Our welfare system is something we should be proud of, in principle. If you need help, it’s available. Yes, you may have to jump through hoops, but it’s there.
But something has gone wrong with our welfare system: it’s become too easy to game the system and stay on benefits for life. That benefits no one: not society, not the welfare system and not the people in question.
We need to be honest: the welfare system needs to be re-designed with a simple principle in mind: the dignity of work should be available to all.
Labour’s Welfare Bill didn’t start any reforms. It won’t reduce the welfare bill (which is projected to reach £300bn by the end of the decade, or around a quarter of government expenditure).
What it did do was save £5 billion by targeting some of the most vulnerable: those claiming Personal Independence Payments.
And it’s worse than that: a lot of disabled people wouldn’t be able to work without PIP.
This was a bad choice from a government which has made targeting the vulnerable its calling card. Pensioners, farmers, first time buyers and now the disabled. It’s not a great look from any government, but certainly not from a Labour government.
Rachel Reeves has tried to be tough while she increases taxes on everyone, while claiming she isn’t increasing taxes.
Voters are noticing, and in turn, back bench Labour MPs are taking notice and now we have a spineless measure which still puts the burden on the most vulnerable in the form of future claimants of PIP.
That leaves us with a government without authority and that’s not a good place for the country to be.
We have a government which is unable to keep spending under control and will have to increase taxes again in the Autumn – and that will doubtless lead to severe economic consequences.
We have a crisis in leadership at the top of government and all roads lead to the Chancellor. She’s behind almost every decision of this government and is ultimately responsible for every decision which has unfairly targeted the vulnerable.
Rachel Reeves needs to go. She’s proven herself unable to grow the economy, her own number one mission.