IDS and David Cameron have been evangelising. An insistent newspaper article and pugnacious speeches herald the latest welfare reform drive.
There has been one significant u-turn: the threat to decimate housing benefit for those who have been unemployed for more than a year has been dropped. There is debate about the origins of this sudden decision, but Nick Clegg has been apportioned some credit. He is understood to have expressed private concerns about ‘hammering the poor’ and also argued that private sector landlords in areas of high unemployment would be reluctant to rent to claimants, which would impede reform. IDS agrees with Nick, confiding to the Today programme that the proposal would be hamper the wider aim of breaking the benefits trap. IDS and Clegg have been allies throughout the administrative battle to prepare a welfare white paper, so the official explanation is plausible. In any event, the measure was politically and socially dangerous, as Ed Howker has demonstrated, and government’s the change of heart is welcome.
Aside from that, the reforms contain no surprises – as Pete’s 10-point guide to welfare and his subsequent appendices will make clear. That does not mean progress will be serene. Labour is broadly supportive of the plan, but not without qualification. David Freud, the renowned and promiscuously independent welfare expert, has warned that ‘there will be losers’ under IDS’ plans. Each instance of privation will provide IDS’ various opponents (described here by Daniel Korski) with a victim to decorate their bald ideology. Yesterday’s exchanges at PMQs indicate that Labour is stalking the jilted generation, who are increasingly mired in long-term unemployment at a time when welfare provision is being cut.
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