A Month of Shame

Today is April Fool’s Day and we were the fools who believed the Cameron lie that there is such a thing as “Caring Conservativism”. Since then, he and his cronies must have been laughing all over their faces. Even worse, since Thatcher destroyed our trade union movement and Blair hijacked the Labour Party and swung it even further to the right there has been no effective opposition to the Tory destruction of the Welfare state.

Admittedly there are marvellous groups such as the Coalition of Resistance and the Right to Work campaign, but on the whole they cater for existing activists and have done little to draw in new people.

The People’s Toff Celebrates

So, what has been the consequence? Over the course of April we will see

1. The introduction of the bedroom tax - 660,000 people in social housing will lose an average of £728 a year.
2. Thousands of people will lose access to legal aid
3. Council tax benefit moves into local control resulting in increased bills for most people
4. 240 local commissioning groups made up of doctors, nurses and other professionals will take control of budgets to buy services for patients
5. Disability Living Allowance is scrapped
6. Benefit uprating begins - Nearly 9.5 million families will be affected, including 7 million in work, by £165 a year.
7. Welfare Benefit cap - no welfare claimants will receive in total more than the average annual household income after tax and national insurance
8. Universal Credit introduced

As if that isn’t bad enough, Cameron will rub salt into the wood by scrapping the 50p tax for high earners.

Without doubt it can only be described as a month of shame for the Tories, but they do not see it that way. They remain convinced they are in the right – and without an effective opposition they will undoubtedly stretch things further.

Over the coming weeks we must organise an effective opposition. The Labour party has failed to take that lead and though the trade unions have made some effort, the result has been limited. Hopefully the Bedroom Tax campaign will be the start of something powerful – a return to the mentality of the Poll Tax campaign. If we can bring about an effective challenge to the Tories there is a chance we can rebuild the left, but if we fail then we risk obscurity for at least a generation.

Another disaster at DWP?

Once again the Tories are having to back pedal as their Universal Credit programme shows signs of falling behind schedule and facing major problems. The system, which will roll all benefits and tax credits into a single payment automatically linked to earnings, was expected to be trialled for new claimants across four areas of the country from late April.

Unfortunately, and typical ignorance of the simple realities of life, Iain Duncan Smith failed to check out with those who deliver welfare benefits and consequently he has been forced to scale back the trials to a single JCP office in Ashton-under-Lyne. So much for a grand roll-out.

Three other pilot areas in Wigan, Warrington and Oldham that were also due to ‘test out’ the new programme will not now begin processing the payments until at least July and possibly later.

Of course it would be nice to think that IDS would have the humility to admit to, and display a little embarrassment, but I suspect we may be waiting a long time. This is a man noted for his single-mindedness. No doubt over the coming days we will hear a range of excuses, but the bottom line is that it has been a kick in the pants for the Secretary of State.

In February, 2013, Iain Duncan Smith drafted in one of the Government’s most experienced trouble-shooters to take charge of the programme – a move which led to the departure of another senior DWP civil servant a few weeks later.

The delay in rolling out Universal Credit are probably due to the fact that most frontline staff do not have the training, computer programmes or experience in place to avoid making disastrous mistakes which could lead to people not receiving the benefits to which they are entitled. A point made by a number of welfare organisations months ago. Could this be more evidence that IDS doesn’t listen to those around him?

In its announcement of the delay the Department of Work and Pension made no attempt to explain why it was unable to proceed as planned. Interestingly, in a neat little sidestep a spokesman for the department searched for a way to get IDS off the hook and tried to suggest it was “sensible” to start with one area before rolling it out to the other three in July.

Speaking on behalf of DWP, he said:

“It will allow us to make any changes that we feel we need to make and see what works and what doesn’t”.

Liam Byrne, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, tried to capitalise on this bungling by condemn UC and describing the announcement as “yet another embarrassing setback”.

He went on to say:

“The scheme is already late and over-budget and in spite of earlier promises Ministers have admitted that they have no idea when out of work claimants will move over to Universal Credit … The truth is the IT for Universal Credit appears to be nowhere near ready. Universal Credit calculations depend on salary data from HMRC's new PAYE Real Time Information system. Obligations for small firms to provide PAYE data on or before each employee payment have recently been delayed from April until October. And DWP are so worried they are now barring access to their five main contractors. This scheme is now on the edge of disaster. Ministers must admit this project is in crisis and start to fix it now – before millions of families tax credits are put at risk.”

Regrettably, Byrne failed to point out that UC will create significant challenge to low-income families. The simple reality is that, according to a Resolution Foundation report, “Conditions Uncertain”, almost 1.2 million low-paid workers entitled to support under Universal Credit will have to look for extra work or face the risk of having payments withdrawn. Furthermore, in a report by Tanni Grey-Thompson, 100,000 disabled children stand to lose up to £28 a week and 116,000 disabled people who work will be at risk of losing up to £40 per week from help towards additional costs of being disabled.

These are injustices that appear to be going through on a nod and a wink. The Tories and their Lib-Dem puppies will force this programme onto the most vulnerable in our society and it is a responsibility of those on the left to expose the extent of these injustices and campaign for their eradication.

We have a responsibility to do everything in our power to protect the poor and the vulnerable. If we fail them now we have no right to ask for their support later.

It's cruel and it's unfair

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing particularly against any individual Tory. I confess I don’t like the fact Citizen Dave, the people’s toff talks about addressing inequalities in this country, whilst stashing away over £30m in personal wealth, but that’s another issue.

No, let’s look today at this supposed desire to address inequalities and make Britain more efficient. According to the Public Accounts Committee, the government has "no clear plan" of action for tackling errors and fraud in the welfare system.
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More than £2bn is being spent on benefit overpayments and no progress has been made in reducing it and it is also claimed officials had not got to grips with £1.3bn in under-payments, despite the hardship these cause. All this is despite the fact that the Tories have set a target of a 25% reduction in the cost of fraud and error by 2015. With these kinds of results, they have a long way to go.

Meanwhile, the popular media like to ‘carry on’ about social security scroungers but forget that tax evasion costs this country 15-times more than welfare fraud. Tax evasion is around 3% of total tax liabilities, while benefit fraud accounts for 0.8% of total benefit expenditure.
George Osborne made political capital out of saving £4bn on the benefits bill, and was happy for those making the claims he targeted to be called lifestyle choice fraudsters and layabouts – all, supposedly, because of the need to tackle the hole in the government's deficit. But he wouldn't have needed to make these cuts if he tackled the biggest category of fraud in the UK economy – that of tax evasion.

But of course we should not expect the Tories to attack business people, or the toffs when they try and save a little bit of tax. After all, for them it is all a bit of a game – can we dodge paying the taxman by not declaring all our income?

Meanwhile, John is a carer looking after his wife with chronic epilepsy. They live in social housing and would like to move, but they can’t get a transfer. John wants to work, but needs to be around his wife 24-hours a day. He doesn’t smoke, rarely drinks and his weekly treat is buying his family a small bag of donuts from the local supermarket – a treat they all look forward to as it is the only family event they can afford.

If John were to employ a professional carer 40 hours a week to look after his wife and charge the government, it would cost between £240 and £300 per week. Unfortunately, the rules don’t allow John to do this, so he had to claim Carer’s allowance – and how much the government gives him as a ‘thank you’ for doing the job? I meagre £53 per week – paltry by any stretch of the imagination.

But do the red tops cause an outcry about John’s allowance? Do they scream and shout when an unmarried mother’s benefit fails to turn up and she has to go to court because she stole a loaf of bread to feed her young child? No, she is another one of those state scroungers that want it all on a plate.

Let this blog send out a clear message to any Tory reader. Yes there are a small number of people who rip off the system – and they should be punished. But the vast majority of claimants are decent law-abiding people who just want a chance in life. Tory plans to bring about Universal Credits will not help them today (if at all) and the Work Programme is nothing more than a repeat of Labour’s mistakes. The DWP's own research has stated that "one quarter (27%) of claimants who leave unemployment to obtain a job return to claim unemployment benefits within 13 weeks, whilst two out of five (40%) return within six months". In addition: "just over half (53%) of workers return to JSA within 3 months of taking a permanent job either because they resigned or were sacked".

It is time the government opened their eyes and saw there are very clear injustices happening in this country and they are doing nothing to resolve it.

Universally unfair credits: No justice for the poor

Well the day has finally come. Later today the government will set out how it intends to overhaul the welfare system to try to make work pay better and to tackle the "benefit culture". With it will come a new "universal credit", new sanctions for those turning down jobs and a cap on benefits paid to a single family.

According to Cameron, current rules "encourage people to act irresponsibly".
The reason behind all these changes? Is it because they want to make benefits fairer for all? No. Is it because they want to ensure those who are hurt hardest by the unfairness in society are protected? No.

According to ministers in the Department of Work and Pensions, five million people of working age are on out-of-work benefits, 1.4 million of those for nearly a decade, while unemployment has become entrenched in many communities. In the view of these Tories, many of whom are millionaires who have never been on benefit; this shows the current system is not working.

Ahead of the announcement, David Cameron said the "collective culture of responsibility" which had underpinned the benefits system for more than 50 years had eroded in recent years.

"The benefits system has created a benefit culture," he said. "It does not just allow people to act irresponsibly but often actively encourages them to do so."

As usual the Tories are determined to attack the small number (and even DWP are admitting the numbers are less than they have been saying) of people who abuse the benefit system. Nobody in the Tory party mentions anything about the number of companies or individuals who regularly abuse the tax system and, courtesy of clever accountants avoid paying millions in taxes.

Take for example Vodaphone, who have managed to save billions through effective use of tax havens. Oh it’s legal enough, but is it moral? Well there you have the $64,000 question.

Just as the Tories were coming into power a number of businesses saw the opportunity of a lifetime. In a study at that time, around one quarter of all self-employed people in the UK were considering moving themselves and their businesses abroad over the next five years. Is this how Cameron is going to promote business and help the unemployed find work?

It has been well documented that Philip Green has structured the ownership of the Arcadia group (which owns Topshop and Dorothy Perkins) so that neither he, nor his wife pay UK income tax on profits paid out by the group as dividends. Because Mrs Green lives in Monaco, she saves a packet. If dividends were instead paid to Mr Green as a UK tax resident, he would be subject to UK income tax at an effective rate of 36.1% (42.5% additional rate less 10% credit).

But you don’t hear the Tories whining on about these folk, and why? Because they and others like them bankroll the Tory party, Green is close buddies with Cameron – don’t forget he was asked by the prime minister to do an analysis of government spending and procurement. So we can’t expect these buddies to fall out too soon.

No, as usual it is the poor who will be beaten and bruised today. There will be no fairness, no equality and no justice for those needing welfare benefits.

Some things in life never change