Two churches dominated my day yesterday; St George’s in Beckenham and St John’s in Eden Park.
I had the real honour of giving the tribute to the late Harry Verlander af his funeral in St George’s at 1.30 pm. Harry was an incredibly brave Special Operations Executive who fought in both France and Burma in 1944 – 45. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre and was Mentioned in Despatches. Harry was a real hero.
Then at 8 pm I attended a hustings session at St John’s Church in Eden Park which seemed to go off well. Although I tried to bring up the subject of benefits and taxation generally the subjects were not highlighted. So I will do so in this post.
I firmly believe that it should always be better to be in work than being on benefits. In addition I totally support the idea that we should do all we can to help people move off welfare and get into work. When the Coalition Government took over from Labour in 2010 1.4 million people had spent the best part of 10 years on benefits and in that time the number of households in which nobody had ever worked doubled. Some households were claiming more than double the average household income whilst being on benefits. We also inherited a situation where benefits were rising at a faster rate than wages. That was crazy.
The new Universal Credit System is a means-tested support for working age people whether they are in or out of work. Note that many people who are working are still entitled (and get) additional help to bulk up their income. Universal Credit rolls up a variety of benefits into one single payment and will be properly introduced by the end of 2016.
In the manifesto we have stated that it is our intention to cap benefits at £23,000 a year which is £3,000 less than the average household in the United Kingdom earns after tax. That seems fair to me and lines up with the Conservative wish to make work pay. For those in work and at the lower end of the wage scale it is very good news that we intend to increase the tax-free personal allowance from £10,600 to £12,500 a year. Effectively that will take 3 million people out of tax altogether and for those paying tax it will mean they keep an extra £825 of what they have earned.