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| Labour’s pledge to scrap universal credit could end the era of blaming ‘scroungers’ | Labour’s pledge to scrap universal credit could end the era of blaming ‘scroungers’ |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| Critics call it inhumane. Even its supporters talk of its colossal delays and waste. Now, universal credit has been given another blow as Labour announced the system would be scrapped under a Jeremy Corbyn government. Labour has not yet disclosed what this would fully entail – rather than a total scrap, it appears the basic structure would remain. But a £3bn package of emergency reforms seems enough to make the new model unrecognisable: from removing the tax-credit “rape clause” (whereby women have to show their third or subsequent child was conceived as a result of rape to be exempt from the two-child limit on receiving the credit), to introducing interim payments to cushion people from the debt-creating five-week wait. | Critics call it inhumane. Even its supporters talk of its colossal delays and waste. Now, universal credit has been given another blow as Labour announced the system would be scrapped under a Jeremy Corbyn government. Labour has not yet disclosed what this would fully entail – rather than a total scrap, it appears the basic structure would remain. But a £3bn package of emergency reforms seems enough to make the new model unrecognisable: from removing the tax-credit “rape clause” (whereby women have to show their third or subsequent child was conceived as a result of rape to be exempt from the two-child limit on receiving the credit), to introducing interim payments to cushion people from the debt-creating five-week wait. |
| That the party has committed to scrap the system is a hugely significant step. The underfunding of Britain’s safety net has now gone beyond critical levels. Over the past decade, multibillion-pound cuts, combined with a toxic anti-welfare narrative, has upended the meaning of social security. Humiliation has replaced help, punishment put in place of compassion. | That the party has committed to scrap the system is a hugely significant step. The underfunding of Britain’s safety net has now gone beyond critical levels. Over the past decade, multibillion-pound cuts, combined with a toxic anti-welfare narrative, has upended the meaning of social security. Humiliation has replaced help, punishment put in place of compassion. |
| There has rarely been a more crucial time to rebuild a social security system that the public can have faith in | There has rarely been a more crucial time to rebuild a social security system that the public can have faith in |
| Universal credit has in many ways come to define the cruel incompetence of the austerity era, in which social security – rather than providing a safety net for people in time of need – actively pushes them into crisis. Just this month, research by Unite showed claimants were routinely going hungry – more than four in 10 have been forced to use a food bank – and are left unable to pay bills. Some were even suicidal. | Universal credit has in many ways come to define the cruel incompetence of the austerity era, in which social security – rather than providing a safety net for people in time of need – actively pushes them into crisis. Just this month, research by Unite showed claimants were routinely going hungry – more than four in 10 have been forced to use a food bank – and are left unable to pay bills. Some were even suicidal. |
| The government’s pledge that this was all worth it, as the system would “make work pay”, has looked ever more hollow as workers graft full time only to find themselves at risk of homelessness, and poverty and inequality spreads. | The government’s pledge that this was all worth it, as the system would “make work pay”, has looked ever more hollow as workers graft full time only to find themselves at risk of homelessness, and poverty and inequality spreads. |
| And yet despite the vast problems that plague universal credit, campaigners and experts have been torn over how best to respond now it has already partly rolled out, costing billions of pounds of public money. Last year, the National Audit Office claimed “there is no practical alternative” to continuing with it, while the Joseph Rowntree Foundation cautioned against causing further upheaval for those who depend on benefits to get by. | And yet despite the vast problems that plague universal credit, campaigners and experts have been torn over how best to respond now it has already partly rolled out, costing billions of pounds of public money. Last year, the National Audit Office claimed “there is no practical alternative” to continuing with it, while the Joseph Rowntree Foundation cautioned against causing further upheaval for those who depend on benefits to get by. |
| But policymaking can be about the heart, as well as the head. I’ve spoken to people on universal credit for years, many of them battling ill health while scraping together their last pound for a hot meal. Amid it all, they often tell me one hope: that Corbyn would commit to ending the system. For the families pushed into debt, it’s acknowledgement from politicians that their pain matters. | But policymaking can be about the heart, as well as the head. I’ve spoken to people on universal credit for years, many of them battling ill health while scraping together their last pound for a hot meal. Amid it all, they often tell me one hope: that Corbyn would commit to ending the system. For the families pushed into debt, it’s acknowledgement from politicians that their pain matters. |
| Universal credit is often talked of in terms of design flaws but this is inaccurate. “Flaws” suggest an error, a shortcoming, that was made by mistake. In fact, leaving people without money for longer than a month was deliberately engineered to model a pay packet (despite the fact that in a modern economy, many people are not paid this way and claimants often have no savings to fall back on). Similarly, it was a political choice to launch what at any time would be a deeply complex system while cutting billions from the welfare budget. That a terminally ill man had to take the government to court after being pushed into hardship by being transferred to universal credit gives an insight into how low its architects sunk. For even more significance, though, look beyond the headlines and to the detail. As well as scrapping universal credit, Labour have also pledged to end the two-child limit – which Labour says could lift 300,000 children from poverty – benefit sanctions and the benefit cap, while entirely replacing the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) with the newly named Department for Social Security. | Universal credit is often talked of in terms of design flaws but this is inaccurate. “Flaws” suggest an error, a shortcoming, that was made by mistake. In fact, leaving people without money for longer than a month was deliberately engineered to model a pay packet (despite the fact that in a modern economy, many people are not paid this way and claimants often have no savings to fall back on). Similarly, it was a political choice to launch what at any time would be a deeply complex system while cutting billions from the welfare budget. That a terminally ill man had to take the government to court after being pushed into hardship by being transferred to universal credit gives an insight into how low its architects sunk. For even more significance, though, look beyond the headlines and to the detail. As well as scrapping universal credit, Labour have also pledged to end the two-child limit – which Labour says could lift 300,000 children from poverty – benefit sanctions and the benefit cap, while entirely replacing the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) with the newly named Department for Social Security. |
| Universal credit wait fuels poverty and food bank use, says research | Universal credit wait fuels poverty and food bank use, says research |
| The policies that have come out of the DWP in recent years have been rotten, but it is the culture that has created the stench: one that has demonised those who need help from the state, and done all it can to shirk its duties to them. | The policies that have come out of the DWP in recent years have been rotten, but it is the culture that has created the stench: one that has demonised those who need help from the state, and done all it can to shirk its duties to them. |
| Whether it is universal credit or the benefit cap, Labour’s platform marks a chance to depart from the George Osborne era of blaming “scroungers” – to say policies that push people into destitution based on little more than class prejudice have no place in social security, and to shift the narrative that so-called “welfare waste” actually saves the NHS, child social care, and housing bills. There has rarely been a more crucial time to rebuild a social security system that the public can have faith in – one that provides a comprehensive safety net that lifts people out of poverty and, in turn, creates a healthier society. Social security should not mean suffering. It is a reflection of how benefit claimants have been treated in recent years that such a message could ever be contentious. | |
| • Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist | • Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist |
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| Opinion | Opinion |
| Universal credit | Universal credit |
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| Jeremy Corbyn | Jeremy Corbyn |
| Poverty | Poverty |
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