Bromsgrove MP Bradley Thomas writes for the Standard.
WE ARE all expected to live within our means – and that should extend to the Government too.
For too long, Government has been spending more than it has coming in. This is unsustainable. It’s morally wrong too.
The Government is burdening future generations with more and more debt.
They will pay the price for our failures to control spending and live within our means as a country.
One spending area Government must urgently get a grip on is the welfare bill.
The cost of disability and sickness benefits has increased by 40 per cent in real terms since 2013 and now stands at nearly £65billion.
The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts spending on disability and sickness benefits will reach a staggering £100billion by 2030.
This is clearly unsustainable.
In this scenario, £1 in every £4 of income tax will be spent on health and disability benefits, equivalent to almost £1,500 per year per person across the UK and more than the entire defence budget.
And here’s another sobering stat from the Office for National Statistics. More than 50 per cent of households in our country are taking more in welfare than they are paying in.
I do not believe for a second that anyone believes this is right. I certainly do not, which is why I voted to cut welfare spending by £23billion.
The Conservative Party’s plan that I voted for would deliver £23billion in savings by reforming non-pensioner welfare including restricting welfare to UK citizens (with exceptions to honour existing international treaties), reforming sickness and disability benefits by ending access for lower-level mental health conditions. It would also make greater use of face-to-face assessment, reform housing benefit, review the rates and exemptions from the Household Benefit Cap, limit the VAT subsidy for motability, reform job-seeking obligations and retain the two-child benefit cap.
Labour, Reform, Liberal Democrats did not support us on this. Why?
Because they’re not serious about getting Britain working again.
