Labour’s Budget is a missed chance to solve Britain’s benefits problem

‘Fixing the Foundations’ is the phrase the Labour government wants in your head after the Budget. But the thin gruel for dealing with the challenge presented by our ill-health and disability benefits system suggests those words don’t count for much.

Apart from the defence of the realm, there is nothing more foundational to society than the way it treats its most vulnerable and most disadvantaged. Some people are, through no fault of their own, not able to work. Its the duty of the government to ensure that a safety net is in place to help these people; it must balance this by ensuring that the system is fair to the taxpayer. But conspicuous by its absence in the Budget were any proper measures for assessing Britain’s mounting benefits bill.

The Budget swerves the essential question which confronts the Labour government and the Conservatives before them: ‘In the world we have created today, can the foundation of ill-health and disability benefit be repaired by any government?’.