Starmer’s narrow victory is a problem for all of us
Everyone has lost. There are no winners. That is the reality of the vote on the Government’s Welfare Bill, or the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill, as it is properly known.
There has been parliamentary drama certainly, but there are no actual beneficiaries. For those who have only picked up the occasional headline, here’s my take on recent events.
Perhaps surprisingly to many, the Labour manifesto in last year’s general election contained no commitments to welfare benefits. Perhaps they felt they didn’t need to. Their whole campaign was one based on “safety first”. The Conservatives were so unpopular, just don’t worry the horses and Labour can win. It certainly paid off. The public perhaps assumed that a Labour government was likely to maintain or increase out-of-work payments. If voters were taken by surprise by Labour’s recent welfare proposals, it appears their own MPs were in a state of shock!
To be clear, a rebellion of this scale, at this stage in a government’s time in office - a year almost to the day - is not normal. It is almost certainly not terminal, but it is a very serious wound to an administration that never seemed to be in the rudest of health.
The proposals themselves were complex and there are many legitimate reasons for individual MPs to object to particular aspects of the legislation. Despite what many people seem to think, Members of Parliament are probably more in touch than most people. Surgeries and inboxes are filled with residents highlighting concerns about new policies, raising real world concerns about the impact of government proposals.
These can be - as Sir Keir Starmer likes to remind us - difficult decisions. Few MPs will be lobbied by those who are concerned about footing the bill for the ever growing welfare list. What Labour proposed was never going to cut the welfare bill. It would only have slowed the growth. These plans may have reduced the overall payments by £5bn - a staggering sum in itself - but by the end of this parliament the bill is still estimated to reach £70bn. To put this into context it is almost exactly the same as the entirety of the defence budget and the policing budget combined.
The headlines tonight suggest that the Prime Minister “won the vote” but with a reduced majority. The truth is not so clear cut. In the last week the government has panicked. Concession after concession, including right up to the dying minutes of the debate in the Commons, has meant that the legislation passed is almost worthless. The events in Parliament this evening are certainly the most farcical since the Brexit debates, and probably some of the most unusual for many years prior.
MPs have received assurances of so many changes at the Committee Stage of the Bill that what is written in the Bill seems almost worthless. Yet a majority of MPs still voted for that legislation despite there being no clarity over whether the detail will come back as either primary or secondary legislation. This sounds like a boring technical point, but it means the difference between letting MPs scrutinise the changes or effectively giving the Government free reign. For those unhappy with the original proposals they should be concerned.
So we have ended up with the worst of all worlds.
Many of those receiving PIP (Personal Independence Payments), even those who are told they will not lose out from tonight’s vote, will be concerned. This is a reasonable thing to worry about. So amongst present and future claimants there will undoubtedly be a great deal of anxiety about what this might mean for them.
The government had claimed that their plans would help those receiving PIP back into work - or perhaps into work for the first time. This is indeed a worthy aim, and it should be a very deliberate part of any government’s policy. Yet, the core of the legislation has now been lost. Many people would feel that Labour are lacking any grand plan for welfare (or any other policy area), but even if there was a scheme that Sir Keir had in mind, it is now in the bin.
There will be no savings made as a result of tonight’s vote. The best that was hoped for was a reduction in the rate of growth of the welfare bill anyway, but the end result is continual high growth. More public money is being spent on keeping an increasing number of our fellow citizens out of work. This is why any responsible government needs an inclusive plan to ensure as many people as possible can work to support themselves and their families.
So the net result is likely to be higher taxes. Despite assurances from Rachel Reeves last year that there would be no more major tax rises coming, a combination of policy failures is likely to mean that her own rules and the government’s own decisions will almost guarantee tax rises.
This won’t be confirmed until the autumn however, and in a failure of communications that mimics last year’s scrapping of the Winter Fuel Payments it seems that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor will leave this issue to fester over the summer, in order to create maximum problems for themselves when Parliament returns, and then have to implement the tax rises anyway.
Along the way, the Prime Minister has managed to add another political misstep to what is a growing list. Another self-inflicted wound, which has seen the Left of the Labour Party flex its muscle, the Government to glaringly demonstrate its weaknesses, and all just a year into power. Starmer must be nervous tonight about what the next four years will bring now his backbenchers have got the measure of him.
We need to have a benefits system that ensures those who really cannot work are protected. That system also needs to be rigorous in ensuring that those who can work, do work; and provide incentives - not disincentives - for moving back into work. Tonight we have all lost. Left-wing Labour MPs have merely damaged their own government. The Prime Minister has lost credibility. PIP claimants will be left with uncertainty. The Chancellor has to deal with an ever growing welfare bill - and we all know who ends up paying for that!
