The Universal Credit crunch

Exactly three years ago, The Spectator devoted its cover to a revolutionary proposal for welfare reform. The proposed Universal Credit seemed, then, to be one of those ideas too sensible actually to be implemented. It proposed replacing the rotten, complex layers of benefits with a single system that paved the way to work rather than dependency. Its goal was as simple as it was audacious: that everyone should be able to keep a significant chunk of the money they earn. The welfare trap, in which so many millions are caught, would be dismantled.

Its author, Iain Duncan Smith, had then abandoned hope of getting back into government, which perhaps explains his boldness. The Department for Work and Pensions has more out-of-work ‘clients’ (as it calls them) than the combined populations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. To change the way these ‘clients’ are treated is the equivalent of overturning a country within a country.