IDS must stay the course on welfare reform
Fraser Nelson 2:35pm
Welfare wars are erupting again, with Iain Duncan Smith’s bill amended in the
Lords and more showdowns ahead. Number 10 has been completely robust, threatening to use rarely-invoked powers to overrule the Lords. In my Telegraph column today, I say why it’s so important that David Cameron
does not go wobbly – as his predecessors did.
Tony Blair understood the need for radical welfare reform, especially when his idol Bill Clinton introduced it in America. Listening to his speeches in the mid-90s is heartbreaking: he had
precisely the right idea, but lacked the determination to implement it. Frank Field was asked to ‘think the unthinkable’, but when disabled protesters chained themselves to the gates of
Downing Street, the Prime Minister gave up. Welfare reform means you stand accused of hurting the most vulnerable people in society – Clinton was warned he’d make New York into
‘Calcutta on the Hudson’. And as we’re dealing with millions of people’s lives, mistakes are made. This is why welfare reform is the toughest mission that any politician can
undertake.
In the Lords, we’re hearing those protests: why balance the books on the backs of the poorest people in society? But to me, the question is how anyone can refer to the UK’s unreformed
welfare state as compassionate, given that it is probably the number one cause of poverty in this country. Normally, ministers have to sort out welfare: if they don’t increase the supply of
workers (that is, turn dole claimants into jobseekers) they won’t grow the economy. But then along came mass immigration, brining a new industrious breed of workers who put in long hours,
paid tax and provided a Third Way. As Gordon Brown worked out, immigration means you can grow the economy – and avoid grasping the nettle of welfare reform. This was the policy Labour
adopted.
Even now Cameron could, if he wanted, ignore welfare bill. It is forecast to stay at around 11 per cent of GDP, so it’s manageable. And these industrious immigrants are still coming, ready to
grow the economy. Since the election, nine tenths of the employment rise amongst the working-age population has been accounted for by foreign-born workers.
The proportion in Glasgow, Liverpool and Blackpool on out-of-work benefits is over 20 per cent right now – an appalling figure. But what makes it much, much worse is that this was true
throughout the boom years. While all these cities were importing immigrants, at least a fifth of the working-age population was claiming out-of-work benefits. The welfare state had broken the
connection between British economic growth and British dole queues: it had become the primary sponsor of what Beveridge referred to as the ‘giant evil’ of idleness. You can bet
he’d be appalled to see the way his social insurance scheme started to incubate the very evil it was designed to eradicate.
The waste of money is bad enough, but the waste of human potential is heartbreaking. This failure created welfare ghettoes, the modern-day equivalent of Blake’s dark, satanic mills. They are
our national shame, and still under-examined. We have somehow managed to grow a massive degree of social segregation in Britain where the lives of the millions who live in welfare ghettoes are
pretty much a mystery to those who live in well-to-do parts. The crime figures, education, drug abuse, hospitalisation, life expectancy – all show what has become, in effect, a country within
a country.
Cameron, Osborne and IDS are not out to save money: this mission is about saving lives. Everyone who has attempted welfare reform has been accused of being cruel and heartless, and many have either
shelved or diluted their proposals because the accusation is so potent. But Britain simply has too much at stake. The poverty we’re nurturing has been ignored for too long.
UPDATE: The topic of immigration gets people very excited - and my mentioning that nine-tenths of the rise in employment is accounted for by foreign-born workers is portrayed, by excitable types, as proof that I'm a Little Englander against immigration. To the chagrin of many CoffeeHousers, I am pro-immigrant and believe our country is richer – economically, culturally and socially – as a result. I think it's a net positive, and the chart above is testimony to the industry of an immigrant class that Britain is lucky to have. Most of us don't have to go too far back in our family tree to find immigrant blood.
But I also think that supporters of immigration, like myself, should acknowledge there are downsides – felt by those who compete with immigrants for jobs, school places, council houses etc.
In the above blog, my point is that immigration has allowed ministers not to worry to much about fixing welfare. Had it not been for immigration of the last 12 years, Labour would have been forced
to fix welfare because the economy would not have grown otherwise. I see mass immigration as the result of welfare failures. The welfare trap created a vacuum in our economy, which sucked in
millions of hard-working Poles, Czechs etc. Globalisation means that people start relationships between countries: Ryanair wedding bells can be heard all over Britain. Including, I should add, over
the Inverness church where I married five years ago. Immigration was perhaps the biggest single change to Britain over the last decade. Perhaps someday soon we'll be able to talk about it
seriously.
Previous
Tiberius
January 13th, 2012 3:06pm Report this comment"As Gordon Brown worked out, immigration means you can grow the economy – and avoid grasping the nettle of welfare reform. This was the policy Labour adopted".
He also grasped that it won Labour the votes of two constituencies. So Blair's rhetoric on the subject was always destined for the toilet. Not that he had the strength to carry it through anyway.
Welfare and education by themselves should make it clear that not all our political parties are the same.
Halcyondaze
January 13th, 2012 3:10pm Report this commentThis is just one nettle among many that no politician on any side has had the courage to grasp: the surrender of our sovereignty to the EU, uncontrolled mass immigration, the collapse of the rule of law, the abolition of our national identity and the creation of an ever-growing, over-indulged, ill-educated, celebrity-obsessed, welfare-dependent, zombie under-class.
IDS is to be commended for his principle and industry - but he's whistling in the wind. There just isn't the political will there to pull this country out if its decline. The whole system needs to be radically overhauled so that powerful curbs are placed on the numbers flooding into the country and the feckless are kicked out of their stupor and made to work and contribute.
But it's not going to happen. Gone are the Thatchers. Instead we have the Blairs, the Camerons, the Cleggs. Parasites, terrified of offending anyone, feathering their own nests while their country collapses. And when it starts to burn, you won't see any of them for dust.
Heartless Curmudgeon
January 13th, 2012 3:20pm Report this commentSorry Fraser, this is a mash up of disparate elements.
That you mention the wretched Hero of the H2B, his coterie of knaves and fools is bad enough. That you find it heart-breaking is disturbing. That the H2B sees inspiration in that odious person who did so much to ruin Britain is worse still.
Let's hope sanity returns to you all quickly.
PS Mr Hilter did quite a bit to improve German Roads. I'm not so sure he's quoted as The Great Road Builder.
Slim Jim
January 13th, 2012 3:25pm Report this commentAh, so that's why it's OK to allow mass immigration, so that the SS Welfare keeps afloat! At some point though, the tide will need to be turned to enable our out-of-work comrades to get jobs. That of course will require more demand in the economy, and we can see the dilemma we're in as the dole queues increase. The other problem is the provision of a suitable financial incentive to work, like the lowering of income tax and national insurance contributions. Now, about the £60 billion interest bill...
ButcombeMan
January 13th, 2012 3:30pm Report this commentJust brilliantly put. Now tell Polly Toynbee. Better still, give her a guest spot to respond.
kinglear
January 13th, 2012 3:31pm Report this commentHear Hear!
Dennis Churchill
January 13th, 2012 3:49pm Report this commentHalcyondaze
January 13th, 2012 3:10pm
It is no coincidence that IDS is, by background, not a member of the political class.
No PPE (Oxbridge), no stint as a policy Wonk or PR, not even a lawyer.
Workfare is the only way to change the culture, with benefits being dependant on successfully completing at least a three month placement in each year. It does not matter what is done as long as the cycle is broken.
One in three households in Liverpool has no one in work. Even London has areas such as Tower Hamlets with levels of welfare dependency that can’t be explained by economic factors.
Trapped
January 13th, 2012 4:08pm Report this commentThis article is a giant strawman. What the author fails to note is what the Lords opposed, which was some very specific instances concerning ESA awards (retaining contributory status for those undergoing cancer treatment, allowing those who are young and disabled to escape means testing). The very elements that should be vigorously defended.
Come back when we're dealing with JSA and the so called 'feckless workshy', and not when ministers are trying to slip genuinely nasty pieces of legislation in under the radar.
George Shepherd
January 13th, 2012 4:34pm Report this commentSo now IDS begins to contemplate rowing back / u-turning
Last year it was forests and health, this year it seems to be welfare reform and child benefit
U-turn if you want to and so will I etc
The early days of Coalition "Progressive" reform momentum seems to have been lost
We are left with at best a technocratic "we'll spend a bit less than the Left" government - what a diappointment
anxiouswarrior
January 13th, 2012 6:06pm Report this commentsoon the right wing zealots will have to admit defeat in their despicable campaign to destroy social security and the nhs,instead maybe the real criminals ie the square mile, the banks, the rip off utilty companies the right wing gutter press and the rest of the shower of free market fanatics might be called to account.
bewick
January 13th, 2012 7:15pm Report this commentHello Fraser.
I read much about the feckless "won't work" brigade.Many, "liberals"?,decry the "unfair criticism" Sadly the criticsm is true. My small village is mainly middle class and/or professional. Know what? the fairly large cadre of benefit claimants manage to live better than the working professionals. They run around in new cars courtesy of DLA yet show no obvious disablement. Quite a high percentage of the village population and growing as the scam details are shared.
IDS shouldn't give up and, if anything, should have done more and more quickly. Idleness should not be an option.
Have no worries that the genuinely disabled,and genuinely out of work, will suffer and nor should they.
Cynic
January 13th, 2012 8:17pm Report this comment"I think [immigration]'s a net positive, and the chart above is testimony to the industry of an immigrant class that Britain is lucky to have. Most of us don't have to go too far back in our family tree to find immigrant blood." The House of Lords didn't agree with you on the positive benefits of immigration (they don't make us money over all) and what that chart shows is that the indigenous population is not in work while the immigrants are. What's needed is a culture change to make our native unemployed choose to work like incomers rather than expecting something for nothing or having grandiose ideas of what jobs they will take. Changing the nature of benefits will help encourage that. Hopefully that graduate who is citing Yooman Rites not to have to work at Poundland will be told where to get off. I worked for a temp agency after I graduated in the '70s; I took any job as long as it brought me money in before I found something permanent. You'd have to go a long way back in my family tree to find immigrants - back to William of Orange's Dutchmen. The other side of my family is Celt. I think you should get out of the Westminster bubble more often and visit areas of the country that have really "benefited" from immigration and "diversity".
Mike
January 13th, 2012 8:38pm Report this commentthe logic of your piece is that the English are work shy so all these lovely immigrants did their jobs for them. Now we should stop paying those work shy gits for sitting on welfare. Never crossed your mind that racist immigrants might prefer to employ their own kindm thus making swathes of the economy a no-go area for English people. Much of this has been imposed by bien pensant high minded Scots.
Roll on Scottish independence. You can take your mass immigration with you.
keith bibby
January 13th, 2012 10:51pm Report this commentBenefits are the finger in the dike
Junis Nalik
January 13th, 2012 11:36pm Report this commentIDS must not stay his course in the dismantling of the UK welfare state because the latter is already sub-standard.
UK benefit claimants have to put up with inadequate payouts. No British politician can prove their claim the UK unemployment benefits are too high. On the other hand, I can prove the UK unemployment benefits are too low.
http://issuu.com/janus777/docs/uk_unemployment_benefits_compared
Trapped
January 13th, 2012 11:43pm Report this commentOf course, the problem with benefits wouldn't exist if the government didn't have to subsidise people below the poverty line. Which happens because of hyper-competition in the low skilled work sector, which comes from... immigration.
Remove the low skilled immigrants from the picture, and employers would have to start competing for labour once more, this would improve wages at the bottom, thus making the tax credit system redundant, and making the benefits of work entirely self evident, which longer term will reduce the load as a percentile of the benefits system.
Problem solved. Next?
Radford NG
January 14th, 2012 6:26am Report this commentIsay all those fancy people at the Guardian & BBC & Spectator(like Fraser Nelson)should all be sacked & replaced by immigrants from India & Hong Kong who are more hard working & will do it for one third of the pay. This will be very beneficial.The BBC licence fee reduced to £50 for instance.
john Lea
January 14th, 2012 9:50am Report this commentThe way I would sort it is simple: if you have never worked (and therefore have never contributed to society) you would be entitled to absolutely nothing from the state coffers. If you have worked and suddenly find yourself unemployed through no fault of your own, you should receive benefits for a maximum of 6 months (anyone can get a job in that time). Finally, those GENUINELY incapable of working should of course be protected by the state.
clivegsd
January 14th, 2012 11:27am Report this comment@bewick "They run around in new cars courtesy of DLA yet show no obvious disablement"
Well our car isn't new but you can see my wife walking around with "no sign of disablement".
What you can't see is her epilepsy, nor can you see her leg splints as she wears jeans so they are not visible. You might see me using the car and picking her up or dropping her off at hospital/GP appointments or picking up medical supplies.
I take it that this makes her one of your prime targets for the unsubstantiated generalisation you are using?
Oh, and just so you know, the new cars you mention (Motability scheme) are leased. Personally I'd never use that charity scheme as it benefits the charity not the disabled person using it.
It might be best to look into matters before going down the Daily Mail route of classing anyone on disability related benefits as defrauding benefits, especially as fraud stands at 0.5% in DLA, unless you can provide proof that the DWP's own figures are wrong and I'd LOVE to see you do so.
FFS when will the DM-style bigots realise they are falling for the 'divide and rule' Con-trick the ConDems are using to hit the most vulnerable in society?
Radford NG
January 14th, 2012 7:09pm Report this commentI deeply deplore the Soviet Communist attitude that only those workers who contribute to society are entitled to anything.
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