Demos: Govt rhetoric beats reality on welfare reform

Max Wind-Cowie of the Demos thinktank outlines problems with the government’s benefits crackdown on the Today programme:

“The principle of cracking down on misuse and abuse within the benefits system is right… but there’s a danger in all of these crackdowns that we see over the years from government after government of confusing rhetoric with reality.

“In terms of the money we’re talking about saving, Cameron has said over £5 billion, the fact there’s that much in the system is a testament to how complicated this really is.

“There’s a real danger of counting our chickens before they’re hatched in terms of factoring in what we project we might save from a crackdown on fraud when actually the figure is likely to be substantially lower than that.”