Posts Tagged ‘Welfare Reform’

Welfare reform, opposition and the inadequacies of Liam Byrne

by Jon Lansman.

Last night, the Welfare Reform bill received its second reading, with a Government majority of 288. Labour abstained on the final vote. Only 12 Labour MPs opposed it in that vote. That small rebellion seriously under-represents the unhappiness on Labour benches — including many front-benchers who voted for Ed Miliband — about Labour’s decision to […]

Cap rents not housing benefit

by Jon Lansman.

The way to cut housing benefit payouts is to increase the supply of affordable, social housing and cap all rents, social and private. Labour is missing its target because it is focusing on the wrong one. For a long time, housing benefit has allowed unscrupulous landlords to charge inflated rents for low quality housing. The […]

Beware a unified universal benefit

by Michael Meacher.

If there is one innovation amid the cuts landscape which seems at first sight attractive, it is the IDS brainwave of a universal benefit, joined this week by the proposal of a high-value universal state pension.   Gone would be the almost impenetrable complexity of interlocking benefits, gone would be the hassle and indignity of means-testing, […]

Welfare Revolution, or Workfare Counter-revolution?

by Michael Meacher.

So Ian Duncan Smith, the new welfare system czar, is going to solve the problem of the dole queues and the £100b-plus social welfare budget which has defeated successive governments?   He clearly has sincerity and commitment, and we certainly shouldn’t write him off as the ex-Scots Guard officer merely trumpeting the traditional mantra of […]

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