Victorian approach to welfare shames Labour

The National

3 days ago

With more than seven million low-income families still going without essentials, the JRF's cost of living tracker shines the spotlight on just how acute this situation is for low-income families with three or more children, with almost nine in 10 going without the essentials, and the highest number of families in arrears or holding a loan for essentials since their tracking began.
This is a terrible indictment of Keir Starmer's government – no progress, no change, the very opposite of what Labour promised.
Indeed, what strikes me most is just how little has changed since they came into power – the SNP are still pushing the UK Government to scrap the two-child cap and implement a similar benefit to our transformational Scottish Child Payment; Westminster is still digging its heels in.
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My former colleague Alison Thewliss was dogged in challenging the Tory government on the two-child cap; yet here we are under Labour, and the asks remain the same while the situation is getting worse.
The JRF says their modelling does not include impacts of cuts to health-related elements of Universal Credit for future claimants currently working its way through parliament.
Damning reports like this should focus minds ahead of the delayed publication of the Child Poverty Strategy, with its recommendation to get rid of the two-child cap and strengthen the foundations of the social settlement.
But is the Government listening, are they reading these reports, are they paying attention to best practice elsewhere, i.e. in Scotland?
(Image: PA)
On paper Labour say they are – for instance, the secretaries of state for work and pensions, and for education, say in their foreword to the introduction ahead of this new strategy that there is a lot they can learn from action already taken in Scotland.
But in the chamber, it's a whole other ball game. Not a week goes by that I don't think of that phrase 'people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones' while I'm sitting in the House of Commons listening to what seems to be a coordinated strategy by Labour to attack the Scottish Government in Holyrood at every available opportunity even when the focus is very much on their own failures at [[Westminster]].
That's politics I hear you say, but it's more than that. In fact, I'd go as far to say it's like a kind of 'blame shifting' to use psychological terminology.
A perfect example comes from just a couple of weeks ago, when the Secretary of State for Scotland, Ian Murray MP, was answering questions in the chamber on the Government's Spending Review.
My colleague, MP Stephen Gethins, challenged Murray on his party's failure to scrap the two-child cap only to be met with a defensive volley on the number of children that are homeless in Scotland.
A little rudimentary digging on Shelter England's website and you can see that of course Murray failed to highlight that in England, there are 164,040 children living in temporary accommodation with their families, which is the highest number on record and represents a 15% increase in the last year alone.
Additionally, there are 126,040 households in England experiencing homelessness in temporary accommodation, another record high and a 16% increase in 12 months.
This is hardly a record to be proud of, and not a position of strength from which to point the finger at other governments. Fortunately, a decent amount of finger pointing has already been done by Labour's own MPs, with their welfare cuts described as 'Dickensian'.
Those MPs have been punished subsequently, more blame shifting rather than addressing the key problem which is Labour's terrible policy decisions. And only one of them was a Scottish Labour MP, while the others continue to bow and scrape to Number 10.
Even the UN has waded in to highlight how Labour's welfare cuts could threaten the human rights of disabled people. And this from a government led by a former human rights lawyer. It reminded me of the UN's comments on the Tory government's welfare policies, with the special rapporteur on extreme poverty describing 'workhouse' conditions and the 'systematic immiseration' of the British population thanks to austerity.
Red or blue, it's the same old same old.
Collaborating with Scotland on best practice on social security – not just with our Scottish Child Payment but with our efforts to reinstate the Winter Fuel Payment for pensioners before Labour's major U-turn, and now our upcoming mitigation of the two-child cap – would change the narrative on Labour's Victorian approach to welfare.
This would signal a more grown-up approach to politics than the current tribal mudslinging variety that Labour favours.
Don't hold your breath.
So, every time you hear a Labour MP, particularly the Scottish ones, have a poke at Scotland and the SNP Government at Holyrood, remember this coordinated blame shift.
Because behind every snide and spurious comment about Scotland lies a truth that Labour can't deny – they're failing to make any progress, and fast.
All the more reason for Scotland to be rid of Westminster for good.