Poor bad, rich good says Osborne's budget

As I watched #budget2015 unfold in a BBC studio just along the road from some of the most deprived areas in Scotland, I found little comfort for those families who, apparently, don’t work hard enough or who are “dependent” on welfare in the Chancellor’s view. Overuse of the phrase “hard working families” contradicted the fact that freezing working age benefits – including cuts to tax credits – will affect families in work, their children and those who provide billions of pounds of unpaid care. These are hard working families in my world. Yet their contribution is valued less than those who are lucky enough to have £1 million to gift to their children when they die. It’s ironic that planned increases in (some) public expenditure, including billions for the NHS, will be funded by cuts to the incomes of the people who are most likely to need these services because of the health impacts of poverty and increasing inequality. This is a budget which gives with one hand (increased personal allowances) and which keeps taking away with the other (frozen benefits, increased rents and less money for disabled jobseekers). As the Child Poverty Action Group comments: “The welcome move on a higher minimum wage cannot disguise the truth that this is a budget that damages the economic security of working families, and takes us further down the road to being a two-nation economy, with higher child poverty for millions and lower taxes for the better off."

The Chancellor continues to ignore that investment in social security makes good economic sense

One commentator this week predicted that the budget would be defined as “Osborne unconstrained” – he was right. In Orwellian style, the Chancellor’s repeated mantra was “poor bad” and “rich good”. He completely ignored the fact that people in low waged jobs and reliant on benefits have dreams and aspirations too. Achieving those goals has become harder still as tax credit cuts hit and working age benefits for those who are in work, as well as those out of work, continue to be frozen. And my heart bleeds for the many thousands of people who are likely to face disability or ill health in coming years, but who still want to find work. In the Chancellor’s world, the structural and attitudinal barriers faced by those who need to claim Employment Support Allowance have all magically disappeared. To discount the additional costs of disability by substantially reducing a disability benefit is criminal. Yes, criminal.  I said it before and I’m saying it again. The negative narrative continues, and we can expect to see more of it. In the Chancellor’s world, work is a route out of poverty. For many it never was and there is even less chance of that happening after today’s budget.  More money will be sucked from the lives of those who have little left to give. In this budget, the Chancellor continues to ignore that investment in social security makes good economic sense. It is supposed to lift people who need to be lifted, and to support those who cannot work. What we have seen today highlights once again that this is no longer the case for far too many people.