If you had to boil the image that the Starmer-Reeves Labour party wants to project down to one word it would surely be “serious”. Underlying so many of its favourite phrases—from “power, not protest” to “iron-clad fiscal rules”—is the claim to this one quality, something Labour’s leaders imagine distinguishes them from the likes of both Jeremy Corbyn and Liz Truss. And, sure enough, amid bubbling discontent about the decision to impose deep benefit cuts, one loyal government lieutenant briefed that it would be “unserious” to countenance higher taxes instead, so soon after the last National Insurance rise.
Unfortunately, there is no sign of any serious resolve in relation to the gravest problem afflicting British society: a deepening crisis of penury. On Thursday morning, I worked my way through an alarming release of the official poverty statistics, which recorded—among other things—surging recourse to foodbanks, and the tally of poor British children hitting 4.5m for the first time.
These terrible numbers reflected not Labour policy, but Labour’s inheritance. Its manifesto last year decried “mass dependence on emergency food parcels” as “a moral scar on our society” which it said it wanted to “end”. And yet on Wednesday night, I had sat up with a team of economists at the Resolution Foundation thinktank, where I am principal editor, as they crunched their way towards their conclusion: the government’s tax and benefit decisions to date would depress lower-middle incomes three times more than those at the very top.
The link to all the Spring Statement numbers is in the paragraph above for interested readers. Rather than barrage you with more data, however, I’d like to ask a whole lot of questions about whether the government’s unfolding poverty strategy—or perhaps lack of strategy—is serious.
In the spirit of seriousness, I will acknowledge that the government has made a few useful individual moves. In particular, it has strengthened employment protections for part-time and shift workers, very modestly raised the basic rate of Universal Credit, and pushed ahead with renters’ rights reforms that had stalled under the Conservatives. The big worry is that any good that these steps might do will soon be overwhelmed by neglect—and now cuts—in Britain’s far from generous safety net.
Social security is the original form of the “securonomics” Reeves used to talk about. It was always going to be extremely difficult to make good on her rhetoric without giving it a positive role. Even with money tight, however, one might hope for an evidence-led discussion about what sort of progress might be achievable within tight budget constraints. But does the government seriously imagine the way to foster such a discussion about the tricky subject of disability benefit reform is by releasing dodgy statistics to the press, grossly exaggerating the real rise in disability-related benefit spending? Was it serious to rush out “reforms” and hail the huge savings they would achieve, only for the bean counters at the Office for Budget Responsibility to judge that they would actually save far less, leading to further hasty retrenchments?
More fundamentally, is it serious to imagine that disabled people—who face many additional costs of living, and mostly start out with modest income—can absorb annual reductions in income of, for some households, around £4,000, £6,000, £10,000 or even £12,000? Is it serious economics to insist that the burden of fiscal adjustment should be so heavily concentrated on a relatively small group of claimants who are concentrated in Britain’s most depressed local economies?
Is it serious to introduce the promised build-up of employment support so slowly that painful cuts will have bitten before many get any help? Is it serious to bat away every suggestion that any benefit cuts will ramp up poverty, a clear conclusion of the Department for Work and Pensions’ own analysis, using cheery clichés such as “the best route out of poverty is to get into work”? Will employment support really come good for everyone, when those set to lose out will include—under the plan to raise the so-called “points” required to secure entitlement—people able to wash the top, but not the lower, half of their own body? And if the most effective workfare schemes you can point to really can raise the employment rate by 10 percentage points, that is worthwhile and impressive. But the question remains: what is the plan for the rest of the caseload?
Is there anything—anywhere—serious to suggest that impoverishment can be an effective jolt into better health or employment? Has the whole scholarly literature of public health—which elucidates the ways in which deprivation gets under the skin, causing conditions from ischemic heart disease to panic attacks that retard employability—simply got it wrong?
Instead of straight answers to any of these questions, I half-expect to hear a mumbled response that anyone who asks them doesn’t understand the seriousness of budgetary pressures, or the concerns of swing voters in marginal seats who suspect many benefit claimants are trying it on.
But from Attlee’s socialist commonwealth to Wilson’s “moral crusade” to the Blair-Brown mission to end child poverty, exorcising the demon of want has been the most serious purpose of Labour in power. Should this Labour government forget that this remains the unifying dream of its own political tribe then I would venture that, before too long, it will have a serious political problem.
In the meantime, we’ll all be left with a divided and uneasy country. And the only future for many poor families and communities in Britain will be to become poorer again.
