How is the benefits system being reformed under the Coalition? Excellent, easy to understand summary May 2013

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21706978

Universal Credit: Q&A

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11735673

Welfare synopticity: How far are benefit cuts damaging to the economy?

If you are retaking unit 3 - read this. It summarises many of the different viewpoints on benefits.  It is critical of the Coalition (hardly suprising as it is the New Statesman), but from interesting and unusual perspectives. It manages to be critical of both benefits and cutting benefits.

e.g.
Unemployment benefits play a crucial role in allowing people time to search, not just for any job, but for the right job – one that puts their skills and experience to the best use. Not only is this good for the jobseeker but it benefits the employer and makes the economy more productive. Higher benefits for skilled workers also facilitate a more flexible workforce. By cushioning the social consequences of redundancy, they oil the wheels of economic change.

How has the coalition reformed welfare?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s02xg

Good stuff in this on welfare reform and benefits and the Thatcher legacy

Welfare reform - excellent podcast. Jones vs Young

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/04/the-view-from-22-north-korea-and-asias-arms-race-and-owen-jones-vs-toby-young/

Listen from 13 mins 20 seconds for a debate that sums up many different points of view on the current issue of welfare reform. Very useful for edexcel unit 3.

Shirkers, workers, strivers and skivers. What is the welfare uprating bill?

Cap on benefits to target 'shirkers, not workers' will worsen poverty, say critics | Politics | The Guardian:

This is about how benefits should be calculated. For several decades benefits have increased in line with inflation.  The 'uprating bill' will do the following:

Instead of increasing benefits in line with consumer price inflation of 2.2%, as had been expected for 2013-14, the chancellor said he would keep welfareincreases at 1% next year and for two years after that, saving the public purse £3.7bn a year by 2015-16.

The article has slightly different figures later on but an interesting comparison:

Through the measures, the public purse will save £1.43bn a year by 2014-15 – almost enough to cover the loss of revenue from the cancelling the fuel duty rises, also announced on Wednesday.

Therefore in real terms benefits claimants will lose out in real terms as prices rise faster than benefits.

The chancellor claims that this is justified as it will encourage skivers to get off their backside and find a job. Critics (LW) claim that the the coalition are deliberately increasing social resentment and that the majority of those affected are either in work (60% according to John Harris of The Guardian) or unable to find work.

November 2012 BBC News - Cable launches UK's 'Green Bank'

BBC News - Cable launches UK's 'Green Bank':

'via Blog this'

Coalition and fuel duty Dec 2012

Important:

• Fuel duty escalator  - above inflation increases to fuel duty - cancelled in 2000 following protests. From then on no automatic increases were added to petrol - they were handled on a budget-by-budget basis.
• Governments have still increased duty on petrol. Yet, this is not as much nor as 'automatic' as it used to be under the escalator system.
• Cons manifesto 2010 promised a 'fair fuel stabiliser'. It was introducedin the March 2012 Budget. What did this mean? Well, it did not mean an end to fuel duty increases. The government can and will increase fuel duty at some point (as of Dec 2012 it stands at around 57p per litre). The 'stabiliser' simply means that when oil prices are high, fuel duty will increase by RPI inflation only. However, if the oil price falls below a set trigger price on a sustainable basis, fuel duty will be increased by RPI plus one pence per litre in each such year. So really it is designed to function when fuel prices are high.
• Oil prices are currently high. HOWEVER, the Chancellor has either postponed or cancelled several fuel duty rises since 2010. Thus the fuel duty stabiliser has not yet been employed. As and when the government do raise the fuel duty THEN the fuel duty stabiliser will be referred to.
• So it is designed to limit fuel duty when oil prices are high and then let fuel duty increase when price of oil is low. Environmentalists argue that this will not disincentivise road use which is what they argue fuel duty should be used for.

Conservative consultation document 2008.
Freight Transport Association document that was published before the autumn statement 2012 (when Osbourne) cancelled the planned 3p rise in fuel duty. Includes good explanation of the fuel duty stabiliser.
Guardian article on the cancellation of aforementioned rise in fuel duty November 2012.

Excellent summary here.

The fuel duty stabilizer

Written by Dr Eamonn Butler | Thursday 3 March 2011

http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/tax-and-economy/the-fuel-duty-stabilizer

 

It sounds a good idea. When the price of petrol rises, as it has been doing, the government tax on it should fall, so that the final price has more stability. That would help families, but in particular it would help small businesses to plan ahead.
I'm against any tax of any size on any thing for any reason, but I do not think that messing about with taxes like this is a good idea, nor do I think that it will work. Fuel duty – the government tax levied on hydrocarbon oil – is now around 59p per litre. And then there is the new, higher rate of 20% VAT on both the price of the petrol and the duty. So the total tax is far more than the cost of the fuel itself. Indeed, petrol is taxed at a rate equivalent to 175%. (That's a far higher rate than could be justified under any environmental criterion, by the way: if we had simply a 'carbon tax' on fuel, it would be very, very much cheaper!) So, say campaigners, the present tax on fuel amounts to quite a chunk of cash that, arguably, the government could shave off in order to counteract the effect of rising oil prices and stabilise the price at the pump.
There is a flaw in this argument, though. Nobody really knows where the price of oil is going. There is no 'natural' or 'just price' one can use as a reference point for the decision on whether taxes should be cut, or then restored. The price of fuel is volatile in the short term, and over the long term it sometimes trends down and sometimes trends up. If it carries on like it has been, the government would lose billions by trying to stabilise the price by cutting taxes. And should it do so anyway? Part of the idea of rising prices is that they reveal increasing scarcity – and encourage people to look for alternatives or to economise on the use of the commodity in question. That is why, when you allow governments to try to manipulate prices, you always get trouble.

Green energy - consumers to pay?

Energy bills to rise to pay for green power http://gu.com/p/3c37e

Splits in the coalition over the benefits cap

Benefit cap is immoral and divisive, says top Liberal Democrat http://gu.com/p/3bqmq

Newsnight on Coalition's Environment record

Greenest government ever?

Should wealthy pensioners get their benefits stopped or is a more thorough reform of the benefits system needed?

Listen here (10 min)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9755000/9755010.stm

The Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has suggested that wealthy pensioners should be stripped of some of the state benefits they all get now, regardless of how well-off they are.

But how much money would this save? And should the government spread the net wider.

"We are going to protect these pensioners' benefits and it is crucial we keep that promise," Conservative MP Mark Reckless told Today presenter John Humphrys.

"The cost of what (Nick Clegg) is suggesting, of having a great new bureaucracy to administer in effect a wealth tax on pensioners... the costs of that would be enormous, far, far greater than anything which would be raised.

"Pensioners have really suffered. Their income from investments and annuities are sharply down. The key issue is we don't want to be means-testing pensioners in this way."

The government's "poverty czar", the Labour MP Frank Field, argued that "we need a new contract with voters" with entry to the welfare and health system coming through contributions"If we don't do anything at all, the cost of the NHS and the payment of current pensions will double as a proportion of our national income.

"I think we need a new contract with voters to say this is where the expenditure you want is going to take us. Can we do a new tax deal with you to ensure the bills will be paid? They are clearly not going to do it through income tax," he added.

"For most of the post-war years, we have wanted governments that spent money we have not been prepared to give them in taxation. The long-term trend, as we age... our health bills and pension bills will totally distort public expenditure."

Pupil premium and profit making schools?

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2012/09/the-pupil-premium-and-profit-making-schools-could-be-a-winning-combination/

How green is the "greenest government in history"?

George Osborne wrecking green plans to placate MPs – senior Tory http://gu.com/p/397j6

Lansley defends his NHS reforms on Sunday Politics show (April 2012)

Summary of some of Gove's education reforms by a Politics teacher

Back in 2010, Michael Gove promised a series of major reforms to the education system; which he felt had been overly bureaucratised by Labour. An overhaul of the national Curriculum was first on the agenda, involving a large slimming down of its framework. By focusing on Science, Maths and English in particular Gove’s aim is to give schools more freedom in subjects they teach. Gove also has advocated more teacher power in disciplining students and called for reforms in teacher training. In order to remove the bureaucracy started by Labour, Gove plans to tighten up league tables in an attempt to prevent teachers’ inflating rankings – Schools rewarded based on achievement in 5 core subjects, instead of all subjects.

Read the rest here:
http://alevelpolitics.com/micheal-goves-education-reforms/#more-154

Public opposition to Lansley's NHS reforms?

listen to ‘"People are very much on the side of the opponents" of the Health Bill’ on Audioboo

LSE Audio: Will competition improve the NHS?