You may be right,
@Invisible Woman. But for what its worth, I think we need to be really cautious in making claims that funding bodies are in bed with those controlling welfare payouts/insurance. Only make them when we are sure its true. Else we sound like conspiracy theorists. Which could undermine our legitimate concerns.
I'm on a government grant funding panel, the largest in our country, and I can tell you,when I evaluate research proposals, I don't give a damn about insurance and welfare payouts. Not one flying ****. Neither do my panel members or the panel chair. And our recommendations are final. I doubt my country's some sort of weird exception to the rule, there's probably lots of other administrations that work this way too. One hand simply has no interest in what the other is doing.
Government policy does come into our funding decisions, but only indirectly, because the govt determines how much money will be made available in the first place (for example X million on basic biol science, X million on economics, etc.)
I'm not saying financial interests aren't an important factor that buoys research in the BPS area. I think they are. I'm also not saying you're wrong to suggest these interests are influencing funding decisions - you could well be right. Just saying we should all apply caution.