Manifesto

I was asked to address a local Labour Party branch meeting last week on the subject of the current Government's 'welfare reform' programme.  I was delighted to find the meeting attended by genuine socialists, both keen to get the full ghastly picture of life as a benefit claimant in 2014 and to start a debate about what Labour should offer as an alternative, rather than whether Labour should offer an alternative.

So here's my 'to do' list.

• Labour have already pledged to scrap the bedroom tax, but to be fair to private sector tenants, they must at the least unpick the Coalition's tighter Local Housing Allowance rules - no more 'single room rate' for under 35s (or any age).  Allowances should go back to being based on at least the median rent for the area, not the cheapest 30%.  Plunging someone into rent arrears will not make it easier for them to find a job, making someone homeless if they become sick is disgraceful.  In the longer term, building social housing and controlling rents in the private rented sector - and paying workers a living wage - is the only fair way to cut the cost of Housing Benefit.
• Let's be grown-ups at 18.  Enough of these stupid 'under 25' rates of benefit for young unemployed people, young carers and young disabled people claiming means-tested benefits, plus young workers on Housing Benefit.  It isn't cheaper to be 24 than 25 and I defy anyone to live on £57 a week.  Even IDS.
• End the 'Benefit Cap' on claimants and repeal the 'Welfare Cap' on Government spending.  Both are bad policy and lazy, cruel propaganda.   
• Back to the drawing board with 'Universal Credit'.  It's good to aim for one subsistence benefit instead of different ones for jobseekers, sick and disabled people, lone parents and carers, but UC's problem is that it isn't ambitious enough.  If you want to be radical, make it a really Universal non-means-tested Citizen's Allowance.  Short of that, bring the benefit 'taper' into line with tax rates, so the poorest workers keep at least the same percentage of their income as those above benefit level. 
• Ultimately, devise a true unified tax and benefits system to make sure you don't give with one hand and take away with the other.  Remember, when the Coalition talk about their tax cuts, working Universal Credit claimants will never fully benefit from tax cuts because it's worked out on their net income.
• The Work Capability Assessment must go, along with the current sharp edge between 'fit for work' and 'limited capability for work'.  We all have some limitations on our capability for work.  If there is one subsistence benefit for all, don't differentiate between jobseekers and others - allow additional benefit for anyone with a health problem or disability based on their additional needs and costs, whether jobseeker or not, paid at a sliding percentage rate rather than the current clumsy points-based system and assessed by the NHS.
• End the current punative sanctions system.  Unemployed people haven't morphed into 'skivers' since the 1980s.  If your benefit system really 'makes work pay', and employers aren't allowed to treat their staff like disposable components, those who can find work, will.  Encourage genuine, voluntary volunteering and further education to help people improve their skills without losing their benefits and stop subsidising profit-making companies with cheap labour.  Poundland can pay their own shelf-stackers, not expect the taxpayer to do it.
• Put and end to profit-making organisations and out-sourcing giants making a killing from DWP contracts.  Most have been abject failures.  Fund Councils and voluntary organisations to employ the staff they need at all levels to create real jobs, not schemes.
• Scrap 'PIP' now and reinstate DLA, as an interim measure, before consulting properly with those directly affected and introducing improved benefits for disabled people and carers, again with percentage allowances rather than the current all-or-nothing components.
• Reinstate free telephone numbers for all DWP and Tax Credit sections, and a free 'benefits enquiry line' for people to check their entitlement.  That's an easy one.

That's enough to be getting on with, and more than any of us dare hope for, but we could surely ask one very simple thing from Labour as a start. 

Change the tone of the debate. 

If you're announcing a new employment initiative for young people, leave out 'which they'll have to take or we'll stop their benefits'.  If it's a good scheme with fair pay, no-one needs coercing into it. 

Let's get the numbers for underclaimed benefit centre stage, along with the terrible true stories of what being 'tough' on claimants has meant to those who have lost their homes and even their lives. 

Show up this Government for its incompetence.  That a six month timelag for a decision on PIP - the benefit for our most disabled citizens - is now so standard the telephone helpline tells you not to bother them if you haven't been waiting that long yet is unforgivable.  That 'benefit delay' is just about the most common reason for rising Foodbank use is a scandal.  Tell some of the 'stupid sanctions' stories.

And start now.