United Kingdom reverses welfare, police budget cut plans
The Treasury was forced to defend this week’s Autumn Statement and Spending Review announcements last night after the influential Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), an independent research institute, said there was just a 50-50 chance Osborne would hit his target of a surplus in 2019-2020. While saying the government will continue seeking efficiency savings in the police force, Osborne said no cuts to police funding will be made now.
“I’ve had representations that these changes to tax credits should be phased in”, Mr Osborne told the Commons to jubilant cheers from Tory backbenchers. “But people raised concerns with me that the speed of getting there was too quick, that we weren’t doing enough to help families in the transition”, he said. Because of the improvement in the public finances, the simplest thing to do is not to phase these changes in, but to avoid them altogether. This is fixed, four years out.
“Now is the time to back our police and give them the tools do the job”, he said.
Finance Minister George Osborne on Wednesday spelt out his proposals for STG12 billion ($A25 billion) of cuts to welfare spending and STG20 billion of reductions to public expenditure, while raising STG5 billion via a crackdown on tax avoidance.
Science funding will also get another £4.7 billion by 2020, protecting it in real terms.
Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Commissioner Tony Hogg, who had pushed for the issued to be revisited, said he welcomed today’s announcement.
Osborne also revealed plans to extend the small business rate relief scheme to 600,000 companies and create 26 new enterprise zones.
The government will also release unused commercial, retail and industrial land to build new homes across Wales, helping to make use of abandoned buildings on brownfield sites.
Leach continued: “We hope the Chancellor now looks more closely at advancing tax credit reform in the context of the re-recognition of family responsibility in the tax system”.
They include a cap on housing benefits for new tenants in the social sector from 2018 which will affect around 145,000 tenancies by 2021.
“The £15bn Roads Investment Strategy in today’s Spending Review is positive, although it will be interesting to see how the government delivers this with a 37% cut on the Department for Transport’s day-to-day spending”.
“In other good news, the supplement of 3% to Benefit-in-Kind taxes for drivers of diesel company cars was postponed from 2016 to 2021, which will help with future business planning and individuals’ choices”. The way he described it by comparing it to the Libor fines, but women buying sanitary products are not like bankers breaking the law.
