“The government needs to withdraw the Bill before the vote and go back to the drawing board. Start redesigning the benefits system alongside disabled people’s organisations and take the time to get it right.”
By Neil Duncan-Jordan MP
If ever there was an example of how governments respond to pressure, rather than argument – you need look no further than what happened last week when the party scrambled to find a solution to the growing and widespread discontent over reform to disability benefits. In the end, more than 125 Labour MPs from virtually every corner of the party signed up to a reasoned amendment that was both critical of the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill and called for an urgent rethink.
In response, what we got was an unedifying spectacle of trading protection for existing claimants whilst leaving future claimants to accept less generous benefits. A so-called safety net with significant holes in it, through which the more vulnerable and disadvantaged would now fall. Anyone with even a passing commitment to a comprehensive and universal welfare state would shudder at the prospect of a two-tier system.
But the whole car-crash of where this issue ended up could have been avoided if the party had listened earlier to concerns from both the disability sector and its own backbenchers. Only days before the concessions were announced, the PLP were told the proposals to make over three million disabled people poorer were rooted in Labour Values. Never before had so many MPs felt gaslighted by being told something that was eminently not true. Helping people who can work to find a job is absolutely what we should be doing, but making those who are already struggling financially even more worse off than they already are, definitely isn’t. And no amount of reclaiming our movement’s history will rewrite a basic and fundamental truth – if we are not about ending poverty and expanding positive outcomes for people – then what are we doing?
Whilst it’s positive that existing claimants will now be protected from the cuts, the changes simply don’t go far enough. Around 430,000 new PIP applicants are likely to no longer qualify for the benefit, 700,000 Universal Credit Health claimants will still see their payments halved and it remains unclear how many carers will be impacted as well. On top of this, we don’t actually know how many disabled people will be pushed into poverty – or how we will help the nearly five million who are already living in poverty now.
The Second Reading vote on Tuesday – because of parliamentary procedure – won’t even be on the concessions, but the original proposals. MPs will effectively be asked to vote for the Bill as written, with the promise that the changes will come at Third Reading – just 8 days later. But this whole spectacle has already undermined the sense of trust that some MPs have in the party’s ability to deliver on its promises.
More fundamentally, this whole episode has revealed a striking weakness in the entire policy making process. As soon as the Green Paper, entitled Pathways to Work was published back in March, MPs and disability groups began raising concerns and criticisms about the plans. None of these were entertained. Meetings, letters, speeches inside and outside of Parliament and media interviews did absolutely nothing to move the dial. All we were told was that the party had a moral crusade to reform welfare benefits. Yet this wasn’t really reform at all.
Virtually all Labour MPs would be interested in seeing the system reformed, and for some that would mean making it more supportive, less punitive and more generous. What we got however, felt more like a figure from the Treasury setting out how much needed to be saved and then a set of policies reverse engineered to raise the required amount. That’s not reform, that’s accounting.
Having spent months defending the proposals for cuts, the government then found itself negotiating with a small number of select committee chairs at the 11th hour to find a compromise that would get the Bill over the line at Tuesday’s vote. But does anyone really think that this is the way to make fundamental and far-reaching social policy? Would Beveridge have drawn up the welfare state on the back of fag packet? Of course not.
That’s why the government needs to withdraw the Bill before the vote and go back to the drawing board. Start redesigning the benefits system alongside disabled people’s organisations and take the time to get it right. Begin investing now in employment support programmes that can help people back into work and give it time to assess their effectiveness before rushing a Bill through. In fact, putting through what was supposed to be a major reset of welfare policy – in just a week – is difficult even for a new MP like me to comprehend. It clearly doesn’t give MPs sufficient time to consider the details and we are still waiting for a range of impact assessments that are due in the autumn.
There will of course be those who argue that the failure to cut benefits will impact on the government’s spending plans – but as we know, politics is about choices. We could properly tax income from wealth, by applying National Insurance to investment income, raising up to £10.2 billion a year. We could reform the Capital Gains Tax system through increasing rates and closing loopholes to raise around £12 billion a year or we could apply a 2% tax on assets over £10 million, to raise up to £24 billion 1 a year. I’m clear what choices I would make.
- Neil Duncan-Jordan is the Labour MP for Poole. You can follow him on Twitter/X, Facebook and Instagram.
-
If you support Labour Outlook’s work amplifying the voices of left movements and struggles here and internationally, please consider becoming a supporter on Patreon.
