Ten things you need to know about the welfare White Paper

I’ve sifted through yesterday’s welfare White Paper, and thought CoffeeHousers might appreciate a ten-point guide to its contents. This is by no means the entire picture – and some of it will be familiar from past Coffee House posts – but hopefully it should capture the broad sweep of IDS’s reforms:

1) The problem. Fundamentally, the issue is that there are a lot of people stuck on out-of-work benefits: around 5 million at the last count. This means different things for different groups. For the Treasury and taxpayers it contributes towards an unwieldy working-age welfare budget that has increased by 45 percent, in real terms, over the past decade – to around £80 billion. For Downing Street’s strategists it throws up all sorts tricky questions about fairness, immigration and jobs. And for the benefit claimants themselves it can result in lives stripped of opportunity, achievement and wealth. Some 1.4 million of the 5 million have been on benefits for 9 out of the past 10 years.