Will the benefit cuts do their work?

The changes to child benefit have now come into force. Will they work, and are they targeting the right people? Emily Hohler reports.

"Nobody could accuse the coalition government of a slow start to the year," says The Sunday Times.Last Monday the changes to child benefit came into force and the government published its mid-term review, confirming its plans to introduce Iain Duncan Smith's universal credit. On Tuesday the House of Commons voted on plans to restrict rises in most working-age benefits to 1% annually over the next three years.

It is estimated that the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill, which passed its second reading despite opposition by Labour and a handful of Liberal Democrat MPs, will save £1.9bn over five years. By contrast, last year's decision to increase benefits by 5.2% will cost taxpayers £8.7bn over the same period, says James Kirkup in The Daily Telegraph.

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Emily Hohler
Politics editor

Emily has worked as a journalist for more than thirty years and was formerly Assistant Editor of MoneyWeek, which she helped launch in 2000. Prior to this, she was Deputy Features Editor of The Times and a Commissioning Editor for The Independent on Sunday and The Daily Telegraph. She has written for most of the national newspapers including The Times, the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, The Evening Standard and The Daily Mail, She interviewed celebrities weekly for The Sunday Telegraph and wrote a regular column for The Evening Standard. As Political Editor of MoneyWeek, Emily has covered subjects from Brexit to the Gaza war.

Aside from her writing, Emily trained as Nutritional Therapist following her son's diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes in 2011 and now works as a practitioner for Nature Doc, offering one-to-one consultations and running workshops in Oxfordshire.