Universal Credit: Labour say no to universal credit, leaving the future of welfare uncertain

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?

Wellbeing has been forgotten in the drive to improve employment statistics

Photograph: Job Centre Plus by Andrew Writer (License) (Cropped)

As we approach eight years of Conservative government, the impact of their time in government is becoming clearer. If we judge a society by the wellbeing of it's poorest members, the Conservatives have fallen short.

Despite low unemployment and a real terms rise in household incomes - about £600 a year between 2007/8 and 2015/16 - the poorest have not seen the benefit, caught beneath the weight of the rising cost of living and Conservative cuts to benefits and tax credits.

As we wrote in October, you can't count on increasing employment alone to improve people's wellbeing - especially if the work available is precarious, with insecure pay and hours.

Last week, Resolution Foundation released a report looking at how employment had changed over the last twenty years. It pointed out that there has been a shift among working people, on the lowest incomes, towards lower hours and part-time employment.

Resolution described this shift as, in part, unwelcome and involuntary - with a quarter of working class people wanting more hours. The squeeze on working hours is not being helped by the increasingly precarious, non-standard form of hours worked.

This situation is coinciding with the real terms increase in earnings being offset by several forces: the rising cost of housing, the rising cost of energy and the rise in households servicing growing debt.

With wage growth lagging behind consumer price rises, the cost of living is putting a great deal of pressure on the least well-off households. The Conservative drive to clamp down on welfare and drive people into work has not delivered greater wellbeing.

For seven and a half years, the Conservative approach has been steady as she goes. Even a change of Prime Minister and Chancellor has not led to a change of plan. The evidence shows that, for the wellbeing of the poorest, this needs to change.

First of all, there is a need to address the punitive impact of welfare reforms - that will see the incomes of the poorest fall 10% by 2021-22 compared to 2010. Work is not paying.

Consider: how does the government expect a household that struggles to stay afloat on a precarious income - juggling high rent and servicing debt - with no extra for savings, to meet it's needs when a job if lost and they're faced with a five week benefits application waiting period? Answer: More debt.

Second, the cost of living must be tackled. We need cheaper energy and cheaper rent. How this will be achieved in the long run - whether by community-owned services to breach the energy monopoly and an expansion of social housing and a living rent, or through increased market competition - in the short term they government action.

And third, bound to the first two, a concerted effort must be made to address the growth of household debt. Debts caused by living costs, mostly rent, are a damning indictment of the failure to make work pay - debts that only increase when help is needed most.

The least well off are being crushed and trapped under Tory policies, living with growing anxiety and precarity. Wellbeing is suffering to no discernible end. That is the tale of eight years of Conservative government.

Conservative's callous attitude to disability benefits underlines the reasons to embrace principles behind universal welfare

Conservative policy is clearly to take away support from all except those in the most absolute despair - and to subject those remaining to demoralising assessments, pressures and sanctions. Photograph: Job Centre Plus by Andrew Writer (License) (Cropped)

The Conservative Party unmasked its own callous attitudes towards public welfare at the weekend, when one of Prime Minister Theresa May's aides took it upon himself to say that benefits shouldn't be going to those "taking pills at home, who suffer from anxiety" but to the "really disabled" (BBC, 2017).

After years of climbing uphill, campaigners have finally got mental illness - and the cause of giving it parity with physical illness - into the mainstream consciousness (Cooper, 2016). This comment, coming from a ministerial aide, is a huge step backwards.

It also underlines the inefficacy of the assessments regime, based always on the prejudices of particular governments and liable with its rhetoric, and in pursuit of budget targets, to set high the bar for access to support. And, right now, the Tories are running just such a harsh regime that is rolling back support further and further in the name of purse-tightening.

The compassionate alternative is universality. The idea behind a universal basic income is that everyone would receive a personal independence payment, as a basic safeguard against poverty and as a guarantee of their liberty.

The practical application of the idea, which is still only in the trial stage in a number of countries - where much can still be learned about how it might be shaped for real world use - might well be some time away. But the least we can do is learn from the principles underlying a universal system.

So what are the principles? The premier amongst them is personal freedom, which is hurt most by coercion - being compelled to make certain choices, or accept certain realities, by the absence of a true choice in the face of desperation.

Universality is an act of positive liberty. It seeks to enhance personal liberty by, not simply removing barriers, but reaching out to help people out of the pits that prevent their access - traps like poverty. It creates a welfare system that truly levels the playing field by creating a fundamental baseline.

Even in the modern world, a disability can prove expensive and mental illness, in particular, can be hard to predict and hard to manage. In a world of hyper-competition, that demands flexibility and only offers an insecure return, a person with a disability can easily find themselves out of despair coerced into making choices that are not right for them.

Conservative policy is clearly to take away support from all except those in the most absolute despair - and even then to subject them to neverending assessments, pressures and sanctions that demoralise people and rob them of their dignity.

That policy is an expression of an ideology of 'meritocratic' competition that rewards wealth with privilege and champions individual selfishness - in other words, believes that 'greed is good'. But those who do not 'win' and do not 'merit' privilege are left behind and blamed as the cause of their own failures.

It is that callousness that was revealed by Theresa May's aide. It is a must for progressives to make their voices heard in opposition to this selfish ideology that feeds privilege to the already privileged.

Progressive voices need to be heard too in support of a more compassionate way, that is underlined by the principles of universality - where we value our society based on how it empowers and liberates the least fortunate.