Blog post by Colin Hampton
I have been the Coordinator of the Derbyshire Unemployed Workers’ Centres since 1985. In that time I have witnessed the course of Labour Party policy in relation to social security and on occasions, together with colleagues, met ministers and shadow ministers to express our views, concerns and policy proposals.
On reading the interview with Labour’s recently appointed Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Jonathan Reynolds I was reminded of the decades of missed opportunities in developing social security policies that we can all campaign around.
The present pandemic has shaken up the world. One consequence of the lockdown has been the challenging of entrenched views towards low paid workers and those vulnerable within our communities. Even the most diehard Conservative, preaching self-reliance and privatisation, must have had at least a fleeting moment of reflection. We are not islands on our own, but are interdependent for our mutual survival. All those cleaners, shop assistants, delivery drivers etc have been given new status during this time, though not reflected in their wages of course. The homeless must be given shelter-so as not to infect us! People must be given furlough payments when unable to work even if only to prevent looting and social unrest.
The diehard Conservatives, like most of us, will ignore evidence that does not fit in with their strongly held views that give them comfort – but for many the lightbulb will have flickered. Those clapping our key workers will be people who have swallowed the daily diet of propaganda blaming poverty on the poor and unemployment on the unemployed themselves. Workers will be waking up to the realities of claiming benefits and finding it is not the garden of roses that they have been led to believe. I have witnessed the process many times when mass redundancies have affected Derbyshire. Experience is the greatest educator. However, we must seize the narrative to make sure that when people reflect on that experience, the conclusions they draw, enable policy changes bringing social security for all.
The Labour Party is primarily interested in winning elections. It is more interested in winning office at all levels of government rather than changing the world. Readers may disagree but for the large part, little has changed for the better during my six decades, and the situation of those out of work and claiming benefits is worse now than even under the dark days of the 1980s, and I speak from the experience of dealing with the issues on a daily basis for much of that time. This is despite a significant period of Labour government. Jonathan Reynolds will be more interested in becoming a Government Minister than battling for a better world for those dealing with the DWP on a daily basis. I do not say this with relish, it is merely a reflection of years of experience.
Social Security should be a vote winner for Labour but as each election approaches it never has a comprehensive policy plan or even a vision to give to the electorate of what it actually wants to achieve. Before the 1997 election of Tony Blair’s new Labour government a group of activists from the Unemployed Workers Centres went down to Parliament to meet the shadow ministers responsible for work and pensions issues. This was just following the introduction of the Jobseekers Allowance. Chris Smith MP and Ian McCartney MP assured us that once elected, they would alter beyond recognition, through regulation, the Jobseekers Allowance and its sanctions regime. Claimants groups would be in the midst of all policy formulation through consultation and involvement. The election happened and all that changed was the jobs of Chris Smith and Ian McCartney. Jobseekers Allowance was entrenched and the sanctions regime made harsher. The language of hard-working families was developed and each year the public attitude surveys showed the increasing lack of empathy towards claimants at the same time as benefit levels plummeted relative to wages. Despite being in a position to change things for the better for the poorest and most vulnerable, the opposite was done. No attempt was made to challenge and change the perception of those forced to claim benefits through sickness, disability or lack of opportunities in areas ravaged by unemployment. For the most part only supply-side policies were used e.g. new deal, which emphasised that unemployment and poverty were the fault of those not doing enough to find work. Casualisation of employment became entrenched. In Chesterfield there were more employment agencies than mobile phone shops and the job centre became a recruiting sergeant for the army of private sector agency job providers. Jobs had to be taken if no hours or conditions of work were advertised in the job centre. Zero hours work became normalised.
It was at this point that Jonathan Reynolds erstwhile boss James Purnell took the reins of the Department for Work and Pensions. When Mark Serwotka describes Parnell as “the worst social security minister under new Labour” It is worth taking note. Jobseekers allowance sanctions had rocketed under John Hutton’s tenure. Many now forget that benefit sanctions went through the roof under new Labour, preparing the way for the atrocities brought to bear on people following the introduction of employment and support allowance work capability assessments under Purnell and the coalition government thereafter. Some of Purnell’s ideas included charging interest of 26.8% per annum on crisis loans to the unemployed and plans that the TUC said are reminiscent of workfare, claimants being forced to work full time for their benefits after two years unemployment. National salary insurance was another of his ideas. This plan would see a trebling of jobseekers allowance rates for redundant workers to be repaid when they have found work once more. The idea was framed in the language that people in Britain do not feel that they get back from the welfare state what they put in. Sounds familiar – it should do as Jonathan Reynolds says “welfare should reflect what you put in to tackle public mistrust”. This was the headline on his June 2020 interview.
The leadership of Jeremy Corbyn was refreshing for those campaigning on issues of unemployment and poverty. For the first time in my 35 years at the Derbyshire Unemployed Workers Centre I felt that the Labour leadership, if not all of its MPs, were on the side of those facing poverty, homelessness, destitution and were not afraid to say it. My local MP told me, at the time of Ed Miliband’s leadership, not to expect support for benefit increases, elimination of sanctions or an ending of work capability assessments because the Labour Party was not going to be triangulated by the Tories as the party of the unemployed and the scrounger. I respect his honesty. Under Corbyn and McDonnell there was a huge shift in this regard and I can’t recall anyone arguing that the 2017 and 2019 election defeats where in any way down to the leadership’s antipoverty rhetoric.
It must still be pointed out that although the issue of social security was always said to be a priority of an incoming Labour government in 2019 they were very shy at offering a vision of practical policies that might be advanced. As the possibility of government became closer the policies around Social Security policy were the least developed for fear both of costing and divisions in the party and membership over universal credit/universal basic income, and associated issues around labour market policy. The manifesto reported “We will….. design a system that will treat people with dignity and respect. Our ambition in designing this system will be to end poverty by guaranteeing a minimum standard of living “.
I have been saying for the last three decades that the labour and trade union movement needs to develop this “system” whether in government or not. The Tories, when out of office for 13 years, had the hilariously named Centre for Social Justice and the development of universal credit. Similarly we must use our time out of Government to develop policy initiatives and cultivating wide support through the engagement and involvement of all those that have experience as well as a stake in the policy formation. The Unemployed Workers Centres along with Unite community, PCS, TUC and many others have already backed a Welfare Charter laying down the principles on which these policies should be developed. The major trade unions and the TUC have supported the principal of universal basic income. As a movement we need to come together with a plan. No doubt it will not suit everybody, but we have to have a plan. We cannot leave this to the Labour Party. They will want to tinker about with the present system fearing the electorate if seen to be soft on benefit claimants. I once took the Guardian’s Amelia Gentlemen to visit 6 ESA claimants who had been given zero points on the work capability assessment. These people were so obviously never likely to work ranging from a young person with special-needs to a man who was drinking morphine out of a bottle, he was in so much pain during the interview. Each one after angrily expressing their case to the journalist finished by attacking other benefit claimants on their estate saying “they are the ones who shouldn’t be getting benefits-not me!” The propaganda runs deep, but a tipping point has been reached and Corbyn and McDonnell showed that we should not be fearful in arguing for dignity and Social Security for all. It is no use any longer having ambitions and visions we need plans and policies. The Reverend Paul Nicholson, the great antipoverty campaigner died earlier this year. When Tony Blair and allies continually talked about ending child poverty by 2020 he said on many occasions “does that mean child poverty is acceptable in the meantime.” Of course it isn’t and we must not waste any more time in outlining the practical ways in which it is to be eliminated. Our job is to keep up the pressure, to understand the limitations and constraints of the Labour Party, to work with the trade unions and disability groups and organisations. In doing so public support for radical policies has to be pursued. You never know, if that happens, even Starmer’s Labour party might get on board.