All Prime Ministers have to fight back-bench rebellions and they usually win, at least in the short term. Those who are encouraging Keir Starmer and his high command to press ahead with the Universal Credits and Personal Payments Bill are doubtless invoking that history.
Eventually, the demands of loyalty and perhaps even a modicum of self-interest are enough to tilt the balance of conscience. Maybe it will – or would – happen this time with this bill which is due to be voted on next week, but I hope by then that Labour MPs will have been spared the dilemma.
There are times when leaders should listen in order to accept strategic advice and change course. This is one of them. The problem is not just with the content of the bill but the context in which it has been set. The early, macho mis-steps of the Government created an environment in which trust was stretched to the limits of tolerance.
These first six months delivered two hard sells for Labour MPs – taking Winter Fuel Payments away from most pensioners and reforming benefits for people with disabilities, with much emphasis on the money to be saved. Once set, these impressions were difficult to escape from.
They were not the defining priorities expected of an incoming Labour government and no matter the pleas of justification – some of them perfectly legitimate if taken in political isolation – they self- inflicted damage which is slowly being recovered from. Equally ill-advisedly, they obscured many positive and progressive changes that the same government has been delivering.
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If the objectives of this Welfare Bill had been set out with a different emphasis, then they would command support among voters and MPs. More pathways for people to get off benefits and into work; removing burdens for disabled people who will never be able to work; tightening criteria for entry into the benefits system... there’s nothing there not to like, at least in principle.
However, to produce legislation which conforms to these priorities required a lot of consultation and sensitivity. It needed to be shaped – and, where necessary, tempered – through actual case studies. Instead, the headlines about saving £5 billion a year engendered fear and suspicion among swathes of disabled people, some of whom would undoubtedly benefit from reform.
According to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, nearly four million households would gain from increases in the Universal Credit standard rate, “the largest, permanent real-terms increase to basic out of work support since 1980”. More than 200,000 people with the most severe, lifelong conditions would be absolved from future reassessment”. That’s more like it from a Labour government, but who has heard about it?
The failure to communicate positives, because it was positioned from the start as a big ticket money-saving measure, has left the field open to those whose job it is – very properly – to highlight the negatives.
Yesterday, a coalition of 10 reputable charities issued a joint statement which declared: “The provisions in this bill would reduce support for over 3.2 million disabled people. They will push between 300,000 and 400,000 people into poverty (and) 440,000 people in disabled households into severe hardship”.
I’m sure these figures could be challenged but it is a bit late in the day for that. These are the lobbying pressures Labour MPs are being confronted with and they are simply not getting counter-information to rebut them. Any attempt to reform the benefits system will lead to protests from some quarters that they are an attack on the poor. The valid question is whether it is true or not, and most MPs have concluded that it is.
Keir Starmer and those around him should admit that they have lost that argument, certainly within the ranks of Labour MPs, withdraw strategically and start again. There is an unanswerable case to be made for reform but it has to be built with far more care and credibility from the starting point of social justice, rather than working backwards from headlines about saving billions.
When the number of people coming on to Personal Independence Payments (now Adult Disability Payments in Scotland) is increasing by over 1000 every day, more than doubling the numbers from five years ago, then clearly it is legitimate to ask whether the definitions of “disability” have been stretched too far.
I looked at one website which encourages PIP claims. It explains helpfully how low the bar is set and advises on how to clear it. For example: “It doesn’t matter whether you have a huge income or no income at all. It makes no difference whether you have a fortune in the bank or no savings at all. You can still get PIP.”
As I wrote here a couple of weeks ago, there’s nothing wrong with U-turns. The message eventually got through that the rush into withdrawing Winter Fuel Allowance had been politically disastrous. With the thinnest veneer of cover, it was reversed and a sensible compromise put in place. Has Labour suffered any damage from silly people shouting “U-turn”? Of course not. On the contrary, large numbers of natural supporters heaved a sigh of relief.
I’m sure that, between dealing with great matters of global significance, Keir Starmer is being told by some bright young advisers that “another U-turn” would be damaging. The right-wing media would mock. Who cares? A year into the job, he can either liberate himself from the last of the big mistakes from these early months – or else, win or lose, create a deep and lasting split in his own ranks that should never have been forced upon them. It should not be a difficult choice – drop the Bill and start again.
Brian Wilson is a former Labour Party politician. He was MP for Cunninghame North from 1987 until 2005 and served as a Minister of State from 1997 to 2003
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