PM slashes the welfare cap to £23,000 a year: £300m in benefit savings 'will help fund millions of apprenticeships'
· Tens of thousands of families to have benefits cut by up to £60 a week
· Unemployed youngsters will be stripped of handouts altogether
· Millions to be ploughed into apprenticeship schemes at FTSE100 firms
By Tamara Cohen
Tens of thousands of families will have their benefits slashed by up to £60 a week under a new welfare cap, David Cameron will propose today.
Households would be unable to claim more than £23,000 a year in handouts for housing and living costs if the Conservatives win the next election.
And jobless youngsters would be stripped of benefits altogether under radical plans to save £300million.
David Cameron is to announce plans for a £23,000 cap on housing and living benefits among families
The welfare cuts would squeeze the incomes of 100,000 families, but plough massive investment into creating apprenticeships for school leavers.
The Prime Minister will today issue a ‘call to arms’ to firms to train three million youngsters in an ambitious drive to achieve ‘full youth employment’ within the next Parliament.
He will argue it is vital to make ‘difficult decisions’ over welfare to ensure youngsters ‘have the skills to compete with the rest of the world’.
On a visit to a manufacturing plant, Mr Cameron will call for every FTSE100 company, as well as hundreds of smaller firms, to take on apprentices with an injection of £1billion in funding.
A clutch of household names have already signed up to offer training, including the National Grid, Microsoft, Balfour Beatty, Nestle, Airbus, Jaguar Land Rover, Barclays and BT.
Many of the apprenticeships will be at ‘advanced’ level – equivalent to ‘A’ levels, and around 15,000 of them will involve paid technical training up to degree level.
Mr Cameron will say today: ‘Because of difficult decisions we will make on welfare, we will deliver three million apprenticeships by 2020. This is a crucial part of our long-term economic plan to secure a better future for Britain.
‘It will help give us the skills to compete with the rest of the world. And it will mean more hope, more opportunity, and more security for our young people, helping them get on in life and make something of themselves.’
Reducing the welfare cap from £26,000 to £23,000 – or around £440 a week – will save £135million per year, according to details revealed last night. It will affect 70,000 families.
In addition, plans announced at the Conservative Party conference to strip housing benefit from jobless 18 to 21-year-olds will affect up to 30,000 youngsters and save around £120million.
George Osbourne said cutting benefits would stop people from becoming trapped in poverty
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2799525/pm-slashes-welfare-cap-23-000-year-300m-benefit-savings
Answer the following questions about the text:
1.Read the title. What do you think the article is about?
2. Who will have their benefits cut?
3. What would happen if the Conservatives win the next election?
4. What would happen to unemployed young people?
5. What is David Cameron going to announce?
6.What would the welfare cuts do?
7. What is the Prime Minister going to ask firms to do?
8. What skills should young people have?
9. What will Mr Cameron call for?
10. Who has signed up to offer training?
11. What type of apprenticeships will there be?
12. How many apprenticeships will be delivered by 2020?
13. Why are the apprenticeships important?
14. How many families will be affected by the welfare cap?
15. How many young people will be affected by a cut in housing benefit?
Match the following words and phrases with the right definition:
A B
1) cap
/a) incite, convince, persuade, call to action
2) apprenticeships
/b) state, put forward
3) stripped
/c) factory
4) handouts
/d) group
5) altogether
/e) cut, slashed, axed
6) ploughed
/f) limit, maximum amount
7) issue
/g) heaped, given in abundance
8) call to arms
/h) unveiled, demonstrated
9) argue
/i) publish, declare, state
10) plant
/j) professional training
11) clutch
/k) benefits
12) revealed
/l) completely, entirely
Translate the words in column A
IAIN DUNCAN SMITH MAKES A SPLASH ON ASSAULT COURSE
As Work and Pensions Secretary, he often finds himself up to his neck in it.
And even away from the pressures of Government, yesterday appeared to be little different for Iain Duncan Smith.
The 60-year-old minister was close to going under as he plunged into a muddy pool while tackling a gruelling 10km assault course.
He also hauled himself up climbing ropes and crawled under barbed wire as part of the fourth annual Swanbourne Endeavour endurance event in Buckinghamshire.
Organisers promise the charity event will ‘push you to the limit and beyond’.
Officials claim the rest of the £300million will be saved both from the benefits bill by getting young people into work, and by reducing reliance on classroom teaching in further education in favour of on-the-job training.
The number of apprenticeships has doubled since the Coalition took office – to more than 200,000 a year – but they are vastly oversubscribed with eleven applicants for every place.
Chancellor George Osborne said last month that his mission in cutting benefits was to ‘change the welfare system so it doesn’t trap people in poverty and a culture of dependency’.
He said the reforms had forced thousands to look for work.
Only claimants of Disability Living Allowance will be exempt from the new cap. Around 40,000 of those affected will have their benefits capped for the first time, with maximum losses of £60 a week.
Youngsters between 18 and 21 will be forced to live with their families unless they have a job – unless they are leaving care, are estranged from their parents or have dependent children.
And they would be given six months to find a job or training – after which their dole would be scrapped unless they take part in ‘community projects’, such as cleaning up parks.
Labour supports imposing a cap on the total welfare budget, rather than per household, but says levels of housing benefit should be set per region.
The latest jobs figures put unemployment below two million for the first time since 2008.
A Microsoft spokesman said: ‘Apprenticeships are a crucial part of the solution to our technology skills shortage.’
A spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses said: ‘We applaud the ambition to dramatically increase the number of young people gaining apprenticeships, but the training they receive must be high quality and meet the demands of businesses.’
1. Find synonyms and translate the highlighted words.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2799525/pm-slashes-welfare-cap-23-000-year-300m-benefit-savings