The Guardian has reported this morning that:
Ministers are working up sweeping plans for welfare changes including scrapping a key disability benefit for under-25s and replacing it with a multibillion-pound package of support to get into work, the Guardian has learned.
They added that:
The plans are still awaiting the conclusions of reviews by Alan Milburn, who is looking at young people's employment, and the Timms panel, which is examining the personal independence payment (Pip), a non-means-tested benefit that helps sick and disabled people with support costs.
I could start by giving this report the benefit of the doubt by suggesting that this may not be what Burnham's government is planning to deliver because all of this may refer to inherited plans, but I have quite a strong feeling that this would be untrue.
Presuming that I am right to dismiss this idea, I am deeply dismayed, to the point of being very angry, about the proposal apparently being investigated.
Personal independence payments are not payments for being unemployed. Nor are they payments, as such, for having a disability. They are exceedingly difficult-to-secure payments to compensate for the additional costs imposed by that disability, so that people have a chance to compete on a level playing field despite the health and disability conditions that they have.
In my opinion, the health element of Universal Credit can be viewed in the same way. No one wants to claim this benefit. Anyone who does so has to prove their need. That need arises because they do have additional costs compared to the “normal person” whom the government would like to exist to meet the needs of the universal employer they have in mind when defining that each and every one of us must find our fulfilment through work, however meaningless much of modern work might be.
But what really angers me most of all about this proposal is the assumption implicit within it that everyone under the age of 25 has someone, other than the government, who might care, provide for, and meet their needs if they exist, even if they impose significant additional costs upon them. That might be true in the arrogant, conceited world within which most in Westminster might exist, but in the real world this is total nonsense.
In the real world, there is actual poverty. 20% of people in this country live in it. It is as if the government has not noticed.
Many more young people live in families where, even if they are not defined as being in poverty, the cost-of-living crisis is very real. Maybe the government has not noticed.
In addition, a great many young people do not have families who can support them, or who they are in touch with. They are alienated from their families, or they do not know who they are, or they are dead, or that family might abuse them, and any number of other reasons might be available as to why this situation exists. Maybe the government has not noticed, yet again.
Whatever the reason, the consequence is that there are very large numbers of young people who, almost by definition, will be amongst the most vulnerable people in our society, who do rely on health-related benefits or personal independence payments to have some chance to take part in the society in which they live, although, such is the meanness of such benefits, doing so will always remain challenging.
And now, these people are to be sacrificed to the supposed goal of forcing these people into work, when there is no work for them to do.
There is already around 5% general unemployment in the UK economy, with an unemployment rate of around 10% for younger people. If the market had work for people to do, the policy being proposed might make some sense. But there is no such work. Ministers are pretending that there is full employment. There is no such thing. This means that not only are they imposing profound punishment on people who do not deserve it, they are doing so instead of taking action to create jobs, which is unforgivable, but will not happen because they are terrified of the idea of industrial planning in its broadest sense, believing that to be socialist, and that would never do in the modern Labour Party.
At the same time, they are ignoring the fact that the Bank of England is clearly on a trajectory to raise base interest rates in this country, with the deliberate, albeit unstated, intention of increasing unemployment as a consequence. In other words, these very same ministers are letting a government agency pursue a policy which will deliberately deny opportunity to the more vulnerable members of our community at exactly the same time as those same ministers are quite deliberately planning to withdraw the benefits that those same vulnerable people require to be able to eke out an existence, and I think that a fair description.
Three questions have to be asked.
The first: have these ministers gone out and checked their facts? Do they know why these benefits are being claimed? The reality is that there is no evidence that they do.
Second, do they understand the macroeconomic environment in which they are operating? The evidence suggests they do not.
And finally, do they understand the wider context of their proposal? There is unemployment in this country. It is a consequence of their choices. They could decide that we should have a policy of full employment. They could create a fiscal policy with that goal in mind. They could instruct the Bank of England to end its policies deliberately intended to increase the rate of unemployment in this country. They are doing none of these things.
In that situation, what they are proposing is not just wrong; it crosses the boundary into gross negligence, to the point where it might be considered not just a crime against society, but a crime against the people within it.
The Guardian speculates on whether there might be a backbench revolt on this issue. I sincerely hope there will be.
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May I suggest that based on my experience and the plural of anecdote is not data – and Jacqueline will no doubt have a view as well which may be interesting to hear……….
There are a lot of people who are not well enough to work but not sick enough to get specialised treatment
Ditto with education
And we are now seeing the fallout.
As with bed blocking, resources could be provided to deal with this and it could be made a management priority but it isnt.
There also seems to be a certain lack of curiosity as to what is making so many people sick, as has been pointed out the biggest trigger of mental health issues is money problems – discuss
Much to agree with
Well said John, well said.
It’s strange how numbers dominate our thinking these days – surely Thatcher’s most poisonous gift to us.
All the politicos and civil servants can react to now is moving numbers around – benefit claimants and prisoners in prison – it’s not about what they need or the reality of their lives, it’s just cutting the numbers. It’s not about how serious your crime is, just cut the prisoner numbers no matter how dangerous the prisoners are and get them out and looked after by a threadbare probation services.
It’s a form of inverted pleonexia – whereas the rich continue to behave to make their numbers – denominated in money of course – go up, we – the great unwashed – are fated to see our numbers go down, reduce. That’s our money, law and order, civil society, housing, work all being taken away and accrued to the top – a sort of pleonexic ‘double entry book keeping’ where the rich get credited everything all facilitated by the people we vote for. Or rather, we didn’t.
Much to agree with
Another example of the Labour party accepting the right wing free-market lobbyists, same as with the triple lock proposals. Also governments and most policy makers do not look for evidence or it appears have any experience of life outside their own bubble of privilege and power. When I write up blog posts or think about political issues in general I ask several fundamental questions – how would it work, who would be affected, does the evidence support the idea. Its an essential part of the process of evaluating or formulating policy.
Thank you
I too am dismayed and angry if this report is correct.
The key issue is that it accepts the right wing idea that benefit recipients are scroungers who should be working. They should therefore be pushed into work, irrespective of ill health or anything else, by reducing welfare. Hey, that worked in Victorian times, when there was no welfare, when children “willingly” went up chimneys to clean them. No malingering there. What a great idea, no welfare. Let’s go back to Victorian times!
It is deeply cynical. The wealthy supposedly need the encouragement of tax breaks so that they work harder. But the poor need to have their income cut to achieve the same.
There is no possibility of the unemployed getting jobs when there aren’t enough jobs. Sure you can give support, help or mentoring to a few so that they can get a job. But that’s just playing musical chairs. A few may get a job but they displace others who become unemployed. Total unemployment is unaffected. There aren’t enough jobs!
And this is the Government’s fault. They deliberately cause unemployment, it’s a deliberate policy decision, “to control inflation”. That is, it’s a price worth, other people, paying. They disguise this by saying the Bank of England is independent, but that’s their choice. And the kicker is that unemployment is ineffective at controlling inflation. Their policy of mass unemployment doesn’t even work!
To then plan to reduce assistance to the very people their policies have made unemployed is nothing short of evil.
The voting age is to go down to 16 thus treating mid teenagers as adults but then they decide to treat them differently to other adults. It may just be me but this doesn’t make sense.
I started full time work at 16 in 1963 but there were lots of jobs then. If you didn’t like one, you could find another. At 17 I was unemployed for six weeks ( during the winter in Bournemouth area, there were fewer jobs ) Not nice but an experience which taught me something which many of my fellow students in the following year did not appreciate.
I think you are right about the mind set of many of our decision makers. They don’t have the understanding of how many people live.
Thank you
Strange that AB might be on-board with such punitive means-tested welfare measures when he has previously talked up the benefits of UBI, not least for improving economic security:
Basic Income UK – Andy Burnham on Universal Basic Income:… | Facebook
Proposal launched for groundbreaking Basic Income pilot in Greater Manchester | Northumbria University, Newcastle
Might another relevant, unasked question be, “Why is the infomation you present and the questions you properly ask, not evident in the main stream media?”
Not least, might this apply particularly to the “British Bias Corporation”?
The job market for young people is appalling. I know of several well qualified graduates working at McDonalds or similar on zero hours contracts whilst they apply for numerous jobs. Equally many of the so called NEETS come from the homes where they don’t have good support and have been failed by our education system. If well qualified graduates are struggling to get work, what hope is there for poorly qualified youngsters with anxiety etc? I really hope these changes are not implemented as it’s really pitting the generations against each other and I can’t see how it will get people into jobs that don’t exist.
It seems to me that being a barista is now an entry-level job – including for people with firsts and 2:1s, and in what most ageing f**ts would call “useful subject, not that they would know.
As if happens I volunteered at Greenbelt this year with a recent graduate with a first from Durham working as a barista!
There are a lot of such people.
Grandee Milburn, as Health Secretary messed with the NHS, did the same again advising Streeting, seems determined to be the ” strong man who takes on the excessive benefits budget and slashes it”.
We are stuck with a former minister who appears to be not doing ” what is best for the population” but how to please the City etc by cutting “waste”.
It is a waste of time expecting current UK politicians to do anything for the good of the population. It’s all about tinkering and exercising power without regard to the consequences for the majority.
Just a thought, in a world increasingly moving towards AI for administration, policy and research (and the subsequent reduction of headcount), i wonder how long it will be before AI concludes that a lot of these policies will simply not work. The government may think there are millions of unfulfilled vacancies out there, it won’t take long for AI to determine most of these are duplicate postings.
Many.
A lot are ghost jobs.
They do not really exist.
Policy chosen by a government and passed by Parliament isn’t a crime.
I would suggest you think carefully about that claim.
There are ample precedents that prove you are very wrong in the ethical sense that I am using for the word crime.
A Parliament of our representatives reflects our broad ethical outlook.
You have to accept that or you believe in much fewer democratic processes so as to avoid the problem of an assembly’s ethics not matching your own. Paul is right. It’s not a crime.
I think that is a quite extraordinary view of politics.
It assumes that political parties and the representatives they select somehow arrive in Parliament free from external influence, ideology and deeply embedded assumptions about how society should work. They plainly do not.
Our current political class overwhelmingly subscribes to a worldview in which the demands of finance, fiscal rules and supposed market credibility sit very high in the hierarchy of priorities, while the needs of vulnerable young people sit remarkably low.
Parliament therefore does not merely aggregate the private ethical choices of hundreds of unrelated individuals. It reflects, reinforces and legitimises a broad political and ethical worldview.
Of course, that does not mean every MP shares every decision. But democratic government necessarily involves collective responsibility for the choices made in our name.
That is precisely why I used the phrase “a crime against society”. I was making a moral and political judgement about what society, acting through its government, is proposing to do to some of its most vulnerable members. Reducing the issue to whether an individual politician has committed a criminal offence entirely misses the point, as does your comment, which denies the political economy of the world we should all be able to see. You are pretending there is optimality when we are a very long way from it.
But it can be immoral.
You seem to be ignoring International Humanitarian Law, imperfect though it is.
Maybe you prefer a free for all, in which rogue states and rogue leaders can do what they want? In which judicial review, constitutions and international courts are abolished? Where the UK could bypass international maritime law and forbid lifeboats to rescue refugees, or Israel could pass laws “legalising” racist discrimination, genocide, & ethnic cleansing? I hear they are very law-abiding in N Korea and Myanmar.
Frankly, ignoring international law, legalising genocide and war crimes in general and declaring might to be right seems to be the order of the day in the West already.
I know someone directly impacted by this, if it comes to pass.
Didn’t Burnham say something like ‘no cuts to welfare’ on Tuesday. Well come on them – make a statement about it, put the minds of the poorly and the disabled at ease, NOW. You can stop people leaving in fear NOW.
The other angle is this is the constant mantra from the media which goes totally unchallenged ‘the spiralling welfare bill’ not only never challenged but discussion not allowed.
https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/bbc-fails-to-explain-why-question-time-host-repeatedly-fails-to-debunk-the-lie-of-spiralling-welfare/
The fiscal rules he says he is committed to require Social Security cuts.
The forty plus years “war against the poor” continues. Another example from earlier in the week (albeit at the other end of the lifecourse) is the abolition of the “triple lock” and its replacement with the “double lock”. To contextualise, had the latter been introduced in 2012, the basic state pension for a single person (reaching retirement before 6 April 2016) would be around £600 smaller than it is today. Around 20% of pensioners live in poverty, with around half of those experiencing deep financial hardship. It’s the winter fuel payments fiasco all over again, but this time on a larger scale. Different political actors, but the “war” continues.
Much to agree with
This is unfortunately the kind of environment (creating isolated neglected vulnerable young people) in which Epstein type behaviour can thrive.
A couple of points:-
A few years ago I was chair of two carers’ charities. Even at that time it was estimated that unpaid care saved the government 6 to 8 billion a year.
The 5% unemployment rate is an average across the whole country. In deprived areas where welfare support is crucial, it will be very much higher and what jobs there are will be barely above poverty levels.
And remember unclaimed benefits. These are the latest estimates:
Universal Credit £11.5bn
Council Tax Support £3.6bn
Carer’s Allowance £2.3bn
Pension Credit £1.7bn
Child Benefit £1.5bn
Broadband social tariffs £1.5bn
Water social tariffs/support £0.8bn
Warm Home Discount £0.8bn
Free School Meals £0.2bn
Healthy Start / Best Start Foods £0.1bn
Free TV licences £0.1bn
Total about £24.1bn
Had to visit my eldest sister yesterday, totally worried about a request by her energy trader for more cash. told she would be indebted to them by April if she didnt agree to an immediate rise in her DD. Remember she will be living on the current year’s income and not receive any triple lock rise until April 2027.
From the communication her trader alreadyknows what the cap for January 2027 islikely to be, hence the request for more money.
I had her meter readings for the last week of the previous consumption, allowing me to calculate her possible benefit from the VAT reduction ,only on electricity, a whole 34 pence a week, her trader requests £10 extra a week for all energy.
Her ‘Subscriptions’ for energy,the daily charge, have been raised more than the declared inflation rate, no wonder she’s worried about surviving a bad winter.
The extra 25p she gets on er pension for being over 80 is a disgrace.
The removal of the average wage condition is money which doesn’t exist,as you point out it’s only a cell in a spreadsheet.
Thank you for sharing.
Good luck….
Seeing as we have a habit of naming PM’s after this announcement I believe Burnhams is to be Burn ‘em all Burnham. I am in the thick of this mess, as me and my family are in literal fear what is to become of us. Being neurodiverse employment as it is currently with the harsh treatment from most employers, the lack of awareness and adjustments breeds an environment of constant worry fear and burnout. We can’t survive in this environment, even the state of global workplace report says the uk is one of the worst for contentment, productivity, stress and engagement at work. As you say we need a politics of care not blame the person, if the system was fixed, ability to save, afford life, if we got a decent wage, and a decent house and decent food, with caring employers so much would be better even see report on the gov web published today, Expert Academic Panel on Neurodiversity. I bet half of these simple things won’t even be considered by employers without law. And that’s the thing I bet fix this then see how the disability figures drop, not from there being disability but from more people not being DIS-abled by society. I’m so angry today, how have we become so accepting as a society of the creeping normality that misery is the normality, it has to be received , given out, perpetuated, tolerated and perceived, why and when will this be examined and questioned, where has humility compassion, chivalry and valour gone….
I agree with you on so much of this.
Thank you for your comment, and for drawing attention to that report. What chance is there that these suggestions will be enacted when they drive at a core assumption of neoliberal microeconomics? Very low indeed, I fear. But I have to live in hope.
Go well.
Richard,
Your anger rests on a conflation. The option the Guardian describes for under-25s concerns the Universal Credit health element, not PIP. PIP is the extra-costs benefit, and it is non-means-tested. The UC health element is different: an income top-up for assessed limited capability for work. It compensates for not working, not for the costs of disability. Treating the two as interchangeable lets you defend one with arguments that only apply to the other.
Then consider who is affected. Close to a million 16–24-year-olds are not in education, employment or training, and a growing share cite ill health, mostly mental health conditions. Historically, very few people placed in the no-work-requirement group ever leave it for employment. For a 19-year-old, that is not protection. It is decades of exclusion, with well-documented scarring of lifetime earnings and health. Replacing a cash award that assumes permanent incapacity with intensive, funded support is a refusal to write young people off, not cruelty.
Your macroeconomic argument also cuts the other way. Youth unemployment is indeed high, nearer 15% than the 10% you cite. But hundreds of thousands of vacancies remain unfilled, and that mismatch is exactly what targeted employment support addresses. Demand-side policy and active labour-market policy work together rather than against each other.
Finally, nobody is assuming families will pick up the bill. The proposal replaces cash with a multibillion-pound package. You may dispute its design, but “crime against the people” is rhetoric, not analysis.
I am fully aware of the difference. I considered it when writing. Your patronising and arrogant comment highlights exactly what is wrong. Do not call again.
Howard says: “Your anger rests on a conflation…”
The Guardian article is where the conflation is, not in Richard’s blog post. Did you not read it?
The Guardian describes changes to PIP payments, AND changes to LCWRA, and after describing the LCWRA cuts, uses the phrase
“As part of the same package, officials are looking at a new system to replace the Pip”
before going on to discuss cuts to PIP. Your accusation of conflation disguises your complete lack of evidence or logic – Richard doesn’t do any conflation whatsoever and his anger is justified by the cuts to both payments.
The newspaper article then discusses proposals for a “support” package to direct people into work.
Because government is wedded to the household analogy it excuses the cuts in LCWRA, and PIP, by pointing to the extra spending on the support package. But of course a government that cared, would be helping those who have less ability to work, to have a decent standard of living, AND giving support to them in their job hunting AND creating useful employment opportunities so that suitableaccessible employment was available. It wouldn’t trade one off against the other, based on an economic lie.
We’ve been here before. The DWP always fails to demonstrate that their incentives and support actually work.
This LCWRA cut is on top of massive earlier cuts. It is cruel and discriminatory.
These “under 25s” are people known to us – my neighbours. When you’ve done advocacy in DWP appeal tribunals you see this rotten system up close, especially when DWP don’t even attend.
Angry? You bet.
Thank you. Appreciated. I feel someone needs to throw a few tables over…
To Howard Wall …where did you get this extraordinary figure? What jobs, exactly? “But hundreds of thousands of vacancies remain unfilled”
Deeply disturbing this will likely have a disproportionate effect on care leavers and highly traumatised young people- many who have undiagnosed FASD a serious organic brain injury often diagnosed as ADHD; as well as having complex PTSD.
These are serious poorly understood brain and whole body conditions arising from child trauma, most commonly neglect, where the biggest driver of neglect and abuse is poverty.
The mental health and suicide rates of this group are many times higher than their peers. Child trauma, FASD are complex, enduring and difficult to treat conditions, as I’m sure Jacqueline would agree.
I call this state backed abuse, poverty is preventable as is FASD.
Much to agree with
I looked up the percentage of GDP spent on ‘welfare’. Google AI told me 2013-2020 it was 10,5 % to 10.9 .the era of the benefit cap and two child limit. It rose for the pandemic then in 2022-2024 about 10.7 %, 2025 about the same and forecast to rise to 10.9% this year and 11.2% in 2030.
As for the percentage of govt spending from 24.4 to 25.4 by 2030/2031
Doesn’t look like a crisis to me.
After I posted this morning, I went to the shops. I bumped into someone I haven’t seen in about 5 years.
They have a son in thier twenties. Last time I knew, he was doing well.
Not so much now, sadly. The upshot is, the job he has at 20 he lost – through no fault of his own. Unable to find work, he applied for UC. His life has totally unravelled.
He was willing to do any work, but the work he was offered was short term – they (UC) wouldn’t leave him alone. In one job, he was in a specialised area and the employer asked him to cover another department, in which he had no experience, for no extra wage. He did it and it became the norm. He left because he felt he was being exploited.
Due to him leaving, he was still on UC. He could not find work and he sank into a deep, deep depression. He expected to be starting a family, finding a place to live in his early twenties. Exploring life and discovering himself and his strengths, but no, 24 and broken.
Broken because of expectations imposed on him that do not fit a reality that (apart from on here) no one talks about.
Is it any wonder that those in 20s feel so fed up and lost and there is massive crisis in mental health when day after day their in unrelenting attacks on them and any security they have to build on?
I see and hear such stories.
My heart quite genuinely goes out to him.
Howard Wall
“hundred of thousands of vacancies remain unfilled” ? Where ? Why? Is this not the function of the Job Centre?
Bullshit (jobs?)
Employers demanding 3 years’ experience for a new graduate position are strangely not filling their posts.
I suspect Howard Wall thinks such demands are fair.
Might it clarify relevant matters if there were a differerentiation of contrasting types of democracy?
Might it be that most politicians, senior civil servants, main stream journalists, politico-economists and, not least, the B. B. C promote “Procedural Democracy” as a valid/the only form of democracy whereas the majority of citizens believe in and seek “SubstantiveDemocracy”?
P.S. Procedural Democracy is legitimised/marketed as being the only “real” democracy because it is legitimised by formal processes, such as elections, and rules. Substantive Democracy is a form of democracy which is judged by what it does for and to its citizens and their children.
”Holding elections is not enough; a valid democracy ensures a good quality for all its citizens and their children.”
(From an AI source)
I too am angry and distressed to read this. At 17 in 1972, my parents violent divorce meant one parent simply disappeared and the other’s new partner refused to give me a home. There was absolutely NO help- it was before any legislation to protect homeless young people. I won’t go into details, but I was on the streets for a year begging, unable to claim the dole as I had no address and moved from place to place frequently with other girls- safety in numbers- working for cash in bars, clubs and hotels. It took till I was 20 before I had a place to stay through a boyfriend. I would not wish on anyone what happened to me repeatedly during those 3 years, though I’m sure you can guess. It was a terrifying and very dangerous existence. At 21 I got into a conservatoire with a scholarship and my life began, but I’ll never really get over what happened in those years. Our young people are our collective future. I’m horrified by the regressive cruelty and moral repugnance of what is being proposed. I apologise if this is too raw and personal, but it’s what happens to young people with no parents and no money. Thanks for the article Richard, and for telling it how it is. I appreciate your work very much.
I wondered whether to post this, and changed your name as I thought it appropriate.
Thank you for your comment.
I am so scared this is what the government will drive people to you – and you make clear why that is so dangerous.
Thank you for bravely telling us of this episode of your life; we cannot let young people down. Yesterday, before reading this, I wrote my MP a letter urging a turning away from the neoliberal economics story, with a reminder that we can do, we can afford. We certainly cannot afford not to put people first.
Thank you.
This type of macro-economic policy is effectively the stance of Lord Farquaad in the movie Shrek: “Some of you may die; but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make”.
The cruelty is the point.
Have you seen hostagenstion.com by Green councillor Driscoll? We CAN afford it!
Yes.
WE discussed it as he wrote it.