Helen Whately: Labour are proud to scrap the two child benefit cap. So are Reform. Both are sending totally the wrong message
What's the endgame here?
Helen Whately MP is Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The vote on the two-child benefit cap is a statement of values. Should our welfare system back work, or reward worklessness and send the bill to those who get up every morning and graft? Labour has chosen the latter. Reform is following in their wake.
Scrapping the two-child benefit cap will add around £14 billion cumulatively to the UK’s welfare bill over the next five years. Nearly half of that money will go to households where no one is in work – because almost half of the households gaining from scrapping the cap are not in work.
On average those non-working families will get a payout of around £25,000. Some will get much more, because no cap means unlimited welfare.
In the first year alone, around 220,000 workless households will get extra money. By the end of the decade, that rises to around 260,000. That’s over a quarter of a million households getting extra welfare money irrespective of whether anyone in the family works or even attempts to work. It’s just from having more children.
What a message Labour is sending people: don’t worry about getting a job, earning a living or what you can afford; just keep on having kids and the taxpayer will pick up the bill.
What does that tell you about where they stand on British values like personal responsibility, living within your means or fairness?
At the margins, the numbers become starker still. Tens of thousands of households with five children would receive more than £10,000 a year in extra welfare, taking their household incomes to well above what many working families can expect. A household with eight children would receive over £16,000 more a year. These are sums that many working families could dream of, yet they are to be handed out automatically by the state with nothing expected in return.
Incentives in the welfare system are already broken.
Analysis by the Centre for Social Justice shows around 6.2 million full-time workers, roughly one in four, would now be financially better off on benefits than in work once tax is considered. An out-of-work claimant receiving Universal Credit for ill health, alongside average housing support and Personal Independence Payment, can receive around £25,200 a year, equivalent to a £30,100 pre-tax salary.
All of this lands on top of a welfare bill already spiralling out of control. Spending on health and disability benefits alone is forecast to approach £100 billion by the end of the decade. That will make us the biggest spender on welfare in the G7, well above countries known to be high-taxing and high-spending like France and Germany. This generosity comes at a huge price to working people, to taxpayers and to our economy. How on earth Labour will ever hit 3 per cent of GDP on …
What's the endgame here?
Helen Whately MP is Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The vote on the two-child benefit cap is a statement of values. Should our welfare system back work, or reward worklessness and send the bill to those who get up every morning and graft? Labour has chosen the latter. Reform is following in their wake.
Scrapping the two-child benefit cap will add around £14 billion cumulatively to the UK’s welfare bill over the next five years. Nearly half of that money will go to households where no one is in work – because almost half of the households gaining from scrapping the cap are not in work.
On average those non-working families will get a payout of around £25,000. Some will get much more, because no cap means unlimited welfare.
In the first year alone, around 220,000 workless households will get extra money. By the end of the decade, that rises to around 260,000. That’s over a quarter of a million households getting extra welfare money irrespective of whether anyone in the family works or even attempts to work. It’s just from having more children.
What a message Labour is sending people: don’t worry about getting a job, earning a living or what you can afford; just keep on having kids and the taxpayer will pick up the bill.
What does that tell you about where they stand on British values like personal responsibility, living within your means or fairness?
At the margins, the numbers become starker still. Tens of thousands of households with five children would receive more than £10,000 a year in extra welfare, taking their household incomes to well above what many working families can expect. A household with eight children would receive over £16,000 more a year. These are sums that many working families could dream of, yet they are to be handed out automatically by the state with nothing expected in return.
Incentives in the welfare system are already broken.
Analysis by the Centre for Social Justice shows around 6.2 million full-time workers, roughly one in four, would now be financially better off on benefits than in work once tax is considered. An out-of-work claimant receiving Universal Credit for ill health, alongside average housing support and Personal Independence Payment, can receive around £25,200 a year, equivalent to a £30,100 pre-tax salary.
All of this lands on top of a welfare bill already spiralling out of control. Spending on health and disability benefits alone is forecast to approach £100 billion by the end of the decade. That will make us the biggest spender on welfare in the G7, well above countries known to be high-taxing and high-spending like France and Germany. This generosity comes at a huge price to working people, to taxpayers and to our economy. How on earth Labour will ever hit 3 per cent of GDP on …
Helen Whately: Labour are proud to scrap the two child benefit cap. So are Reform. Both are sending totally the wrong message
What's the endgame here?
Helen Whately MP is Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The vote on the two-child benefit cap is a statement of values. Should our welfare system back work, or reward worklessness and send the bill to those who get up every morning and graft? Labour has chosen the latter. Reform is following in their wake.
Scrapping the two-child benefit cap will add around £14 billion cumulatively to the UK’s welfare bill over the next five years. Nearly half of that money will go to households where no one is in work – because almost half of the households gaining from scrapping the cap are not in work.
On average those non-working families will get a payout of around £25,000. Some will get much more, because no cap means unlimited welfare.
In the first year alone, around 220,000 workless households will get extra money. By the end of the decade, that rises to around 260,000. That’s over a quarter of a million households getting extra welfare money irrespective of whether anyone in the family works or even attempts to work. It’s just from having more children.
What a message Labour is sending people: don’t worry about getting a job, earning a living or what you can afford; just keep on having kids and the taxpayer will pick up the bill.
What does that tell you about where they stand on British values like personal responsibility, living within your means or fairness?
At the margins, the numbers become starker still. Tens of thousands of households with five children would receive more than £10,000 a year in extra welfare, taking their household incomes to well above what many working families can expect. A household with eight children would receive over £16,000 more a year. These are sums that many working families could dream of, yet they are to be handed out automatically by the state with nothing expected in return.
Incentives in the welfare system are already broken.
Analysis by the Centre for Social Justice shows around 6.2 million full-time workers, roughly one in four, would now be financially better off on benefits than in work once tax is considered. An out-of-work claimant receiving Universal Credit for ill health, alongside average housing support and Personal Independence Payment, can receive around £25,200 a year, equivalent to a £30,100 pre-tax salary.
All of this lands on top of a welfare bill already spiralling out of control. Spending on health and disability benefits alone is forecast to approach £100 billion by the end of the decade. That will make us the biggest spender on welfare in the G7, well above countries known to be high-taxing and high-spending like France and Germany. This generosity comes at a huge price to working people, to taxpayers and to our economy. How on earth Labour will ever hit 3 per cent of GDP on …
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