How Labour conservatively cut welfare

But the turf rolling did help to make sure that whatever was actually announced wouldn’t be as bad as feared, and for now, at least, Labour seems to have ‘got away’ with announcing a set of policies that are, in many ways, the diametric opposite of what many Labour MPs thought they’d be doing once they were in power.

The key phrase there, though, is “for now”. Keir Starmer has been keen to make a moral case for reforming welfare, and here he does at least have a point. He argues it would be wrong to give up on young people as unable to work without trying to support them into work – which if done right would be better for them, and better for society.

Rushing through complex welfare changes to meet the deadline for Rachel Reeves’ spring statement is a terrible way to do things right, though – or to win back the confidence of people who have spent the last 14 years seeing badly thought-through welfare cuts made in haste, often with terrible human implications.

Labour could have done things differently had it taken the time to get things right and made fixing welfare look like the primary aim of its reforms – rather than a quick piggy bank raid to make the financial sums add up.

Instead, it has replicated the worst tendencies of the Conservatives not just in its policy, but in how it’s gone about things.

That has extended to outright dishonesty in how the government framed the need for reform. Official government statements on the need for reform talked about how the number of people “too sick to work” had “quadrupled” since the pandemic, then citing an increase of 383% in claimants to back that up.

Firstly, this made basic errors of maths that any GCSE student should be able to spot: an increase of 383% is a fivefold increase, not a fourfold one. But the number should have set off alarm bells – does Labour really think there are four or five times as many people too sick to work today versus four years ago? Would something that seismic not have been incredibly visible?

In reality, the supposed 383% increase was almost entirely a result of people being shifted onto universal credit from older benefits. Once this technical shift was taken into account, the increase since before the pandemic is 40% – falling to 30% once a few other factors, such as an increase in pension age changing who is eligible for the relevant benefits, are taken into account.

Labour, therefore, made its case for fundamental welfare reforms – a policy incredibly close to the hearts of many of its MPs, members, voters and supporters – based on the kind of dodgy figures that it would’ve eviscerated the Conservatives for in opposition.

Its shabby handling of the policy continues. Instead of releasing an impact assessment of its changes alongside the reforms today, it is being held back to next week’s spring statement – meaning it will be buried in the headlines underneath updated growth forecasts and borrowing forecasts, both of which are likely to be grim.

Handling the issue in this way makes No. 10 look glib and insincere: why should the people affected by these reforms believe that this is a serious effort aimed at improving their lives when the government is engaged in this kind of chicanery?

A Labour government will always face calls to be kinder, and will always risk cries of betrayal from its left flank. But all of this manoeuvring and positioning is supposed to be for something – and thoughtful welfare reform is supposed to be one of those aims. 

Welfare reform was always going to be difficult, and would always be controversial. But Labour has borrowed all the worst habits of its Conservative predecessors in how it’s gone about it – rushing it, doing it for the sake of Treasury spreadsheets, justifying it with lies and half-truths, and covering up the details. 

Voters in 2024 thought they were voting Labour for a change. On welfare, as on all too many other issues, Starmer’s No. 10 seems determined to deliver them more of the same.