Britain’s welfare crisis may have slipped from the front pages following Liz Kendall’s £4.8 billion worth of cuts announced ahead of the Spring Statement, but the problems haven’t gone away. Figures quietly released by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) this week show that, despite Labour’s planned ‘reforms’ to the benefits system, nearly a million more people will end up on incapacity benefits by the end of the decade, at an additional cost of £9 billion.
Kendall’s reforms have only chipped away a few pebbles from Everest
Last autumn, the DWP’s own forecasts projected welfare spending on disabled and sick Britons passing £120 billion by 2030. After all of Kendall’s changes, the latest figures still predict a bill of £117 billion – a negligible reduction. The direct effects of her reforms to incapacity benefits will only reduce the caseload by 90,000 (still hitting 4.1 million) compared with forecasts made at last Autumn’s budget, saving just £1 billion out of costs that are set to soar beyond £34 billion.
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