"One of the criticisms of George Osborne as chancellor is that he can be too clever by half, that some of his political schemes are so devious that they can backfire. For anyone advancing this theory, the welfare cap now looks like an ideal example.
Osborne announced a welfare cap, a cap on the overall amount the government can spend on certain welfare payments, in the budget of 2014. It is not the same as the benefits cap, the cap on the amount of benefits that an out-of-work family can receive (originally £26,000, but now being cut to £20,000 for families outside London.) The benefits cap proved remarkably popular with voters, and so Osborne decided to apply the same principle to overall welfare spending. At the time it was perceived primarily as a trap for Labour; Osborne was hoping that the opposition would vote against, thus allowing him to depict them as profligate with welfare spending. In the event this ploy failed, because Ed Miliband and Ed Balls decided their party should vote in favour of the welfare cap, and the issue quickly dropped out of the political headlines.
As a restraint on government the welfare cap was always relatively ineffective because, under Osborne’s proposal, any government could break i and spend more if it wanted to. But it would have to go to the Commons to win approval in a vote. Osborne argued that this would prove embarrassing, and that the unappetising prospect of having to ask MPs to vote for extra welfare spending would act as a deterrent.
In the debate on the welfare cap in March 2014, he said that breaching the welfare cap would be “a failure of public expenditure control”. Any chancellor taking this step would have to admit that what they really want is “higher welfare bills”, he said.
The charter makes clear what will happen if the welfare cap is breached. The chancellor must come to Parliament, account for the failure of public expenditure control, and set out the action that will be taken to address the breach ...
The welfare cap brings responsibility, accountability and fairness. Those who want to undo our welfare reforms will now have to tell us about the other cuts that they will make, or else come clean and admit to the public that what they really want are higher welfare bills ..
From now on, any government who want to spend more on welfare will have to be honest with the public—honest about the costs—and secure the approval of Parliament in order to breach the cap.
Expect those words to be flung back at Osborne this afternoon. Now it seems that he is going to have to go to parliament himself and admit that he’s the one asking for “higher welfare bills” because he’s failed to meet his own spending targets."
Osborne announced a welfare cap, a cap on the overall amount the government can spend on certain welfare payments, in the budget of 2014. It is not the same as the benefits cap, the cap on the amount of benefits that an out-of-work family can receive (originally £26,000, but now being cut to £20,000 for families outside London.) The benefits cap proved remarkably popular with voters, and so Osborne decided to apply the same principle to overall welfare spending. At the time it was perceived primarily as a trap for Labour; Osborne was hoping that the opposition would vote against, thus allowing him to depict them as profligate with welfare spending. In the event this ploy failed, because Ed Miliband and Ed Balls decided their party should vote in favour of the welfare cap, and the issue quickly dropped out of the political headlines.
As a restraint on government the welfare cap was always relatively ineffective because, under Osborne’s proposal, any government could break i and spend more if it wanted to. But it would have to go to the Commons to win approval in a vote. Osborne argued that this would prove embarrassing, and that the unappetising prospect of having to ask MPs to vote for extra welfare spending would act as a deterrent.
In the debate on the welfare cap in March 2014, he said that breaching the welfare cap would be “a failure of public expenditure control”. Any chancellor taking this step would have to admit that what they really want is “higher welfare bills”, he said.
The charter makes clear what will happen if the welfare cap is breached. The chancellor must come to Parliament, account for the failure of public expenditure control, and set out the action that will be taken to address the breach ...
The welfare cap brings responsibility, accountability and fairness. Those who want to undo our welfare reforms will now have to tell us about the other cuts that they will make, or else come clean and admit to the public that what they really want are higher welfare bills ..
From now on, any government who want to spend more on welfare will have to be honest with the public—honest about the costs—and secure the approval of Parliament in order to breach the cap.
Expect those words to be flung back at Osborne this afternoon. Now it seems that he is going to have to go to parliament himself and admit that he’s the one asking for “higher welfare bills” because he’s failed to meet his own spending targets."
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