Riots: Coalition Tensions Over Benefits Plan

The flames of the riots have subsided, but the political fall-out has only just begun.











One proposal could lead to people losing benefits if they are convicted.

The Government's most immediate concern is what to do with the hundreds of people who have been arrested over the disturbances.

Many people feel the punishments being dished out are merely a slap on the wrist.

Others are concerned about the many young offenders who have been swept up into criminality.

Today both David Cameron and Ed Miliband made speeches trying to unpick the causes of the riots and prescribe their own remedies.

The Prime Minister must walk the political tightrope of reacting decisively and swiftly to the riots, without a knee-jerk response.











David Cameron says he 'fully supports' Iain Duncan Smith.

Ed Miliband has already accused Mr Cameron of "knee-jerk gimmicks".

But the truth is that neither the Prime Minister nor the leader of the opposition have come up with much in the way of concrete policies.

David Cameron’s speech seemed an exercise in re-emphasising what the Coalition is already doing - such as welfare reform, free schools and the British Bill of Rights.

One source close to the Prime Minister confirmed to me that today was more about "re-energising" and "reminding ministers of our priorities" rather than outlining a specific policy reaction.

Meanwhile Ed Miliband bemoaned the "unequal society" and "gross irresponsibility" but refused to nail his colours to the mast of any particular policy initiative - simply calling for a national inquiry.

One new policy is, however, under discussion and it is likely to be extremely controversial.











Lib Dem Simon Hughes says he fears 'knee-jerk' responses.

Work and Pension Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has said the Government is currently looking at removing benefits from people involved in the riots.

When asked about the idea during the question and answer session, the Prime Minister would only say that Mr Duncan Smith had his "total support".

Housing Minister Grant Shapps has already said that he is actively encouraging councils to use their right to evict council house tenants if they have been involved in criminal activity.

But if this is widened to include all benefits, there could be a rocky road ahead for the Coalition.

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes has cautioned against a "knee-jerk" response, and the party's welfare spokeswoman Jenny Willott has said she is "very worried" by the proposal.

And while Nick Clegg is understood to be comfortable with the idea of rioters losing their council homes, it is unclear whether he would be happy if they lost other benefits too.

Cutting Benefits Of Single Parents Will Increase Number Of Kids In Poverty

Slashing benefits of single parents who don't look for work will increase child poverty and family hardship, a report has warned.

Gingerbread, the charity that represents lone parents, wants ministers to abandon the "big stick" of benefit sanctions proposed in the Welfare Reform Bill.















Interviewing 200 single parents it found most were keen to work but felt hampered by lack of support from Government and employers.

Gingerbread chief executive Fiona Weir said: "Single parents are branded bad mothers if they are not there for their children and derided as benefits scroungers if they stay home - they feel caught in a trap."

The Government says getting single parents to work is the best route out of poverty.

But Gingerbread claims welfare reforms will make it tougher for single parents to juggle work with raising a family.

There are 1.9 million single parents in the UK who care for about three million children. Until last year, those with children aged 16 or younger could claim Income Support and weren't forced to seek work.

They had to attend "Work Focused Interviews" at the Jobcentre twice a year to discuss returning to work.

Since then, the Government has introduced a major change, gradually moving single parents with children aged seven and over from Income Support on to Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA).

To claim JSA they must attend Jobcentre Plus every two weeks and show they are actively looking for work. Claimants who fail to meet these conditions or who turn down a job without "good cause" can have their benefits cut by up to 40%.

The Bill aims to make parents of children as young as three take part in "work-related activity".

Many single parents are already being squeezed by the recession.

Calls to Gingerbread's helpline suggest more lone parents are seeing maintenance payments slashed as ex-partners lose their jobs.

Gingerbread's research also found many parents were keen to work but said it often didn't pay. "Childcare, travel and school meal costs can wipe out the benefits of many lowpaid, part-time jobs and leave parents out of pocket," says Weir.

Gingerbread wants employers to be more flexible to help single parents juggle work and family responsibilities and says the state could lead by example by offering more flexitime, parttime work and job sharing.

It believes single parents should have childcare costs covered through working tax credits and get their youngsters school meals free.

The DWP stressed the Government was commited to ensuring work pays for lone parents. Work & Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced a trial that from next year will mean they can earn £50 a week without losing benefits. And the bill has been amended so victims of domestic violence will not have to look for work for three months.

"We need to help families out of poverty by helping parents work, and we will always do so in a way that also supports family life," said Cooper. Here we speak to three single mums facing the challenges...

For expert advice call Gingerbread's free helpline on 0800 018 5026.

The full-time mum

Mother-of-two Jaqueline Carroll says she feels "stuck in a rut" on benefits.

"I want to work," the 33-year-old from Liverpool says. "I think it's terrible that the Government is threatening to take money off single parents instead of help them.

"Some single parents advisers are good - but some ask why you don't apply for jobs starting from 8.30am. When you say you can't because you have to drop your child off at school, they go 'oh you're just being negative'."

Jacqueline was shocked when she went for a supermarket job. "The first thing they said was 'if any of you want cushy hours, forget it. The good hours are for people already here'."

The part-time worker

Wendi New, 40, had to give up her job teaching young offenders in prison when her marriage broke up 12 months ago.

She says staff at her local Jobcentre tried to push her to work at a supermarket, despite her qualifications. Now she has a job teaching children with behavioural problems closer to her home in Lowestoft, Suffolk. She works 18 hours a week and brings home about £900 a month.

"I'd have to work 50 hours a week in a supermarket to earn that. I couldn't do it and look after Hollie. Even now if Hollie's ill I have to take unpaid leave and then I'm worse off than I'd be on benefits."

The full-time worker

Charity worker Sarah Davidge from Bristol wants to work to provide a "positive role model" for her daughters Meg and Beth.

"You have two jobs - work and parenting. But you don't feel as if you do either to the best of your ability. I can't stay late at work and I don't feel able to devote as much time as I'd like going through homework with them."

Sarah admits she is luckier than many lone parents - earning about £25,000 for a 35-hour week, and her employer is flexible about hours.

"But a lot of companies aren't so flexible. The Government should encourage choice, not try to force people to take the first job going."

The Benefit Trap: Working Families Feel The Squeeze

Iain Duncan Smith's tax and benefits reforms are hitting the most vulnerable in society, say leading think tanks, and threaten to undermine any notion that work pays.









Low income families are becoming worse off and the prospect of work less attractive as government reforms of tax and benefits systems aimed at encouraging people back to work take effect.

The warning comes in the wake of a series of reports from respected think tanks that have analysed the impact of the reforms being led by work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith.

Their findings reveal that an urgent rethink is needed, highlighting problems in the interaction of income tax and tax credits with other benefits.

‘Cuts to childcare tax credits could leave some parents losing 94p for every extra pound they earn,’ according to a report from the Resolution Foundation. It cites the example of a single mother on the minimum wage who would be just £3 a week better off if she decided to work four days a week rather than three.

Lone parents, 92% of whom are women, are worst hit by cuts, losing 8.5% of their annual income by 2015, according to The Fawcett Society. Its analysis was based on research undertaken by the highly regarded Institute for Fiscal Studies using the government's own models.

‘The government talks a lot about promoting responsibility and backing aspiration, but on the ground these cuts are actually stopping single parents from getting on,’ says Fiona Weir, chief executive of Gingerbread that represents lone parents.

‘It is unacceptable that single parents are bearing the brunt of cuts and this research proves again that the government must do more to support single parents, including further investment in childcare, training and employment support.’
Childcare costs

In the past, parents have been able to claim back up to 80% of childcare costs up to £300 a week, depending on income. For a family with two children or more this works out at a maximum of £240 a week. But since April the proportion these costs a parent can claim back has been reduced to 70 per cent and capped at £210 a week – a loss of £30 a week.

The Resolution Report calculates that almost 500,000 working families have lost an average of £426 a year in childcare benefit since April of this year, rising to an average of £600 a year in London, with some as much as £1,300 a year worse off.

According to the Daycare Trust’s 2011 annual survey of child care costs, the average yearly expenditure for 25 hours nursery care per week for a child under two is £5,028 in England, £5,178 in Scotland and £4,723 in Wales. This works out at around £96 a week on average.

But for parents working from 8.30am to 5.30pm childcare costs are nearly double at £172 a week, with some parents paying as much as £11 an hour for child care.

Child Benefit Cuts For Better Off Are Fair - Cameron

David Cameron has defended plans to cut higher rate taxpayers' child benefit, saying it is fair to ask them to contribute to cutting the deficit.













He said he knew cutting the benefit for people on more than £44,000 would not make him popular - but it was the "right thing to do".

Labour's Yvette Cooper described it as an "unfair attack on child benefit".

The BBC understands the government plans to introduce a tax break for married couples in this parliament.

The BBC's political editor Nick Robinson said government sources had told him that there would be a tax break for married couples introduced in this parliament - which is due to run until May 2015.

He said that although the original Conservative policy was to limit the tax breaks to basic rate tax payers, the coalition agreement did not repeat that and the chancellor might seek to partially compensate the stay-at-home mothers who feel aggrieved by the child benefit cut.

On Monday Chancellor George Osborne said that from 2013 the benefit would be removed from families with at least one parent earning more than about £44,000 a year.

Hours later children's minister Tim Loughton told Channel 4 News the move to cut the benefit from 1.2 million families might need revising, with possible compensating measures for those "genuinely in need". He later said people were "over-excited" by his comments and he was not calling for a review.

However, Ms Cooper, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said the government's policy was "now unravelling" adding: "They have clearly been taken aback by the reaction of parents across the country.

"George Osborne and David Cameron obviously don't understand what it means for families on middle incomes to lose thousands of pounds a year."

The child benefit threshold was aligned with the higher-rate 40% income tax threshold to avoid complex means testing but there has been criticism that the move will penalise some families where one parent stays at home to look after the children.

While families with two earners on just under £44,000 each - but collectively about £80,000 - would keep child benefit, those with one earner on more than £44,000 would lose it.
'Makes sense'

Conservative former shadow home secretary David Davis told the Daily Mail the policy would encourage mothers to go out to work adding: "It would be fairer to consider family income rather than that of individuals."

The prime minister said he wanted to protect the poorest and neediest as the government tackled the £155bn deficit but told the BBC earlier that stay-at-home mothers could benefit in future from "some sort of transferable tax allowance to help couples".

Mr Cameron told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that while people on £44,000 were not rich - they were "a lot better off" than those trying to raise a family on £25,000 a year adding that the cut - estimated to save £1bn a year - "makes sense".

"In the spending round we're having to make difficult decisions. This is £1bn I don't have to take off the education budget.

"I want to make sure in Britain we have real social mobility and life chances given to the poorest children in our country so they can go to the best schools and the best universities and we can have a truly mobile Britain.

"That does mean in a spending round you have to ask better off people to make a contribution so you can protect the most vulnerable and help them have a better life."

He said it was "an argument about fairness" and pointed out Mr Osborne also planned to cap the amount of benefit people could receive - so they never got more than the average working family brought home in pay - estimated at about £26,000 a year.

That would mean benefits would be restricted to £500 a week from 2013 and would be thought to affect 50,000 households, who would lose an average of £93 a week.

The limit would not apply to people on disability living allowance, war widows' pensions and working tax credit.

Mr Cameron said 85% of people would continue to get child benefit and assessing the whole family's income would have necessitated "an incredibly bureaucratic and expensive" and "intrusive" system, means-testing every family in the country.

Accusing the previous Labour government of having "bankrupted the country", he added: "It is difficult. I wish I wasn't having to do this, but we have to deal with the problems in front of us."

Asked about speculation that other universal benefits - like winter fuel payments and free bus passes for pensioners - might be cut, he said: "Obviously you have to wait for the spending review announcement but I made some pretty clear promises to pensioners in our country, and those are promises I want to keep."

David Cameron's Not Fit To Lead The Country

DAVID Cameron claims that three-quarters of those applying for Employment Support Allowance (the successor to Incapacity Benefit) can go to work immediately. He is a liar.

He bases this fake figure on a survey by the Department of Work and Pensions showing that 39 per cent who took a tough new test for ESA were deemed fit for work and moved to Jobseekers’ Allowance. A further 36 per cent gave up before completing the test.

Dodgy Dave, who’s never had a proper job in his life, assumes that all those who failed the test are scrimshankers, and all those who pulled out were trying it on.

In fact, 40 per cent of those who are turned down, successfully appeal against being denied ESA, and an unknown number walk away from a testing ordeal that disability charities say is ­“seriously flawed and not fit for purpose”.

Of course, those who can work, should work. But the ConDems simply want to save money for tax cuts for the better-off, not help those who have ­difficulty helping themselves. Cameron’s abuse of statistics to criminalise them is despicable.

Ed Miliband Attacks Cameron Over Child Benefit Cuts In Confident PMQs Debut

Ed Miliband today attacked David Cameron over the coalition's plans to slash child benefit in his first Prime Minister's Questions.

The new Labour leader claimed hundreds of thousands of families would lose out under the measures, aimed at helping cut the benefit bill.

Mr Miliband condemned the policy to axe the handouts for higher rate taxpayers as a 'shambles' and urged the Prime Minister to reconsider.

He claimed a family of three will lose £2,500 through the cut backs and suggested this was equal to a 6p rise in income tax.

The plan has caused outrage after it emerged stay-at-home mothers with partners earning just above the threshold will lose out but families with two working parents who are each on a salary just below the threshold will still receive the benefit.















Mr Cameron retorted that it was not fair to ask people who earned 'one sixth' of Mr Miliband's salary to pay tax to cover his child benefit.

But the Labour leader again shot back: 'It's nought out of two on straight answers' and denied he was 'defending the rich'.

'I am defending the deputy head teacher at a primary school, I am defending the police inspector, all of whom are asking a straightforward question,' he said.

And to cheers from his own benches, he quoted Mr Cameron's words at a Cameron Direct meeting during the election campaign.

A confident Mr Miliband demanded to know exactly how many families with one parent out of work would be affected by the cut.

Mr Cameron, with his deputy Nick Clegg nodding behind him, said higher-rate tax hit 15 per cent of taxpayers and admitted the decision had been 'difficult'.

But he insisted: 'As we deal with the deficit, we do have to ask better-off people to bear their fair share of the burden.'

He asked Mr Miliband to justify giving money to the more well-off, but the Opposition leader shot back: 'I may be new to this game but I think I ask the questions and he answers them.'

Mr Miliband criticised the PM for refusing to give a straight answer and insisted hundreds of thousands of families would be penalised.

'The question they are asking is this - why should a family on £45,000 when one parent stays at home lose their child benefit but a family on £80,000 where both partners are working keep theirs?

'It doesn't strike people as fair, it doesn't strike me as fair, does it strike the Prime Minister as fair?'































He said then: 'I am not going to flannel you, I am going to give it to you straight. I like child benefit. I wouldn't change child benefit.

'I wouldn't means test it, I don't think that's a good idea. I agree with the Prime Minister, why doesn't he?'

Mr Cameron insisted Labour had to face up to reality and their legacy to the coalition of the biggest budget deficit in the G20.

He accused Mr Miliband or having no alternative proposals and took his chance to quote back the new leader's words earlier this year.













He quoted former Labour Cabinet minister Alan Milburn who said 'in times of plenty, giving child benefit to high earners is a luxury we cannot afford'.

But Mr Miliband declared he should face up to the huge loss he was handing to families - with those with three children losing £2,500-a-year.

'If he wants to take people with him on deficit reduction, he has got to show that his changes are fair and reasonable,' he said.

The Prime Minister quoted Mr Miliband's own words back in July that: 'Whoever is the Labour leader will by the time of the spending review have to show they have an alternative plan.'

'Where is the alternative plan?', he demanded.

But Mr Miliband was unbowed, claiming he had shown how the Government had no defence for the policy.

'He cannot explain to families up and down the country why they are going to sustain this loss. This policy has been a shambles from day one.

'The rest of the cabinet knew nothing about it... I bet the PM wishes the BBC blackout had gone ahead.'

He added: 'Isn't it time the Prime Minister had the grown up sense to admit this - he's got it wrong, he's made the wrong decision. He should tell middle income families up and down Britain he will think again.'

Mr Cameron accused Mr Miliband of deciding to stand up for the 'squeezed middle' after years of taxing them while Labour was in government.

'It's a completely transparent political strategy to cover up the inconvenient truth that he was put where he is by the trade union movement,' he said.

Likening Mr Miliband to his predecessor, he added: 'It is just short-term tactics and political positioning. It's not red, it's Brown.'

It had been suggested Mr Cameron would be happier to face the younger Miliband brother than David, the former Foreign Secretary.

But today the 40-year-old former Energy Secretary showed he will be no easy ride as the Government battles to push through drastic spending cuts.

At the start of the session, the two leaders had both agreed they would be able to work together in the national interest on many issues.

Mr Cameron congratulated his new sparring partner but added: 'As well as wishing him well, I hope he does the job [of Opposition leader] for many, many years to come.'

David Cameron 'Sorry' Child Benefit Cut Was Not In Tory Manifesto

David Cameron was forced today to apologise to voters for breaking an election promise with his decision to withdraw child benefit from 1.2 million higher-rate taxpayers.














On a day of policy wobbles in the Conservative high command, the prime minister acknowledged the decision – announced on Monday by the chancellor, George Osborne – had led to a storm of criticism from those claiming that axing child benefit had damaged the party's commitment to family values and undermined the universalist base of the welfare state, which he had promised to preserve in the election.

"We did not outline all those cuts, we did not know exactly the situation we were going to inherit," he told ITV news. "But I acknowledge this was not in our manifesto. Of course I am sorry about that."

In what was rapidly becoming a test of the Conservative leadership mettle at the party's conference in Birmingham, Osborne also rushed out a letter to all MPs explaining that a decision that seemed to punish its core aspirational support should not be seen in isolation.

Osborne wrote: "I know some have pointed out that this approach will leave households that do not contain a higher rate taxpayer, but whose joint income is above the higher-rate threshold, still in receipt of child benefit. The only way to assess these joint income families would be to create a new complex, costly and intrusive means test that would spread right up the income distribution."

Cameron made his comments in the face of growing unease on his own backbenches at the anomalies thrown up by the blanket withdrawal of child benefit from anyone earning more £43,875.

The cut will mean a loss of £1,055 a year for one-child families and almost £2,500 for those with three children.

In an effort to assuage the anger of some middle-class parents, he used television interviews throughout the day to highlight the party's longstanding plans to introduce a transferable tax allowance for married couples.

"I have always supported the idea of supporting marriage through the tax system, specifically supporting the idea of a transferable tax allowance," he said.

When it was pointed out that the Tory pre-election plan to help married couples had been aimed only at basic-rate taxpayers, and would therefore not compensate higher-rate taxpayers for the loss of child benefit, government sources rapidly shifted ground.

The sources suggested the wording in the Lib Dem-Conservative coalition agreement left open the possibility of higher-rate taxpayers also being helped by the marriage tax allowance, which will be introduced by 2015.

The initial proposal had been calculated by the Institute for Fiscal Studies as costing £550m and was worth £120 a year – a figure far lower than the loss due to the removal of child benefit.

Extending the scheme to higher-rate taxpayers might push the cost as high £1bn, wiping out nearly all savings from withdrawing child benefit and rendering the exercise highly costly in political terms for zero financial reward.

However, Cameron was given a boost when a YouGov poll for the Sun showed 83% of voters backed Osborne's announcement on child benefit.

In his closing speech to the party conference tomorrow, his first as prime minister, Cameron will try to draw a line under the benefits controversy by offering a robust defence of the need to share the pain of cutting the deficit.

"As we work to balance the budget, fairness includes asking those on higher incomes to shoulder more of the burden than those on lower incomes. It is fair that those with broader shoulders bear greater load," Cameron will argue.

At the same time he will try to reflect the growing demands in his party at this conference not to ape Labour's definition of fairness, based on monetary transfers, but instead to develop a new, broader interpretation.

In what is likely to be one of the big arguments in his one-hour speech, he will say: "It is time for a new conversation about what fairness really means … you cannot measure fairness just by how much money we spend on welfare."

He will also say: "For too long we have measured success in tackling poverty by the size of the cheque we give people. We say let us measure success by the chance we give. Fairness is not just about who gets help from the state. The other part of the equation is who gives that help through their taxes.

"Fairness means giving people what they deserve – and what people deserve depends on how they behave."

Referring to the plan to cap welfare payments at £26,000 a year for workless households, seen by Tories as one of the great successes of this conference, he will say it is not fair to "take more money from the man who goes out to work long hours each day so the family next door can go on living a life on benefits".