I’m surprised at the criticism from opposition figures – and a few outdated dissenters in the Liberal Democrat ranks – about the proposed cap of benefits included in the Welfare Reform Bill. This will mean a single household could not claim more than the median working income of £500 a week in benefits: this is equivalent to about £26,000 a year.
A large proportion of local people in Walkden that I represent work long hours for far less than £26000 per annum. Across Salford as a whole, tens of thousands of residents work hard for the minimum wage and tens of thousands more earn less than £26000 each year. It is absolutely right and fair to those hard-working men and women – many with families of their own – that their neighbours are not paid more in benefits than they themselves earn going out to work.
It is absolutely right that those who fall on hard times and those who are vulnerable provided with help from the state: however, it is unfair when the state pays out more when someone is not working than the amount that their neighbours bring in through work, and it is most unfair on those who are on low incomes.
Those on low incomes, of course, will also benefit most from the Government’s plan to raise the income tax threshold; this cuts the income tax bills of millions of low earners and takes many low-paid part-time workers out of income tax altogether.
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