No doubt there is much relief in No 10, in the Treasury, at the Department for Work and Pensions and in the whips’ office, that the welfare reforms crisis is over.
That, however, is as nothing to the emotions being felt by the estimated 800,000 people who had been traumatised by the thought of losing around £3,850 in their annual income. The government’s own assessment was that some 250,000 of them would thereby be pushed into relative poverty. Many were in despair.
Behind the official impact assessments was an unmeasurable quantity of prospective human misery. While the fates of Sir Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, Liz Kendall, Morgan McSweeney and various other Labour figures have, understandably, been the subject of much media attention, it is not too sanctimonious to point out that this whole debate should not be all about the careers of frankly well-heeled politicians and advisers – but those who need help simply to survive.
This is about them – and it is a matter of some embarrassment, and shame, that Labour MPs only roused themselves to do anything about the coming disaster when they themselves had been given a shock of their own after their party’s dismal performance at the local elections and the Runcorn by-election. Mass redundancies at the next general election loomed into view.
Suddenly, their consciences emerged from the inner recesses of their brains, ready for a wrestling match. For a change, the consciences won. It need not have been like this.
It is, indeed, incomprehensible that the government was proposing such legislation without concluding their consultations with groups representing disabled people.
Despite Ms Kendall’s efforts to keep the focus on improving their quality of life by giving people with disabilities the job opportunities they yearn for, the Treasury’s rush to find some quick savings in public expenditure gave the exercise a mean-spirited vibe.
This was never a promising background for a sensible and sensitive reform of the social security system. There were never any estimates, let alone guarantees, about how many disabled people would be lifted out of poverty into jobs, and the risks were far too great. That is why ministers lost the argument.
The result is the messy compromise that has now emerged. Politically, it has averted a parliamentary nightmare, and it will mean that the government gets much of its reforms through. However, the partial U-turn still leaves the government looking foolish, even callous.
It is not only the vulnerable people terrified by the now-ditched reforms who will have lost trust in Sir Keir’s administration, but the electorate as a whole. Almost a year ago Labour campaigned on “Change”; no one interpreted that as an assault on the welfare state, with the deeply unpopular means-testing of the pensioners’ winter fuel allowance and clumsy changes to universal credit and personal independence payments (PIP).
Sir Keir and his colleagues promised an end to the “chaos and confusion” that reigned under the Conservatives. With three panicky voltes-face in as many weeks (including on winter fuel allowance and the national grooming gangs inquiry), the government is looking incompetent, not in control of events, and divided.
In the revised package of measures there are, nonetheless, very welcome improvements.
A reform of the points-based system for assessing PIP, a rather crude and dehumanising process, led by the social security minister Sir Stephen Timms, will now be “co-produced” with disability rights organisations – a major breakthrough. Ms Kendall’s excellent schemes to provide personal assistance, coaching and advice to open up job opportunities are to be brought forward. Another valuable enhancement. The “right to try”, widely welcomed and reiterated, will also be a great source of reassurance to people nervous about losing their hard-fought benefits if taking a particular job doesn’t work out for them. This also means they don’t have to go through another gruelling reassessment for PIP eligibility.
What remains, however, is a two-tier regime, where existing claimants have a guarantee that none of their income will be lost, but new applicants for PIP and the health element of universal credit face a potentially much more difficult time.
Ms Kendall is right to point out that such a situation is not so unusual when changes to social security are made, such as when the two-child benefit cap was introduced, or the successive postponements in the qualifying age for the state pension. However, that does not make such a system right. If it is unacceptable to drive people with certain types of disability into poverty in 2025, why is it the right thing to do in, say, 2028 or 2029?
Ms Kendall also says she wants a system that is fair to people who cannot work, and fair to the taxpayer. That is a fine ideal, but, perhaps through no fault of hers, the right balance is yet to be struck.
Clearly, much more serious work remains if the social security system is to be placed on a sustainable basis. It is perfectly true that it must command the confidence of the tax-paying public, who pay for it as well as benefit from it. It will also have to include the biggest single element in the system by far, the state pension.
Unavoidably, it also has to be joined to a new approach to paying for adult social care, a challenge successive governments of all parties have ducked for decades. The UK’s demographics demand a more comprehensive review of the welfare state, and the creation of something much closer to the cross-party consensus that prevailed for so long after the Beveridge report laid the foundations for social protections in 1942.
As yet, there’s no sign of that. Just some chaos and confusion.
