Blog 9: Welfare cuts deepen Britain's income inequalities

This article explains how budget cuts in Scotland and the United Kingdom will lead to greater inequalities. There was research done by Sheffield Hallam University that found that the welfare cuts will cost Scotland £1.66bn a year. There are councils that are covering the poorest areas that are being hit the hardest. This increases Britain’s deep income inequalities. There are reports that have been issued that give warning of the damage these cuts will have on fragile local economies. The loss of benefit income, which is often large, will have bad consequences for local spending and for local employment as well. This results in a downward pattern in terms of economy.

There has been a recent Scottish Government analysis that has found the cumulative impact of all the cuts in the UK Budget, autumn statement and spending review would be £4.5bn by the year 2015. This could potentially result in the loss of up to 17,000 jobs. Jamie Hepburn, who is Deputy Convener of the Scottish Parliament’s Welfare Reform Committee, reacted to the report. He said that these new figures have once again laid bare to the scale of the human and economic damage of Westminster’s brutal welfare cuts. The Bedroom Tax has attracted widespread condemnation and protest. Unfortunately this resulted in a devastating impact. From cuts to incapacity benefit to tax credit changes and child benefit cuts, the most vulnerable are being made to pay the price for the economic incompetence of Westminster. Hepburn feels that it is terribly horrific that councils on Scotland who are covering the poorest areas are hit hardest. The UK is already the fourth most unequal society in the developed world, which is considered a disgraceful position for resource-rich Scotland to find itself in.

These cuts say something about the Westminster Government’s commitment to building a fairer society. The Tories claim that these cuts are in someway necessary to secure economic recovery. However, they are in fact destroying jobs and destroying confidence in the economy. Hepburn feels that it doesn’t have to be this way because Scotland has already made its opposition to these welfare cuts absolutely clear. Also a majority of Scots believe that the Scottish Government would be best at deciding welfare policy for Scotland. This case is believed to start becoming unanswerable.

The government needs to start distributing welfare out more evenly. There is no excuse for all of the inequalities that is going on in the world right now. The United Nations needs to get together and figure out how they can stop inequalities throughout the world. I know it’s difficult because each country has their different systems, but there should be more planning that goes into this. The world needs to change and in order for that to happen the government needs to have a different approach when it comes to certain matters. The less fortunate rely on welfare to survive and there needs to be a system that is more fair. Either way something needs to be done.

Article Link: http://www.snp.org/media-centre/news/2013/apr/welfare-cuts-deepen-britains-income-inequalities