George Osborne confirms more welfare cuts - if Government re-elected

The Chancellor George Osborne has announced that the Government will make further cuts - worth £10 billion - to the welfare budget if re-elected.

The focus of these reductions will be:

• Changes to uprating (system used to decide on the increases to benefits rates in April each year) so they are lower than the rate of inflation
• Cuts to Housing Benefit for young people so that young people without a job would have to live at home
• A cut in support for people who have children while on benefits.

He said the better-off would pay more in taxes, but the budget could not be balanced "on the wallets of the rich".

Response from Child Poverty Action Group

Child Poverty Action Group's Chief Executive, Alison Garnham, has spoken out against proposals from George Osborne and Iain Duncan Smith that unemployed families should have their benefits capped if they have more children. She said:

“With this abhorrent proposal, the Chancellor is saying that some children will be marked out from birth as second class citizens with their lives worth less than others.

“We were told it would be those with the broadest shoulders who have the greatest burden, but the richest are getting tax cuts and it is those with the narrowest shoulders, our poorest children, who are being made to pay the price.

Source: Rightsnet (link opens in a new window), BBC News (link opens in a new window) and Child Poverty Action Group (link opens in a new window)