Welfare Benefits

The Chancellor - George Osborne - laid out the Coalition Government's public spending plans last week for 2015 to 2016, i.e. the first year beyond the next general election.

The Labour Party had already repositioned itself to say that it will accept this spending programme and therefore the implied need for cuts in public spending to tackle the UK's enormous budget deficit and accumulated debt - to no one's surprise.

But the Chancellor had a few surprises of his own on welfare benefits - which the Labour opposition were not expecting and which seemed to badly wrong-foot the two Eds, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls.

First up George Osborne announced that people who are newly unemployed will have to, in future, wait 7 days before they can claim unemployment benefit - an increase on the present 4 days - which produced a predictable and outraged response from the Labour front bench.

Now I regard this as a vindictive measure myself because the real problem with claimants is not so much those who are newly joining the ranks of the unemployed - but those who have been claiming benefits for years and years.

So while an increase in the waiting time from 4 to 7 days is not the biggest or most pressing issue in terms of welfare benefits - it detracts attention from the much bigger problem of claimants who have been milking the system for all its worth - even during periods of relatively 'full employment' which existed under the last Labour Government.

If I had my way, I would focus attention on that particular group and announce that the game is up - that people who are otherwise fit and healthy cannot claim unemployment and other benefits for years - as if the rest of the country owes them a living.

The other new announcement that the Chancellor made is that again, in future, people will not be able to claim unemployment benefits - if they are unable to speak English - and the only thing I found worrying about this new measure is that people must have been able to do so for years.

Despite being able to communicate in English which must be a basic requirement for just about every job I can think of - on safety grounds alone - which makes you wonder why the welfare system has been operating in such a crazy, out of control way for such a long time.

All of which means that the Labour Party is still struggling to come up with a coherent message about how to reform the welfare system - which reflects the fact, perhaps, that during 13 years of power with a majority of MPs at Westminster - Labour had scarcely a meaningful word to say on the subject other than to sanction an ever increasing welfare budget.

Some say that George Osborne's welfare changes have more to do with politics than economics and I believe that to be true - but they are no better or worse than Gordon Brown's decision in the dying days of the last Labour Government to increase the top rate of income tax from 40p to 50p - having eschewed such an increase in tax during all the long years when his party was in power.

Now that's politics for you - or at least tribal politics anyway.