TEN million households will have their benefits frozen if the Tories win the General Election as George Osborne laid out another pre-election battleground by proposing a new welfare squeeze from April 2016.
Jobseeker's allowance, child benefit, tax credits, income support and housing benefit are to be frozen for two years if David Cameron gets back into power.
The move will save the Treasury, facing what it says is a need to make £25 billion in further public expenditure cuts beyond 2016, £3.2bn a year by 2017/18. It will exclude disability and pensioner benefits.
Labour said the Conservatives had made their choice: backing the privileged few with a tax cut for millionaires while punishing the hard-working many, struggling to make ends meet.
The Chancellor, in his keynote speech yesterday, explained that even with the reforms introduced to try to reduce the welfare bill -capped in the last budget to £120bn a year - benefits had risen more than earnings. Aides pointed out that since 2007 the former had risen 22 per cent compared to 14 per cent for the latter.
"That is not sustainable for any nation and it is not fair either," declared Mr Osborne. "So ...working age benefits will have to be frozen for two years. This is the choice that Britain needs to take to protect our economic stability and to secure a better future."
Describing the move as a serious contribution to reducing the deficit, he said: "To those in work I say this: where is the sense in taxing you more only for you to be given some of your own money back in welfare? The best way to support people's incomes is to make sure those out of work get a job and those in work pay less tax."
A £3000 cut in the amount of benefits a household can claim will also be introduced, to pay for a boost in apprenticeships designed to tackle youth unemployment.
In his final conference speech before the country chooses a new UK Government in May, the Chancellor described the Tories as "the party of progress" and said Britain could be the most dynamic and prosperous country on Earth but "only if we choose the future, not the past".
He lambasted Ed Miliband, who infamously in his keynote conference address last week forgot to mention the deficit, saying his "pitch for office that was so forgettable he forgot it himself".
Mr Osborne claimed Labour's spending vows for the NHS were built on sand because they would fail to run the economy properly and that because the Conservative-led Government had taken the tough decisions to increase the health budget year on year, the Tories were "the real party of the NHS".
Having pre-announced getting rid of the "punitive" 55 per cent tax on death of passing on pension pots to loved ones, Mr Osborne turned to youth unemployment.
Outlining the plan to "abolish" youth unemployment, he told conference: "We will replace job seeker's allowance, reform housing benefit and take the benefit cap we have introduced down to £23,000. Families out of work should not get more than the average family in work. All of these savings will be used to fund three million new apprenticeships, three million more chances for a better life so we help our citizens get jobs instead of more immigration from abroad."
Chris Leslie, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: "Having failed to balance the books in this Parliament, George Osborne is choosing to give the richest one per cent a £3bn a year tax cut and opposing a mansion tax while cutting tax credits for millions of striving families.
"While working people have seen their wages fall by £1600 a year since 2010, the Tories have once again shown they are the party of a privileged few."
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