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| Photograph: Job Centre Plus by Andrew Writer (License) (Cropped) |
Labour's Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has let it be known that Universal Credit, the government's controversial revamp of welfare, faces being scrapped. McDonnell called the system unsustainable, as he finally appeared to move the party off the fence on welfare.
Universal Credit was the flagship Conservative policy and was intended to merge a range of benefits into one, simpler, payment - with better tapering and stricter limits - in theory to 'make work pay'. However, the rollout of the policy has been a disaster.
The policy rollout has gone over budget; it has created delays in processing applications and making payments, leading to individuals running up debts and turning to foodbanks; and with the full rollout, even single parents could be over £2000 worse off.
For the government, welfare reform has been a constant hazard. It's approach, dubbed 'workfare', has been picked apart at every step. Scandals like welfare claimants finding themselves farmed out for unpaid labour - a practice that was challenged and criticised through the courts, though continues - has undermined reforms.
So has the Tories' handling of disability welfare claims. Causes ranging from maladministration to deeply flawed fitness to work assessments have left many claimants with disabilities thousands of pounds out of pocket and denied crucial support.
The government has done itself no favours with revelations that officials were given targets to reject 4 out of 5 applications, and through spending tens of millions in legal action to avoid having to meet denied disability welfare payments.
Funding issues have undermined the policy too. The policy's architect, and former Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith eventually quit as the Minister responsible with a flurry of criticism - at the core, furious that funding was not were he wanted it to be for the reforms to work.
It is unsurprising that Labour doesn't want to handle this shambles.
However, for Labour this marks a significant change in their stance. In their 2017 manifesto, the Labour Party barely touched the subject of welfare. The limits of their interest had seemed to be in getting the Conservative system working - not even committing to more funding.
Labour have not proposed a replacement system. For that, it may be necessary to wait for a new manifesto. But it seems unlikely that either the old system nor Universal Credit will now remain in place under a Labour government.
Without tacit opposition support, the policy's days are numbered. The questions now is what comes next? Where does Britain go next in search of a fair and sustainable social security safety net?
References
'Universal credit has to go, says John McDonnell'; on the BBC; 7 October 2018.
Shiv Malik's 'Graduate's Poundland victory leaves government work schemes in tatters: Court backs Cait Reilly's claim, with judges ruling that work and pensions secretary acted unlawfully over unpaid work'; in The Guardian; 12 February 2013.
Sarah Neville's 'UK’s Supreme Court rules ‘workfare’ legally flawed'; in the Financial Times; 30 October 2013.
Sarah Butler and Josh Halliday's 'Poundland 'gets jobless to work for free under government scheme': Participants in DWP work experience programme say budget chain used them to stack shelves all day'; in The Guardian; 30 August 2017.
Daniel Kraemer & Harriet Agerholm's 'DWP spends £39m defending decisions to strip benefits from sick and disabled people'; in The Independent; 28 August 2017.
Patrick Butler's 'Government will pay arrears to thousands of benefit claimants: U-turn means repayments owed as a result of errors will be backdated to 2011'; in The Guardian; 18 July 2018.
'Iain Duncan Smith quits over planned disability benefit changes'; on the BBC; 19 March 2016.
'General Election 2017 - Labour Manifesto: Stepping up the role of the public sector'; in The Alternative; 16 May 2017.
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