April benefit changes (mostly reductions...)

April is the month that changes to benefit rules announced in budgets and autumn statements usually take effect. This includes everything from major structural changes to annual inflationary increases. It won't surprise anyone, I think, that almost all the changes this April are negative ones...

Annual uprating

In the 2015 budget the then chancellor announced a freeze on the main working age benefits: there would be no inflationary increase in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. There is no freeze on benefit rates for claimants who are old enough to receive a state pension.

For working age claimants, it is easiest to list which rates are going up:

• Bereavement benefits (although see below in this post for bad news for some bereaved claimants);
• Disability Living Allowance and Personal Independence Payment 
• Carer’s Allowance ;
• Disability and carer related premiums that form part of means-tested benefits (for example, a single claimant who is on income-based JSA and is also in receipt of Personal Independence Payment their basic personal allowance will remain the same as previously (£73.10 per week) but the additional disability premium they should be getting will rise (from £32.25 to £32.55 per week); 
• The extra amount of Employment and Support Allowance and Universal Credit paid to claimants in the 'support group' - there is no increase to extra amount paid to claimants in the 'work-related activity group' (and see below for other changes for new claimants);
• Incapacity Benefit (for the few claimants who are still getting this);
• Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit, and related benefits;
• Maternity Allowance;
• Statutory Sick Pay, Maternity Pay, Paternity Pay, and Adoption Pay;
• Adult dependancy increases for some benefits (rare).

There's also a (very) small positive change to Universal Credit. The taper rate is being reduced from 65% to 63%. This means that any relevant earnings received by a claimant reduces their benefit by 63p in the pound rather than 65p. This does not, though, come close to redressing the reductions in 2016 of the work allowances (the amount claimants can earn without their benefit being affected).

Employment and Support Allowance (and Universal Credit for claimants who are not fit for work)

This is a real stinker (in my opinion).

Some background first. Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) is a benefit for claimants who are not fit for work (or, in government-speak, have a 'limited capability for work'). Claimants on this benefit are assessed under the work capability assessment. Those who satisfy this test are then divided into two groups: the work-related activity group (who are expected to participate in activities to help them become more able to move into work) and the support group (who are judged to be too ill or disabled to undertake any activities). Until April, claimants who were placed in the work-related activity group were paid an extra £29.05 (the 'work-related activity component') as well as their standard £73.10 per week: claimants in the support group were paid an extra £36.20 (or, sometimes £51.95).

From April this year new claimants who are placed in the work-related activity group will no longer be entitled to that extra £29.05 (existing claimants will not be affected). The government's justification, insofar as I understand it, is that giving claimants this money encourages them to stay 'on the sick' rather than look for work, and that it's not fair to give them more money than claimants who are on Jobseeker's Allowance and looking for work.

This is not the place for a lengthy critique of this position, but I will make the following observations. Firstly, most claimants of ESA - in my experience - do not choose to be unfit for work, and are not realistically able to comply with all the requirements placed on jobseekers. Secondly, those claimants who really should be looking for work will generally find it hard to stay on ESA: it's hard enough for claimants who definitely shouldn't be looking for work. Thirdly,  the extra amount was included in the original rules because it was thought that people with health problems and disabilities generally have additional expenses that the healthy and able-bodied do not have.

And finally, there's a very obvious injustice. Claimants on Jobseeker's Allowance who are also in receipt of Disability Living Allowance or Personal Independence Payment are entitled to an extra £32.55* per week: this is called the 'disability premium'. This was left out when the rules for ESA were drawn up, presumably because the extra amounts paid to claimants in the work-related activity and support groups dealt with this. The work-related activity component has been removed, but the disability premium hasn't been put back in. So a claimant on ESA who also gets Disability Living Allowance or Personal Independence Payment will get £32.25* per week less than if they were on JSA. How can this be fair?

For claimants in the Universal Credit system, there are equivalent changes that have roughly the same effect.

*For couples this figure is £46.40.

Changes to Child Tax Credit (CTC) (and to how children are treated by Universal Credit)

There are two major changes here:

1. New claims for CTC from 6th April will not include the 'family element' - previously £545 per year in the award.
2. There will be no extra amounts paid in respect for third  or further children born on or after 6th April. This applies to both new and existing claims.

People who are in the Universal Credit system will also no longer receive extra amounts for third or further children.

Clearly a key concern here, among others, is that of the impact on these changes on 'non-consensual conception', or what many of us might call 'rape'. Although the law does provide that a claimant will not be affected by this change in these circumstances, this puts a female claimant in the potential position  of having to prove that they were raped. This raises all sorts of questions about privacy, dignity, and burdens of proof. The Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC) expressed these concerns in a letter to the Minister of State for Employment, but he did not change the rules to address these concerns. You can read the SSAC's letter here:  www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/590932/ssac-to-damian-hinds-2-child-exceptions.pdf

And finally...

Bereavement Benefits

These have been completely redesigned. The information that follows is a very brief summary of the main points.

Hitherto claimants could apply for a Bereavement Payment - a one off amount of £2,000 - and either:

• Widowed Parent's Allowance - the claimant must be responsible for at least one child , or
• Bereavement Allowance - but this is only payable for 52 weeks, and the claimant must have been 45 years old or more when their spouse died.

All these benefits are dependent on the deceased having paid enough National Insurance contributions. In both cases the amount payable is usually £113.70 per week (but can be less, depending on NI contributions).

From 6th April these are all abolished for new claimants, and replaced by Bereavement Support Payments. 

Claimants who are getting Child Benefit (or pregnant) are entitled to monthly payments of £350 for 18 months, and an additional first payment of £3,500 in the first month.

Other claimants are entitled to monthly payments of £100 for 18 months, and an additional first payment of £2,500 in the first month.

There are some advantages to the new scheme: payment is no longer dependent on the deceased spouse's NI contributions, and claimants do not have to be at least 45 years old when they were bereaved.

On the other hand, the ongoing payments are much less (roughly equivalent to  £80.77 and £23.08 per week), and the payments to claimants with children are now time limited. Under the previous scheme, a claimant who was bereaved 10 years before their final child grew up might be entitled to Widowed Parent's Allowance totalling very roughly £60,000 over that time. Under the new rules the same person would only get £9,800 (including the initial extra payment of £3,500).

The beginning of the end for appeal hearings - CONSULTATION EXTENDED

In my last post, published on 18th October, I talked about worrying proposals that threaten to restrict claimants' access to justice if they have to appeal benefits decisions (you can look at that post here: http://benefitsowl.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/the-beginning-of-end-of-appeal-hearings.html) if it doesn't appear just below this one.

In that post I said that the deadline to submit responses to the consultation was 27th October.

Well, it seems that the Ministry of Justice didn't give us all the right documents to look at. They have therefore closed that consultation early and split the matter into different consultations, and giving new deadlines for each one:

• For the assisted digital strategy (in which the stuff about restrictions in the right to oral hearings is located (if you look hard enough)) the deadline is now 10th November;
• For the constitution of appeal tribunals, the deadline is now 24th November.

For more information, and to access the new consultations, go to:

https://consult.justice.gov.uk/digital-communications/transforming-our-courts-and-tribunals/


If you haven't made your own opinions clear yet, or want to add improve your previous thoughts, you've got more time!

The beginning of the end for appeal hearings?

Did you know the government is currently consulting on wide-ranging proposals to reform the UK's justice system?

If not, you could easily be forgiven: the consultation began just a month ago, on 15th September without much of a blaze of publicity. And it closes in not much more than a week's time, on 27th October. If some of the proposals become law, it will be even harder for benefit claimants to get justice when they are wrongly refused benefit.

You can find the consultation documents (and enter your own responses) here:
https://consult.justice.gov.uk/digital-communications/transforming-our-courts-and-tribunals/

If the proposals become law:

• It will no longer be normal to have a tribunal hearing that you can attend, if you are refused benefit. Many people appealing decisions will have their cases decided by judges just looking at the documents they have received. Others will have their cases heard on the phone, or by videolink. Much of the work involved in dealing with cases will not be undertaken by qualified judges, but by case officers. Appellants will be encouraged to resolve their cases by agreement with the DWP through mediation.
• The tribunal administration process will be entirely digital, and will need to be accessed online.
• Disability and capability for work tribunals will not have to include medically qualified members or disability members.

The government's stated aims of the proposals are to create a system that is just, proportionate, and accessible. I think the key word here is 'proportionate', which I read as 'cheaper'. I see no evidence that the new system will be anything other than less just, and less accessible.

Here are a small selection of the reasons why I am worried, and angry:

• The evidence is clear that not having a hearing that you attend (an 'oral' hearing) reduces your chances of a successful appeal. For example,  The Guardian cites research by University College London that showed that people appealing against adverse Disability Living Allowance (DLA) decisions were almost three times more likely to succeed at oral hearings than if there cases were heard 'on the papers'. 
• Mediation does not appear to be appropriate to this arena. Mediation is valuable when two, roughly equal, parties need help to resolve an emotionally charged dispute where compromise is a crucial to achieving a satisfactory outcome. But in a benefit appeal:
•  the parties are not  equal: a individual is in dispute with a government department;
• The only emotional content in the dispute is probably the dispute itself: and there is presumably no emotional involvement on the part of the DWP. 
• Most importantly, compromise is neither appropriate or desirable. The purpose of a benefit tribunal is to decide whether a specific benefit, or rate of benefit, should be awarded or not (or, sometimes, whether an overpayment is recoverable or not). This is a matter to be decided on the facts. A compromise can only mean an outcome in which the appellant gets less than what they are entitled to, the quid pro quo presumably being that the DWP has to pay them more money than they would like to pay (which I imagine is nothing).
• How will video/phone appeals work in the real world? What if the client has no phone credit, or a bad internet connection. What if they have to call from a busy flat, accompanied by barking dog and crying baby? 
• More generally, how will a process that is entirely digitally mediated work for those claimants who cannot easily access the internet, whether through ability or resource limitations? The consultation document accepts that the proportion of the population who are 'digital excluded' may be disproportionately represented in those involved in benefit appeals, but doesn't go on to propose quantified solutions to this. (Ominously, though, it does suggest that 'legal service providers' may judge there is a sufficient demand for a paid-for digital service as a means to generating profit' [From Paragraph 37 of Impact Assessment: Assisted Digital].)
• The proposals regarding 'lay members' of tribunals look a bit weasel-wordy to me. They talk about giving the tribunal service flexibility to chose where best to direct the resource of medical and disability experts. Translated, I think this means that the service will not have enough experts to cover all the tribunals, so will have to make difficult decisions about how to ration them out. 

Whatever the motivations behind these proposals, what they seem to be saying to those who need to appeal benefit decisions is this: You are a nuisance. You have come to believe that you are entitled to your day in court, but you are wrong. You are not worth the state paying for a judge to hear your case in an oral hearing, or for medical experts to help the judge make an informed decision. The courts are for important people discussing important things: you should not be there.

You can find the consultation document here:
https://consult.justice.gov.uk/digital-communications/transforming-our-courts-and-tribunals/supporting_documents/consultationpaper.pdf

You can also read an excellent article in the Guardian here:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/oct/12/online-benefits-appeals-tribunals-disabled


(NB If you want to participate in the consultation (and I really hope you do) beware. If you look for a consultation question about the reduced role of oral hearings you won't find it. I've shoehorned my comments into the two questions on Assisted Digital (and, by the way, does anyone else think there Q1 in this section is almost completely meaningless?).

The Budget and Benefits: Part 1 - the changes summarised

In last week's budget social security was centre stage, as reducing benefit expenditure seems to be the government's preferred route for deficit reduction. George Osborne's target is to reduce annual welfare expenditure by £12billion, although his initial target for fulling achieving this of 2017-18 has been delayed to 2018-19.

But what are the details? It's easy to lose these in all the political and media spin: some changes have been given greater prominence while others have been largely ignored. I've tried to lay out all the main changes here. I've also included some things, such as the 'living wage' and changes  to social housing rents, which are not benefits but are likely to have a significant impact on many claimants.

You can look at the details for yourself. The government has published the Summer Budget 2015 here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/443232/50325_Summer_Budget_15_Web_Accessible.pdf. Most of the benefit related changes appear in the section headed 'Rewarding work and backing aspiration' (sigh).

In an attempt to keep this to a manageable length:

1. All changes come into effect in April 2016 except where otherwise specified;
2. Changes to Universal Credit that simply mirror changes in other benefits are marked '[& UC]'. 

General

• There will be no inflationary increase in April 2016, April 2017, April 2018, and April 2019. The following are exempt from this freeze:
• disability, carer, and pensioner related  benefits, elements and premiums;
• Statutory sick pay, maternity pay, etc.

Changes to tax credits for new and current claimants

• The income taper will be increased from 41% to 48% of gross income: in other words, for every pound over the threshold figure the claimant's tax credits will be reduced by 48p, rather than 41p (before 2011-12 it was 39%);
• The threshold figure (see previous bullet point) will go down from £6,420 to £3,850: this means that any income over £3,850 will be taken into account now;
• The income rise disregard will be reduced from £5,000 to £2,500 (at present, a claimant's income can rise by up to £5,000 during a tax year without affecting amount of tax credits paid for that year - this will change to £2,500);
• No child element will be paid in respect to third (or additional) children born after April 2017. There will be exceptions for multiple births and disabled children. Compared to 2015-16 figures, this will reduce the maximum annual entitlement by £2,780 per child; [& UC];
• The powers available to HMRC to recover overpayments will be widened.

Changes to tax credits for new claimants only

• The family element (currently worth £545) will no longer be included for families whose first baby is born in April 2017 or later (I suppose this could also apply to existing claimants of Working Tax Credits only, but who don't start a family until April 2017). [& UC]

Employment and Support Allowance

• For new claimants after April 2017 there will be no work-related activity component (currently £29.05). At present, after the initial assessment period, claimants  who are assessed as being potentially able to work in the future will usually receive £102.15 per week. New claimants affected by this rule will only receive £73.10 per week. [& UC]

Housing Benefit and social housing rents

• Backdating will be limited to a maximum of four weeks (compared with a possible maximum of up to six months currently, in some circumstances);
• For new claimants, or current claimants who start a family, there will be no family premium (currently worth £17.45 normally); [& UC]
• There will be no personal allowances for children amounts in the Housing Benefit calculation to take account of third (or subsequent) children born after April 2017 (the same exceptions apply as for tax credits child elements); [& UC]
• Social housing rents will decrease by 1% a year for four years;
• Social housing tenants whose income exceeds £30,000 (£40,000 in London) will be required to pay a market rent, or near market rent (although as words in this section include 'consult', 'set out the detail', and 'due course', suggest that the timetable for this change is uncertain).

Mortgage Help (applicable to most means-tested benefits)

• Claimants will normally have to wait 39 weeks before mortgage help begins (in fairness, the current 13 week wait was applied as a recession related provision, and was always intended to be temporary;
• From April 2018 mortgage help will become a loan, repayable when the claimant sells the house or begins work.

Universal Credit

• The amount people will be able to earn before their benefit is affected (the work allowance) will be reduced: For childless, non-disabled, claimants, the work allowance will go down to zero (currently £111 per month): for other claimants it will go down to £397 per month for those with no housing costs (compared to between £536 and £734 now) and to £192 per month for those with housing costs (compared with between £192 and £263 now);
• Various changes are to be made reducing amounts for families with children. These mirror those applied to other benefits;
• From April 2017 there will no longer be an extra amount payable for claimants who have limited capability for work and are in the work related activity group;
• The work-related requirements placed on parents of young children will become stricter from April 2017. This is a bit tricky to explain. For simplicity, imagine you are a single parent of a child:
• Currently, no requirements are placed on you until your youngest child is one year old. Then, until your child is three, you have to attend work-focused interviews. From the child's third birthday until they are five you also under work-preparation activities as well. Once your child is five, you have to be available for work;
• From April 2017 there are no changes until the child is one. However, you will now have to undertake work-preparation activities once the child is two, not three, and will be expected to look for work when they are three, not five.

Childcare 

• From September 2017, working parents of 3 and 4 year old children will be entitled to 30 hours of free childcare (compared with 15 hours currently).

Benefit Cap

• The Benefit cap, which sets a limit on the total amount of benefits a household can receive, will be reduced from £26,000 to £20,000 per year outside London, and to £23,000 within London. 

Changes affecting young people 

• From April 2017, 18 - 21 year olds will not normally be entitled to help with their rent (as part of Universal Credit - Housing Benefit is supposed to have been phased out by 2017). There are exceptions, including 'vulnerable' young people, those who may not be able to move back with their parents. Young people who have been working and living independently will also be able to get help with their rent, but only for six months;
• From April 2017 18 - 21 year olds on Universal Credit will be expected to participate in 'an intensive regime of support' from the outset of the claim. After six months they will be expected to apply for an apprenticeship or traineeship, go on a work placement, or 'gain work-based skills'. All this is known as the 'youth obligation';
• 18 - 24 year olds will not be entitled to the 'Living Wage'.

The 'Living Wage' (in my next post I'll justify my use of 'scare quotes' around this term.)

• From April 2016, this will be set at £7.20, compared with the £6.50 national minimum wage currently (due to rise to £6.70 in September 2015);
• It is intended that it reach at least £9 (60% of median earnings) by 2020.
• It will not apply to workers who are younger than 25.

In my next post, due soon, I'll give some examples, and offer some opinions...

Main Sources

The Summer Budget 2015: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/443232/50325_Summer_Budget_15_Web_Accessible.pdf
The resultant Welfare Reform and Work Bill: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2015-2016/0051/cbill_2015-20160051_en_1.htm

A question about contributory benefits

Although I can't (and don't) give specific advice to individuals via www.benefitsowl.info, or via this blog, I do sometimes get a question from a reader that raises wider issues, and other people might be interested in. Here's one I received recently (I have changed some details to protect the person's confidentiality).

"Dear Benefits Owl

I started receiving invalidity benefit in the early 1990s.  In 1995, Invalidity Benefit was replaced by Incapacity Benefit, and this continued until claimants of Incapacity Benefit were slowly migrated over to Employment Support Allowance.  I was transferred to ESA in 2014 and am in the 'support' group of taxable ESA, as mine is contributions based.

However, it's recently come to my attention that as ESA is a taxable benefit, then it must be included in my annual tax self-assessment.  This is unfair, as claimants of invalidity benefit or pre 1995, incapacity benefit, were entitled to tax-free incapacity benefit and until it was transferred to ESA, never had to include this figure in their self-assessment.  As I have other income, I now will be effectively paying 20% tax on my ESA, as this new ruling has taken my income over my tax code.  How can they suddenly abolish a ruling that has stood for the last 18 years, that claimants of incapacity before 1995, did not have include it as a taxable benefit?

Ms A"

I've had to think quite hard about this, as there's more to this than meets the eye. Here's my response.

First, I need to confirm that Ms A's understanding of the facts is correct: sadly for her, it is.

Invalidity Benefit and Sickness Benefit were both replaced by Incapacity Benefit in 1995. Incapacity Benefit was taxable from the outset. However, having dusted off  (literally!) some old handbooks I can confirm that it was not taxable if a claimant was transferred onto it from Invalidity Benefit.

In 2008 Incapacity Benefit was, in turn, replaced by Employment and Support Allowance. Again, Employment and Support Allowance was (and is) taxable. However this time there was no concession for people whose Incapacity Benefit was not taxable (because they had been transferred from Invalidity Benefit).

For many people this will not be an issue one way or another, because their total taxable income is less than their Personal Allowance (normally £10,600 per year). But for some people, including Ms A, it is.

So, secondly, I need to look at the actual question: "How can they suddenly abolish a ruling that has stood for the last 18 years, that claimants of incapacity before 1995, did not have include it as a taxable benefit?"

The simple answer is: because they can. But of course it’s actually a bit more complicated than that.

When Employment and Support Allowance replaced Incapacity Benefit what actually happened was that the (then Labour) government created and implemented a new set of laws, and removed ('repealed') some of the old ones. It could write these any way it liked, provided it could get them through Parliament (you could say that this is Parliament's main job).

MPs or Lords could have argued that it was unfair to make Employment and Support Allowance taxable for claimants who had been on Invalidity Benefit: they could even have argued that it shouldn't count as taxable income for anyone. Maybe some did: I don't know. But we do know that if they did they were unsuccessful.

However, once any new law is enacted, people affected by it may challenge the law in the courts. There are two main types of reasons why laws are challenged:

1. The new law is unclear. For example, in the rules for the mobility part of Disability Living Allowance (originally Mobility Allowance), one of the conditions for the higher rate was that you had to be 'virtually unable to walk', but didn't say what this meant. So over the years there have been lots of rulings from various judges to try to make this clearer. Decision makers have to consider these rulings when they make their decisions about Disability Living Allowance. 
2. The new law conflicts with other laws that have not been repealed. For example, there was a case at the Court of Appeal regarding the 'bedroom tax', in which the judges decided that to refuse to allow an extra bedroom to a disabled child conflicted with the requirements of the Human Rights Act. Local authorities now have to follow this ruling when they consider how much Housing Benefit to award claimants with disabled children.

Sometimes laws are challenged because both types of reason apply.

In your case, type(1) clearly doesn't apply. It's very clear in the way the law is written that Employment and Support Allowance is taxable, and there is nowhere in the law that gives any exceptions from this.

And sadly type(2) doesn't apply either, as far as I can work out. There is no other law that says that contributory benefits should not be taxable, or that someone who has been transferred from one that wasn't taxable should continue to benefit from this. The laws that created Invalidity Benefit allowed for it to be non-taxable, but these laws only applied to that benefit and have been repealed anyway. The Incapacity Benefit rules had a section which allowed transitional protection for people moving onto it from Invalidity Benefit, but these only apply to that transition and not later ones.

Ultimately what this all comes down to is that MPs and Lords were not, on the whole, worried about people losing the tax free status of this type of benefit. Or perhaps they were, but were outvoted, or felt the issue was outweighed by the need to balance government expenditure.

Where does this leave someone in this position?

• They could campaign to change the law, to make Employment and Support Allowance not taxable for everyone, or for those transferred onto it from Invalidity Benefit via Incapacity Benefit. One problem with this is that there probably many people affected by the taxable nature of Employment and Support Allowance to make sufficient impact, especially if we're only looking at people who were originally on Invalidity Benefit.
• If a person had received a demand for tax arrears because they were not informed of the change, they could complain to the DWP. However this would rely on them never having received anything from the DWP that included reference to it being taxable, and normally people are sent year end statements from the DWP specifying how much taxable benefit they have received. And even if a complaint was successful, I am doubtful whether they would receive compensation to make up for the tax lost. And as problems like this are not the fault of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) they may be sympathetic but they're unlikely to write off the tax due.

Are there any lessons from all this? Possibly...

• If the government's thinking of changing, or replacing, a benefit that matters to you, make sure you look into it and let your MP know of any concerns. Find out if other people share your concerns: if they do, think about campaigning. None of this may work, but it's probably your only chance. Once the law has changed it's normally too late to do anything about it.
• If you're on a benefit and it 'transitions' to another one, don't assume anything. Changes may sneak through that aren't publicised at all...

To Ms A, and anyone else with a similar problem, I am sorry I can't paint a more encouraging picture.

Election Manifestos - what they have to say for benefit claimants

This post attempts to summarise the different parties' commitments regarding welfare benefits. It also looks at commitments that are not directly related to benefits, but are relevant to benefit claimants, the low paid (who can also be benefit claimants, of course), and other vulnerable people.

The post is sorted by subject, not by party: this is so you can easily compare what different parties say about the same thing (or if they say nothing at all about it...)

Even though there are no quotation marks, all the comments have been lifted directly from the manifestos, apart for a few changes to ensure grammatical clarity. If I haven't been able to find anything in a particular party's manifesto about an issue, I've left their space blank. This post only includes promises made in the manifestos, so you won't find assertions made by party members in the media that are not in their manifesto.

This is not an opinion post (despite the temptation). However, as I've had to select and digest, there is inevitably going to be some subjectivity and judgement calls:

• I've generally, but not always, avoided promises that include words like 'review', 'consider', 'explore', 'examine', as these don't generally amount to much of a commitment. The exceptions are where they appear to relate to a clear plan of action
• I've not included undertakings that are planned to take more than one parliament to follow through to completion (like the Green Party's proposals for radical welfare reform).
• I've not considered stuff that might have an impact on benefits provision because of competing budgetary demands: otherwise I'd have to include everything.
• If parties are simply committing to continue something that's already in place, I've normally left it out.
• Much as I've been tempted to, I have not included anything about immigration issues, except insofar as they touch on the world of social security benefits.

It's been a challenge to decide which parties to include. In the end the list is:

=Conservatives:

=Labour:

=Liberal Democrats:

=UKIP:

=Green:

=SNP:

I've agonised over whether to include the SNP or not: in the end they've got in because it looks like they might take the role of kingmaker. I apologise to the parties that have been left out, but I had to balance the need for inclusion with that of getting this finished in time to be useful.

As I said before, this is not an opinion piece, but I will offer you some advice to help you form your opinion:

• Be wary of 'weasel words' (e.g. 'we will help the jobless back to work' and 'we won't allow the sick to languish on benefits'). Always ask: what does this really mean?
• Don't be too excited by very positive sounding pledges from smaller parties: the less likely a party is to form part of a government, the less likely it is that it will have to bear responsibility for not keeping to its pledges!
• Be suspicious of vagueness

The manifestos can be accessed via the links below, if you want to check things out for yourself.

=Conservatives: https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/manifesto2015/ConservativeManifesto2015.pdf

=Labour: http://b.3cdn.net/labouruk/e1d45da42456423b8c_vwm6brbvb.pdf

=Liberal Democrats: https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/libdems/pages/8907/attachments/original/1429028133/Liberal_Democrat_General_Election_Manifesto_2015.pdf

=UKIP: https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/ukipdev/pages/1103/attachments/original/1429295050/UKIPManifesto2015.pdf

=Green: https://www.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/manifesto/Green_Party_2015_General_Election_Manifesto_Searchable.pdf

=SNP: http://votesnp.com/docs/manifesto.pdf

(The SNP wins my prize for the cleanest web address...)

I have tried to be fair and thorough, but if you think I've left something substantive out, please let me know via the comments section.

Commitments that are directly related to benefits 

Overall welfare spending

=Conservatives:

- Cap overall welfare spending: our overall welfare cap will limit the amount that government can spend on certain social security benefits in the five years from 2015-16

=Labour:
- we will cap structural social security spending as part of each spending review,

=Liberal Democrats:
- Introduce a 1% cap on the uprating of working-age benefits until the budget is balanced in 2017/18, after which they will rise with inflation once again. Disability and parental leave benefits will be exempt from this temporary cap

=UKIP:

=Green:
- We would be prepared to invest up to £30 billion over the Parliament to reduce the amounts that people lose from their benefits when they move into paid work

=SNP:

Claimant benefit cap

=Conservatives:
- We will lower the maximum amount that a single household can claim in benefits each year from £26,000 to £23,000, so we reward work.
- We will continue to have exemptions from the cap for those receiving Disability Living Allowance or the Personal Independence Payment

=Labour:
- We will keep the household benefit cap and ask the Social Security Advisory Committee to examine if it should be lower in some areas.

=Liberal Democrats:
- We will retain the overall cap on a household’s benefits and believe this should continue to be set at around the average family income.

=UKIP:
- Supporting a lower cap on benefits

=Green:

=SNP: 

General benefit payment rates 

=Conservatives: 

- We will freeze working age benefits for two years from April 2016, with exemptions for disability and pensioner benefits – as at present – as well as maternity allowance, statutory maternity pay, statutory paternity pay, statutory adoption pay and statutory sick pay.

=Labour:
- we will not cut tax credits,  ???
- we will introduce a higher rate of Job Seekers Allowance for those who have contributed over years. It will be funded by extending the length of time people need to have worked to qualify ??

=Liberal Democrats:

=UKIP:

=Green:
- Restore the link between state benefits and earnings; ensure state benefits rise as fast as prices or wages, whichever of those grows more.
- increasing the disregards for Income Support and Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA). Initially we would increase the income disregarded on JSA for all categories of client to £50 a week, with similar increases for those on Universal Credit

=SNP:
- we will vote to increase benefits at least in line with CPI inflation,

Benefits for claimants with health problems and/or disabilities

=Conservatives:
- We will help you back into work if you have a long-term yet treatable condition

- We will review how best to support those suffering from long-term yet treatable conditions, such as drug or alcohol addiction, or obesity, back into work. People who might benefit from treatment should get the medical help they need so they can return to work. If they refuse a recommended treatment, we will review whether their benefits should be reduced.
- We will also provide significant new support for mental health, benefiting thousands of people claiming out-of-work benefits or being supported by Fit for Work.

=Labour:
- We will reform the Work Capability Assessment and focus it on the support disabled people need to get into work. We will give an independent scrutiny group of disabled people a central role in monitoring it.
- And we will introduce a specialist support programme to ensure that disabled people who can work get more tailored help

=Liberal Democrats:
- Conduct a review of the Work Capability Assessment and Personal Independence Payment assessments to ensure they are fair, accurate and timely and evaluate the merits of a public sector providero Invest to clear any backlog in assessments for Disability Living Allowance and Personal Independence Payment.
- Simplify and streamline back-to-work support for people with disabilities, mental or physical health problems.
- Improve the benefits system for disabled people, based on the principle of one assessment, one budget. This will bring together support like Personal Independence Payment, Employment Support Allowance, a replacement for the Independent Living Fund and health and social care entitlements.
- Improve links between Jobcentres and Work Programme providers and the local NHS to ensure all those in receipt of health-related benefits are getting the care and support to which they are entitled. In particular, as we expand access to talking therapies we expect many more people to recover and be able to seek work again.

=UKIP:

- We will end unfair ATOS-style Work Capability Assessments and return assessments to GPs or appropriate specialist consultants, who have full access to patients’ medical records and are likely to know the patient. We believe this makes them the best person to undertake assessments and we will ensure they are adequately funded and resourced to take on this task
 - Require GPs/specialists to notify the Department for Work and Pensions when they believe a patient is well enough to return to work, by issuing a ‘fit note’
- Remove ‘tick-box’ and quota arrangements from sickness and disability assessments

=Green:
- Cancel the Department for Work and Pensions contracts with the private sector for benefit entitlement assessment

=SNP:
- We will vote to block plans to cut Disability Living Allowance by £3 billion across the UK by 2017-18

Benefits for work-seeking claimants 

=Conservatives:

=Labour:
- We will do more to help unemployed people get the skills they need for work, testing jobseekers’ Maths, English and IT skills within six weeks of them claiming benefits. They will be required to take up training where this will improve their chances of getting a job

- We will introduce a higher rate of Job Seekers Allowance for those who have contributed over years. It will be funded by extending the length of time people need to have worked to qualify.
- And we will commission a replacement for the Work Programme at a more local level, working with local authorities to join up support for the long-term unemployed

=Liberal Democrats:
- Deliver a reformed and improved Work Programme in partnership with English local government, and the national governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
- We will improve incentives for Jobcentre staff and Work Programme providers to ensure there is real help for those furthest from the labour market

=UKIP:

=Green:
- End work-for-benefits programmes, or workfare
- Ensure that all those on training or work placements as part of the benefits regime are either in college-based training or at work earning at least the minimum wage

=SNP:

Benefits sanctions & conditionality

=Conservatives:

=Labour:

=Liberal Democrats: 

- Review sanctions procedures in Jobcentres. While sanctions can be a necessary last resort to ensure jobseekers are looking for work, they should not be used to cut benefit expenditure deliberately. Reductions in benefits may not always be the best way to improve claimants’ compliance: those with chaotic lives might be more successful in finding a job if they were directed to targeted support with their problems. 

- We will ensure there are no league tables or targets for sanctions issued by Jobcentres and introduce a ‘yellow card’ warning so people are only sanctioned if they deliberately and repeatedly break the rules

=UKIP:

=Green:

=SNP: 

- We will demand an urgent review of the conditionality and sanctions regime

Benefits for young people

=Conservatives:
- We will replace the Jobseeker’s Allowance for 18-21 year-olds with a Youth Allowance that will be time-limited to six months, after which young people will have to take an apprenticeship, a traineeship or do daily community work for their benefits.
- So we will ensure that 18-21 year-olds on Jobseeker’s Allowance will no longer have an automatic entitlement to Housing Benefit.

=Labour: We will replace out of work benefits for 18 to 21-year-olds with a new Youth Allowance dependent on recipients being in training and targeted at those who need it most. There will be a guaranteed, paid job for all young people who have been out of work for one year, and for all those over 25 years old and out of work for two years. It will be a job that they have to take, or lose their benefits.

=Liberal Democrats:

=UKIP:

=Green:

=SNP:

Benefits for carers

=Conservatives:

=Labour:

=Liberal Democrats:

- Develop a package of specialist support for carers seeking parttime work or a return to full-time employment

=UKIP:

=Green:

=SNP: 

- We will also support an increase in Carer’s Allowance so that it matches Jobseekers' Allowance

Housing benefit and council tax reduction - general

=Conservatives:

=Labour:

=Liberal Democrats: 

- Encourage landlords to lower their rent by paying them Housing Benefit directly, with tenants’ consent, in return for a fixed reduction.

- We will review the way the Shared Accommodation Rate in Local Housing Allowance is set, and review the Broad Rental Market Areas to ensure they fit with realistic travel patterns

=UKIP: 

- Give tenants the right to request Housing Benefit is paid direct to their landlords, whatever benefit scheme they are on

=Green: 

- Restore Council Tax Benefit at the equivalent of 2012–13 levels for low-income householders, costing around £500 million a year

=SNP:

Bedroom tax/spare room subsidy/housing benefit size criteria restrictions

=Conservatives:

=Labour: The Bedroom Tax is cruel and we will abolish it

=Liberal Democrats: o Reform the policy to remove the spare room subsidy. Existing social tenants will not be subject to any housing benefit reduction until they have been offered reasonable alternative accommodation. We will ensure tenants who need an extra bedroom for genuine medical reasons are entitled to one in any assessment of their Housing Benefit needs, and those whose homes are substantially adapted do not have their Housing Benefit reduced.

=UKIP: Scrap the ‘bedroom tax’

=Green:

=SNP: We will vote for the immediate abolition of the unfair Bedroom Tax

Universal credit

=Conservatives:

=Labour: We support the principle behind Universal Credit – that there should be a smooth transition into work – but it must be affordable and fit for purpose, so we will pause and review the programme

=Liberal Democrats:
- Complete the introduction of Universal Credit (UC), so people are always better off in work. We will review UC to address any issues regarding ‘cliff edges’, and ensure increased working hours are properly incentivised for all claimants

=UKIP:

=Green:
- Halt implementation of the Universal Credit programme and carry out a thorough review of its structure and implementation, including the treatment of earned income, and removing conditionality.

=SNP:
- We will back an increase in the Work Allowance – the amount people are allowed to earn before their benefit is cut – of 20 per cent

Benefits for children

=Conservatives:

=Labour: cap child benefit rises for two years

=Liberal Democrats:

=UKIP: Limiting child benefit to two children for new claimants

=Green:
- Raise Child Benefit as from 2016 from £20.70 a week for the oldest or only child and £13.70 a week for additional children in 2015–16 to £40 a week for each child.
- Abolish childcare tax credits and tax reliefs in the light of our proposals for free universal early education and childcare

=SNP:

Benefits for older people

=Conservatives:
- Continue to increase the state pension through our triple lock, so that it rises by at least 2.5%, inflation, or earnings, whichever is the highest

=Labour:
- We will keep the triple-lock so that the state pension increases by inflation, earnings, or 2.5 per cent, whichever is highest
- We have taken the tough choice to restrict Winter Fuel Payments for the richest five per cent of pensioners
- we will guarantee that there will be no additional changes to the Winter Fuel Payments, free TV licences or bus passes for pensioners

=Liberal Democrats:
- Legislate for the Liberal Democrat ‘triple lock’ of increasing the State Pension each year by the highest of earnings growth, prices growth or 2.5%
- Withdraw eligibility for the Winter Fuel Payment and free TV Licence from pensioners who pay tax at the higher rate (40%). We will retain the free bus pass for all pensioners.

=UKIP:

=Green:
- We would introduce a Citizens Pension in 2016. It will pay £180 a week to a single pensioner or £310 for a couple

=SNP:
- We will vote to continue the triple lock, guaranteeing that pensions will always rise by inflation, earnings or 2.5 per cent -whichever is the highest
- We will oppose the abolition of Savings Credit
- We will support a single-tier pension of £160 per week

Commitments that are relevant to the vulnerable, including benefit claimants

Minimum wage and living wage

=Conservatives:

=Labour:
- We will improve the security and reward of working life by raising the National Minimum Wage to more than £8 an hour by October 2019
- We will support employers to pay more by using government procurement to promote the Living Wage, alongside wider social impact considerations. Our Make Work Pay contracts will give tax rebates to businesses who sign up to paying the Living Wage in the first year of a Labour Government. Publicly listed companies will be required to report on whether or not they pay the Living Wage

=Liberal Democrats:
- We will pay this Living Wage in all central government departments and their agencies from April 2016, and encourage other public sector employers to do likewise

=UKIP:

=Green:
- Raise the minimum wage

=SNP:
- We will vote to increase the minimum wage to £8.70 by 2020.
- We will also support measures to extend the Living Wage across the UK

Zero-hours contracts, agency work, and related issues

=Conservatives:

=Labour: 

- Labour will ban exploitative zero-hours contracts. Those who work regular hours for more than 12 weeks will have a right to a regular contract.

- We will abolish the loophole that allows firms to undercut permanent staff by using agency workers on lower pay

=Liberal Democrats: 

- We will create a formal right to request a fixed contract and consult on introducing a right to make regular patterns of work contractual after a period of time.

- We will ensure employers cannot avoid giving their staff rights or paying the minimum wage by wrongly classifying them as workers or self-employed.

- Help everyone in work on a low wage step up the career ladder and increase their hours, reducing their need for benefits, with tailored in-work careers and job search advice

=UKIP:

- We will introduce a legally binding Code of Conduct stipulating the following:

-- Businesses hiring 50 people or more must give workers on zero-hours contracts either a full or part-time secure contract after one year, if the workers involved request it

-- There must be no exclusivity clauses in any zero-hours contract

-- Workers on zero-hours contracts must be given at least twelve hours advance notice of work. Once notice has been given, they must be paid for the work, regardless of whether or not they are actually needed

=Green:

- outlaw exploitative zero-hours contracts

=SNP:

Housing

=Conservatives: 

- We will extend the Right to Buy to tenants in Housing Associations to enable more people to buy a home of their own. It is unfair that they should miss out on a right enjoyed by tenants in local authority homes. We will fund the replacement of properties sold under the extended Right to Buy by requiring local authorities to manage their housing assets more efficiently, with the most expensive properties sold off and replaced as they fall vacant.

=Labour:

- For the 11 million people who rent privately, we will legislate to make three-year tenancies the norm, with a ceiling on excessive rent rises. A ban on unfair letting agent fees will save renters over £600

- We will ensure that private renters get a fairer deal.

=Liberal Democrats:

- Improve protections against rogue landlords and encourage a new multi-year tenancy with an agreed inflation-linked annual rent increase built in.

- Ban letting agent fees to tenants if the transparency requirements we introduced are not successful in bringing fees down to an affordable level by the end of 2016.

- Extend the use of Rent Repayment Orders to allow tenants to have their rent refunded when a property is found to contain serious risks to health, and withhold rent from landlords who have not carried out court-ordered improvements within a reasonable period of time.

- Introduce a new Help to Rent scheme to provide government backed tenancy deposit loans for all first-time renters under 30.

=UKIP:

- We will establish a National Homeless Register to make it easier for those of no fixed abode to claim welfare entitlements; get access to medical and dental services; and enable support services to identify those at risk of physical, psychological and sexual abuse. 

=Green:

- Introduce the right to rent (where local councils step in to help those in difficulty with their mortgage to rent their home). 

- Provide 500,000 social rented homes to high sustainability standards by increasing the social housing budget from £1.5 billion a year to £6 billion a year in the lifetime of the Parliament, removing borrowing caps from local councils.

- Devolve Housing Benefit budgets to councils, so they can design packages that improve access to housing in their local market nd enable them to provide more council housing.

- End mass council house sales and the Right to Buy at a discounted price.

- Provide more rights for homeless people, giving local authorities the same duties with regard to single people and childless couples as to families, and ending the practice of declaring people ‘intentionally homeless’. 

- Oppose new arm’s length management organisations and ensure genuine tenant participation in existing ones

=SNP:

Childcare

=Conservatives:

- we will give families where all parents are working an entitlement to 30 hours of free childcare for their three and four year-olds

=Labour:

- We will help families by expanding free childcare from 15 to 25 hours per week for working parents of three and four-year-olds, paid for with an increase in the bank levy.

- We will also introduce a legal guarantee for parents of primary school children to access wraparound childcare from 8am to 6pm through their local primary school

=Liberal Democrats:

- Commit to an ambitious goal of 20 hours’ free childcare a week for all parents with children aged from two to four-years, and all working parents from the end of paid parental leave (nine months) to two years. Start by providing 15 hours a week of free childcare to the parents of all two-year olds. We will then prioritise 15 hours free childcare for all working parents with children aged between nine months and two years.

- Complete the introduction of Tax-Free Childcare, which will provide up to £2,000 of childcare support for each child and include childcare support in Universal Credit, refunding 85% of childcare costs so work pays for low earners

=UKIP: 

- will remove allow parents to use any third-party, non-related child carer they feel comfortable placing their child with, provided the care provided can be proven to be genuine.

- We will place a statutory duty on all primary schools to offer before and after-school care from 8am to 6pm during term time, with the option to extend this to all-day provision throughout the school holidays. Sessions will include breakfast and healthy snacks.

- UKIP is committed to bringing forward a full, open review of all childcare and child protection services in Britain.

=Green:

- Build a free but voluntary universal early education and childcare service for all children from birth until compulsory education age, which we would raise to 7 years.

- Integrate this into the local education service, run by local education authorities, and build on existing infant schools. Local authorities would be would be given freedom as to how to do so in the light of their local circumstances. 

- Ensure that the system includes children’s centres for the very youngest children and their parents, and childcare and early education for children from age 1. 

- Abolish childcare tax credits and tax reliefs in the light of our proposals for free universal early education and childcare

=SNP:

- we will support an increase in free childcare to 30 hours per week by 2020.

Income tax and national insurance

=Conservatives:
- Will raise the tax-free Personal Allowance so that those working 30 hours on the Minimum Wage pay no Income Tax at all
- Will cut income tax for 30 million people, taking everyone who earns less than £12,500 out of Income Tax altogether [I think these two points may amount to the same, but I'm open to being corrected: Benefits Owl]

=Labour:
- We will create a fairer tax system, helping those on middle and lower incomes by introducing a lower 10p starting rate of tax, paid for by ending the Conservatives’ Marriage Tax Allowance

=Liberal Democrats:
- Raise the tax-free Personal Allowance to at least £12,500 by the end of the next Parliament, putting around £400 back in the pockets of millions of working people and pensioners. We will bring forward the planned increase to an £11,000 allowance to April 2016

=UKIP:
- Raise the personal allowance to at least £13,000

=Green:

=SNP
- We support increases in the personal tax allowance

Courts and tribunals

=Conservatives:

=Labour:

- We will abolish the Government’s employment tribunal fee system

=Liberal Democrats:

- Improve the enforcement of employment rights, reviewing Employment Tribunal fees to ensure they are not a barrier

=UKIP:

- We will remove ourselves from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights

- We will also repeal Labour’s Human Rights legislation

=Green:

=SNP:

Support for advice services

=Conservatives:

=Labour:

=Liberal Democrats:

- Develop a strategy that will deliver advice and legal support to help people with everyday problems like personal debt and social welfare issues, working across government and involving nonprofit advice agencies

=UKIP:

- Will train and fund 800 advisers to work in 800 foodbanks

=Green:

=SNP:

Immigration/Benefits related

=Conservatives:

- We will insist that EU migrants who want to claim tax credits and child benefit must live here and contribute to our country for a minimum of four years

- We will introduce a new residency requirement for social housing, so that EU migrants cannot even be considered for a council house unless they have been living in an area for at least four years.

- If an EU migrant’s child is living abroad, then they should receive no child benefit or child tax credit, no matter how long they have worked in the UK and no matter how much tax they have paid.

- We will end the ability of EU jobseekers to claim any job-seeking benefits at all. And if jobseekers have not found a job within six months, they will be required to leave.

=Labour:

- Those who come here will not be able to claim benefits for at least two years, and we will stop child benefit being sent to families living abroad.

=Liberal Democrats:

=UKIP:

- we will abolish the EEA family permit scheme and reinstate the primary purpose rule, meaning foreign nationals marrying British citizens will have to prove that the primary purpose of their marriage is not to obtain British residency.

- all new migrants to Britain will have to make tax and national insurance contributions for five consecutive years before they will become eligible to claim UK benefits, or access to more than non-urgent NHS services, save for any exceptions stipulated by the Migration Control Commission

- Will Stop child benefit being paid to children who don’t live in the UK 

- We will not allow non-British nationals access to the Right to Buy or Help to Buy schemes, unless they have served in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. All local authorities, social landlords and housing associations will be required to register the nationality of their tenants in order to ensure this policy works in practice.

=Green:

=SNP:

Miscellaneous

=Conservatives:

=Labour: 

- We will help with household bills freezing energy prices until 2017

- we will deal with the scourge of household debt by introducing a new levy on payday lenders, using the funds raised to boost low-cost alternatives like credit unions

=Liberal Democrats:

=UKIP:

=Green:

=SNP: