Back in 2009, months before the coalition government unleashed sweeping austerity, the then Conservative backbencher Iain Duncan Smith produced a study that would go on to lay the foundations for the rollout of universal credit. Now, nearly two decades later, Duncan Smith and his thinktank, the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), has published State of Dependency: a landmark report promising to expose “the full scale of Britain’s worklessness crisis”. The study paints a picture of mass benefits reliance: it identifies 3,400 local areas where more than half the working-age population are on out-of-work benefits, or “economic opiates”, as the authors call them. They’ve even provided an interactive map (in the yellow and black colours of a road hazard sign, no less) so members of the public can type in their postcode to see if their neighbourhood is “a welfare hotspot”.
Who needs this? You can generally tell you’re in one by simply looking around!
Next month, the government is expected to release two major reports into the social safety net: the Timms review on personal independence payments (Pip), which pays for some of the extra costs of disability in England and Wales, and the Milburn review into young people who are out of work. It wouldn’t be overstating the importance of Westminster reviews to say their recommendations could shape the future of our welfare state for decades to come. With almost 1 million young people not in education, employment or training (Neet) and the disability benefits bill rising in cash terms, Andy Burnham will face immense pressure to use the proposals to launch a once-in-a-generation overhaul of the social security system.
He's currently too busy with the big issues.
That the right is not currently in power won’t stop it from wielding significant influence on what’s to come, in large part thanks to its dominance of Britain’s media ecosystem.
Oh, give it a rest! The mythical ‘right’ is always the bogeyman to the likes of the progressive press.
No recommendations by Timms or Milburn have been confirmed yet, but Whitehall sources say there are potential plans to scrap a key part of universal credit for under-25s and replace it with a multi-billion pound package to get people back into work.
There is a Labour government in office and two big wads of research coming that can at last lay the groundwork for remaking our safety net. The millions who rely on it must hold their breath to see whether that chance will be grabbed or thrown away.
If we really do have ‘millions who rely on it’ that’s a clear sign something’s gone very wrong in itself, isn’t it?
