The government has played down reports that ministers have agreed to cut £2.5bn from benefits paid to those who are too sick to work.
A letter leaked to the Observer suggests ministers have agreed to cut the money by 2014-15 from the employment and support allowance.
The government says the letter, written in June, is out of date. Minister Danny Alexander said: "Things have moved on".
Labour's Yvette Cooper said it would hit "the sickest people".
Chancellor George Osborne announced last week that the government was planning to cut a further £4bn from the annual welfare bill, on top of the £11bn announced in June.
The Observer claims that, in a leaked letter written by Chancellor George Osborne to Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith on 19 June, Mr Osborne said cuts had been agreed to the budget for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) - the successor to incapacity benefit.
To read more http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11274191
PDF version Chancellor George Osborne has defended plans to make further cuts to the welfare bill, saying current levels of spending on benefits cannot continue.
He told MPs that further welfare cuts were needed to "take the pressure" off other government departments, which face cuts of between 25% and 40%.
But he declined to say whether he was planning a further £4bn cut in benefits on top of £11bn already announced.
Labour said the chancellor was "not being straight" with Parliament.
Mr Osborne came under fire last week after he told the BBC
that welfare spending was "completely out of control" and suggested people making a "lifestyle choice" to live on benefits rather than trying to find work could find their support cut.
He told the BBC last week that the Treasury could announce a further £4bn of welfare savings in next month's spending review on top of £11bn outlined in May's Budget.
Making an urgent statement in the Commons, Mr Osborne said welfare spending had increased 45% in the past 10 years and the government could not continue to spend one in three pounds of its total budget on welfare.
The Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper urged Mr Osborne to "come clean" about his plans, saying what had been already announced was a "nasty attack" on the most vulnerable.
Mr Osborne was asked to attend the Commons by the Speaker to answer the urgent question from Lib Dem MP Bob Russell, who was critical of the decision being announced in the media.
Mr Russell, whose party is in coalition with the Conservatives, said the "disadvantaged in society" would be worst hit by the plans.
Disabled people are at risk of being pushed into poverty, claim disability charities following revelations of government plans to cut £2.5bn from employment support allowance (ESA).
At the weekend, The Observer published a leaked letter from chancellor George Osborne detailing plans to cut £2.5bn from the employment support allowance bill by 2014-15.
Employment and support allowance was brought in by the Labour government to replace incapacity benefit and offers benefits to unemployed disabled people.
Liz Sayce, chief executive of Radar, said: "We support plans to make it easier to move from benefits to work. But arbitrary benefit cuts risk more disabled people living in poverty with no prospect of work."
Vanessa Stanislas, chief executive of the Disability Alliance, said that the cuts were targeted at a small group with the highest needs. "This is a fundamental shift in the welfare state," she added.
Rebecca Rennison, senior policy officer at Leonard Cheshire disability, said the cuts could push people out of the system and they would not know how to gain support to allow them to find work. "It could lead to people being more reliant on other services," she said.
The Department of Work and Pensions said it remained in discussion with the Treasury over how spending will be cut.
The government has already announced plans to introduce a medical assessment for disability living allowance and to cut the welfare budget by a further £4bn.
Richard Hawkes, chief executive of disability charity Scope, said that the cuts to employment support allowance undermined government promises to ensure fairness when making cuts. "This highlights the critical need for the government to undertake a full impact assessment to ensure that it is not the most vulnerable people that are hit the hardest by the cuts," he said.
On Friday, it emerged that the government had missed the deadline to submit its initial defence to a judicial review examining whether it had conducted an impact assessment of its budget proposals on disabled people, ethnic minorities and women.
Chancellor risks condemning disabled people to poverty with proposed benefit raid
Disability Alliance, the National Centre for Independent Living (NCIL), and the Royal Association of Disability Rights (Radar) jointly condemn today’s news that the most senior levels of Government suggest disabled people with the highest needs should lose essential support.
The revelation that the Chancellor, Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister believe that society’s worst off citizens, with least opportunities to work should face £2.5 billion cuts to Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) benefits fails to acknowledge the likely result: that disabled people could be without the resources to eat three meals a day or heat their homes.
Access to ESA is through a strict and controversial medical assessment which leaves only disabled people with the highest needs in receipt of the benefit. Under a fifth of the people seeking ESA receive the benefit – with 70% receiving Jobseekers Allowance instead. Vanessa Stanislas, Disability Alliance Chief Executive says:
“To target cuts at the small group of people with the highest needs represents a fundamental shift in the welfare state and is a massive blow to disabled people who already fear the outcome of the Government’s public service and benefit cuts.”
Disabled people’s organisations believe the Government should focus greater energy on ensuring out of work benefits and support result in people accessing work. Liz Sayce, Chief Executive of Radar, says:
“Many disabled people want to work and need personalised support to help find and keep jobs. A fairer and more effective approach could be to reduce out of work benefits only as disabled people find sustainable work. We support plans to make it easier to move from benefits to work. But arbitrary benefit cuts risk more disabled people living in poverty with no prospect of work.”
Half of working age disabled people are not in work and rely on benefits to meet essential needs. Disabled people also require other public services for support, including the NHS and councils. All services are experiencing or expect drastic cuts in the Comprehensive Spending Review – and cuts will inevitably impact disproportionately on disabled people.
The Conservative Party pledged to ‘protect Disability Living Allowance’ (DLA) and the Liberal Democrats insisted they would ‘hardwire fairness’ into the tax and benefits system in the 2010 election. Four months into Government the coalition plans to axe 20% of the ‘caseload and expenditure’ from DLA and – as the Chancellor’s letter reveals – senior Cabinet members believe disabled people could also lose some out of work benefits.
The Chancellor previously suggested the Government would protect disability benefits and shelter disabled people from the worst excesses of the spending cuts. His public reassurance, given on Thursday, is contradicted by his private letter to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith – exposing worrying mixed messages at the core of Government.
The revelation further demonstrates that the coalition is failing to pay due regard to obligations to underpin decision-making with an assessment of the impact on disadvantaged groups, such as disabled people. Sue Bott, NCIL Chief Executive, says:
“The Budget is already facing a challenge under equality law. The Chancellor’s letter leaves the Government exposed to further accusations of unfairness and an uncaring attitude, failing to ensure proposals do not entrench or worsen inequality and disadvantage.”
Notes: Disability Alliance, NCIL and Radar are UK disabled people’s charities.
- Disability Alliance aims to end disability poverty: www.disabilityalliance.org.uk
- NCIL campaigns for independent living for disabled people: www.ncil.org.uk
- Radar seeks an equal society whose strength is human difference: www.radar.org.uk
- George Osborne’s letter to Iain Duncan Smith: www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/11/george-osborne-slash-sickness-benefits
- The Chancellor’s previous reassurance disabled people would be ‘protected’ from cuts, responding to news of further £4 billion welfare cut: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11250639
- The equality law challenge to Budget: www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/index.asp?PageID=1165
Iain Duncan Smith has said he "simply doesn't recognise" the figure of £4bn the Chancellor indicated will be cut from Britain's benefits bill.
Last week George Osborne said "several billion pounds" in welfare cuts will be announced in next month's spending review.
But work and pension secretary Mr Duncan Smith told MPs he was still in negotiations with the Treasury.
He said could not confirm any figures ahead of the review on 20 October.
And he still hoped to convince Mr Osborne to back his idea to scrap the existing complex system of benefits in favour of a single, universal payment which would be aimed at making work pay.
'Absolutely doable'
This would have a set-up cost, which Labour has estimated could be as much as £7bn, but Mr Duncan Smith said it would save money in the long run, as the long-term unemployed came off benefits and started paying tax.
Mr Duncan Smith said he was in discussions with the Treasury and was "trying to prove that concept to them".
He has said billions could also be saved by eliminating fraud and error in the tax credit system, which is run by the Treasury, which he believed should be scrapped and any savings handed to his department to help pay for his proposed reforms.
"We are discussing that right now," he told the committee.
To read more http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11310951
It has been reported that the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne will reduce spending on benefit entitlement by a further £4billion that will impact on those receiving Incapacity Benefit in this Autumn’s spending review.
Responding to the proposals, Social Development Minister Alex Attwood said: "There is now a growing danger that Treasury is in the driving seat when it comes to welfare and benefit changes and that DWP may be loosing authority in the welfare debate. This is precisely what I have been warning about.
"The latest announcements suggest this is what is happening. That is precisely why I have sat down with London Ministers and put it to them straight what the consequences will be for those in need in Northern Ireland. I will keep pressing London Ministers on all of this and negotiate hard for Northern Ireland to make it absolutely clear that treasury proposals are unjust, wrong and destabilising.
"I shall be making representations to the relevant departments in Westminster to confirm in blunt terms my concerns, the risks and urging relevant people to meet with me to have the type of conversation I had with Iain Duncan Smith last week."
http://www.northernireland.gov.uk/news/news-dsd/news-dsd-100910-benefit-...
Nick Clegg has launched a staunch defence of benefit cuts ahead of the Liberal Democrat conference.
In an article for The Times, the deputy PM says welfare should be an "engine of mobility... rather than a giant cheque written by the State to compensate the poor for their predicament".
Mr Clegg has been under fire from backbench Lib Dems over claims planned cuts target the vulnerable.
But he said the system needed "root and branch reform".
He said cuts to the welfare budget were "unavoidable" in the current financial climate but, at the same time, "we will be simplifying the current Byzantine benefits system and providing real incentives for people to move off benefits and into work".
'Profoundly liberal'
And he vowed that the coalition government would bring "sanity" and "simplicity" to a system everyone knew was "broken".
To read more http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11325217
Click here to read all of the letters on the guarduan.co.uk
We don't think that the government has properly thought through the impact of its welfare reform on disabled people. We understand that budgets need to be balanced, but just simply cutting them could be the road to ruin for many. Where is the understanding that it costs more to live as a disabled person, or that to find employment many will need individually tailored support?
Crucially, we've yet to see the evidence from the government that disabled people who are unable to work will continue to receive the "protection" they need. Being disabled is not a "lifestyle choice" and we want the government to fully understand the consequences of any action it takes.
Richard Hawkes
Chief executive, Scope