Budget 2012: Further cuts to welfare costs

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The Government is set to curb welfare bills by £10bn over the next four years.

Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, said in today's Budget speech's opening remarks that, despite the passing of the Welfare Reform Act, the welfare budget is set to rise to consume one third of all public spending.

He added: "If nothing is done to curb welfare bills further, then the full weight of the spending restraint will fall on departmental budgets.

"The next Spending Review will have to confront this.

"So I am today publishing analysis that shows that if in the next Spending Review we maintain the same rate of reductions in departmental spending as we have done in this review, we would need to make savings in welfare of £10 billion by 2016."

He added that the Government was set to publish a white paper on social care, as it addressed the rising costs of an ageing population, and the burden this places on future generations.

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