The Conservatives are tearing themselves apart and showing their true colours on cuts for the disabled and people on low incomes.
Welfare policy and tax within the Liberal Democrats are the areas WE can define ourselves as a party.
Beveridge, always stated that a welfare system is required to protect people who need protection but must avoid idleness and encourage individuals to take up their responsibilities.
As Liberal Democrats we should adopt a progressive welfare policy which protects those with illness, disability and individuals that need to care for others. As well as supporting those who wish to get back into the field of work.
Support being the key word, not sanction.
As Liberal Democrats let us look at some suggestions:
Scrapping the ESA work capability assessments – setting up a simple system with health professionals to confirm someone’s ill health.
Protect disability benefits like we protected the state pension with our triple lock.
Scrap job-seekers allowance – replacing it with a Community Volunteer Allowance, this would help individuals gain skills for work in return for an allowance and housing costs.
Invest in universal credit – with the aim reducing the current red tape and administration costs of our existing 6 benefit (JSA,ESA,HB,CTC,WTC,IS), 3 department system to whom claimants have to currently contact to receive their entitlement (DWP, HMRC, Local Authority) of legacy benefits.
Means test pensioner benefits – with pensioners paying 40% tax exempt from winter fuel allowance and/or free bus passes – to promote welfare for individuals who need protection.
Lastly, adopt a welfare policy with an economic one, let us link the two.
Capital investment to create high skilled jobs that pay well thus creating more individuals paying tax and less welfare being paid out.
It is now clearly being shown how we held the Tories together in coalition, they can keep tearing themselves apart but WE must be ready to fill the gap when this collapse happens.
* Dean Crofts is secretary of North Bedfordshire Liberal Democrats
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36 Comments
No need to means test winter fuel payment once pension ages are aligned. Just make it part of the taxable pension. Adjust the amount so poorer pensioners do not loose out and the higher rate threshold to claw back more from richest ones.
What about a full enquiry by the Party into how it could EVER have allowed a terrible terrible thing like the Bedroom Tax to become a dreaded reality. Tuition fees is a nasty stain on the Lib Dems but the Bedroom Tax has caused utter misery to so many. The decent thing to do would be recognise this before talking about Welfare. Why? Because ex voters like myself will NEVER come back until you do. Like it or not that’s the truth.
I’m afraid the bedroom tax and all the other welfare changes including the appalling ATOS from the coalition days continue to haunt this party. Short of a mea culpa statement by the party leadership, nothing is going to change in the near future.
Good article Dean .We really could do with a green paper on welfare reform underlined by Beverage principles .IDS confirmed what so many of us thought that Conservative reforms were more about benefit cuts than assisting people to make a constructive contribution to the world of work or support for those with genuine ill health or disability problems. put this through the policy debate group to gain additional traction and draft a motion for September Conference calling for green paper to be brought forward for discussion with the membership.
I wonder how many recipients are negatively effected by having 3 different benefit agencies? When there can be such a long waiting time for each to pick up the phone, it must be utterly exasperating to discover one government department won’t speak to another about your claim, except if they think they can take money off you of course.
There was nothing wrong in principle with the Spare Room Supplement aka The Bedroom Tax. The idea of getting people to downsize to make larger properties available makes sense. HOWEVER, you have got to have the smaller properties available in sufficient numbers and in the same locality if possible to make it work. Anyone with a basic knowledge of local government could have told the bright so and so’s at Westminster that these kinds of properties were as rare as rocking horse s……! Did they and, if they did, did anybody listen?
It wouldn’t be the first time that mistakes have been made as most MPs have no idea how local government works. Do they know that many councils have allowed Housing Associations to take over and run their social housing stock? So, how can they be forced to sell off property which is no longer theirs let alone build a new one with the proceeds? It’s time that national politicians did their homework. And then there’s the ignorance of how LEAs work………
“There was nothing wrong in principle with the Spare Room Supplement aka The Bedroom Tax. The idea of getting people to downsize to make larger properties available makes sense. HOWEVER, you have got to have the smaller properties available in sufficient numbers and in the same locality if possible to make it work.”
I agree – the principle was fine but the execution truly horrible.
Arguments about the ‘principle’ of the BEDROOM TAX????. When Danny Alexander used the chilling term ‘BEDROOM BLOCKERS’ he was aiming his words at the poor and disabled who could not answer back. Myself and many many like me who lent or strictly voted Lib Dem well we are answering back. The Lib Dems are heading to 5th place country wide, less Councillors year by year destroyed in Scotland and forgotten in Wales. The BEDROOM TAX is the rock the party perished on and you talk of ‘principle’. Awful.
A couple of points –
if the bedroom tax was an unmitigated electoral disaster how come Joe Public voted in a Conservative govt? John Marriott is quite correct. The taxpayer can not stand by and watch people in difficulties not have a roof over their heads but lots of those taxpayers live in private sector dwellings and are scrimping and saving to afford a bigger place themselves.
to say we need an economic policy to pay for it all is sensible but to ‘create high skilled jobs through capital investment’ is a delusion. Our infrastructure investments are doing wonders for the economies of Germany, France and Japan where the stuff is now made and they put money into the workers pockets so they can buy Chinese phones and Korean flat screen TVs.
A revival of UK value add is much, very much, harder than the magic potion “infrastructure”.
@ Barry Snelson “if the bedroom tax was an unmitigated electoral disaster how come Joe Public voted in a Conservative govt?”
They didn’t. 63% of the electorate voted for anybody else but the Tories…. a majority government was down to the electoral system and a sustained barrage by the Murdoch/Desmond/Rothermere press – Desmond’s Channel 5 Scroungers Benefit Street stuff and Murdoch’s Sky TV..
As for the Lib Dems the public formed a view which some of us had warned them about and others who thought they got what they deserved..
@Barry Snelson “to ‘create high skilled jobs through capital investment’ is a delusion”
How else do you propose to create highly skilled jobs? Our economy can’t compete against China or Vietnam on unit labour cost – nor should we try.
To compete means we have to have a more highly skilled (educated) workforce using better tools, and long term thinking that favours R&D spending over shareholder dividends. All of which requires high levels of investment and a culture of lifelong learning.
Barry Snelson are you saying this is just Grown Up politics. The Lib Dems have been battered to a pulp and lost so much is it still ok? The Conservatives are in power and the Lib Dems ate having to watch as ex voters like myself have simply walked away. Can ye never ever say sorry. Awful.
It will be very difficult to forget the LibDems who went “native” with the Tories in the last Government. Those like Danny Alexander who also played a lead role in Better Together have been rewarded by knighthood and an attractive employment opportunity.
The great many decent Liberals Within the party need to win it back from those who seek power and reward ahead of principle. Westminster Political Parties have been taken over by career politicians with little interest in core values of the party they represent.
As for Scotland. I’m afraid it is too late. The most recent issue alone, the Carmichael saga and it’s defence by leading LibDems, has sealed the parties chances in Scotland.
One thing I am certain of is that looking back with anger blaming each other will delay our recovery. People with nothing positive to say would be better saying nothing.
On the Community Volonteers idea, I have been in a handful of these schemes & they are dishonest crap. You cant tell people to volonteer.
On ATOS, horrible system, brought in by Labour & replaced under The Coalition.
@Paul barker. Looking back in anger just does not cut it. A party that told me ‘No more broken promises’ and gets my vote only to assist in the evil dreaded BEDROOM TAX cant just forget what happened and move on. Tim Farron seems like a decent guy but until I get a full blooded apology for voting into Government a party that inflicted the BEDROOM TAX on Societys weakest I wont move on I wont forget. Also do you apply your ‘Nothing good to say then don’t say it’ logic when you pop uo on Labour Uncut. Hmmmmm.
I only have one issue with this piece where you say “supporting those who wish to get back into the field of work.”. I think you need to replace “who wish” with “are able”. Support absolutely, sanction only as a last resort. It is naive to assume that all who can work wish to work just as it is evil to sanction those who really aren’t able to work.
Proper assessments by truly independent occupational health professionals supported by more resources into initiatives such as access to work. Pay for it by scrapping the fit for work scheme.
In fact avoid giving a contract to a single provider entirely by making The DWP use any SEQOHS accredited OH Providers in their locality and offering the work on a rotational basis with no incentive to force people back to work. That way no one has a reason to be anything other than independent medical advisors…
Hi thanks for the comments so far.
Yes we got the bedroom tax incorrect by not protecting and exempting the disabled but instead getting them to apply for Discretionary Housing Payments. The budget for this was doubled though and increased year on year while we were in coalition. It has levelled the playing field for new social renters and private renters who have had these rules since 2003 when the Local Housing Allowance rates were introduced.
I agree you cannot force anyone to volunteer, the same as you cannot force anyone to look for work – but we force people to look for work now if they want to claim benefit. A welfare system has to have an element of responsibility to avoid idleness – a Beveridge principle.
I would much rather people are able to choose to receive benefit for wanting to volunteer with an organisation and gain skills, avoiding sanctions if they volunteer and help the community – the skills available are endless. If they do not want to volunteer or work then unfortunately no benefit is available but that is a persons choice.
Bus companies are paid according to how often bus passes are used. Rich people don’t use buses so the cost to the government is negligible. It’s certainly less than the cost of means-testing.
Almost all fuel bills are smoothed out over twelve payments so fuel costs are not higher in winter. It should just be included in the pension.
“Almost all fuel bills are smoothed out over twelve payments so fuel costs are not higher in winter. It should just be included in the pension.”
Which would make it taxable at the pensioner’s highest rate – clawing some back from the better off.
I’ve never understood why the government needs to test the disabled when they have GPs, helpers, hospitals and in some cases social workers providing excellent highly trained expertise. IMO. all the variations on ATOS style tests are a scam designed to intimidate and bully disabled out of money. Rotten to the core, really.
Aside from that, well said Paul Barker. The recriminations need to stop.
The bedroom tax was an unfair wasteful policy. It costs too much to administrate it, people who paid full rent for their properties over 20 years and then lost their jobs due to the recession fell victim to the tax and accrued housing arrears. When they were paying full rent did they get a discount because they were only using 1/2 rooms? – no they paid rent on the property not by room. The tenancy agreements do not mention a cost by room. A better way would have been to ask people to relocate to smaller properties where possible and to limit the rents on social housing on a tier system based on the number of bedrooms. Also adding more council tax bands for properties over £400,000 in 1991 rates.
Introducing a cold hard fact into a red hot argument – Private tenants have always had this ‘bedroom tax’ since Local Housing Allowance was introduced – they’ve never been given a rate higher than the size of their household, it’s always gone up and down as the size of their household changes, and they’ve always had to find the difference between the rent and their LHA from their existing benefits .
That said, introducing it into social housing in the way it was done was a complete mess. If it had been applied only to new tenants it would not have caused the problems that it did.
Tim Farron voted against the Bedroom Tax and Danny Alexander is no longer an MP. It was a terrible mistake made by our MPs who did not listen to our councillors and did not listen to the Child Poverty Action Group who said that it wouldn’t work. The lesson we should learn from this is not to trust the Tories and to do our own research BEFORE deciding what policies to implement. I wish we never made that mistake, but Tim lead the opposition to the welfare cuts proposed by the Tories last year and supported by Harriett Harman and the Labour part abstained. We have both moved on since then.
I am curious about “Scrap job-seekers allowance – replacing it with a Community Volunteer Allowance, this would help individuals gain skills for work in return for an allowance and housing costs.”
This seems a bit woolly to me. Will these “volunteer job” replace existing jobs. If not where will the work come from? Is it voluntary or compulsory? Is there something like it in some other country where such a scheme works?
Dean, I would say that if a Lib Dem policy in any area, does not seek to empower local authorities and devolve spending and decision-making, we are falling into the trap of being the ‘not quite like the others’ party. There is a real lack in all parties of policies that empower local democratic decision-making.
This needs to be our distinctive, in my opinion. Can we bring this to bear on benefits / welfare, starting from where the Coalition and the current government have got us to?
On a question of accuracy, Tim at first voted for the bedroom tax – but later. after looking at the evidence, voted against it.
Interesting as the main article is, there are dangers in making policy up on the hoof……. especially on the item questioned by Geoffrey Payne “Scrap job-seekers allowance – replacing it with a Community Volunteer Allowance”,
If there are to be changes, Geoffrey Payne is right to call for research.
I would emphasise it should be in depth research led by a respected academic consulting informed organisations such as the Citizens Advice Bureau, The Child Poverty Action Group and The Tressell Trust. The problem post 2010 was that there had been no in depth thinking by the Lib Dem leadership and it was far too easy to be over impressed by IDS and his ‘thinking’.
I do agree that as a society we haven’t tackled “idleness” one of Beveridge’s targets, so we now have two or three generations in some areas who haven’t worked. I do agree with allowing people to volunteer and learn skills that way and charities used to have volunteers’ charters which formalised their work, but this is unlikely to help the long term unemployed who may be suffering structural unemployment. It is important to allow local communities to offer the support that is relevant to the type of unemployment their area is suffering from. Perhaps anyone who remains unemployed after three months could be required to work for three days a week and the local authority would be expected to organise and find work for them. This could be done through charities but could also be unskilled work which doesn’t get done at the moment like litter picking and cleaning. Of course the option of retraining must always be offered.
I believe it would be unacceptable for those who are generationally unemployed to be expected to work without support in exercising skills such as time keeping, reliability, acceptance of authority etc. which are the skills which everyone needs at work but which are quite easily lost. The idea of requiring people to work would help to prevent the loss of these basic skills in the first place.
With regard to structural unemployment like the loss of coal mining or steel works then the local authority might need to work with the local authorities of areas with job opportunities to help people train and move to that area. In the past the choice would have been to move or to starve, which, of course, many people did when certain industries experienced a rapid decline. It is difficult for people to move to a more prosperous area at the moment, especially if they are renting in social housing or if owners when their house suddenly declines in value.
I believe that unemployment it is a terrible waste of talent and that much more thought needs to go into how we make our workforce more able to respond to the requirements of our modern economy with its reliance on short term contracts and demand for different skills over the course of a lifetime.
I don’t understand how “voluntary work for benefits” would not lead to total chaos let alone save money. For starters, if an unemployed person’s only option to receive the money that they need to survive is to do “voluntary” work then the work is not “voluntary”. They are doing work under compulsion. Who will check that every compulsory-volunteer will actually “work” as opposed to just clocking on and standing around with their hands in their pockets? Will someone who works really hard at their compulsory-voluntary job be paid more benefits than someone who does the work half-heartedly? Who will monitor sickness, absences, maternity/paternity leave, child-care emergencies? Will their be annual leave? Who will decide the working hours? Will the worker have to meet targets (“you have sold twenty books in the local Oxfam shop today, unfortunately the target is thirty so your benefits will be stopped this week”)? I have done a lot of voluntary work and I know that problems between volunteers or members of the public are commonplace. Who will deal with issues such as complaints from customers about bad service by a demotivated complusory-volunteer or someone ill-suited to customer service? Issues such as bad mangement, poor leadership, workplace bullying, abuse, conflicts, poor quality results? Will the compulsory-volunteers have to be assessed regularly? By whom? By what criteria? Perhaps they could join a union to campaign for better working conditions and higher wages? Will a complusory-volunteer be eligible for promotion or some kind of career path? Who will monitor dress codes? Who will carry out risk assessments? Will skilled voluntary work attract more benefits then unskilled voluntary work? Didn’t this kind of exploitation used to be called “Workfare” in the USA? How did that work out? By the time you have full-time managers and systems in place to deal with all these issues then I wonder how much of a saving on benefits will be made. It boils down to having to face the fact: in the modern world there is not enough paid work to go around. We will have to pay all of our population to work less or pay some of our population to not work at all. At present, our clunky benefit system designed for a bygone era is doing nothing well. Some kind of citizens income is about the best available option. The Liberals used to propose citizens income, I hear. Pity they abandoned it.
Sue Sutherland “we now have two or three generations in some areas who haven’t worked”. Any evidence for that assertion?
Sue Sutherland said
“I do agree that as a society we haven’t tackled “idleness” one of Beveridge’s targets, so we now have two or three generations in some areas who haven’t worked.”
When Beveridge talked about idleness he was actually referencing the enforced idleness of unemployment – not the supposed lifestyle choice of a few.
As for your assertion that there are three generations of families who haven’t had work, that goes against a study carried out by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation which said
“We undertook concerted, intensive fieldwork in very deprived neighbourhoods of Glasgow and Middlesbrough but we were unable to locate any families with three generations who had never worked. If such families exist, they can only account for a minuscule fraction of workless people. Recent surveys suggest that less than one per cent of workless households might have two generations who have never worked. Families with three such generations will therefore be even fewer. ”
So – less than 1% of workless families have more than one generation who have never worked.
“The Liberals used to propose citizens income, I hear. Pity they abandoned it.”
The Liberals didn’t. The Liberal Democrats have managed to avoid discussing it through a policy making process where neither benefits working parties nor tax working parties can discuss integrating the two.
Yesterday I read in the paper that a man who had ‘glassed’ someone was sentenced to carry out unpaid work.
There are some who think that unemployed people should also be ‘sentenced’ to carry out unpaid work to ‘earn’ their benefits.
Why do they apparently equate unemployed people with convicted offenders? And why do they think that both groups should be treated similarly?
I think volunteering should be an option for people claiming benefits as long as its voluntary and in a field which will help them gain the job they want. It should be restricted to 5-6 hrs per week so they can have the time to apply for jobs either within the organisation they are volunteering for or for a similar employer. It is a really good option for the long term unemployed/people with disabilities to build their confidence up. I think Access to Work should be paid for disabled people to join in with volunteering for one day a week.
Oh dear I seem to have upset some people while trying to think outside the box about welfare. First of all there is a Lib Dem group called Liberal Democrats for Basic Income which is carrying out research on this.
I’m sorry if there is no longer any evidence of three generations being unemployed but back in the late 1990s when I was studying on a PG housing course there was much concern about this and the development of an underclass . I wrongly assumed that the present world recession would have done nothing to alleviate this. There is an interesting paper ‘ The Intergenerational Transmission of Worklessness in the UK 2010’ which does find a small correlation between father and sons unemployment. The JRT report which found no evidence for 3 generations of unemployed in two areas was, I think, mainly concentrating on a perceived culture of worklessness which they disproved.
I would like to point out to a Social Liberal that no where in my post did I say that unemployment is a lifestyle choice. Instead I talked about structural unemployment arising from Britain’s industrial decline.
However, I have found that thinking the unthinkable can lead on to creative ideas in problem solving so I’m sorry that my suggestions met with a long stream of negativity from Ed Shepherd. I could have stopped myself from commenting by thinking of all those negatives but I know that political will is very important in making change.
Jane Ann Linton I am not thinking of work as a punishment. I think unemployment is a punishment. Unemployment benefit should be paid at the level of a living wage and alternative work or training should be provided. When a town loses its main employer this has a devastating effect, not only on the people who become directly unemployed but on the economy of the whole town.
I am interested in the idea of a basic income but I don’t think we should be paying people and enforcing idleness. Having little money, lack of the camaraderie of workmates, the boredom of daytime TV, nowhere to go and little interaction with others combined with the shock of being made redundant doesn’t seem to me like the sort of life any Lib Dem should be wishing on another human being.
Sue Sutherland
‘ I have found that thinking the unthinkable can lead on to creative ideas in problem solving’
The problem is that every time there is a change of government-Tory-Labour-coalition, a minister comes in and ‘thinks the unthinkable’ and ‘says the unsayable’. Remember the appalling George Osborne jibe about the unemployed having the curtains drawn while the ‘Strivers’ went to work? Or what about Clegg’s ill-fated ‘alarm-clock Britain? All designed to pit one group against another.
It has all been said.
The idea of getting the unemployed to work for benefits has been tried and has failed. Forcing them to ‘volunteer’ just sounds like another idea from the same stable of Tory-Blairite policies which carry the same assumption – the unemployed are not people who have fallen on hard times or bad luck, but are feckless.
I want to hear from the Party of Beveridge a policy about restoring dignity to those who find themselves unemployed, and by definition this does not involve force.
Dignity for those who find themselves unemployed is the heart of a Liberal approach to welfare.
Helen I can remember attending a Lib Dem women’s policy group a short time after the party was established. One of the long serving members was annoyed about the lack of childcare provision and its effect on female inequality in Britain and said that we’ve done all we can on childcare, we’ve said it all.
So I totally disagree with you that it has all been said. It has never all been said until a solution is found to alleviate poverty. Unemployed people have often not fallen on hard times or had bad luck, they are victims of recession, of a decline in a type of industry, or of one company taking over another. I do not see why they should be forced into idleness, which is a totally demoralising state to be in.
If we are to find Lib Dem solutions to problems we have to start at the beginning again, not tack on bits and pieces to a failed system or be blinkered by other parties assumptions. There is nothing dignified about unemployment I can assure you, but contributing to society can bring back self respect.
‘There is nothing dignified about unemployment I can assure you, but contributing to society can bring back self respect.’
Not if it is indistinguishable from community payback sentences, and not if it is inappropriate to one’s abilities and only designed to waste one’s time. I speak as somebody who has been unemployed for four and a half years, though escaped all the hoops and hurdles of Job Seeking Allowance (which in my case was only my NI credits) nearly a year ago when I clocked up 35 contributory years. The idea mooted in the newspapers that I might be forced to serve in a café, make meals for older people (i.e. not much older than I) or pick up litter in the park, none of which was going to help me get a job and when it had been admitted that I was and always had been ‘work ready’ and was doing all I could to find work, really scared me. The media portrayal of unemployed people also caused me stress and worry, affecting my health.
We need to acknowledge that one can do everything right and still not get the job simply because of the employer’s preference, which is sometimes a mere whim, and stop loading all the responsibility on to the job seeker. Some employers see some people as simply unemployable through no fault of their own, so it is wrong that the latter are made to feel their failure to get a job is somehow their ‘fault’. I’d like to see an agreement with employers to enter into a ‘without prejudice’ dialogue with long-term unemployed and their advisers, rather than unsuccessful applicants being fobbed off with arm’s-length feedback which might not even be the truth, or having to play a ‘guessing game’ with the JobCentre to work out why the latest application was unsuccessful.