TODAY THE COALITION has published its Welfare Reform Bill, and Work and Pensions Secretary Ian Duncan Smith was on hand with the prime minister to launch it. It promises a shakeup of seismic proportions to the welfare state. If so, it is long in coming and much needed; for such a reform should have happened decades ago under the Thatcher administration; but not even the ‘Iron Lady’ had enough metal to take on the social liberals in all political parties and throughout the media, legal and educational establishments.
Because welfarism went unchallenged for so long, reform today will make it harsh for many people to come to terms with. After Thatcher and Major, New Labour actually added new benefits to the already bloated system. Billions of pounds have been spent to keep people idle, while the failings of our educational system have made many employers angry at the lack of basic literacy and numeracy skills among school leavers.
We have allowed a culture of refusal to grow among those ill-equipped school leavers whereby they can refuse work if it pays little more than the combined benefits handed out to them by the state. This has led employers to plead for no restrictions on immigration to fill the jobs many of our young workforce are badly prepared to do, or just refuse to do without fear of penalty.
Perhaps the biggest welfare scandal of all time was created by the politicians themselves. Starting with Margaret Thatcher and continuing with Major, Blair and Brown, whereby hundreds of thousands of people were shifted by sleight of hand from the dole queues onto what today is called Incapacity Benefit. By doing so the politician’s artificially reduced the unemployment levels. This was because those claiming any disability benefit were not counted on the unemployment register.
In the 1980’s, when unemployment reached three million, such a wheeze kept the unemployment figures lower than they might have been, without which a further drop in popularity could have seen the premature end to what became a long premiership for Margaret Thatcher.
Her successors continued with the same smoke and mirror policy. Which means today we have some 2.6 million claimants of Incapacity Benefit. Of course there are thousands of genuine recipients, but because of the behaviour of politicians, these have all been tarred with the same brush. I do not believe for one moment this country harbours so many disabled in so much distress that they are incapable of work of any kind.
THE SYSTEM OF WELFARE was meant purely as a safety net for those who found themselves without work in times of harsh economic circumstances. It was never meant to keep people idle, in many cases, for decades without requiring them to make a contribution to the economy through work.
Welfare needs to be got to grips with. It does not mean, or should not mean, a blitzkrieg on all claimants of disability benefits. But those working and paying their taxes need to know that their contributions are being spent wisely and not flittered away on those who choose to abuse the system.
I find it almost repugnant that someone should have to hand over part of his or her salary, in the form of tax, to keep welfare dependency alive among those who are quite happy to put two fingers up to such people while laying claim to that which others have worked so hard to make.
Ian Duncan Smith will come under great pressure from liberal Britain to moderate this policy. Remember Margaret Thatcher? Even she for all the good things she did by transforming industrial relations and selling off the old state run industries, dared not embark upon a conquest of social liberalism in this country.
The Welfare State has become a leviathan . Where once a pond was envisaged an ocean has been allowed to grow over the decades and now threatens a tsunami.
THE WELFARE REFORM BILL promises once and for all to return it back to its basics. The Bill offers the following bulleted programme of reform which I have taken from the Daily Mail .
· Universal Credit will replace 'dizzying' array of benefits
· Claimants who refuse three reasonable job offers to lose hand-outs for three years
· Disability Living Allowance to become 'sustainable' system with regular health checks
· Those deemed fit to work will lose benefits if they turn offers down
· Housing benefit restricted to cheapest 30 per cent of homes in an area
· Cap on household benefits linked to average earnings
The Coalition is in for one hell of a fight over this Bill. I have no doubt that its promoter (one of the few Tories left), Ian Duncan Smith ,will see it through without compromise at any stage. But I doubt whether the Coalition will prove so robust in its defence once opposition threatens to overwhelm their confidence and personal ambition.
If any politician succeeds in reforming this vast encumbrance, he or she will have done a service to this country that stands comparison with the contributions made by both Churchill and Thatcher.
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