Cameron’s welfare pledge to backbenchers

Why has David Cameron chosen to launch what is effectively a 2015 manifesto pledge on welfare today? The Prime Minister’s speech, which he has just finished giving, had quite interesting timing: we still, after all, have just under three years before the next general election. Cameron has already dropped hints about how much further the Conservatives could go on key areas – and specifically referred to welfare – without the Liberal Democrats holding them back, but this is the first instance where he has pinpointed a particular post-2015 policy.

It leaves the Liberal Democrats once again on the back foot over benefits, suggesting to a public hungry for a more conditional and less generous welfare state that the Government could go so much further without their Coalition partners. The Lib Dems found themselves in an awkward tangle over the first tranche of benefit cuts and reforms, with the party in the Commons publicly supporting the hugely popular £26,000 cap on the amount of money a workless family can receive in handouts (while making plenty of plenty of noises off about the policy), but with peers in the House of Lords trying to water down the proposals. This morning, the party’s deputy leader Simon Hughes told The Times that the priority for his party was “not trying to make life more difficult for those struggling to get a job or find a home at the bottom end of the income scale”.

So for the next two and a bit years, before manifestos have been written or election campaigns launched, clear blue water is already opening up between the parties not just on principles but specific policy issues. It seems remarkably early to do that, and will certainly make things rather more awkward at Prime Minister’s Questions and departmental question times when Conservative backbenchers raise questions about welfare cuts. The problem is whether it is actually too soon to be putting this much water between the two parties, and create even more animosity when relations between the two parties are already rather strained. Making the speech today suggests that Number 10 is now more worried about managing backbenchers by throwing them meat on key issues, rather than managing Coalition relations.

Labour also find themselves on the back foot this afternoon, partly because with no official policy at all on welfare, other than vague noises from Liam Byrne on the increasing importance of a contributory principle, the party is contesting scrapping benefits for under-25s without being able to suggest any viable alternatives.

But where Labour could have the upper hand on Cameron is that Ed Miliband is already vocally tapping in to voter concerns about the cost of living. He is now regularly mentioning his support for a living wage in speeches, which is an easy way of suggesting he is in tune with voters’ concerns about being able to pay their rent and their fuel bills. He obviously does not acknowledge the damage this would do to job creation – and has neatly dodged questions about how he would pay for this by making this something employers would be expected to stump up themselves – but telling voters that they would get a pay rise under Labour is quite evidently attractive. The problem the Government has is whether ministers are able to push truly viable policies which show a compassionate conservatism for strivers, as well as a conditional one for the scroungers the PM attacked today. 

Showing voters you are on their side by making the welfare state fair is only one side of the coin. A family struggling to pay their rent and meet their petrol costs will continue to do so, regardless of whether the family down the road is no longer receiving over £26,000 in benefits. The cost of living is one of the big reasons voters are turning away from the Tories and the progress the Government made on this issue by raising the personal tax allowance in the Budget was unfortunately lost under a mound of pasties, caravans and grannies. As James wrote a few weeks ago, Andrew Cooper has asked ministers to look into any way they can show the Government is “giving the highest priority to addressing the cost of living”. That will address social problems now, not those in 2015, and will be work that Liberal Democrats will be happy to remain on board to carry out. Perhaps the next speech from the Prime Minister needs to focus on what the Government is now doing for the strivers, not just the scroungers.