David Blunkett is back and talking big. The self-styled bruiser and radical says he intends to take a million people off incapacity benefit.
Is this a sensible thing to try to achieve?
Let's consider a few salient facts: there are currently 2.6 million people on the benefit - 7.2 per cent of the working age population. In Germany, only four per cent are on a similar benefits, only three per cent of the Spanish claim to be incapable of work and a mere two per cent of the French. Is it credible that we in Britain suffer from some ailment - currently not identified by medical science - that makes us more than three times more likely to be incapacitated than the French?
The numbers who claim to be incapable of work have jumped most extraordinarily. They have quadrupled since the mid 1970s. Again, medical science has failed to identify a new disease sweeping the nation and causing four times as many people to be physically or mentally incapable of work.
Here are two clues to what has really been happening. The different afflictions from which this new army of the incapable are suffering have one characteristic in common: they are ones which cannot easily be proved or disproved. The big boom has been in 'mental and behavioural disorders' - which often means 'stress' or 'depression' - and 'muskulo-skeletal' problems which typically means backache. Undoubtedly there are people with serious mental problems and terrible backache. What is beyond belief is that there should have been such a gigantic increase in these conditions and, moreover, that it should disproportionately have affected areas of high unemployment.
In reality, it has been known since the 1980s that a large proportion of those on incapacity benefit could work. Labour used to complain the Conservative Government was using the benefit to hide the true level of unemployment. Now, by saying that a million could be removed from the benefit, Labour is accepting that a million extra people should be classified as unemployed. This is worth remembering next time you hear the Government boast that unemployment in Britain is low. It isn't when you include these hidden unemployed on incapacity benefit.
But how did we get into this mess anyway?
Labour would blame the Thatcher government. But the real cause goes back to Edward Heath's government a decade earlier. Then, for the first time, the level of benefit for the incapacitated was raised above that for the unemployed. The Heath government gave them 5 per cent extra. Harold Wilson, in charge of the following Labour government, bumped the premium up to 22.4 per cent. It was after this big premium was created that the boom in numbers began.
It helped to make incapacity benefit the 'benefit of choice' for the unemployed. The benefit is worth much more, can last until retirement and you don't have to seek work.
So yes, MrBlunkett is absolutely right to take this on. But what is he going to do? He is going to produce a Green Paper. That was going to be produced before he arrived. He is likely to propose brand new benefits, at least for new people who claim. That was going to happen before he arrived, too. It will take a long time before having any significant effect. He will extend the 'Pathways to Work' pilot programme which gives extra encouragement to people to get back to work. If this went nationwide, it is claimed it would get 100,000 people back to work. Fine, but that would only be a fraction of the million which Mr Blunkett is talking about.
Mr Blunkett may want to do something more radical. But even he - who normally prides himself of being bold - is talking about 'consulting' with others. The 'others' are Labour backbenchers because Mr Blunkett cannot do what he likes, now that Labour has a reduced majority. He can only do what serried ranks of Old Labour MPs will agree to.
For eight long years, Mr Blair had the power to reform incapacity benefit. He failed to do it and now he has left it too late.
As for Mr Blunkett, this won't be the first time he has talked big but achieved much less. He boasted by how much he would improve literacy, saying he would resign if he missed his target. The target was missed yet he did not resign. He had already moved on to another job. As Home Secretary, he was going to deport 30,000 asylum seekers a year. It didn't happen.
Expect the same this time. There is a real problem, but it will only be tackled at the edges. We have been waiting eight years for Labour to make radical reforms that even begin to approach those made in parts of America like New York. Under Mayor Rudi Giuliani, those with incapacities were strictly assessed for what they could do. If they could do any job at all, they were given help by one of several competing private companies to find a real job. If a regular job couldn't be obtained, they had to try for a subsidised one. If that could not be found, the City gave them a job like cleaning the parks for part of the week while obliging them to keep looking for a regular job the rest of the time. The numbers claiming welfare benefits fell by more than half. Those who took jobs, developed more self-esteem and ceased to be a burden on everyone else.
That sort of reform - the sort that would really make a difference - hasn't happened yet. It looks as though it never will.
(This is an unedited version of the article which appeared in today's Daily Express.)
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Welfare benefits
Comments (0)
TrackBack (12)
Warning: file(http://63.247.138.2/~bartholo/randomquotes.dump) [function.file]: failed to open stream: No route to host in /home/bartholo/public_html/archives/2005/05/blunkett_is_bac.php on line 291
Warning: implode() [function.implode]: Bad arguments. in /home/bartholo/public_html/archives/2005/05/blunkett_is_bac.php on line 291
