"Reeves looks to cut sickness benefits to boost public spending"

What a disappointment this government are proving to be.


"Reeves looks to cut sickness benefits to boost public spending"

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/rachel-reeves-cut-sickness-benefits-boost-public-spending-3291668?ITO=newsnow


"Rachel Reeves is considering cuts to the welfare budget in order to spend more on long-term investment as she prepares to draw up a money-saving Budget.

The Chancellor is understood to be eyeing up reductions in the amount the state spends on benefits by helping more people get back to work – which would lower the bill for income-related sickness benefits as well as the unemployment element of universal credit. A source close to the Chancellor said: “If there are savings to be realised in the welfare budget, she does want to find them.”

Liz Kendall, the Work and Pensions Secretary, told a conference fringe event the Government was preparing to put forward “really big reforms” of job centres and welfare to coincide with next month’s Budget.

These will be geared around getting people into work with more of a focus on careers support than policing benefits, she said.

The minister promised to address the number of young people out of work due to mental health issues, saying: “You have to be earning or learning if you are young.”

Any savings are likely to be spent in part on higher capital investment, with money going into projects such as rail and green energy which Labour say can yield longer-term economic benefits.

The Chancellor promised that a looming squeeze on tax and spending would result in a “prize” of economic growth over the long run as she addressed the Labour conference.

She vowed not to back down on the cuts to winter fuel payments, despite an ongoing internal row on the decision which is bitterly opposed by trade unions.

And Ms Reeves used her speech to warn that there were “too many people out of work through chronic illness, waiting for treatment, or without the skills, training and security they need to fulfil their potential”, resulting in “a welfare state that does not always incentivise work”.

She told the Liverpool conference: “Where active government is called for, this Government will act. And it is time that the Treasury moved on from just counting the costs of investments, to recognising the benefits too.”

She announced that a blueprint for the UK’s industrial strategy will be published in the coming weeks.

The Chancellor has been under intense pressure from MPs, charities and Labour’s union backers to row back on the decision to scrap winter fuel payments for most pensioners.

But she mounted a defence of the contentious policy, telling activists: “I made the choice to means test the winter fuel payment, so that it is only targetted at those most in need. I know that not everyone – in this hall, or in the country – will agree with every decision I make. But I will not duck those decisions.”

Ms Reeves, who has been warned against bringing back austerity, sought to shift her reputation for downbeat rhetoric by addressing the long-term benefits of a strict approach to the public finances.

She said: “I can see the prize on offer, if we make the right choices now. Stability is the crucial foundation on which all our ambitions will be built. The essential precondition for business to invest with confidence and for families to plan for the future.

“The Liz Truss experiment showed us that any plan for growth without stability leads to ruin. So we will make the choices necessary to secure our public finances and fix the foundations for lasting growth. Stability, paired with reform, will forge the conditions for businesses to invest and for consumers to spend with confidence. Growth is the challenge. And investment is the solution.”

Responding to the speech, shadow Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said: “The last few months – and today’s speech – were a big opportunity to set out plans to grow the economy. The Chancellor once again wasted it with discredited attacks on the opposition. That is not governing – and business confidence is now vanishing as a result.”

Under Conservative plans unveiled in June the then government claimed £12bn a year could be saved from the benefits bill.

The Tory plans included strengthening benefit sanctions as well as investing in mental health treatment to help people back to work.

Disability benefit payments are currently around £39bn and expected to rise to £58bn in 2028-29"

Labour no longer governs for the working class, the underrepresented, the vulnerable and so on. Starmer is a red Tory who admires Blairite trickle down economics which is code for allowing the continuing massive wealth inequalities to continue and increase. He will do nothing to upset the speculators in London. In truth, he will do everything in his power to assure them that his government will be financially responsible, which will involve reducing benefits and maintaining the rhetoric about the unemployed not wanting to work.

Ms Reeves used her speech to warn that there were “too many people out of work through chronic illness, waiting for treatment, or without the skills, training and security they need to fulfil their potential”, resulting in “a welfare state that does not always incentivise work”.

The construction industry is the only work I have ever done, so I can only speak about it. Funded skills training would be great, but it's not available. Bringing in skilled construction workers from all over the world is necessary for that reason. The only decent training you can get means paying for it yourself, and unemployed people have up to £5k in savings they can use to pay for their own training.

Bringing back skills centres from the 1980s, which mainly focused on traditional craft skills, is something they need to look at, make use of all the retired or nearly retired skilled tradesmen to pass on their skills, before they are lost forever. Then, look at apprenticeships. The whole point of a vocational apprenticeships is to encourage those who are less academic. Forcing learners to attempt Maths and English upskills puts them under unnecessary pressure. Many fail their end point assessments because the Maths and English makes it impossible for them to pass…despite being more than capable within their role.