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?

Disability: Whether physical, mental or learning, it's usually our society that makes individual circumstances disabling

Photograph: Wheelchair Parking from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

It isn't radical to acknowledge that our society, our infrastructure and the way we work, is built around the lives of non-disabled men. The experiences of women are testament to that: basic biology is often treated as an impediment to society's orderly functioning.

The same kind of exclusion is experienced by people with disabilities. This is even reflected in the language of disability, which has clear markers of being written from the point of view of 'able-bodied' men, complete with assumptions made based on the uncritical acceptance of how society is shaped. There are, of course, cultural and historical reasons for the way these things have developed.

However, change has been slow and inclusion still feels far away. And it's that failure to build otherness into our society that defines disability. The report this week into the government's failure to adequately fund school places for those children with special educational needs just exposes how much of an afterthought disability still is in societal decision-making. That's a sorry state of affairs.

This government has made big promises on inclusion but obstacles remain. It is easy to see the barriers to people with physical disabilities just by looking around you. Some of them are very literal. Steps are a big factor. Ramps and lifts still look like add-ons - with issues like the need for manual assistance, space for manoeuvring and limited access all the result of physical disability access being an afterthought.

For people with mental illness and learning difficulties, the impediments are often harder to see - less obvious than the conflict between wheels and stairs which is, nonetheless, still far too often overlooked. The needs of people with mental health problems are various, but often include things like quiet, routine and structure. In a working world growing increasingly loud and irregular, making accommodation for these needs is treated like a drag on efficiency.

A 'flexible' working environment is the buzzword of the moment, but all of the flexibility must come from the employee. Compassionate support is hard to find in a system of precarious work, that keeps people on edge, scrambling for uncertain shifts.

The public sector is not free from criticism. Funding for disability has taken a hit under austerity, with a harsh welfare regime, and even funding for school places for students with special educational needs has been critically inadequate.

All people, disabled or not, want independence. To get around without assistance. To be confident and seen as capable. To that end, successive governments have promised an 'independence revolution', to radically improve social inclusion. That project has not been completed. There is so much more work to do.

We must think carefully about our society: how we frame work and making a contribution; how we approach inclusion. People can live full lives with a full spectrum of conditions and circumstances. But only if the society they live in does not disable them, by failing to built support and inclusion into their framework.