Labour has the right principles on welfare, now we need the detail | thearticle

At the last election, Labour were criticised for having very little to say on welfare. The sharpest end of Tory austerity has always been felt by those who rely on the state to live a decent

life. And, increasingly, more and more people who do so are living in the most awful circumstances. In-work poverty has risen from 13 per cent to 18 per cent. An estimated 500,000 more

people are in poverty due to the benefits cap and two-child policy (where families that have two or more children, including one born after 6 April 2017, see the child element in Universal

Credit and tax credits limited to the first two children). People with disabilities represent 48 per cent of all people who live in poverty.  The use of food banks has increased

dramatically. Meanwhile, ministers, like Home Secretary Priti Patel, blame the local authorities and public services the Tories have starved of money and resources, rather than own up to

what has happened on their watch. Notions of the deserving and undeserving lie at the heart of the current Tory approach to everything. This time around, Labour have not made the same

mistake. The 2019 manifesto paints a vivid picture of Tory evils when it comes to welfare, describing the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) as a ‘symbol of fear’ and treatment of people

with disabilities as having created a ‘hostile environment’. They have a point. Week in and week out we hear stories of how the DWP assess people as fit to work who are, in fact, dying.

Week in and week out we hear of the terrible contortions people living with disabilities are put through at their Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessments. The heart of the DWP is

rotten and its approach punitive and ugly. While I am sure there are plenty of good civil servants there, who are simply delivering what is set out politically, the culture has become

endemic. By scrapping it on day one and starting again, Labour will make the ending of this approach very clear. So far so good. We know what Labour are against and what they won’t do. They

will scrap Universal Credit, end the horror of the two-child limit and the attached rape clause and stop work capability and PIP assessments. They will scrap the DWP and start again with a

new Department for Social Security signalling a whole new approach to welfare. Leaving behind the Osborne and Duncan Smith narrative of “Scroungers and Shirkers”. But while there are some

interesting proposals in the manifesto, such as giving effect to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, introducing

interim benefits payments to end the five-week wait and equalising Carers Allowance with Jobseeker’s Allowance, the bigger structural changes are vaguer. There is an acknowledgement of this.

Even an attempt to turn it into a virtue. They talk of replacing Universal Credit (UC) with a system that would guarantee a minimum standard of living, which it would start developing

“immediately”. But they also argue that they don’t want to replicate the Tory mistakes on UC where the implementing total systemic change caused chaos, hardship and suffering. This is

absolutely reasonable, but my concern is the immediate start on designing this replacement policy should have been made some time ago. Labour need to reassure voters that they at least have

the bones of a plan in place, not just plans for a plan. It is precisely because they are proposing a genuine and radical change that more detail is needed. Enough to convince people that

this new approach will be implementable and will work. Radical change is good, needed and long overdue. But as this has been known for ages, it should have been worked on for years. Not in a

civil service way, but at least through friendly think tanks who can help to design something that gives the new approach an underpinning. Labour’s manifesto offers people, in the worst

circumstances, hope. Its radical and right new approach is inspiring and would change the lives and circumstances of millions if implemented. But this radicalism is currently matched with a

caution about implementation. A manifesto doesn’t need to offer every dot and comma of how a policy will be implemented in government. But it does need a little more than an overarching

approach and vague handwaving. Labour make a very good and detailed case on how badly this government has let vulnerable people down. They have offered good and reasonable interim measures

that will immediately alleviate some of the worst aspects of Tory welfare policy. But now they need to do more now to make it clear how their fundamentally different approach will work.