Welfare cuts: charities speak out

As the Observer reported on Sunday, last June the chancellor, George Osborne, wrote a letter to the work and pensions secretary, Ian Duncan Smith, suggesting a new plan to slash £2.5bn from sickness benefit payments.

Yesterday, an article by the Guardian highlighted that the plan was secretly decided despite official insistence that no decisions have been made on where the axe will fall.

Sky News reports that the chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, said that things had moved on: “I am not going to comment on a leaked letter, but what I will say is that with welfare spending making up nearly £200bn, of course it is something we have to look at in the context of the spending review. We are looking for significant savings in the welfare system. Savings that are fair; savings that encourage people to get out to work.”

But charities will not sit and see, and worries are spreading. The Guardian quotes Richard Hawkes, chief executive of the disability charity Scope, saying that the government’s promise to ensure fairness in the budget cuts is undermined by the revelation of its plans to cut £2.5bn of support to disabled people.

In a BBC interview late on Thursday Osborne described Britain’s welfare budget as “out of control”.

“People who think it’s a lifestyle choice to just sit on out-of-work benefits — that lifestyle choice is going to come to an end. The money won’t be there,” he said. 

But according to the Press Association, critics accused the Tory-Lib Dem coalition of targeting the most vulnerable in its quest to find drastic savings in public spending to tackle the UK’s record deficit.

Osborne signaled last week that he wanted to shave an extra £4 billion from the bill for state help – on top of £11 billion cuts made in June’s emergency Budget.

However, Liberal Democrat MP Bob Russell tabled an urgent question in parliament on Osborne’s decision, which has fueled concerns about the pace of cuts.

Fellow Liberal Democrats Mike Hancock and Tim Farron, joined Russell in pledging to vote against the cuts and accused the Chancellor of failing to consult the Conservatives’ coalition partner.

As the Guardian reports, Osborne’s June budget set out plans to reduce the budget deficit to 37 billion pounds — 2.1 percent of GDP — by 2014-15. 

Trade Unions also are joining the wave of protests: today, after the secret plan was revealed the TUC (the UK Trade Unions Congress) agreed to co-ordinate campaigns and industrial actions against the cuts.

The Telegraph website reports that millions of workers are now on a collision course with the Government which could lead to a wave of strikes in the coming months as the scale of the austerity measures unfolds.

By Chiara Caprio