Tuesday 08 January 2013
The House of Commons debated the Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill today. As with all Bills, the Secretary of State Iain Duncan Smith was obliged to consider whether it was compliant with the Human Rights Act.
"In my view, the provisions of the Bill are compatible with the convention's rights," he droned.
Well, that's a relief for the millions about to have their benefits capped.
Clause I of the Bill says it all. "The Secretary of State must, in each of the tax years ending with April 5 2014 and April 5 2015 make an order by statutory instrument increasing each of the relevant sums by 1 per cent."
Pretty well every benefit is affected. Child benefit, income support, jobseeker's allowance, housing benefit, statutory sick pay and statutory maternity pay, all limited to a 1 per cent rise well below inflation.
The implications for everyone who receives any of these, even if they are in work, are huge.
A couple with two children who pay £130 a week in rent, with one of them working 40 hours a week at minimum wage - equating to £13,000 a year - will be £3.50 a week worse off this April, £8 a week worse off the next April and £13 a week poorer by 2015.
Until this government came in, working-age means-tested benefits were raised in line with the "Rossi index." This was introduced in 1987 by then Tory social security minister Hugh Rossi, who decided that benefits should be uprated each year in line with the retail price index (RPI).
On taking office in June 2010 Duncan Smith immediately switched calculations to the consumer price index (CPI), which does not include housing costs and therefore rises more slowly than RPI. Over 10 years a benefit calculated by CPI would end up being worth 86 per cent of one calculated by RPI.
This measure alone will have taken £10.6 billion out of the welfare budget by 2015. But it's not enough for the government. Now the link between benefits and inflation itself has been severed.
The brutal cap is defended by Chancellor George Osborne on the grounds that it is not fair on working people that out-of-work benefits have risen by 20 per cent since 2007 while average earnings have risen by 10 per cent.
Using the fact that wages have not kept pace with inflation, which is in no small part down to the government, as an excuse to attack benefits is a particularly cynical tactic.
A cut in income for working-age parents also has an impact on their children. Already the coalition's record on child poverty is dire.
One of the good things Labour did between 1997 and 2010 was a serious campaign to eliminate child poverty in Britain. Targeted benefits and support for the poorest families were provided.
In 1997 26 per cent of Britain's children were living in poverty. By 2010, that was 17 per cent, and it was on a trajectory that would have reduced that to 10 per cent by 2022.
But there was a stark change in the graph as soon as the Tory-Lib Dem coalition took power. The child poverty rate rose immediately. It's now at 21 per cent and is set to rise to 25 per cent by 2017.
The effects of poverty on health are obvious. Studies by the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust show that in one of London's poorest boroughs, Tottenham, the number of children born with low birth weight was 12.5 per cent, compared with a national average of 7.5 per cent. In healthier countries it is lower - for example it stands at 3.8 per cent in Iceland.
Low birth weight often leads to further problems in later childhood and has been linked to underachievement in education.
So the benefits cap will keep child poverty rising. Who else is affected?
Disability benefit is affected slightly differently. However, the government's welfare strategy has still thumped disability benefits very hard.
Since the "emergency Budget" of 2010 £500 million has been taken from the pockets of disabled people.
The Benefits Uprating Bill does further damage. The employment support allowance cut takes another £87 a year off each claimant. This goes hand in hand with the abominable Atos testing system which puts many disabled people through appalling stress as they're told they'll lose their benefits and be forced to go to work, even if they're not in a position to look for a job. Then the applicant appeals and often wins.
Housing is another major source of misery, poverty and poor health in Britain. Instead of controlling the exorbitant rise in rents, the government is controlling the level of housing benefit that is paid to all claimants irrespective of their landlords.
It is common for me to come across constituents who are paying 300 per cent of what their neighbours in council houses pay, renting from landlords who privately let homes they bought cheaply from the local authority under Thatcher's right to buy.
The effect is the social cleansing of many inner London boroughs as those in receipt of housing benefit cannot afford to pay the gap between the benefit and the market rent. They are forced to move into even less acceptable cheaper accommodation elsewhere. This is cruel and brutal, and can only be addressed by a massive council-house building programme and the registration and regulation of all private tenancies.
The politics behind the debate are interesting. In his Autumn Statement last month the Chancellor announced his 1 per cent uprating cap.
This made BBC political correspondent Nick Robinson very excited. This was a "trap for Labour."
Osborne followed up by challenging the Labour front bench to admit that they were the friends of the "scroungers" so beloved of Tory media myth-makers rather than the "strivers."
The "trap" was aimed at pushing Labour into marginalising the very poorest in our society and accepting the arguments put forward by former new Labour ministers such as Jacqui Smith, who said she didn't want the image of the Labour Party to be that of caring more about those unwilling to work than for those struggling in work.
The old taunt that Labour was a party careless with taxpayer's money was trotted out.
But the argument is surely very straightforward.
We live in a society that is deeply divided between the richest and the poorest. The only protections against destitution are the benefits system, the provision of council housing and the National Health Service.
Whenever Labour has clearly campaigned for a fairer society, closing the gap between rich and poor and ensuring that every child is properly valued, the message has been understood by those in work and those out of work alike.
The real "trap" is accepting the daily drip-feed of the Murdoch newspapers, opposing anyone in receipt of any benefits. That is the slippery slope to the abyss.
In this context it is regrettable that shadow chancellor Ed Balls should come up with a good suggestion - that all long-term unemployed should be offered a job - and then ruin it by saying the refusal to accept what could be a wholly inappropriate job will be punished by the loss of benefits. It is a depressing first step on the road to workfare.
The austerity proposed by Osborne after the 2010 election was supposed to pay off the debt created by the banking crisis.
The reality is that two-and-a-half years into this government the debt is higher, taxation income has fallen due to rising unemployment and the poorest people are paying the most for a crisis that was not of their making.
A welfare state is not necessarily socialism, but it is a step in the direction of a society based on need rather than greed.
The Tories have shown their contempt for the poor. It's up to Labour to stand with the poor majority rather than the wealthy minority.
- Jeremy Corbyn is Labour MP for Islington North.
