Chris

Raising money is naturally of immediate concern, but as he's raising this as something to be considered after 2015 it's clearly not part of a desperate deficit-cutting measure.

Besides, even if it doesn't make a vast difference to the national coffers, there is an important principle at stake here. We should not be in a position of making non-work more financially rewarding than work because that is simply unfair. Society only works in the long run when everyone agrees that the overall settlement is fair. That's why we don't have bloody revolution every 5 years when a party more than half of us didn't vote for gets into power. Any aspects of unfairness must be addressed, even if they don't by themselves raise a billion for the exchequer.