Newsnight has seen a leaked copy of the "command paper" to be issued by Ian Duncan Smith tomorrow. Technically a consultation document, the paper "Welfare in the 21st Century" admits that: "the overly bureaucratic benefits system can act as a barrier to work, trapping people in poverty". The problem is the rate at which four or five separate benefits are withdrawn as people move off the dole and into work. For 130,000 people, the effect of working more than 16 hours a week is to remove 90p out of every extra pound they earn. For a staggering 1.9 million people the effect is to remove 60p. The paper explores three solutions, but IDS' clearly preferred option is the so called Universal Credit. This will be spun as "combining elements of the present system" but even the cursory detail in the command paper makes clear this is radical reform.
Newsnight has seen a leaked copy of the "command paper" to be issued by Ian Duncan Smith tomorrow. Technically a consultation document, the paper "Welfare in the 21st Century" admits that:
"the overly bureaucratic benefits system can act as a barrier to work, trapping people in poverty".
The problem is the rate at which four or five separate benefits are withdrawn as people move off the dole and into work. For 130,000 people, the effect of working more than 16 hours a week is to remove 90p out of every extra pound they earn. For a staggering 1.9 million people the effect is to remove 60p.
The paper explores three solutions, but IDS' clearly preferred option is the so called Universal Credit. This will be spun as "combining elements of the present system" but even the cursory detail in the command paper makes clear this is radical reform.
So, IDS carries on with the presentation of a policy that is dead on arrival and we know that what will be implemented will have drastic repercussions for the poor. I hope that the Labour party have their responses sorted out (fat chance) because the tories will lie about this one all the way through parliament. keep to the Fen Causeway
