by Robin Thorpe
Earlier this week George Osborne stated that “this month, around nine out of 10 working households will be better off as a result of the changes we are making”.
The BBC report on this speech (before it happened, which frankly annoys me, why can’t politicians just give a speech and have it reported after the event? Why must it be released beforehand?) states that;
“This month saw the start of sweeping changes across public services including reform of the benefits system.
Mr Osborne argues that the government has had to take difficult decisions to cut the deficit and the current benefits system is fundamentally “broken”.
Changes include:
- The introduction of a £26,000 cap on the amount of benefits a household can receive
- A cut to housing benefit for working-age social housing tenants whose property is deemed to be larger than they need
- Disability living allowance replaced by personal independence payment
- Working-age benefits and tax credits uprated by 1% – a below-inflation cap
The chancellor believes the changes to benefits and tax will be fairer and help ensure that the country can live within its means and compete globally”
For all the rhetoric both in favour and against these cuts I would agree with Osborne on the limited claim that the vast majority of the public are in favour of these changes to the benefit system and do not agree with Labour or other critics of the changes. The very fact that 9 out of 10 people will purportedly be better off underlines the reason why most people agree with the changes. This, however, does not make it the right thing to do.
Osborne and IDS both claim that they are doing this for the good of the poor and that “defending every line item of welfare spending isn’t credible in the current economic environment. Because defending benefits that trap people in poverty and penalise work is defending the indefensible.”
I can’t help but think that it is low wages that means that work does not pay, not a benefits system that barely facilitates survival. JSA is currently £71 per week; for all your expenses this is not a significant sum (think food, heating, travel, internet, phone, and water /sewerage). If you don’t qualify for housing benefit or council tax reduction then you really are going to struggle. IDS may claim that he would manage if he had to, but I think he would find the changes that he would have to make to his lifestyle more then just unpalatable.
Of the four changes highlighted above, the one that is least discussed is the limiting of the rise in benefits to 1%. Done on the basis that many people’s wages are stagnant or are also limited in a rise and therefore a rise of benefits in line with inflation would be “unfair” to those in work. I can see the logic in this; the problem, however, is that when we, as a society, have decided that £71 is the minimum you need to survive on each week then not increasing this in line with inflation means that people will, by definition, not be able to cope.
Unfortunately for those who are in receipt of benefits they are characterized by a group of people who insist on spending their money on television subscriptions, computer games, cigarettes and lager. Intentionally or not the BBC chose to study a family that precisely fit this description. The number of children that live in this household result in child tax credits of over £300 per week.
There are many more people in receipt of tax credits that are in work then those who are unemployed; however there are many more people of all political persuasions that do not agree with the way that some people choose to spend the benefits that they receive. Is this not what is truly at the core of this debate?
To some extent I do agree with Osborne and IDS that the system is flawed, albeit not in the way that they mean. I don’t agree simply that people get too much money. The fact that ‘benefit dependence’ seems to be widespread is, I would suggest, more a result of pockets of deprivation arising from a paucity of opportunity. Where the system is deeply flawed is in the considerable sum of money paid in housing benefit to private landlords.
Welfare, benefits and unemployment all seem to be viewed as individual parts of a national problem. It would be better if they were viewed as the same issue on a regional basis. Even well-educated people see benefits as being a separate part of the welfare state and thanks to biased newspaper reporting see welfare dependency and fraud as a bigger problem then they truly are.
Pensioners despair of ‘work-shy’ youngsters playing the system when they receive a state-pension, a second-state pension (for some), a free bus-pass, free TV-license (for over 75s), free prescriptions, full access to all NHS facilities, free book loans and a winter-fuel payment.
These are not labeled as ‘benefits’ but they all come from the welfare pot; furthermore although pensioners claim to have worked all their lives to pay for these benefits the hard-truth is that when these people began paying tax 50 years ago the benefits system was nowhere near as generous. The welfare bill is higher now then it has ever been and that is largely due to the number of pensioners.
Health-care, pensions, education and social care are all part of the welfare-state and by attempting to pry out parts of it the whole edifice is at risk of falling down.
The reason so many people are in favour of reducing the welfare bill is that they perceive it to be wasted on undeserving scroungers. I reluctantly agree with Fraser Nelson when he states “welfare reform is one of the most popular things this government is doing. And it’s never more popular than amongst those on low wages, who share housing estates with the welfare-dependent and can see the injustice”.
Furthermore I agree that a tax-cut for the low—paid is desirable. I don’t, however, agree with his argument that “welfare cuts increase the incentive to work”. There may notionally be record-employment but a significant number of people are under-employed and are paid low wages and unemployment is still historically high.
I would contend that the majority of people do not agree with the current benefits because they perceive that they are paying into ‘the system’ and getting nothing in return and others are taking out of ‘the system’ and are not contributing.
This situation arises because of the tendency towards a residual welfare system. Universality was always a central tenet of the UK welfare state, which was intended to be institutional i.e. where need is accepted as part of normal social life and where welfare is provided for the population as a whole. A residual welfare state is where provision is only for the poor. The removal of universal child-benefit made residual welfare the official policy of the UK government for the first time since 1947.
The end of institutional welfare, and the notion of social solidarity that goes with it, follows several decades of joblessness and the sell-off of council housing. The impact of increasing home ownership has been to not only create indebtedness but has also deepened the divisions between those who have and have-not. Once upon a time there may have been some stigma attached to being unemployed but following the dissolution of British industry in the 1980s unemployment became endemic in some urban areas and consequently being on the dole is now the norm.
Imposing onerous sanctions on the unemployed will not create jobs nor will it make those out of work employable. Where employers can be picky they will select those who are already at least partly trained. A brick-layer cannot cheaply be retrained to be a barber; a welder cannot quickly be taught how to be a barista. The issue of benefits is as deeply intertwined with education policy and socio-economic regeneration as it is with job-creation.
So just as an idea how about giving low-skilled, unemployed people the opportunity to re-train? This could be funded by creating local credit-unions specifically to provide training loans – to be paid back when the person is in employment (in the same way that the Student Loans Company was created). This would empower those looking for work to have more control over what they want to do and would give them personal responsibility for repaying the debt. It is not a quick fix and yes some money would be wasted but people need employable skills to find a job.
It would also be handy if there were more jobs and if there was a larger and more flexible provision to help people find a job through the job-centre. Cutting back the resources required to help people back into work (as the coalition did two years ago) are self-defeating. Apparently there is no money to pay for it; however short-term investment would lead to long-term gain. Finally let us remember that benefits underpayment amounts to more than benefits fraud furthermore HMRC estimate the tax gap to be £30bn. George Osborne should have bigger fish to fry.
Robin Thorpe is a consulting engineer for a small practice on the south coast
