The cry goes up from pundits and politicians who have never been anywhere near the daily grind of a life on benefits that the £333bn annual welfare bill is unsustainable. And despite their tin ear, they are probably right. But the cost is not the place to find the cure: it’s the causes of the bill we have to dig into.
Under its new leader it looks like Labour is going to have a second go at cutting the cost of welfare. But before it jumps in with its spreadsheet and clipboard it should learn the lessons of why so many in the Parliamentary Labour Party found that stance literally revolting last time it tried, and blocked the move. Keir Starmer did many things wrong on his two-year walk to the exit door, but this was probably the biggest mistake. If he couldn’t get his own reforms through with a 170-seat majority then what was the point of him? Andy Burnham beware.
The issue isn’t the tactical concern of how to placate the left of the party. It’s getting the policy, framing, intention and long-term purpose right. If Burnham and his Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden get the latter sorted, then the former will fall into place. So how can that be done?
First, don’t start from a Treasury mindset of saving the most money. Cuts lead to more hardship, not more employment, and so in the long run save nothing.
Don’t do it to look tough in a vain attempt to appeal to the right-wing newspapers. Instead, start with the human. What does a good society and a flourishing life look like? People, nearly all of them, want to create and contribute. They want to feel valued. Of course some, a tiny minority, will abuse any system. But you can’t build a better world based on the worst behaved. Progressives have to believe the best in people, otherwise who will?
Second, understand the causes of the spiralling welfare bill. It’s jobs that don’t pay enough, homes that cost too much, too little in the way of care, a lack of training and education and health support that people need. But sadly, it’s much deeper than that. We live in a sick society, and we’ve transferred the burden of that sickness from society to the individual. The social contract is broken: nothing is secure; no one thinks their children’s lives are going to be better than theirs; social media contaminates young minds; climate change is just at the start of its inevitable chaos.
Our economy and our culture are driving people mad. And yet we don’t own this as a nation, a society or a democracy – we pass the buck to the individual and impossibly demand that they shape up, they take the pills, they get the counselling and they individually try to find their feet in a world that offers no collective foundations. It’s little wonder that we’ve seen a dramatic rise in mental ill health over the last few decades. No sticking plaster is going to mask the deep social recession we are going through.
Third, because this is so complex we have to ensure government works as one. The calculation of what benefits people receive should be the last decision not the first. Start with the support and opportunity people need and then ensure they receive an income they can securely live on.
To successfully bring down our welfare bill, departments need to listen to each other and work together to build an economy that works for people; to educate, train and ensure they have the skills they need; and the housing, transport, health and other support. All of this should be as devolved, as local and as personal as possible. We must deal with the issue deeply and holistically.
Fourth, don’t view this as some expert and technical exercise, peering through a microscope into people’s lives and deciding what is best for them. The people who know best about how to deal with causes and cures of reducing the welfare bill are the very people struggling to get by on pretty meagre payments. These people are resourceful, imaginative, experienced and know what’s best for them. So, ask them. Get them in at the beginning of the process when the sheet of paper is blank, don’t present them with a parliamentary bill and then fight and scrap over every clause.
And finally, it’s going to take a long time to get it right so it can work for generations. This then is as good an issue as possible for Andy Burnham to practice his new politics, trialled in Manchester on the economy and buses, to build cross-party support for a new welfare settlement. Here we can learn from the past. The term “social security”, which is now almost pejorative, is a beautiful phrase for the underpinnings of the post-war welfare settlement. It wasn’t coined by Labour but by the Tory MP Quentin Hogg in 1944. He knew we cannot be secure individually, only collectively.
When Burnham talks about place before party, the local over the centre, the long term over the short term – he is already describing the right approach to reducing the welfare bill. The Swedes use a slogan that isn’t about help but about hope. It is dynamic because it’s optimistic. They say “secure people dare”. It is time for our Government to dare.
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