Safe budget hides benefit shake-up
Updated on 13 March 2008
Taxes and borrowing up amid a dull budget but the government will test incapacity benefit claimants to judge whether they are fit to work.
Alistair Darling this morning refuses to apologise saying his package was designed for stability in an uncertain world.
The Tories said he was kicking hard-pressed families and was far too optimistic about future recovery. His green proposals were deemed too timid by the Liberal Democrats.
Hidden among the headline tax rises in alcohol and cars yesterday there was a new policy that could affect hundreds of thousands of people.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy spoke to the chancellor.
He began by asking what happens if he got his forecast wrong in the budget:
Watch the report
The government now wants everyone claiming incapacity benefit - all 2.7m of them - to take a new medical test which will judge whether people are fit to do any kind of work.
The government has threatened to cut back on incapacity benefit before it costs the treasury £12bn a year. The chancellor hopes the new test, compulsory from 2010, will save millions. But disability groups like the Disability Alliance are sceptical and have attacked these plans.
Yet Chay Lawson, who has been receiving incapacity benefit because he suffers from a rare liver disease, said he would welcome the tests.
Your budget questions answered by experts.
We invited Paul Samarah of accountants Kingston Smith, Edmund King of the AA and Anna Pearson from Help the Aged into the studio:
Watch the report
The Conservatives claim the £10m put up for the scheme won't be enough to pay for bus fares to the job centre.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Chris Grayling said: "It's not only incapacity benefit that has angered people this morning, motoring groups and car companies have rallied against the government's so-called green showroom tax on high emitting cars.
But the chancellor says this is no cynical ploy and insists his budget yesterday has not all been bad news.
