Sick and disabled claimants ill discover whether they are to face further benefits cuts when George Osborne holds a second budget on 8th July.{jcomments on}
The budget will bring a welcome end to speculation about where the £12 billion in cuts will be made. Possible targets include taxing PIP and DLA, abolishing contribution-based ESA and JSA, cutting housing benefit payments by 10% and making the qualifying criteria for PIP harder to meet.
Writing in the Sun, where the decision to hold a second budget was announced, the chancellor claimed that this will be ‘a budget for working people’.
Whether that means it will not be a budget for those who are unable to work remains to be seen.
But if child benefit is to be left untouched, as the prime minister appeared to say before the election, and tax credits and housing benefit for ‘working people’ are to be left alone, then that leaves little else but incapacity and disability benefits to target.
