Budget 2014: Cap On Welfare Spending
The biggest way in which we will be affected by today’s Budget, readers, seems to be the announced cap on welfare spending.
For 205-16 welfare spending will be capped at £119.5bn.
The cap will affect:
- Severe Disablement Allowance. Does this mean DLA/PIP or is this something different? Could someone please clarify as DLA and PIP are not mentioned.
- Incapacity Benefits. As there is no longer a specific benefit called Incapacity Benefit I wonder whether this is a general term including PIP/DLA, if Severe Disablement Allowance is something else? Also does this include Carers Allowance, as this is not mentioned separately but is claimed as a result of the incapacity of the person being cared for?
- Child Benefit.
- Maternity/Paternity pay.
- Universal Credit- if it ever comes in to use!
- Housing Benefit, unless the housing benefit is linked to Jobseekers Allowance, which will not be affected.
- ESA. So they’ll cap spending on an employment benefit specifically for sick/disabled people, but not on the non disabled version (jobseekers?) That’s just great. Have they forgotten that ESA claimants are far less likely to ever find a job, and so will need the money for longer? Or do they just not care about this crucial fact?
- Pension credits, but not the basic state pension.
However, more worryingly, Osborne made some statements about welfare and work that I’m starting to be able to quote in my sleep:
“Britain should always be proud of having a welfare system that helps those most in need,”
“But never again should we allow its costs to spiral out of control and its incentives to become so distorted that it pays not to work.”
And most worryingly of all, a cap on welfare spending looks set to stay permanently, with the announcement that the limit on total welfare spending will be set by the chancellor at the beginning of each parliament.
If the limit is breached, the chancellor will have to explain why, and a vote would be held in Parliament.
I hope you’ve found this post useful. There are points we all still need to clarify, but one thing is very clear:
There’s scary stuff ahead for us, readers.
Same Difference 
S.D.A is a benefit that went years ago. If a person was on it they kept it. It was paid to sick people who had not pais enough Ni class 1 stamps to receive incapacity benefit.
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Thank you for the clarification very useful.
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They want a universal benefit to replace all of them, PIP replaced DLA which isn’t available now unless you are already on it and will be taken off you in due course, Incapacity benefit has been replaced by employment support allowance. Capping the welfare budget looks like the sanctions and rejecting valid claims will continue.
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Darn right it’s going to get worse but no one seriously thought it was going to get better did they. That’s why we need to form a nationwide union for people on benefits. I believe that there are already ties to unions so maybe they could advise. What do others think ?
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