ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the budget-line implications of the new Social Security system proposed in the White Paper. In June 1985 the government published a major Green Paper on the Reform of Social Security. This followed an unprecedented consultation process in the areas of pensions, Housing Benefit, Child Benefits and Supplementary Benefits. The White Paper mentions the possibility of continuing to make some allowance for mortgage interest, but only during the early stages of a claim. Numbers for the unemployed as a whole are not readily available, but according to ‘Social Security Statistics’, 58% of the unemployed were in receipt of Supplementary Benefit in 1982. The government’s initial reluctance to publicize benefit rates in the Green Paper was prompted by a belief that, in the first instance, attention should be directed at the structural features of the proposals. In December 1985 the Green Paper was followed by a White Paper which broadly adhered to the original proposals.
