.

why on earth would the U.K. government be spending on R and D?

To effectively reduce the welfare bill rather than cut benefits the government need to completely overhaul the NHS - with the most funding going to chronic pain clinics and treatments, CAMHS and mental health and a strong emphasis on preventative healthcare. Once they do that if people are seen in a timely manner and well supported then benefits especially disability benefits will reduce themselves.

They also need to look at employment issues as fixing health is one thing but access to employment is another.

I think neurodiversity needs a massive injection of funding. Get rid of unecessary things like health visitors and routinely assess ALL children at a young age as interventions before age 5 are associated with better long term outcomes.

Wrong. UKRI.