Labour vows to abandon language of 'strivers and scroungers'
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Version 0 of 1. Labour’s new shadow work and pensions secretary has promised to abandon the language of “strivers and scroungers” and signalled a change in tone from his predecessor, who had promised Labour would be tougher on welfare than the Conservatives. Owen Smith said he wanted to turn the social security system into something voters could be proud of, and would work to persuade “everybody in Britain to feel once more that it was a positive thing to have a generous and supportive welfare state”. After 24 hours of uncertainty over Labour’s position on welfare reform, Smith claimed there was no divergence in position between him and leader Jeremy Corbyn on the crucial issue of whether to dispense entirely with the benefit cap and dismissed this as “manufactured confusion”. Attempting to offer a clearer summary of Labour’s new position on welfare, he told the Guardian: “We have got a new policy, which is that we are going to oppose the welfare bill where previously we abstained. That is a striking and significant new position.” Smith, who backed Andy Burnham in the leadership campaign, said the party would review its position on the benefit cap, but he stressed that Labour remained “in favour of a mechanism that allows us to have some constraints on how much families can draw down”. He distanced himself from his predecessor, Rachel Reeves, who set out to make Labour tougher on welfare than the Conservatives and who said that Labour was “not the party of people on benefits”. “We have to represent all of the people in the UK, and that includes people who are in work and out of work,” he said. “Setting one group against another is precisely what the Tories have been doing for the last six years. We have to unite people and not paint one set of people as strivers and the other as shirkers. That isn’t the reality.” However, his explanation of why his position on the benefit cap appeared to contradict Corbyn’s still left room for uncertainty. His clarification that the party was going to review its position on the benefit cap was still some way short of the clear commitment made by Corbyn at the Trades Union Congress on Tuesday, where he said that the party was working to “remove the whole idea of the benefit cap altogether”. For the avoidance of further confusion, Smith read out the official party line, which he said was agreed between himself and Corbyn on Monday. “It reads: ‘We are opposing the Tories’ reduction in the benefit cap’ in the welfare reform and work bill. We will be reviewing Labour policy with regard to the principle of the benefit cap,” he said in a telephone interview. Although Corbyn stated in his TUC speech that he wanted to “remove the whole idea of the benefit cap”, Smith said “extrapolating from a line in a speech” did not give a sufficiently nuanced position”. “The difference is between one short line in a speech, and the rather more necessarily complex policy. You can’t necessarily extract from rhetoric into the complexity of the detail,” he said. Smith’s position chimes with that of Kate Green, the new shadow equalities minister, who stressed that policy was created collectively by the party. She said: “The present policy position of the party, decided collectively by the party – and that’s the way we make policy in the Labour party, Jeremy is very respectful of the collective approach – is that we accept the principle of the cap, but it is not currently before parliament to have a vote to remove it altogether. Obviously if that becomes a possibility in parliament, the party will decide collectively where we stand.” But Smith attempted to move on from the confusion. “Jeremy has won and has come in with a stonking great mandate and has said he wants us to oppose the welfare bill, including in respect of the proposed reduction of the benefit cap from £26,000 to £23,000, and introducing a regionalised aspect to it of £20,000 outside London. We are going to be opposing that clause, and we are going to be opposing the bill in its entirety. That is a striking and significant new position.” Labour would still be working to keep control of welfare spending, he said. “The agreed position is that we cannot be in favour of entirely unfettered spending on individuals on benefits, just as we can’t be in favour of there being no ceiling on welfare spending. We are in favour of the principle of there being limitations on the amount families can get. We are in favour of a mechanism that allows us to have some constraints on how much families can draw down. There are different ways we can do that,” he said. However, the tough language used by his predecessors on welfare had not convinced voters, he said. “We had some tough vocabulary and despite it we lost the last election and we lost it with people saying we were soft on welfare, so it wasn’t working. We need a new debate about welfare. It should be something that we are proud of in Britain, having a great welfare state – that ought to be a badge of honour, and yet for so many people it has become a badge of shame.” |