I must admit I haven’t read every chapter of the Purple Book. But two chapters in particular have caught my attention: those by Frank Field and Liam Byrne.
These chapters grapple with Labour’s post-election anxieties about public hostility to ‘welfare’. Both favour a more contributory, personalised approach to social support. The more you put in, the more you’d get out – the ‘something for something’ approach.
I like the writers’ recognition that we need a more generous social security system. And I agree that contribution (if understood as widely as possible) and conditionality can be important components of a system that offers adequate protection and secures public support. But some of the policy solutions proposed could create a decidedly two-tier system, with more generous benefits for those who can fall within a defined sphere of entitlement, but much less on offer for those who do not.
That’s not to say there should be no conditionality in the benefits system, though complaints about a culture of worklessness-by-choice seem wide of the mark when unemployment, especially among women and young people, is rising very fast. But I’m worried that policy’s being too much driven by a problem of public perception, and the fallout could be an ever starker divide between the haves and have-nots.
The truth is that for the vast majority, worklessness isn’t some kind of ‘lifestyle choice’, but humiliating, frightening and bleak. Sadly, however, stop-go, unstable employment is for many people a worrying fact of life. Yet while those experiencing sporadic employment face a higher risk of poverty, neither Liam’s nor Frank’s proposals offer adequate protection to this group.
Instead, an increasingly individualised system of support would offer more protection to those who function most effectively, whether in the labour market or in the wider community. While I’m all for recognising individual autonomy (and l like Liam’s use of the language of ‘power’), a collective approach to risk pooling is necessary if adequate protection for everyone, at each stage in their lifecourse, is to be ensured.
Social security can’t take all the strain of improving labour market chances, eliminating structural inequalities, or increasing opportunity, though it can certainly help ‘enable’ participation, by actively preventing poverty, not just acting as a safety net. If that’s the goal of the Purple Book authors, it’s something to be welcomed, and it’s right to pursue the debate. But we must be very careful that those who already face the greatest risk of exclusion are not left behind.
—————————————————————————————
Kate Green is MP for Stretford and Urmston and writes a weekly column or Progress, Kate Comments
How about losing your ability to walk ,take a pee, and open one’s bowels would you think that’s a disability, I’m classed as being Paraplegic, yet able to work according to labours ATOS group.
I suspect I will not be voting Labour any time soon as for the purple book and Frank field says it all really
I completely agree with Kate. Individual empowerment is key – and it needs to be recognised that this can only be obtained via a greater understanding of the personal circumstances of individuals who find themselves in need of this area of support, over and above the usual public service user.
It also needs to be recognised that there are an increasing number of disabed who are being allocated ‘nothing for something’ – brutally taken out of eligibility for vital disability benefits which enable them to sustain themselves and often contribute in return, thrown into the melee of the over-stretched JCP system without any hope of finding work which is suitable – if indeed they are fit to work or even queue to sign on at all. At a time when there are 25 people after each job and employers will always pick the ablest and the fittest – the law of the jungle has returned with a vengeance.
I have an increasing list of genuine case studies of people whose conditions have been completely ignored by ATOS and who now find themselves having to take out loans to cover their basic living costs whilst waiting to appeal ( Stella Creasy will be familiar with this scenario!). This includes those with mutiple and complex variable states such as MS, but also some with clear and straightforward temporary orthopaedic conditions requiring complex reconstructive surgeryover a period of time – obvious injuries which are nonetheless ignored by ATOS. How can this solve anything? For every pound withdrawn by ATOS, several more are spent in resultant chaos-solving measures which have to be undertaken by both the sick person and a whole raft of supplementary support measures including additional healthcare needs which may result.
Frank Field insultingly aligns receipt of benefits and even tax credits as some kind of ‘serfdom’. In several years of research into tax credits structure and function with hundreds of case study interviews I found not a single recipient who said anything other than these had considerably improve their lives ( albeit they were at the same time too complex – especially the inadvisable retro payback model). This New Labour model not only lifted thousands out of poverty but also prevented countless more from falling into poverty. As for benefits – we don’t all have families who can support us through the dark times Frank! I absolutely approve of the single stream assessment and application route to access support as needed in order to simplify matters – but its implementation needs to be based upon reality not pure ideology or theory.
Perpetuating and even instigating such negative attitudes against the disabled is not a recipe for growth – rather it is a sign of judgemental nihilism. After all there is a single truth in all of this – as times get harder – it could be you. As people become sick and injured – it could be you. Think about it.
I strongly believe (more by the day) that Liam and Ed ought to consider quite why the public is showing this apparent hostility to welfare.
If you spend years telling the public that the sick and disabled and unemployed are just lay-abouts who choose not to work, and you use the Daily Mail and Mr Murdoch to do your dirty messenger-work, you must expect, in the end, that the public will start to believe you.
It’s no good then shaking their heads in disbelief at the strength of feeling that they themselves engendered, fostered, nurtured and encouraged.