REMOVING caps on benefits could save the government billions of pounds rather than cost money, a progressive economic think tank says.
The New Economics Foundation (NEF) report, published today, says that the cost of benefit caps could be outweighed by the gains to be made from abolishing them.
Gains include easing extra pressure on the NHS and other services resulting from the poverty caused by the caps, according to the experts.
The benefit cap was introduced in 2013 by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government and limits the amount of benefits a household can receive.
The two-child limit was introduced by the Tory government in 2017. It restricts the application of child tax credit and universal credit to the first two children in households.
The NEF estimates that axing the caps could save £1.5 billion a year over the next five years alone through lower demand on public services.
In the longer term — in 20 or 25 years — children lifted from poverty could have estimated future net earnings of £920 million a year higher, with an extra £490m returned to government through taxation and reduced spending on social security.
“In reducing child poverty rates, pressures on the NHS, schools and social services will reduce, enabling the reallocation of resources to other areas of high demand,” the report states.
JAILED: Eco-protesters support Anna Holland and Phoebe Plummer as they are sentenced on September 27 2024 for throwing tinned soup over Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers in the National Gallery in 2022
Just Stop Oil has been criticised for targeting the work of Van Gogh, but it’s inaction on climate that’s putting great paintings at risk, argues LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
ON the occasions when activists from Just Stop Oil have targeted works of art or historical landmarks, there has been an outcry, both from horrified onlookers at the time and later in the press and the courtroom.
The British government is intent on cracking down on protest, even if it’s an action intent on trying to save us all from the ravages of runaway climate chaos.
Keir Starmer confirms that his government is cnutier than Suella Braverman on killing the right to protest. This image does not appear in the original article.
“They are pathetic, they are self-defeating, and they need to feel the full force of the law,” pronounced Keir Starmer of Just Stop Oil activists in June. “That is what will happen if we have an incoming Labour government.”
The fact that these “antics,” as Starmer referred to them, had continued was “a failure to grip criminal justice,” he said. Now Starmer and his version of the Labour Party are in power, and climate protesters are being duly gripped, tried and sentenced.
Because in today’s world, climate activists are criminals. As one of Just Stop Oil’s self-described foot soldiers put it, “Slow-walking across Waterloo Bridge becomes an offence that goes to crown court.”
Throwing soup at glass-enclosed paintings by Van Gogh is just the most high-profile of the various direct actions being carried out to demand immediate and effective measures to drastically reduce carbon emissions.
A sensible government should have arrived at such a realisation on its own, thus obviating the need for Just Stop Oil not only to toss soup but to exist at all.
Instead, the Starmer government’s latest move is to squander £22 billion on one of the most useless (along with nuclear power) of all the supposedly “green” climate solutions — carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Netanyahu meets Harris July 2024. | Kenny Holston/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
This week, the US quietly deployed more weapons to Israel – particularly those that will be effective against Iran
US and Israeli leaders have celebrated this week’s death of Hamas military commander Yahya Sinwar. But while attention is focused on what it means for Gaza and the unlikely possibility of a ceasefire – few have noticed what this means for the much wider US-Iran war.
The US has, of course, put its military might, money and rhetoric behind Israel in its devastating operations in Gaza since last October. More specifically, the US even has a little-noticed permanent military presence in Israel itself – an advanced long-range over-the-horizon X-Band Radar system in the Negev. It is believed to be particularly effective against Iranian medium-range ballistic missiles.
But this week, two recent developments point to the US preparing for direct confrontation with Iran as it sharpens its ammunition and shares even more weaponry with its ally Israel.
First, we saw the US use long-range B-2 stealth bombers in attacks on underground weapons stores in Yemen for the first time. Only the US has these weapons which are thought to be the world’s most powerful ‘bunker-busters’ and can reach 200-feet underground. If there is a war with Iran it will be one of the very few means of inflicting damage on some of Iran’s most heavily protected targets.
That might sound scaremongering but the bombing of the Houthi targets in Yemen with these tools looks uncomfortably like a dry run for any conflict with Iran.
Secondly, we saw the deployment of an advanced US anti-missile system to Israel, again involving US military personnel. This is the THAAD weapon (terminal high-altitude aerial defence) which will supplement Israel’s own system that has not been as effective as the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) would like.
From an IDF perspective, if Netanyahu agrees to a substantial military attack on Iran, the likely response from Iran will be to do its best to swamp Israeli missile defences. Thus, the US THAAD deployment will reduce the risk of an effective Iranian response.
This all seems a far cry from the repeated US calls for a ceasefire, but these are best seen as part of a smoke screen, behind which lies a long-term enemy
This all seems a far cry from the repeated US calls for a ceasefire, but these are best seen as part of a smoke screen, behind which lies a long-term enemy. Most Europeans, including the British, tend to forget that ever since the Iranian Revolution in 1979 it has been Iran that is seen in Washington as by far the worst threat to US political and economic interests in the Middle East.
This fits in substantially with the Israeli position where Iran is, in the longer term as by far the greatest threat to its security – far worse than Hamas, Hezbollah or any other political movement. Moreover, an an Iran equipped with nuclear weapons really would be seen as an existential threat. That existential threat may not fully extend to the US view, but Iran is by some measure the greatest challenge to US Middle East policy.
“Israeli military strikes are targeting Iran’s armed allies across a nearly 2000-mile stretch of the Middle East and threatening Iran itself. The efforts raise the possibility of an end to two decades of Iranian ascendancy in the region, to which the 2003 US invasion of Iraq inadvertently gave rise.”
Israel wants rid of the regime in Tehran but that would also be a very good outcome for the many hawkish elements in the US political system. While world attention may be on the war in Gaza with this week’s killing of Yahya Sinwar, a potential conflict involving Iran may turn out to be even more significant.
A general view of staff on a NHS hospital ward at Ealing Hospital in London
CAMPAIGNERS slammed the government for “not talking seriously” about health service funding today, after it emerged that the bill to fix crumbling NHS buildings has soared while patients and staff are left in harm’s way.
New figures show that the cost to eradicate NHS repairs in England jumped to £13.8 billion in 2023, up by a fifth compared to the previous year.
Costs amounting to £3bn were attributed to “high-risk” repairs, which could cause injury if left unaddressed.
NHS Providers deputy chief executive Saffron Cordery said: “Vital bits of the NHS are literally falling apart after years of underinvestment nationally.
“The safety of patients and staff is at risk.
“The list of essential repairs across the NHS waiting to be done keeps getting longer and the costs are rocketing.”
The spiralling maintenance backlog outstrips the cost of running the NHS estate itself, which also increased by 11 per cent to £13.6bn.
King’s Fund chief executive Sarah Woolnough said the backlog has grown due to the “repeated raiding” of capital budgets to shore up day-to-day running costs, coupled with “short-term sticking plaster solutions.”
