On Thursday we saw Ed Miliband deliver his big policy speech on welfare, introducing his ‘youth tax’ in an attempt to be tougher on the Tories than welfare. In the process he proved that Labour, not content with failing to manage the economy properly in their last time in government, have given up on any idea of fairness or social justice for their next time in government.
Interestingly, the policy he announced had been reported on twice already by newspapers, the Sun and the Telegraph, over the course of the past year and, on each occasion, was rubbished by the Shadow DWP Secretary, Rachel Reeves, and senior Labour MPs and PPCs.
I won’t go into too much detail on the ‘youth tax’ but here are its key features:
- Young people will generally be ineligible to claim housing benefit based on the concept that their parents should look after them instead.
- Young people without the equivalent of 3 A Levels will be ineligible for unemployment benefit but will instead be forced to train towards getting those qualifications in exchange for a £56 a week youth allowance which would be (expensively) means tested against parental income with the amount being reduced as soon as parental income goes above £20,000 a year
- Five years of national insurance contributions will be required in order to claim full rate unemployment benefit instead of two
Why is this unfair? In short because it’s punitive and based on bad assumptions. It assumes that a household on £20,000 a year can afford to, or is willing to, help support an additional adult. It punishes young people who’ve been failed by the education system by forcing them (rather than giving them the option) to train for qualifications which they might genuinely not need or be capable of obtaining and by stripping them of the ability to claim housing benefit in almost all cases.
And this matters because we do not live in a fair society. Youth unemployment is twice the national unemployment rate. Figures reported by the Independent yesterday show that poverty is increasing. 18 million can’t afford adequate housing conditions. 5.5 million adults go without essential clothing. 4 million children and adults are not properly fed. 2.5 million children live in damp homes. 1 in 3 cannot afford to heat their homes properly in winter. 17% of adults in paid work are poor and 21% were in arrears on household bills in 2012.
The response to this by the Conservatives has been to call for cutting a further £20 billion from the welfare budget. Labour’s response has been Ed Miliband’s attempt to appear tougher on welfare than the Conservatives. With both major parties abdicating any sense of responsibility for social justice and fairness, the only party left that can stand up for this pillar of a civilised society is the Liberal Democrats. We haven’t got everything right in government, and we’ve definitely made some mistakes on welfare which I will always oppose, but I’m also proud we blocked the Tories planned £20 billion additional cuts to welfare and stopped hosting benefit being stripped from under 25s. We now have the opportunity to show our fairer society credentials if, and only if, we are now prepared to step up to the plate and stand up for those in poverty and deprivation.
In my second article in this series I’ll talk about how we could start to do that.
* George Potter is a Vice-Chair of the Social Liberal Forum and a campaigner for Guildford Liberal Democrats, writing in a personal capacity.
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28 Comments
It is blatant inequality discriminating against young adults. They should have the same options as all other adults. Too much do we talk of sexism and racism but ignore the barriers young adults face because they don’t have access to the same rights as someone who may be just a few years older. Equally though I consider it a failure of us as a country if young adults are going straight from school to benefits. Whether training, apprenticeships, jobs, further or higher education more needs to be done to stop the need to even consider putative welfare measures for young adults.
Well said, George, and I look forward to the second article covering actual policy matters. At the heart of the problem (as with much else) is, as you say, the failure of some sectors of the state education system to equip young people with the skills (hard and, above all, ‘soft’) and, unfortunately in many cases, the attitudes, required to get them into employment in the first place. I think far too many schools have been forced to focus so narrowly on league table results that broader issues of preparing young people for post-school* life has been lost sight of and the usual ‘shunt’ of GCSE > A Level > degree operates without any broader considerations far too often. School ‘careers advice’* is also a joke in many areas since ‘Connections’ etc was scrapped (http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/ofsted-wants-schools-to-lift-their-game-on-careers-advice-9168704.html) (*although I have to say that even many HE institutions seem to be pretty atrocious in this regard as well (http://graduatefog.co.uk/2011/1285/university-careers-advice-update-anne-wilson/) and seem in some cases to have little interest in the post-undergraduate fates of their alumni (apart, naturally, from those progressing to postgrad. studies). One of the MEGA-fallacies of my generation (university in 1970s) was that employment opportunities and outcomes would just go on for ever getting better and better. Young people today deserve much better.
Well said, Paul. I agree entirely with what you say, especially the final two sentences. When I think of the outcome of eleven (or more) years of compulsory state education for far too many young people in England and Wales, I despair (and can even begin to understand why so many of them feel ‘betrayed’ by oldies like me and the entire political system (leading them not to vote but to tune in to YouTube videos by Russell Brand and other such ‘sages’ (who can more than safely afford not to be bothered getting involved in civic society matters, vote etc) (“The rich can afford to be ignorant!” (Lloyd George))
With both major parties abdicating any sense of responsibility for social justice and fairness, the only party left that can stand up for this pillar of a civilised society is the Liberal Democrats. We haven’t got everything right in government, and we’ve definitely made some mistakes on welfare which I will always oppose, but I’m also proud we blocked the Tories planned £20 billion additional cuts to welfare and stopped hosting benefit being stripped from under 25s.
Sorry, but it’s more than just “mistakes” that have been made by this government. Given their recent record, the Lib Dems can’t claim to have “stood up for fairness”.
I disagree with Labour on the youth JSA first I think the youth should get the funds at 18 and second in my view it’s likely to drive down birth rate if you will pay until 21 in addition I think that minimum wage for youth should be the same as adult unless employer is paying for training out of house
While I agree with much of this article, I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick with this bit :-
“Five years of national insurance contributions will be required in order to claim full rate unemployment benefit instead of two”
What Labour are saying is that while the standard rate of unemployment benefit will remain unchanged, there will be an increase in the amount paid to people who have five years of contributions. So this particular part of the proposals is a benefit increase, but you have worded it so that it sounds like a cut!
As for the rest of it – while a lot of what you say is good, you’re a long way from convincing me that the Lib Dems are the party who can be most relied upon to stand up for fairness. Probably the biggest single losers from the benefit changes of the last four years were the part-time workers who lost all their tax credits very early on in the coalition – in some cases losing a vast proportion of their household income. Labour stood up for them – the Lib Dems didn’t.
I think Stuart is right and that what Cruddas/the IPPR Report (from which Milliband has lifted these various policy proposals) is attempting to do is to restore the contributory principle to a range of welfare payments, particularly JSA, as they found this went down well with focus groups when they were researching the report. I also cannot see that the principle is one to which Liberals can object, as it goes through Beveridge and right back to Lloyd George and Churchill.
As regards the 18-21 “reforms”, though, I agree with Owen Jones on yesterday’s “Newsnight” who said they are just “window dressing” and aimed purely at portraying Labour as “tough on benefits” and trying to bury the “tax and spend” legacy. As Jones pointed out, the reforms will be useless until such time as the British economy can again provide well paid, decent and secure jobs (which will save enormous amounts in subsidizing employers (e.g. through tax credits)) for the young people who come off such programmes (which, by the way would not have to be “the equivalent of 3 A Levels” (as just one A or AS Level on its own is a ‘Level 3’ programme)). Jones pointed out that we currently have 30%+ of graduates in jobs for which a degree is not required so just getting hung on up training/courses and not having sufficient traction in the economy to then provide the right kinds of jobs at the end of such courses/training is hardly going to solve the problem. What is needed is a kind of (Lloyd George/NOT the other!) “Orange Book” with a proper industrial strategy to rebalance the UK economy away from overdependence on services/finance to industry and exports while stimulating sectors such as renewables and, in particular, house building.
Lib Dems fair? Tell that to the families of Calum’s List
To clarify, I don’t think that the Lib Dem record in government means that we can claim the mantle of social justice. But I do think that we are the only major party left which is capable of claiming that mantle.
To claim it we need to embrace the principles and policy necessary to speak convincingly on social fairness though – that’s what the next two articles will cover.
And also, while I accept that Ed Miliband is somewhat trying to restore the contributory principle, I actually disagree with that model entirely as we don’t have a social insurance model of welfare at the moment but a bastardised model of social insurance coupled with multiple mechanisms designed to limit support only to those whom the government deems to be “deserving”.
Ed Miliband’s reforms, which are based on the assumption that young people are not deserving of help unless they have, or are trying to get, Level 3 qualifications, is part and parcel of this artificial and harmful distinction between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor which started with Beveridge himself when he classed “idleness” as one of the five great evils he wished to destroy and designed our welfare system accordingly.
Charles R – Fortunately, I think Lloyd George’s Book was Yellow, not Orange!
@Charles Rothwell
You’re quite right about Level 3 qualifications – I seem to have somehow combined Level 3 and A Levels when, as you say, a Level 3 qualification is the equivalent of an A level rather than 3 of them.
I would endorse the comments of Charles Rothwell. The IPPR report http://www.ippr.org/publications/the-condition-of-britain-strategies-for-social-renewal includes much that Libdems could agree with such as the collective defined contribution pensions, which share the risks underlying pension investments and so provide greater security for individual savers as developed by pensions minister, Steve Webb.
The report also highlights the need to reduce the deficit and the pressure this is putting on the benefits system, noting:
“However, the best way to control rises in the benefits bill is to tackle the deep-rooted factors that drive higher spending, such as low pay, insufficient housing, high childcare costs and long-term unemployment…it is vital to pursue a strategy for shifting the balance of spending away from cash transfers and towards social investments in housing, childcare and employment.”
I look forward to George’s next two articles discussing the principles and policy necessary to speak convincingly on social justice and fairness
@ George potter.
Electorally this is a case of wanting the cake and eating it. You can’t seriously be saying that your record in government is not supportive of the social justice mantel but only the libdems can claim it outside of government?
I’m sorry, and I’ll always be grateful for the way George Potter personally opposed the cuts to disability benefits, but the day the LibDems voted the Welfare Reform Bill through was the day the Liberal Democrats forever forsook any claim to be the party of fairness. DWP accept I’m unfit for work, and my situation is unlikely to change in the long term, other than for the worse, but, thanks to LibDem support for Iain Duncan Smith’s war on disabled people, my eligibility for benefits, and that of hundreds of thousands of other disabled people now time-limited on ESA (because clearly it’s totally reasonable to expect a miracle cure for any disability in 12 months) is precisely zero.
The party of fairness? Don’t make me laugh.
@Richard Harris
My point is that, while the Lib Dems have definitely made mistakes in Coalition, the Tories have shown that they have no interest in a fairer society and Labour have shown that they are willing to sacrifice any interest they have in one in favour of an attempt to sound tougher than the Tories on welfare. That leaves us as the only party capable of saying that yes, we’ve had to make compromises in Coalition and some of them weren’t as good as they could have been, but we’ve also blocked Tory plans to destroy the welfare state and we are now the only party committed to building a fairer society in the next parliament.
In order to say that we need to have the policy to match but my point is that the political space is there for us to occupy since both Labour and the Tories have abandoned it.
@George potter
Sorry George, but its a bit like claiming that the lib dems are best place to be the nice party who want things to be better for everyone. I can’t imagine any party saying anything different as about themselves, so you are left with the record of each party when in power to see who is fairest. I’m afraid the libdem record is no better, and possibly a little worse than labour when one considers the LDs failed to halt really regressive policies put forward by the Tories but supported by the libdems. Just telling everyone that you really didn’t mean it isn’t enough. You would have an argument if the party had sacrificed power on the principle of fairness but you did not. I say again, you cannot have been part of this government and then claim to be something fundamentally different.
“In order to say that we need to have the policy to match but my point is that the political space is there for us to occupy since both Labour and the Tories have abandoned it.”
The point is that – on the evidence of their actions – the Lib Dems have abandoned it as well.
@George Potter
“yes, we’ve had to make compromises in Coalition”
Easy to say when you aren’t one of the hundreds of thousands of disabled people and people in desperate ne3ed of support sacrificed for those compromises! Until the LibDems acknowledge they betrayed the people they should have stood by, and correct that by reversing WRA, bedroom tax and all the rest of IDS’s war on those in need, they cannot claim to be any better than the Tories, in fact they’ll need to drag themselves up a level to even compete with the Tories, because we expect the Tories to stab those in need in the back, but we don’t expect the LibDems to volunteer to twist the knife for them.
The political space for a party that supports fairness for all may well be out there, but the LibDems are not fit to occupy it until the harm they have done in pursuit of power is reversed.
@Chris
“the Lib Dems have abandoned it as well”
By the way, why did you stop using the Aloysius handle?
As to fairness, Jon Stewart said, ‘If you don’t stick to your values when they’re being tested, they’re not values: they’re hobbies.’
What about some fairness by doing things to reduce energy prices? Have the Lib Dems considered introducing marine energy as a way to achieve this?
Always worth remembering that all it would take for any one of the governments policies to fail would be for the Liberal Democrats to pull out of the Coalition.
Instead of telling us how fair they are, why don’t they prevent the Coalition’s unfair policies from proceeding by doing this?
“By the way, why did you stop using the Aloysius handle?”
I decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to carry on using my real name. There can’t be that many people called Anthony Aloysius St around, and I don’t want the Clegg police turning up at my door at 6am.
Well done George. Looking forward to Part 2, and please don’t stop there. We need to keep on with the campaign until the leadership starts talking about Fairer Society as much as about Stronger Economy.
DavidG
No policy is created to cut support from those who deserve it. I’m assuming there is a right of appeal in a case like yours and local support services to check that you are treated fairly in your appeal. You are right that too any people have lost financial support in unfair ways and there should be financial reparation when their later claims are upheld.
Tony, are you really suggesting anybody who has had their benefits cut ‘deserves’ it? That’s a moral judgement and an odious way to do welfare.
Two sides to every story. My mum teaches people (mainly the young and the unemployed) Environmental Conservation for a fairly well known environmental charity, in partnership with a college. Every year they face uncertainty over whether they have enough students to continue the course. Part of the reason is that many of the students are told that carrying on the course means they’ll lose their benefits. For the first time that problem is being addressed and it’s allowing people to get training where previously they couldn’t. It’s not a pointless course either – it’s helped people find work with charities and regeneration projects, councils and as gardeners.
I’ve spoken to people aged 18-21 about this (helps that I’m 19) and they all seem to be in agreement. It meeds work on how the means testing should work but the reporting of this (“Miliband Kicks Poor”) has run way ahead of the reality.
g, all the evidence is that if the Liberal Democrats pulled out of the coalition, whatever government we had instead would give the welfare budget a bigger hammering (perhaps excepting benefits for the better off)
The problem is though, that there is no evidence of what will happen in the future, just what happened in the past. And that sadly shows what a mess our leadership have made of it.
Joe, what evidence is this?